Possibly something to do with Long GOP.
I notice m2t Thumbnails are visible in Vegas Project Media, but that probably employs something which is in Vegas but not Windows Explorer.

im shocked im having such a difficult time finding a solution for this... it should be VERY possible for vista to handle m2t files... why cant i see a thumbnail view of them ( i know i can within vegas )

does anybody know a way around this?
please and thank you
p

Konvertor can do it apparently.

I use Directory Opus, an awesome Windows Explorer replacement file management program, and in that most of them show but a few show black. I guess this is dependent on where the first frame sits within the GOP or something.

I use Adobe Bridge more and more. It's not just .m2ts, its mov, etc. If you have a program such as PowerDVD which supports HD playback, renaming .m2t to .mpg might work. However, that will screw up Vegas's choice of .dlls. Windows by default only thumbnails program streams and not transport streams, plus you also need the correct program stream decoder.

thank you both for your feedback, much appreciated...

i hear there is a way to get explorer to show thumbnails for m2t files...
if so, how can i achieve this?

thanks again for the links and tips

pj

(EDIT: bridge (CS3) does not show thumbnails of my canons m2t files, it is checked to "show thumbnail" but they are just the generic icons...)

>> renaming .m2t to .mpg might work. However, that will screw up Vegas's choice of .dlls. <<

Not so over here Xander. Just renamed a .m2t HDV file to .mpg and afterwards it's still using m2tsplug.dll. Vegas looks beyond the file extension .... still doesn't give a thumbnail however.

pjrey, where did you hear this is possible?

http://dvinfo.net/conf/archive/index.php/t-16315.html (look at the last post)
not sure if it is legit, i dont see why it wouldnt be...

ive read other posts about people who have gotten it to work.. i have written, with no response...

there has to be a way
with hdv being the new thing and all...m2t files must be everywhere
they must be a way to view the thumbs

pj

Here's a post that says changing the extension to .avi results in thumbnail display, and file works fine in Vegas 7.
http://www.wwug.com/cgi-bin/displaywwugpost.fcgi?forum=sonic-foundry_vegas&post=080004130732.htm

If this does work, I wonder if you could duplicate the .avi filetype registry entry and replace the instances of .avi with .m2t (after making a couple images of your HD, of course).

thanks.. tried that already, under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.m2t
and copied the data from HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.avi to .m2t...
no luck...

i know there is a way...
if vegas can do it, so can explorer...
surprised more people aren't searching for this as well...

p

But did the renaming to avi trick work in the first place? (if not, changing the registry entry won't do anything)

(no, the renaming trick does not work)

no, renaming m2t to avi on the file itself does not produce a thumbnail...

anyone out there have any clues asto how to get this to work?

there is a way! i will find it!

p

Just out of curiosity I renamed a couple of m2t files to mpg and a thumbnail picture popped right up both times.

i dont believe it pal... i had never even tried mpg... i did AVI and thats it! how silly of me, renaming it worked!

great...
now how can i get it to show up m2ts... without renaming>>
anywhere know where to edit?
.mpg from ROOT, i tried copying it over to m2t, didnt work...
p

Under Vista you simply have to enable thumbnails to be displayed.
First you have to tell the OS what program to read them with.
Then you have to tell the OS how to associtate the file with WMP.

Open up WMP and file-> Open to open up a m2t or m2ts file directly. (CTRL+O Hotkey).
When navigating to your m2t's & m2ts's videos use the *.* filter.
Select the m2t file, after you select WMP will prompt you do you want WMP to always accept this file type, answer YES. (Put a check in the box "Do do ask again" or similar wording)
Do the same with the m2ts files.
Now you can just drap them to play & WMP may also associate them with WMP.
If you playing back avc/h264 video you need the codec for this, it must also be a codec that shared with the system such as the PowerDvd xxxxx.ax codec to play avc/h264.

So just force WMP to load them, and answer WMP when it prompts you Yes, and by clicking in the box the "Do not ask again".

Renaming the files to mpg works because WMP already has it associated, it didn't have m2t associated. When it reads the mpg file WMP sparses the file to determine what format the elementary streams are in. WMP sparses almost all the files to determine was makes them up and play them back correctly.