ICO to MTS Converter

ICO to MTS: Turning an Icon Into an AVCHD-Style Clip

.MTS is the file name AVCHD camcorders give to the MPEG-2 transport streams they record — H.264 video in a broadcast-style wrapper. An ICO is the opposite kind of thing: a Windows icon container holding one small still picture, or the same picture at several sizes, capped at 256×256 pixels. Converting ICO to MTS holds that single frame motionless for a few seconds and writes it as a silent transport stream, which is worth doing for exactly one reason — feeding a logo or icon into an editing, ingest or authoring workflow that only accepts AVCHD-style footage. This page explains what you get, what the settings do and where the conversion stops being the right answer.

How to Convert ICO to MTS

1. Upload Your ICO File: Drag the .ico onto the page or click "Add Files" to browse. You can queue several icons; Merge strategy decides whether they become one clip ("Merge images", the preselected option) or one .MTS per icon ("Video per image").
2. Set the Image Duration: In Advanced Options, open Image Duration and pick a Duration — from a single frame up to 10 seconds per image, with 5 seconds preselected. Nothing moves, so that value is the clip's whole runtime.
3. Choose a Video resolution and Background Color: Video resolution starts on "Keep original"; switch to Fixed Resolutions, Preset Resolutions or Width x Height if the stream must match a specific frame size. Background Color (White by default) fills the icon's transparent pixels and any bars around a square picture in a widescreen frame.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and save the .MTS. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers and deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark.

What an .MTS File Actually Is

Choosing a Resolution That Doesn't Look Blocky

A single picture inside an .ico tops out at 256×256 pixels, and 16×16, 32×32 and 48×48 are far more common. That is a long way below an HD frame, so resolution is the setting that decides whether the clip looks crisp or mushy — nothing in the pipeline can invent detail the icon never had.

• Small placeholder clip: leave Video resolution on "Keep original". The frame matches the icon, the file stays tiny and nothing is enlarged.
• The stream must be 720p or 1080p: choose 1280×720 or 1920×1080 under Preset Resolutions and expect softness — a 32×32 icon stretched to 1920×1080 is being enlarged roughly sixtyfold on each axis. Start from the largest artwork you have.
• Square icon, widescreen frame: the Background Color fills the side bars. Set it to match the icon's own backdrop instead of leaving a white block.
• Keep the codec on H.264. H.265 makes smaller files but is not part of the AVCHD specification and is routinely rejected by the tools that want .MTS in the first place.

Common Errors and How to Fix Them

• "The video looks blocky or blurry." A small icon was scaled to a large frame. Re-run with a resolution closer to the icon's real size, or start from a 256×256 source.
• "There are coloured bars around the icon." A square picture in a 16:9 frame — expected. Set the Background Color to blend them, or choose a square Width x Height.
• "My AVCHD editor won't import it." Check that Video Codec is still H.264; DivX, Xvid, MPEG-4 and H.265 all sit outside the AVCHD spec and are commonly refused.
• "The clip is the wrong length." Adjust Duration under Image Duration; for a still source it is exactly the runtime.
• "There's no sound." Correct, and unavoidable: the source is a picture. AVCHD itself carries audio, but there is nothing here to encode, so the Audio Codec control is not shown.
• "Only part of my icon file was used." The decoder reads the first image stored in the container, not the largest. Re-save the icon as a single-size 256×256 .ico if you want the detailed artwork.

When This Doesn't Work

If you want motion, a single static ICO cannot supply it — build the video from real frames instead, for example with PNG to MP4. If you only need the artwork as a larger flat image, ICO to PNG keeps transparency and every pixel, though the same size ceiling applies. And if nothing in your workflow specifically demands the .MTS extension, ICO to MP4 produces the same still-as-video in a smaller file that plays essentially everywhere. Finally, a file named .ico is sometimes PNG or GIF data with the wrong extension; if the conversion refuses it, re-save it as a genuine icon and try again.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is MTS the same thing as M2TS, and which should I pick?

Same encoded video, different packet framing. Camcorder media use .MTS and a computer's AVCHD folder structure or a Blu-ray disc uses .m2ts, and the extension decides how the transport stream is written: .MTS here is a plain stream of 188-byte packets beginning with the 0x47 sync byte, while ICO to M2TS writes BDAV 192-byte packets that each prefix a 4-byte timestamp header and come out slightly larger. Renaming one to the other does not re-frame it, so choose .MTS when an AVCHD-era editor or authoring template expects that spelling and convert to .m2ts when the tool asks for the four-letter name.

Will the file behave like a real camcorder clip on an SD card?

No. What you download is the bare transport stream — the part that lives inside an AVCHD card's BDMV/STREAM/ folder — without the playlist and clip-information files a camcorder writes alongside it. Copying it to a card will not produce a browsable AVCHD volume. It does play in software players such as VLC and imports into AVCHD-aware editors, which build the surrounding structure themselves.

Why is my ICO to MTS clip so small or low resolution?

Because the source is an icon, and because the decoder takes the first picture stored in the container rather than the largest. In our testing, an icon file holding 16, 32, 48 and 256 pixel versions was read at 16×16 — the first entry written into the file. The clip inherits that size unless you enlarge it under Video resolution, and enlarging only magnifies existing pixels, so for the sharpest result re-save the icon as a single 256×256 .ico first.

Does the MTS actually move, or is it one frozen frame?

One frozen frame, held for the duration you set. A standard ICO contains no animation, so the output is a single unchanging picture for the whole clip. That is exactly what you want for a slate, a logo card or a gap-filler on a timeline, and exactly what you do not want if you were expecting an animated logo.

Which codec should I leave it on for an AVCHD workflow?

H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC), which is preselected. AVCHD was built around H.264, so it imports most cleanly into AVCHD editors and authoring templates and plays on the widest range of older hardware. H.265 is offered in the Video Codec dropdown and produces smaller files, but it is not part of the AVCHD specification and many of the tools that ask for .MTS will refuse it.

What happens to the icon's transparent background?

It is filled with the Background Color, White by default. Video formats have no alpha channel, so transparency cannot be carried into a transport stream at all — the choice is only which colour replaces it. If the clip will be cut over a dark background, set that colour before converting.

Can I convert a whole folder of icons into one clip?

Yes. Upload them together and leave Merge strategy on "Merge images" to get a single .MTS in which each icon holds for its own duration, or switch to "Video per image" to get one file per icon. Upload order is the order they appear.

How are my uploaded files handled?

Your .ico is uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers and deleted automatically after a few hours. There is no sign-up, no watermark, and nothing is shared or made public.