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I have some .ts files (programs recorded from my Sharp TV on USB stick) that I want to store/play on my PC.

However, although they are listed on the stick when its plugged in the PC nothing will recognize the files. I have tried VLC (the "slider" moves but there's no sound or video) and changed the extension to MPEG, MP2, etc. but no joy.

I have tried converting the files with file converters and demuxers but none of these recognize the files. Are the files corrupted (they play on the TV) or do Sharp have a unique file structure?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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    The Sharp TS files are encrypted in some way: playing them back is only possible on the original TV. I recorded the same minute of TV on my Humax PVR and my Sharp TV: the files are about the same size, 25Mb or so, but the content viewed through a hex editor is wildly different. Annoying isn't it? Paddy
    – user123989
    Jan 17, 2013 at 16:28

8 Answers 8

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For what I've heard, those files are not meant to be played on other system, than the TV.

It looks like there's an encription on them, that makes converting it to other formats rather difficult.

The recordings are not intended to be portable. They are just supposed to allow people to watch the recorded TV programs on their TV at a more convenient time, or pause and resume the show as necessary. The recordings cannot be played back with anything other than the TV that made them.

You can read more here.

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VLC can play .ts files recorded by TV recorder. You have to pass an option for that:

"Path/to/VLC" --demux ffmpeg

Answer from this VideoLan discussion thread

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TS files are MPEG-2 video files (TS == Transport Stream), recordings of television broadcasts (in high definition).

VLC can play .ts files

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

There is also a similar question here.

How to play .ts files? (and other unusual formats)

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    "TS files are MPEG-2 video files" Not exactly. TS are MPEG transport stream files, which are different to your normal MPEG program stream files (ie MPG, VOB, etc). They are intended for streaming situations and can sometimes carry prorprietary/non-standard streams, which it sounds like may be the case here (if VLC can't play them). This is in the same sense that camera RAW formats are all based on TIFF but that doesn't make them compatible, because they contain proprietary streams. Jan 18, 2013 at 3:49
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I know this is an old thread, but in case anybody else, like me comes across it here's the gen; Sharp, and other TV manufacturers have their own proprietary video encryption for recordings. This is because pay for channels (and other channels) don't want their content copied. Because they are proprietary and each manufacturer, and often TV models have different encryption, unlike DVD's that use a standard encryption nobody has gone to the effort of cracking the decryption and making an application or codec to do this because you'd need a different codec for each manufacturer and possibly each model.

So basically, it can't be done unless you can crack the encryption write a codec yourself.

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I hope the following could help.

.ts files are recognized by the system but can be played on your linux box, you have to right-click with the mouse on your file , and then select open with .... (do not forget to mark remember selection so the system can remember to associate your file with the app you will select which in our case is Smplayer) Or you can just open Smplayer and then go to Open file and locate to your stored video file and play it.

Smplayer can play this type of videos but you cannot rewind or fast forward. You can only watch it. I run Linux Mint 17 and all multimedia files play normally except .ts files which play in Smplayer only. I have installed the following packages ubuntu-restricted-extras - Smplayer which are not installed by default in Linux Mint 17. I hope this can help. Edited from this point :) I do a work around to solve this issue I use WinFF app to convert the .ts file to any other file that play normally which in my case I prefer the following settings in winff

enter image description here Convert to : ( I choose DVD ) Preset ( I select PAL DVD fast LQ)

Preset settings can change according to your needs of course :) Cheers

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I had a problem of playing PVR files on a Ubuntu computer from a USB HDD formatted with NTFS.

These files played 100% on a windows computer but were not recognized on Ubuntu. for me the answer was to set VLC as the opening program. Now this works 100% for me. No conversion of any kind needed.

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Right now the default player plays the *ts files, but to be able to play them by double-click and have the preview icon generated, just

rename them to *.m2ts.

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I bumped into this problem and looks like it has something to do with the subtitles.

With only VLC open, try the following:

  1. Go to Tools>Preferences (Ctrl+P).
  2. In Show settings, select All.
  3. Scroll all the way down and you will see Substitles/OSD under Video. Click on it.
  4. The right-side panel will display some settings, to which I changed two: unchecked the Enable subpictures and also unchecked the Autodetect subtitle files.

I'm using KDE Neon and VLC is 3.0.8 Vetinari

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