AVCHD to AVI Converter

How to Convert AVCHD to AVI Online

1. Upload Your AVCHD File: Drag and drop or click "+ Add Files" to select.mts or.m2ts clips from a Sony, Panasonic, Canon, or JVC camcorder. Batch is supported — drop a whole AVCHD/STREAM folder and they queue together.
2. Pick a Quality Preset: Default is "Very High (Recommended)". Drop to High or Medium if the source is already 17–24 Mbit/s and you want a smaller AVI. Switch to "Constant Quality" (CRF) for visually lossless re-encodes (CRF 18) or fine-tune with "Constant Bitrate" / "Variable Bitrate" / "Constraint Quality" / "Specific file size" in MB.
3. Set Resolution and Trim (Optional): Under "Video resolution" keep the original 1920×1080 / 1280×720, pick a preset (1080p, 720p, 480p), enter a custom Width × Height, or scale by Resolution Percentage. Under "Trim" set a Time Range to cut a clip out of a long camcorder recording.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert". Files run on our servers — no sign-up, no watermark, no sign-up.

Why Convert AVCHD to AVI?

AVCHD is the format Sony and Panasonic announced jointly in May 2006 and licensed from July 2006 for HD camcorders — H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video plus Dolby AC-3 (or linear PCM) audio inside an MPEG-2 transport stream, written as .mts or .m2ts. Original AVCHD caps at 24 Mbit/s; the 2011 "AVCHD Progressive" amendment added 1080/50p and 1080/60p at up to 28 Mbit/s. The format produces excellent quality at low bit rates, but the transport-stream container and consumer-camcorder folder layout (BDMV/STREAM) trip up older editors.

AVI is the opposite end of the timeline — Microsoft released it in November 1992 as part of Video for Windows, built on the RIFF chunk structure. It is intentionally codec-agnostic: the container holds whatever the codec writes, which is why it still works in software written before MP4 existed. Converting AVCHD to AVI is a deliberate compatibility downshift, useful when:

• Legacy editors that pre-date AVCHD support — Windows Movie Maker, older versions of Pinnacle Studio, Magix Movie Edit Pro, and some pre-2010 Sony Vegas builds either reject .mts outright or stutter on long-GOP H.264; an AVI re-wrap with a codec they recognise (Xvid, DivX, Cinepak, or uncompressed) lets them import cleanly.
• Industrial / kiosk / signage hardware — older Windows-based digital-signage players, CNC monitor PCs, museum kiosks and lab playback setups often only accept AVI input.
• Avisynth and VirtualDub workflows — both tools were built around AVI; frame-accurate editing, deinterlacing, and filter chains run natively when the source is AVI rather than .mts.
• DVD authoring on older suites — Nero Vision, Roxio Creator, and similar pre-Blu-ray DVD authors expect AVI/MPEG, not AVCHD.
• Forensic, archival, and broadcast-ingest pipelines — many in-house systems were standardised on AVI containers years ago and the conversion saves rebuilding the toolchain.
• Salvaging clips from old camcorders — pulling clips off an HDR-CX, FDR-AX, HC-V, VIXIA, LEGRIA or Everio that records to AVCHD and feeding them to whatever editor the user already owns.

If your goal is just modern playback or web upload, AVCHD to MP4 or AVCHD to MOV is the better path; choose AVI only when you specifically need the AVI container.

AVCHD vs AVI — Format Comparison

Codec & Quality Picker

Frequently Asked Questions

Why won't Windows Movie Maker open my.mts file even though it lists AVCHD as supported?

Microsoft documented limited AVCHD support in Movie Maker but the long-GOP H.264 decoder it shipped with was unreliable on real-world camcorder transport streams; many users hit "can't import" or freezes. Re-wrapping the H.264 video into an AVI (or transcoding to a simpler codec like Xvid) sidesteps the decoder entirely and the clip imports as a regular AVI.

Which codec inside the AVI should I use for an old Sony Vegas project?

Sony Vegas Pro builds before roughly v10 (2010) handle Xvid and DivX MPEG-4 ASP cleanly. For Vegas 10 onward, H.264-in-AVI works but adds nothing over MP4. If the project still uses an older build, pick Xvid for the best size/quality balance, or MJPEG if the editor needs intra-frame editing.

My converted AVI is bigger than the original.mts — is that normal?

Yes, depending on the codec. AVCHD's H.264 encoder is highly efficient (24 Mbit/s 1080p looks like 50+ Mbit/s in older codecs). An AVI written with Xvid or DivX at equal visual quality is typically 1.3–2× the size of the AVCHD source. Picking H.264-in-AVI keeps the size similar but loses most of the legacy-compatibility benefit you came for.

Can I convert a whole AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM folder of .mts clips at once?

Yes — drag the individual .mts files into the page and they queue as a batch. Many camcorders split a long recording into 2 GB segments at the FAT32 boundary; you'll get one AVI per .mts segment. To stitch them into one continuous AVI, run them through a join step in your editor afterwards, or use a join tool before conversion.

Does the conversion preserve the AC-3 surround audio from my camcorder?

Audio is re-encoded as part of the conversion. If the source carries 5.1 AC-3 (some Panasonic and Canon prosumer camcorders do), the AVI output stream is mixed/encoded based on the chosen audio settings — the converter typically targets a stereo track for compatibility. If you specifically need surround preserved, MOV or MKV containers are a better destination than AVI.

Will I lose interlacing information from a 1080i AVCHD source?

The source is decoded as 1080i; what happens next depends on your settings. If you keep the original resolution and don't deinterlace, the AVI carries interlaced frames (some editors handle them, others don't). For modern editing, deinterlacing to 1080p before encoding usually looks better and avoids combing artifacts on progressive displays.

How do I trim out just one shot from a long camcorder recording?

Use the Trim → Time Range control in step 3. Enter a start time and an end time and the converter writes only that segment to the AVI. This is faster than a full re-encode of the whole tape and is the simplest way to pull individual scenes out of a 30-minute camcorder reel.

Is AVI still a sensible target in 2026, or should I pick something else?

AVI is reasonable when the destination tool, hardware, or pipeline specifically requires it — legacy editors, kiosks, broadcast ingest, AviSynth/VirtualDub. For everything else (web, mobile, modern editors, streaming), AVCHD to MP4 is more efficient, supports modern audio codecs cleanly, and produces smaller files. If you only need to shrink the original, Compress AVCHD keeps the native container.

Is the conversion private?

Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared. No watermark is applied, no sign-up is required, and the page does not retain your AVCHD or AVI files after conversion. If you also need to convert from .mts directly, MTS to AVI and M2TS to AVI target the same container.