ARW to TS Converter

Convert ARW to TS: What This Tutorial Covers

.arw is Sony Alpha Raw — the undeveloped sensor data an α body writes, a TIFF-based wrapper around a mosaic of 12- or 14-bit photosites with no white balance or tone curve applied to the pixels yet. .ts is the MPEG-2 transport stream defined in ISO/IEC 13818-1, the broadcast container that chops media into fixed 188-byte packets so that a corrupted packet costs you a fraction of a second rather than the whole stream.

Putting a photograph into a broadcast container is a narrow thing to want, and this tutorial is written for the case where it is genuinely the right answer: a slate, a hold frame, a test card or a still ident that a playout system, an IPTV encoder or an HLS-era segmenter needs as a .ts. It covers the three settings that decide what you get, the resolution behaviour that is not obvious, and the point at which a different target is the honest answer.

How to Convert ARW to TS

1. Upload Your ARW File: Drag the .arw onto the page or click "+ Add Files" to browse — straight off an α7, an α6000-series body or an older DSLR-A. Several frames can be queued at once.
2. Set Merge Strategy and Image Duration: Merge strategy chooses between "Merge images" (every upload becomes one clip, back to back) and "Video per image" (a separate .ts for each). Image Duration runs from a single frame at 60 fps up to 10 seconds per frame, with 5 seconds pre-selected.
3. Set Background Color, Video Codec and Video resolution: Background Color fills any letterbox area and opens on White; the dropdown carries Black and 23 other colours. Video Codec opens on H.264, with H.265, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX and Xvid also listed. Under Video resolution, "Keep original" is selected — but see the walk-through, because a photograph's idea of "original" is not a video frame size.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and save the .ts. Files upload over an encrypted connection, are rendered and packetized on our servers and are deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared or made public.

Walk-through: The Three Things That Actually Change the Output

The raw is developed before anything else happens, and that is one-way. An .arw holds mosaic sensor data with real editing latitude — highlights to recover, white balance to shift, exposure to push. To be encoded at all it must first be demosaiced into ordinary RGB pixels. The render uses the camera's own recorded white balance and produces an 8-bit sRGB frame, and once that frame is inside the transport stream the latitude is gone exactly as it would be in a JPEG. If the look matters, develop the raw in a dedicated editor, export a finished image, and convert that instead. Keep the .arw as your master either way.

The frame is not your sensor resolution, and it is not automatically 1080p either. Before encoding, every image is normalised to a clean PNG and clamped to 4096 pixels on the long edge, with both dimensions rounded to even numbers. A 24-megapixel 6000x4000 frame therefore arrives at the encoder as roughly 4096x2730, and on "Keep original" that is the frame size the .ts gets. A 4096-wide H.264 stream is legal but well outside what transport-stream decoders and playout hardware expect to be handed. For anything going into a broadcast chain, switch Video resolution to Fixed Resolutions and take a real raster from the list — it opens on 1920 x 1080 (Full HD), which is what the rest of the chain is almost certainly running at.

Note the difference between the two preset lists, because it matters here. Fixed Resolutions gives you exact width-by-height pairs. Preset Resolutions sets the height only and lets the width follow the source's aspect, so a 3:2 photograph at the "1080p" entry becomes 1620x1080 rather than 1920x1080 — not what a playout system wants.

The clip is a held still at 1 fps, and it is silent. The encode runs at one frame per second with B-frames disabled, so a 5-second duration is five identical frames rather than a motion clip. There is no pan, no zoom, no transition, and no audio track — a photograph has no sound to carry, which is why the Audio Codec controls do not appear for image sources at all. If you need sound under the slate, lay it on in an editor afterwards.

Choosing the Duration and the Background

Background Color is easy to overlook and visible in the result. A 3:2 photograph placed in a 16:9 frame leaves bars on two sides, and those bars are filled with the colour you choose rather than cropped away. White is the pre-selected value, which suits a bright graphic and looks wrong on a dark playout chain — switch to Black, or to a brand colour, before you convert rather than after.

TS, MTS and M2TS — Which One Does Your Chain Want?

All three carry the same H.264 video. They differ in how the bytes are laid out, and the extension decides which layout you get.

Renaming does not convert between these — the framing is decided when the file is written. Pick the page whose output matches what the receiving tool inspects.

Common Errors and How to Fix Them

• "The clip is silent" — expected, and not fixable here. A still image has no audio track, which is why no Audio Codec control appears. Lay music or narration over the file in an editor.
• "There are white bars down the sides" — your 3:2 photograph does not fill a 16:9 frame, and the gap is filled with the Background Color, which starts on White. Change it, or crop the photo to the output aspect before uploading.
• "The resolution is 4096 pixels wide and my system rejected it" — that is "Keep original" doing what it says, after the 4096-pixel long-edge clamp. Switch to Fixed Resolutions and pick 1920 x 1080.
• "The 1080p preset gave me 1620x1080" — you used Preset Resolutions, which sets height only. Use Fixed Resolutions for exact pairs.
• "The colours are not the ones in my raw editor" — the render bakes in the camera's recorded white balance, not your editor's interpretation, and a Sony Creative Look or picture profile is an in-body instruction a third-party renderer does not reproduce. Develop and export first, then convert.
• "My file is .arq or .sr2, not .arw" — this page is tuned for the .arw extension that current and recent α bodies write.
• "The .ts will not open on my desktop" — some consumer players prefer MP4 to a bare transport stream. VLC plays plain .ts; if you only needed something watchable, ARW to MP4 is the better target.

When This Doesn't Work

For most people arriving here, TS is the wrong target. If you want a viewable, shareable picture, convert to an image — ARW to JPG for a universal file or ARW to PNG for a lossless one — and keep the .arw as your editable master. If you want a clip for a modern timeline, a web upload or a phone, ARW to MP4 plays natively almost everywhere while a bare transport stream frequently does not.

Reach for .ts only when a broadcast, IPTV, set-top or HLS-era tool specifically requires the standard 188-byte stream. And remember there is no motion hidden inside an ARW to recover: the file is one photograph, and this page's entire job is to hold that frame in a transport stream for as long as you asked.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the TS clip have any motion or sound?

Neither. The raw is rendered to a single frame and that frame is held for the duration you set, encoded at one frame per second with B-frames disabled, so it plays as a freeze — no pan, no zoom, no transition. It is silent because a photograph has no audio track to carry, which is also why the Audio Codec controls never appear for image sources. Uploading several ARWs with "Merge images" joins them back to back, each shown in turn; that is a run of held stills, not a cross-faded slideshow.

What resolution does the TS actually come out at?

Not your sensor resolution. Before encoding, the image is normalised and clamped to 4096 pixels on its long edge with both dimensions rounded to even numbers, so a 6000x4000 frame arrives at the encoder as roughly 4096x2730 and that is what "Keep original" produces. That is legal H.264 but wider than most transport-stream chains expect. Set Video resolution to Fixed Resolutions and take an explicit raster — the list opens on 1920 x 1080 (Full HD), which matches what a broadcast or IPTV chain is likely running.

Why is the 1080p preset giving me a 1620-pixel-wide frame?

Because there are two different resolution lists on this page and they behave differently. Preset Resolutions sets the height and lets the width follow the source's aspect ratio, so a 3:2 photograph at "1080p" becomes 1620x1080. Fixed Resolutions gives you the exact width-by-height pairs — 1920 x 1080, 1280 x 720, 3840 x 2160 and so on. For anything that has to match a broadcast raster, use Fixed Resolutions.

Do I lose the raw editing latitude when I convert?

Yes, completely. An .arw stores undeveloped 12- or 14-bit mosaic sensor data, which is why highlights, shadows and white balance are recoverable long after the shot. To be encoded into a transport stream the file must first be demosaiced, and the render bakes in the camera's recorded white balance and produces an 8-bit sRGB frame. Once that frame is inside the .ts the latitude is gone exactly as it would be in a JPEG. Keep the original .arw if you may still want to edit the shot.

Why are there white bars around my photo?

Because a 3:2 photograph does not fill a 16:9 video frame, and rather than stretching or cropping the picture the converter pads the difference with the Background Color — which opens on White. That suits a bright graphic and looks wrong in most playout contexts, so change it to Black or a brand colour before converting. Broadcast slates are routinely letterboxed, so the bars themselves are not a problem; only their colour is.

Which video codec should I leave selected?

H.264, which is what the list opens on. A transport stream is codec-agnostic by design and can carry MPEG-2, H.264 or H.265, but H.264 is the broadest-compatibility choice for transport-stream players and the codec HLS .ts segments historically used. Switch to MPEG-2 if you are feeding a classic DVB or ATSC chain that expects it, or H.265 if the target is a modern decoder. The MPEG-4, DivX and Xvid entries will write, but they are not what a broadcast tool expects to find inside a .ts.

Why would I convert a Sony raw to TS rather than to MP4 or JPG?

Almost always you would not. The honest use cases are narrow: feeding a single frame as a slate or test card into a DVB or ATSC playout system, an IPTV encoder or an older HLS pipeline that segments into .ts, or satisfying a set-top or capture tool that reads only the standard 188-byte stream. For anything you intend to look at or share, ARW to JPG gives you a picture and ARW to MP4 gives you a clip that plays everywhere.

Can I merge several ARW frames into one TS?

Yes. Queue the photographs and leave Merge strategy on "Merge images" — each rendered frame is packetized back to back into a single transport stream in upload order, held for the Image Duration you chose, so the clip's length is that duration multiplied by the file count. "Video per image" instead writes one .ts per photograph, which is often more useful in an edit because each still can then be trimmed and placed independently. Neither mode adds transitions, motion or audio.

Is the TS the same as the MTS my camcorder records?

They are close relatives with different packet framing. A plain .ts uses 188-byte packets as defined in ISO/IEC 13818-1 and is the broadcast and streaming variant; the BDAV variant used on disc media wraps each packet behind a 4-byte arrival-timestamp header for 192 bytes total. On this site, this page and ARW to MTS both write plain 188-byte packets, while ARW to M2TS writes the 192-byte BDAV framing. Renaming a file does not re-frame it, so generate the one your software asks for.

How is my file handled during the conversion?

It is uploaded over an encrypted connection, rendered and packaged into the transport stream on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours along with the clip it produced. There is no sign-up, no watermark, and nothing is shared or made public. Sony raws run to tens of megabytes each while the resulting clip is small — a motionless H.264 frame compresses very heavily — so the upload rather than the encode is what you will spend your time waiting on. Convert in modest batches rather than one long queue.