The universal VLC player (free from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ ) plays most m2t perfectly.
However I have not seen it making thumbnails of the m2t videos - that is one of the reasons that I render to mpg m2t files for previewing during editing - as this mpg render process is very fast - and then render to wmv for the final version.

Btw I always put one single frame in the beginning of the timeline showing some picture and text - to define the thumbnail for the video when I see it in the video directory.

Added later: I found this -

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/FIXMissingThumbnailsForVideosWMVAVIMPGInWindowsExplorer.aspx

The CCCP Codec Pack is maybe able to do the trick.

If you get the m2t to thumbnail problem solved pls let us hear about it.

From what I understand, the guy asks about M2T inside VMS, not outside of it. If that's the case, VLC won't help.

Getting tired of only being able to view my video clips (.m2t) in VMS

... but I might be wrong.

And, btw, as far as I know OhMy, this person does not have pirated versions :-))

Media Player Classic Home Cinema - [url=http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/index.html] will play MPEG-2 transport stream files (.m2t) as well.

If you want to setup XP to use either this or VLC to play the files when double-clicked, just right-click on a .m2t file and select 'open with...' then pick or browse for the application and make sure the 'always use this program to open this kind of file' box is ticked.

This will 'associate' .m2t files with a specific program for playback (it won't affect opening files in VMS - it just changes what happens when you double-click on a file in Windows Explorer).

Note you can install extra DirectShow 'filters' (codecs) into Windows so that it understands how to decode .m2t files generally (this will probably enable the thumbnail generation too), but this sometimes has side-effects so tread carefully. If you want to try it, there is a selection of filters here - [url=http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=170561] (in the 'Stand alone Filters - Win32' section). You probably need ...MpegSplitter.zip and ...Mpeg2DecFilter.zip and you'll need to find out how to 'register' DirectShow filters - the process is reversible so it's safe to play if you are sensible :-)

Tony

'The only explanation I have for not being able to open M2T is that you use a pirated version of Vegas'

Is someone out of their frickin mind!!!!! I would hardly pirate Vegas or anything else for that matter! Not the explanation I was looking for! As I said in my original post, I can view the files fine in VMSP 8d, but not in Windows XP. Thanks for understanding ritsmer and sharing your workflow, and thank you Tony for the good links, instructions and warnings. I will give it a try and see if I can get windows to see the clips as Vegas does. Thanks again for everything. Pirated????????.......................OMG Cin

That was a misunderstanding.

My explanation was not meant as an insult or a point-fingering. I am helping people with Vegas problems here, on HV20.com, on DVXUser, and by email. In all the time I am helping out with vegas, the MOST common reason why m2t doesn't work with Vegas (Platinum or Pro), is because the person had actually pirated Vegas. You see, the hackers who did the job, have unlocked the main app, but NOT the codecs! So when I offered that explanation, it was simply an explanation based on my experience, so no, I was not out of my frickin mind.

Now, the only other reason why Vegas Platinum 8 wouldn't recognize M2t is because the codecs did not authenticate during installation, in which case a re-installation might remedy the problem. But except that, I don't have any other explanation for you.

>I can view the files fine in VMSP 8d, but not in Windows XP

This is different. I understood that you can't read the files INSIDE Vegas. But if you CAN read files inside Vegas, then you just need to install the latest ffdshow beta, as someone here suggested. You will also need to install the mpeg splitter to force WMP to playback mpeg2 via ffdshow rather than its own codecs. I very recently gave the same advice here, with links: http://hv20.com/showthread.php?t=13368
If I had not misread your comment, I would have given you that solution immediately.