OK I am trying to capture some HD video off my new Sony HDV Z5E camera... I have a trial version of Vegas Pro 9... I plugged it all in and started to capture... But when the files ended up on my computer they are .m2t files ??? I was expecting MPEG2 files :(
Am I doing something wrong ? Help please...

According to the specs, Vegas will open M2T files. Are you saying it doesn't or just that the files have different names from what you were expecting?

My very shakey understanding (which will hopefully be corrected by someone if I'm wrong) is that MPEG-2 is the video component of HDV only. The audio is MPEG1-layer 2. M2T is a Mpeg2 transport stream (whatever that is) which combines the two.

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Tim

It opens in Vegas fine... But I need to be able to send the content (video) to people, I resell my content and ship on hard drive... just wondering if ok to send as m2t files or if I should send as MPG... someone told me to just change the extension to MPG and they would work, and they do

Another quickie... as well as getting the m2t file... it also has a .sfk file, anyone tell me what this is as well ? If I am going to copy all of the content onto a hard drive for a client what do I need to include... can I put just the mpg, or should i include the m2t and sfk files as well ?

And just to clarify once I captured the video as m2t files, if I change the .m2t to mpg the video will work right ? So I dont need to render or publish or anything techie, I can simply change the extension...

Sorry I can't answer the one about changing the extension. Why not try doing that and then playing the renamed file in as many players as you can? And try importing it into Vegas?

The sfk files are generated when you check the "save markers and regions with media" box in project setting (or possibly preferences - I'm not at my Vegas W/S at the moment). They are therefore irrelevant unless you're importing them into DVD Architect which will make use of them.

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Tim

Like Tim mentioned M2Ts are nothing but mpeg2 streams. And they are transport streams. The other flavour they come in are 'program streams'. Then there are also .TS and .TP files which ive heard are also Mpeg streams. Ive had success just changing the file ext into .mpg. I tried changing one into .mkv and that worked too. lol. MKVs (a relatively new extension ive just started noticing everywhere) i think are matroska codec based. But anyway. Some m2t's in my experience will jitter when the changed ext version is played. I think something messes up with the way the codec sees the GOP (group of pictures order or structure).

For safety i would suggest you try to play the renamed files on a system that doesnt have vegas installed on it. .m2ts are tricky by themselves and dont play well independently. But ive seen HD media players that play .m2t streams cleanly directly from off the camera.