FORMATS · .M2TS, .TS · 15 OCTOBER 2026
MTS, M2TS and TS (AVCHD): how Frame Witness recovers them
How Frame Witness finds AVCHD .mts and .m2ts video from camcorders, dashcams and DVRs, and .ts recordings: where a recording ends and what was measured.
How they are found
A .ts file is a run of 188-byte packets; the .mts and .m2ts files of AVCHD camcorders, and of many dashcams and DVRs, use 192-byte packets. Frame Witness carves a stream only when its structure holds: the program association table, the program map and a video stream whose packets start where they should. A recording ends where the packet sync breaks or where the program table counter jumps, which after a format is usually where the next recording begins.
Camcorder cards
AVCHD camcorders store each clip as an .mts file inside the PRIVATE/AVCHD folder of the card. After a quick format the clips are still in the raw bytes until they are overwritten; Frame Witness finds them by their packet structure, not by the file name.
Measured on generated videos
Both generated MTS, M2TS and TS (AVCHD) videos on the formats test image came back with identical SHA-256 in Frame Witness. The image holds one short generated video per format, stored contiguously among zero-filled space and decoys, with no file system. It shows that the format is found and walked to its exact end; it does not show how often real cards keep these videos in one piece.
| Generated video | Size | Recovered |
|---|---|---|
| synthetic-h264.ts | 176,156 bytes | identical |
| synthetic-avchd.m2ts | 61,440 bytes | identical |
What cannot come back
- Overwritten data. Bytes that new files replaced are gone for every program.
- Full and overwrite formats. A full format in Windows writes zeros over the volume; an overwrite format or a wipe does the same with other patterns.
- SSD TRIM. A drive that receives TRIM usually erases freed blocks itself.
- Encryption without the key. A BitLocker volume, or a phone with file-based encryption, cannot be read without its key.
Try it on your own source
Download Frame Witness for Windows (version 1.0.14, Authenticode-signed by Aurelio Avila, SHA-256 fa22d6c7f97da0b4e5efa889e5abb9e4d98815a9b76ac0087424944b21bad6c2). The free account gives a quick scan of the first 8 GiB, up to 100 results, previews and saving files up to 1 MiB each; full scans and larger files need a licence, with current prices on the pricing page.