There is still no cheap(free) and easy way to work with the M2TS files created by my Canon H100 video camera. When I am shooting with that camera, for any event, I end up with a bunch of .m2ts video files. VLC now plays this format, but still I have to either create a playlist of all my files or play them one at a time.

This is where the freeware tsMuxer comes to the rescue. SmartLabs doesn’t offer this app anymore, but you can download this from videohelp.com. You can download the app for windows, linux and Mac. If you are running OSX, use the VoxMac Unofficial Build. Even this build does not work correctly because of some korean fonts (I would love to know why). Here is a snippet from macrumors forums on how to fix that problem.

tsMuxeR is not working due to fonts interpretations problem.
We got a ‘bus error’ when trying to execute the command in command-line mode.
The problem is due to 2 particulars korean fonts supplied in Snow Leopard.
To solve the problem, if you don’t use those korean fonts, delete
the two following fonts : AppleMyungjo.ttf and Gungseouche.ttf located in /Library/Fonts
When done, the tsMuxeR command Line should Work

Instead of deleting the fonts, I just renamed them using the command line. tsMuxerGUI now launches with out any problems.

Joining .M2TS file
I use tsMuxer to combine all the .M2TS files into one .M2TS file. It’s very easy and very quick to join these videos. These steps should work on Windows and Linux too. Here are the step -

1. Launch the app

1. Drag and Drop the first file in the sequence in the Input files window. The Add button doesnt work for M2TS files.

1. Now Select the rest of the files you want to join together, drag and drop on the Join button at the top.

1. Make sure the Output is set to M2TS muxing and click on the Browse button to choose an appropriate place to save the output. Now click Start Muxing to join all the .M2TS files.

You will get a status window showing progress. Click Ok when it finishes to get back to tsMuxerGui

You should now have your joined .M2TS file.

But I still can’t play This .M2TS on XBMC. The solution is to convert this to an MKV file :)
The trick is to demux this joined .M2TS file using tsMuxer and then use mkvmerge to create an MKV file. Problem Solved! You can download mkvmerge from the MKVToolNix site. They have binaries for windows, multiple linux platforms and Mac.

Demuxing .M2TS file

1. Drop your joined .M2TS file in the input files section of the tsMuxerGUI

1. Select Demux in the output section at the bottom and click on Start Demuxing. You will see the progress window again.

2. The Demux process creates two files, a .264 (video) file and a .ac3 (audio) file.

3. Click on the add button on the input files section of mkvmerge and add your .264 and .ac3 files.

1. Click on Start muxing at the bottom to create your MKV file. A progress window comes up during the muxing process.

You now have an MKV file which works on XBMC. As tsMuxer and mkvmerge are tools also available on linux and windows, this process should work on all platforms.