.m2ts file issues and solution!

TL/DR - May 2025 - Converting .m2ts files to ProRes 422 using Shutter Encoder was my solution. Workarounds and advice if you need to use .m2ts follow.





I am getting a lot of 'Media Offline' errors, and now rendering issues.

Multicam project, 8 video angles and 1 audio track. All source video files are .m2ts

I am used to it 'stuttering' sometimes in multicam playback, especially on my old setup. (my bottleneck turned out to be HDD read speeds)

In the new setup it stuttered sometimes, but was workable. Now the preview pictures for the different angles show 'media missing'.

screen1.jpg (807.86 KiB) Viewed 1544 times

Note the frame I have selected, it shows 'media missing'.... but shows a preview up in the big window. If you hit 'play', it will play the video just fine, with sound. Will progress to the next 'Media Missing' frame also playing it without error.

But when rendering, it errors out quickly.


I understand that 'Media Missing' may not necessarily mean files are ""missing"", an internal SATA HDD bottleneck will also give the same error. Task Manager>performance will show these 'bottlenecks' pretty quick. Lessons learned.

But monitoring Task Manager on the new computer, nothing is 'going in the red' while it starts.

Just suddenly stops on this error:

screen2.jpg (347.66 KiB) Viewed 1544 times

Ok... if the codec isnt valid, how does the editor play the content just fine otherwise? Likewise with location.. all source files are in a folder on the OS, NVME SDD. Not getting to 100% read speed on that when rendering either, but GPU at 97%, CPU 51%

Diagnostic log: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UA1IeK ... sp=sharing

Hope this is clear, and hope I included everything. THANK YOU!

M2TS (transport stream) files are extremely bad for post. Don't attempt to use them for editing or color. Convert them outside Resolve to a simpler format like DNxHR SQX or ProRes 422 instead. Those will work much better.

Also, all the M2TS files I've ever seen are 8-bit and highly-compressed, so be aware those pictures will be pretty "stomped-on."

M2TS (transport stream) files are extremely bad for post. Don't attempt to use them for editing or color. Convert them outside Resolve to a simpler format like DNxHR SQX or ProRes 422 instead. Those will work much better.

Also, all the M2TS files I've ever seen are 8-bit and highly-compressed, so be aware those pictures will be pretty "stomped-on."

Yes indeed, Mediainfo shows an 8bit color space. But... have to work with what I got. The lighting is FAR from optimal. Just trying to archive festival performances.

And I have no illusion that ~12+ year old cameras are going to match todays image quality. I am a hobbyist, so most/all my hardware is well used when I get it.

I had about 4 hours into this project.... and to have it not render tears me up. Was hoping that there was a simpler workaround where I could save my work today.

If nothing else, a reason that 'codec and/or location' are stated as error conditions.. but they seem to work fine in playback. Might be above my paygrade why.

I understand the need to convert my source files to a 'simpler to edit' format as you say. Guess thats next, before I "waste" more time editing poor source material. THANK YOU.

Media Info from 'offending' file follows:

General
ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : C:\Users\Dell\Videos\4-10-2013\20130410023405.m2ts
Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 19.0 GiB
Duration : 1 h 42 min
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 26.6 Mb/s
Maximum Overall bit rate : 28.0 Mb/s
Recorded date : 2013-04-10 02:34:04-05:00
Writing application : Sony NEX-VG20

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.2
Format settings : CABAC / 2 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=15
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 1 h 42 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 25.2 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate : 26.0 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 59.940 (60000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.203
Stream size : 18.1 GiB (95%)
IrisFNumber : 0.000000

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 1 h 42 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 256 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 188 MiB (1%)
Service kind : Complete Main

Text
ID : 4608 (0x1200)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : PGS
Codec ID : 144
Duration : 1 h 42 min

Yes indeed, Mediainfo shows an 8bit color space. But... have to work with what I got. The lighting is FAR from optimal. Just trying to archive festival performances. And I have no illusion that ~12+ year old cameras are going to match todays image quality. I am a hobbyist, so most/all my hardware is well used when I get it. I had about 4 hours into this project.... and to have it not render tears me up. Was hoping that there was a simpler workaround where I could save my work today.

What happens if you use a free 3rd party program like Shutter Encoder to convert the files to something simple like DNxHR HQ? I would bet those will play much easily.

Be prepared to use OFX DeBand to fix any visible 8-bit banding problems in large areas like skies or shadows. Noise reduction can also help to a point. A lot of these things are basically puting "bandaids" on problematic source material -- we've all been there, we've all had to do it.

Try using something like Shutter Encoder to rewrap the files to mkv, mov or mp4. This will keep the original quality. In Resolve use the Replace Selected Clip function on each clip in the Media Pool. The new files will replace the m2ts clips in your timeline.

Try using something like Shutter Encoder to rewrap the files to mkv, mov or mp4. This will keep the original quality. In Resolve use the Replace Selected Clip function on each clip in the Media Pool. The new files will replace the m2ts clips in your timeline.

THANK YOU Gary!!!!! I tried similar with 'relink selected clip' and it did not work. I will try "REPLACE" not relink.

I knew there must be a workaround.

What happens if you use a free 3rd party program like Shutter Encoder to convert the files to something simple like DNxHR HQ? I would bet those will play much easily.

Be prepared to use OFX DeBand to fix any visible 8-bit banding problems in large areas like skies or shadows. Noise reduction can also help to a point. A lot of these things are basically puting "bandaids" on problematic source material -- we've all been there, we've all had to do it.

Thanks for the steering input Marc! Lucky for me in this instance, it is all live concert footage. No large areas to get banding, but now thanks to you I have a tool for when that is an issue.

I DO understand the need for converting my camera output to a good editing format. AND that .m2ts is a transport stream, designed for easy storage and playback. NOT good for non linear editing access! I will be converting all files in the future as part of my workflow.

THANK GOODNESS for workarounds, but I am still curious as to the actual issue. Stated error is one of codec and/or location. It SEEMS to play back fine in the edit page. The location also seems to be fine.


Maybe its a WIN11 thing. I have been making .m2ts 'sourced' multicam projects for a couple years now in DR. But in WIN10, on the old computer. I put up with glitchy playback in editing, but it always rendered out. Now that isnt the case, and the major change is WIN11 on the new computer. But THANKS to help here, hopefully a workaround is possible to save the current work.

UPDATE!

Still odd, but it worked. After Gary clued me in on using REPLACE not RELINK I tried that.

8 camera angles, all .m2ts format. The angle that was giving the error during render (CEN.m2ts) I had already converted to .mp4 , and now using REPLACE instead of RELINK worked in exchanging that in the media pool.

Tried to render again, even with many 'Media Missing' showing in the timeline preview. Figured I would get an error on another .m2ts clip, but at least 'prove' exchanging the CEN.m2ts with the CEN.mp4 worked.

Nope! Rendered out quite fine. I wont look a 'gift horse in the mouth' so to speak, but how odd.

I plan on converting ALL .m2ts files in the future.




NOW... on converting... As Marc pointed out, the media info on the source clips I use show they are not the highest quality. 8 bit color, etc. What would be a good format to convert to keeping what quality I have, while also keeping file size reasonable?

But if I have to get another SSD or two in there, so be it. I need my multicam.

THANK GOODNESS for workarounds, but I am still curious as to the actual issue. Stated error is one of codec and/or location. It SEEMS to play back fine in the edit page. The location also seems to be fine.

Resolve is extra sensitive with playback of .TS too, VFR doesn't work, timing has to be perfect or you get flashing offline, if not on first playback it will happen eventually, but that's not the main problem, it won't encode and will throw up GPU errors about codecs. Maybe your file has a dropped frame and that's enough to stop it from being encoded, and Resolve is complaining about no codec to decode a frame it can't read due to poor timing. With these sorts of problems with TS the solution is to turn off GPU decoding as it's an error related to Resolve's GPU decoding of the file.

TS and M2TS are effectively the same thing. M2TS adds a four byte timestamp to each packet which can help with timing during playback. (192 byte packets vs 188 byte in .ts files)

Thanks CJ!

Resolve is extra sensitive with playback of .TS too, VFR doesn't work, timing has to be perfect or you get flashing offline, if not on first playback it will happen eventually, but that's not the main problem, it won't encode and will throw up GPU errors about codecs. Maybe your file has a dropped frame and that's enough to stop it from being encoded, and Resolve is complaining about no codec to decode a frame it can't read due to poor timing. With these sorts of problems with TS the solution is to turn off GPU decoding as it's an error related to Resolve's GPU decoding of the file.

TS and M2TS are effectively the same thing. M2TS adds a four byte timestamp to each packet which can help with timing during playback. (192 byte packets vs 188 byte in .ts files)

GREAT info. My first try at converting .m2ts files to ProRes422 is eye opening. A 20 Gb .m2ts file (~90 min) is looking to be a 250Gb ProRes422 file. And take ~4 hrs to convert.

This seem correct?

It is NOT taxing the resources of the computer. CPU around 5%, GPU 0%, source drive (ext HDD via USB 3.0, ~150Mb usual read speed) maybe sees 19% intermittently. Destination drive (internal NVME) hardly 1%.

I dont mind the file size, I have room for another NVME 4tb. But at this rate, I will need about 36hrs to convert batch 9 angles of a 1 1/2 hr set.

Seems long to me, but I have no experience. Might just be 'Is What It Is' situation. learn to wait.

Your logs are full of decode errors on the M2TS files. This isn't because MT2S is a less-than-ideal editing codec -- it's a technical error. Either the files are damaged, or it's a Resolve or driver bug.

Those files include: CEN.m2ts, stltPT.m2ts, and strtPT.m2ts.

Can you play any of those files without error using VLC? Do you see any glitches during VLC playback?

You have an i9-14900F CPU, which does not have Quick Sync video acceleration. That means the only hardware-accelerated video acceleration you have is in the RTX 4060.

The RTX 4060 has NVDEC gen 5, which should fully support hardware decoding of the M2TS files with your stated metadata. This assumes you have Resolve Studio, not the free version. Which version are you using?

If you have the Studio version, an easy troubleshooting step is to disable hardware decoding in Resolve Settings. That would be slower, but it might help distinguish between a broader decoding issue vs a hardware acceleration issue.

If it takes hours to transcode one MT2S file to a low-compression format using Shutter Encoder, and if you have Shutter Encoder hardware acceleration enabled in the config, and if you have the Studio version of Resolve, that is not normal. A typical hardware decoding rate for 1080p is hundreds of frames per second.

THANKS!!

I am on the free version...for now. Deciding what hardware I can use that comes with a license.

I did find another workaround that solved the 'media missing' and rendering errors using the same .m2ts files.

The same project was opened again, and all the same errors were present. Maybe worse.

I went to the media pool, opened original clips folder.

Then using the mouse cursor, 'scrubbed' across the avatar picture of that clip. Going right side to left.... all 'Media not present'. Happened to go left to right on one... IT WORKED.

So, I went to each clips avatar, and scrubbed left to right. About 10 sec per clip.

Suddenly, things work. Same 'media not present' shown many places, but plays back.

Going to render, now renders just fine. No errors.


I have used this method twice now, on older projects I didnt want to spend the hours on converting. Worked both times. Upon opening, tons of media not present and wont render.

JUST by ""stroking"" the files, I can go back and now it renders. No error.

I know it sounds crazy, but its worked twice now.

If it takes hours to transcode one MT2S file to a low-compression format using Shutter Encoder, and if you have Shutter Encoder hardware acceleration enabled in the config, and if you have the Studio version of Resolve, that is not normal.
A typical hardware decoding rate for 1080p is hundreds of frames per second.

I am converting all /.m2ts files now to a more NLE friendly format. ResPro422 for now. Used a product called Acrok for now, has a full featured watermarked free demo.

""if you have Shutter Encoder hardware acceleration enabled in the config,""

Say I try shutter encoder, what config are you speaking of?

""and if you have the Studio version of Resolve,""

I am using a stand alone app (Acrok for now) to convert from .m2ts to .mov format, ResPro422. How does the version of DV affect the operation of that app, and the transcode time?


""A typical hardware decoding rate for 1080p is hundreds of frames per second""


Say it was 'only' 180 FPS. that would be 3x real time, and it SHOULD take 30 min at that rate of transcoding.

Then this app 'Acrok' must be SLOW. It took 4 hrs to transcode 1.5hrs of material at 60fps. More like ~25FPS speed, NOT 'hundreds' like you say.

Time to try Shutter Encoder.

Thanks for the guidance!

...I am on the free version...for now....

It appears I was the first person in this thread to ask whether you are on the free version. You mentioned major performance problems when transcoding from 1080p M2TS to ProRes (90 min video takes 4 hr). If using Resolve for that, the free version (on Windows) does not have hardware video acceleration.

Basically, it is impossible to evaluate Resolve's H264 encode/decode or playback performance of H264 using the free version on Windows. On Mac, the free version has hardware acceleration.

Say I try shutter encoder, what config are you speaking of?

The main Shutter Encoder UI has a setting at the bottom that says "Hardware acceleration" with several choices. Since your i9-1400F CPU does not have Quick Sync video acceleration, you must use NVIDIA's NVDEC. That uses a different API than Quick Sync. Whether specific apps like Shutter Encoder use that must be examined individually.

...I am using a stand alone app (Acrok for now) to convert from .m2ts to .mov format, ResPro422. How does the version of DV affect the operation of that app, and the transcode time?

As I said above, you reported 4 hr to transcode 90 min of 1080p M2TS to ProRes. In general, the paid version of Resolve Studio might be 5 times that fast. When you mentioned 4 hr conversion time, we had been talking about Resolve (this is a Resolve forum), so I naturally assumed this was Resolve performance.

If that transcode time was via Acrok, the Resolve version does not affect that. It's a third-party utility. However, you must be very careful with free third-party transcoding apps. As a category, they have a history of messing up files, sometimes in a non-obvious way that takes time to detect. Lots of people use Shutter Encoder, and it is generally reliable.

UPDATE!

Downloaded Shutter Encoder.

Paypal'd $10, Gotta have faith, right?

installed.... and its going "Hundreds of FPS" transcoding the same file.

Says ~15 min.

CPU 100% GPU 65% YAH BABY!

EDIT!:
Hit submit, THEN saw your post joema4.

I was trying to transcode with DV at first, but then was advised NOT to and use a 3rd party app. Or maybe I misunderstood...

I tried once just to export the .m2ts file as ProRes422 using DV, but it gave me only audio, no video. Figured thats why a 3rd party app was necessary.

I dont mind, I can have Shutter Encoder running on my old video computer while I use DV on the new.

When you mentioned 4 hr conversion time, we had been talking about Resolve (this is a Resolve forum), so I naturally assumed this was Resolve performance.

Lots of people use Shutter Encoder, and it is generally reliable.

I am SO guilty of tread creep.

The solution to my original post problem was to transcode to an editing format.

That lead to how to, then how fast should it go, and all of a sudden its 3rd party app discussion.



Apologies again.

Well. That stinks. Didnt work. Audio , no video.

Just like when I tried to transcribe .m2ts to ResPro422 with DR. ARRRRGH!

I will honor the forum being for DaVinci resolve, and go look for the Shutter Encoder forum to pursue answers.

Thanks to all!






EDIT.....

no video on Windows .... no codec. Plays fine in DaVinci.

I bet my original transcoding in DR worked.
I just tried to play it in WMP ,where it wouldnt work. I never tried it in DR!

Don't worry about asking questions; the forum volunteers here are helpful about a wide range of things. I just wanted to make sure that any others following this thread were clear on the main points.

The reason you have audio and no video is because the free version of Resolve (on Windows) doesn't support those codecs.

If you had the paid Studio version of Resolve, it's possible your current 1080p M2TS files would be smooth to edit due to hardware acceleration. However, even a powerful machine with full hardware acceleration can be a bit laggy on certain "Long GOP" codecs. Thus, transcoding to an all-intraframe editing codec might still be beneficial in some cases.

Over the past 15 years I've had various issues with codecs like M2TS. Just because a certain NLE or hardware accelerator supposedly handles that doesn't mean it will work perfectly each time. There are valid reasons why (even today) many higher-end productions often transcode to a mezzanine format, even though the machines and NLE can supposedly handle compressed camera formats.

The reason you have audio and no video is because the free version of Resolve (on Windows) doesn't support those codecs.

Whoops! I edited my post to reflect my oversight. I never tried the files in Resolve, just WMP.

My free version of Resolve displays the ProRes422 just fine. It it when I tried to use Windows Media Player (WMP) I encountered the no video.

Sure, Resolve does OK with just one track of .m2ts. 3 even in a multicam.

Make up a 90 min, 8 angle multicam... not so much. Stuttering old car barely working.

Using the ProRes 422LT setting, Resolve is a ROCKET. OMG. I was up until after muidnight editing it was such a pleasure. No seizing and stuttering. No endless waits as it desperately tries to search the .m2ts files for info. No more pause, then suddenly the whole app closes.

Sure, 180Gb of .m2ts files turned into 1.6Tb of ProRes files. No big deal, I have space for another 4Tb NVME drive.

Shutter Encoder worked GREAT. Slight learning curve, then I just left it alone to to a batch conversion. So just a NEW step one in the video workflow... Batch Convert .m2ts files.

With the short conversion times (15 min for a 90 min file) , I am not going to use .m2ts files to edit anymore. .m2ts is GREAT for playback/storage, not so much for non linear editing. I understand WHY completely now.

THANKS TO ALL Y'ALL!


(WARNING - old mechanic analogy ahead! )

So yeah.... DR CAN use/edit/process .m2ts files. Like the label says.

Just like you could put gas in the car using a small hand pump. It works to put in enough to get you home.
But if you need to fill up you sure want to convert to a gas pump!