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Video format

MTS converter

An .mts file is AVCHD footage as written to a camcorder's memory card, containing H.264 video inside an MPEG transport stream. Sony and Panasonic camcorders from the late 2000s onward filled SD cards with .mts clips, so the extension is familiar to anyone importing family or event video.

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Drop MTS files here

Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.

Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.

Where MTS comes from

Sony and Panasonic jointly announced AVCHD in 2006 as a tapeless successor to HDV, reusing Blu-ray's stream format on inexpensive SD cards. A 2011 revision branded AVCHD 2.0 added 1080p50/60 recording, and importing software often renames the camera's .mts files to .m2ts.

How MTS works

  • Uses 192-byte transport packets, standard 188-byte packets plus a 4-byte arrival timestamp, matching Blu-ray's BDAV layout
  • Video is H.264/AVC at up to 28 Mbps under the AVCHD 2.0 profile
  • Audio is Dolby Digital (AC-3) or, on higher-end models, uncompressed LPCM
  • Long recordings span multiple sequential .mts files that must be joined during import
  • Clip details live in the card's BDMV folder structure alongside the streams

When to use MTS

  • Importing camcorder footage into Premiere, Resolve, or Final Cut
  • Merging spanned clips from long recordings into single files
  • Converting family archives to MP4 or MKV for long-term storage
  • Grabbing still frames from home video

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • The transport-stream base survives card errors and interrupted recordings well
  • H.264 essence is often modern enough to re-wrap without re-encoding
  • Broad support across professional and consumer editing software

Limitations

  • Transport-stream packet overhead makes files larger than the same video in MP4
  • Media players outside editing software frequently ignore the extension
  • Interlaced AVCHD modes require careful handling during conversion

Compatibility

Editing suites and VLC handle .mts directly, while browsers, phones, and many TVs fail to recognize the extension even though they could decode the H.264 inside. Re-wrapping to MP4 usually restores playback everywhere without touching quality.

Recording date, camera settings, and GPS coordinates on some models are stored in the AVCHD folder's clip-info files rather than in the .mts stream itself.

Convert MTS to another format

Convert other formats to MTS