What is a TS file?
A TS file is what TV tuners, camcorders and streaming downloads produce, often arriving as several chunks. Players are fussy about them, so converting to MP4 gives you one clean file that opens anywhere. You can convert TS files here, both into the format and out of it.
Specification
| Full name | MPEG Transport Stream |
|---|---|
| Extensions | .ts, .mts, .m2ts |
| Media type | video/mp2t |
| Compression | Lossy |
| Transparency | — |
| Animation | — |
| Multiple pages | — |
| Colour depth | — |
| Size limits | — |
| Introduced | 1995 |
| Developed by | ISO/IEC MPEG |
| Standard | Open |
| Browser support | Not displayed by browsers |
What TS is used for
- Chunks captured from a live stream
- AVCHD camcorder and Blu-ray recorder output
- Digital television recordings
Strengths and limitations
What TS does well
- Built to survive a patchy signal and to be joined part way through
- Segments concatenate cleanly without re-encoding
Where TS falls short
- Packet overhead makes files larger than an equivalent MP4
- Awkward to seek and unsupported in browsers and most editors
Convert TS to
Every target this format can be written out as, each on its own page.
Convert to TS
Everything that can be turned into a TS file.
Tools that accept TS
Questions about TS
What is a .ts file?
A TS file is what TV tuners, camcorders and streaming downloads produce, often arriving as several chunks. The extension .ts or .mts or .m2ts identifies it, and its media type is video/mp2t.
How do I open a TS file?
Browsers do not display TS natively, so you either need software that understands it or you convert it to something more common first. Converting is usually the faster route when you only need to look at the contents once.
Is TS lossy or lossless?
Lossy. That means detail is discarded during encoding and each re-save compounds the loss, so keep an untouched master where quality matters.
What is TS good for?
Built to survive a patchy signal and to be joined part way through. Segments concatenate cleanly without re-encoding. In practice that makes it a good fit for chunks captured from a live stream, and AVCHD camcorder and Blu-ray recorder output.
What are the drawbacks of TS?
Packet overhead makes files larger than an equivalent MP4. Awkward to seek and unsupported in browsers and most editors.