TSReader is a very popular MPEG-2 transport stream analyzer. Used by thousands of people around the world, it allows inspection and recording of data carried in these television streams used for satellite, cable, off-air and IPTV streaming such as UDP, RTP, HLS and MPEG-DASH.
It supports ATSC, Digicipher II, DVB, ISDB, and SCTE extensions to the base MPEG-2 specification. TSReader gives the user the "big picture" overview of what's being carried inside MPEG-2 transport streams and can be very useful for finding errors or inefficiencies.
TSReader is available in three different editions. TSReader Lite is free for home users that want to investigate how digital television works. TSReader Standard adds many more features and may be used in commercial environments. TSReader Professional contains all features and is perfect for those dealing with MPEG-2 transport streams on a daily basis. The table below shows the differences between the editions.
TSReader runs on all modern versions of 32 and 64-bit Windows up-to and including Windows 10 and has a very light CPU load. Processing a 40 Mbps stream received over Ethernet will typically load a CoreDuo 2 2.4 GHz dual-core processor to about 3-5%. Multiple instances of TSReader can be used to monitor more than one stream with the Professional edition.
TSReader also works very well on Linux and MacOS with Wine and we document how to install it on both MacOS and Ubuntu here.
| Feature | | | |
| Decodes MPEG-2 tables with DVB, ATSC, ISDB, SCTE and Digicipher II extensions. | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ |
| Decodes MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and H.264 (AVC) video in thumbnail format. | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ |
| Decodes H.265 (HEVC) video in thumbnail format | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| Decodes VC-1/WM9 video in thumbnail format | ✔︎ | ||
| Includes a BISS descrambler for DSNG use | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ |
| Thumbnails can be exported as they are generated to JPEG files | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| High speed parallel PMT parser | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| Parallel stream decoding (thumbnails display very quickly) | ✔︎ | ||
| Parses MPEG, A/52 (AC3 & E-AC3) and DTS audio streams to show bitrate/mode settings | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ |
| Parses AAC audio streams to show bitrate/mode settings | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| Generates scope-style thumbnails for MPEG and AC3 audio streams | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ |
| Shows A/52 (AC3 & E-AC3) dialog-normalization (dialnorm) | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| Records the transport stream to a file. Recordings can be in plain transport stream or ALP transport stream formats which provides lossless compression | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| Records an individual program to files with PAT/PMT regeneration using a very flexible file naming scheme | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| Records individual or multiple PIDs to a file | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| Records tables (MPEG sections) to a file | ✔︎ | ||
| Records multiple programs from multiple channels within a multiplex | ✔︎ | ||
| Decodes IP/DVB transmissions in MPE format with the MAC and IP destination addresses | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ |
| Can save the payload from TCP & UDP transmissions and act as a multicast IP/DVB to UDP router. | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| PID usage graph with percentage displays for each PID | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ |
| Actual bitrate on PIDs carrying PCR and estimated bitrates for non PCR carrying PIDs | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ |
| PID graph is color coded to indicate unscrambled and scrambled PIDs | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ |
| Counts continuity and TEI errors on mux and PID-by-PID basis | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| Export MPEG-2, extension, thumbnail and PID chart data to HTML | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ |
| Export all data into XML or XMLTV formats for parsing by other applications | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| Decodes DVB Modulator Interface (DVB T2-MI) streams | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ |
| Can be controlled to run automatically using command line and control server options | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| Graph generation for many different stream statistics | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | View tables carried in a PID and their content in TSReader Professional | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | View user data carried within video streams and video start codes | ✔︎ | ✔︎ |
| EPG grid for steams containing EPG data such as ATSC, DVB and ISDB | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| Supports extended EPG data on Bell, Dish, Media Highway 2 and Sky Broadcasting | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| Multiple configurations and instances | ✔︎ | ||
| Closed caption (EIA-608 and CEA-708) decoder along with a command-line decoder | ✔︎ | ||
| ETR-290 style monitoring with email alarms | ✔︎ | ||
| Stream forwarding to UDP and RTP or hardware devices such as DVB-ASI, SMPTE-310 and RF | ✔︎ | ||
| SCTE-35 CUE message decoding and logging | ✔︎ | ||
| TSWatcher multi channel monitoring software included | ✔︎ | ||
| PCR/PTS/DTS analysis with PCR/PTR and A/V difference calculation. Sample here | ✔︎ | ||
| PCAPtoTS utility included to easily extract transport streams from PCAP fils | ✔︎ |
* Free for non-commercial use