vlc needs aribb24 to play MPEG Transport Stream .mts and .ts files

14 September 2022, 22:29:37

VLC wouldn't play .mts or .ts files, also known as AVCHD, although I could convert them with ffmpeg to mp4 then play them. This was because the "aribb24" package was not installed. This is an optional dependency of VLC but the description does not really say much to tell you this is what you need. This format is used in TV's and some digital cameras produce video files of this type. They still don't seem to play back in browsers even when this is installed though.
There was a bug report about this, apparently it was moved from being a dep to an opt-dep a while back:
https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/68856
This is probably why on an older Artix install I already had that package.