MPG to MTS Converter

Convert MPG to MTS: What This Tutorial Covers

This is a niche conversion, so it is worth saying who it is for. .mts is the extension AVCHD camcorders write to their memory cards, and the only good reason to turn a legacy MPG into one is that some AVCHD-era editor, disc-authoring tool or hardware deck only auto-detects footage in that shape. If you want a file that plays everywhere, MPG to MP4 is the right target, and if you arrived here with the conversion backwards, MTS to MPG goes the other way. This tutorial covers the conversion itself, the two settings that decide whether an AVCHD tool accepts the result, and the limits of what a single file can be.

How to Convert MPG to MTS

1. Upload Your MPG File: Drag and drop your .mpg or .mpeg file, or click "Add Files" to browse. Both extensions name the same MPEG program stream, and a batch of ripped segments can be queued and converted with one set of settings.
2. Keep Video Codec on H.264 and switch Audio Codec to AC3: H.264 is already selected and is the only codec AVCHD permits, so leave it. The Audio Codec dropdown opens on AAC, which AVCHD does not permit — change it to AC3 if anything downstream validates against the spec. The other entries are H.265, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX and Xvid for video, and DTS, EAC3, MP2 and MP3 for audio.
3. Set File Compression and Video Resolution: File Compression opens on Quality Preset at "Very High (Recommended)". Constant Quality gives you the CRF slider (16–51, starting at 23 on H.264); Constant Bitrate or Constraint Quality is the better choice if a downstream tool enforces a bitrate ceiling. Leave Video Resolution on "Keep original" — the presets are height-only and upscaling an SD rip invents nothing.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and save the .mts. Files upload over an encrypted connection, are processed on our servers, and are deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark.

Walk-through: Making the Output Actually AVCHD-Legal

Two things decide whether an AVCHD-aware tool takes the file, and only one of them is set correctly by default. The video codec is fine as shipped — AVCHD requires H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and that is what this page selects, so the other entries in that dropdown are there because a transport stream can technically carry them, not because an AVCHD tool will accept them. The audio codec is the one you have to change.

For a standard-definition source, Constant Quality around CRF 18–20 leaves no visible second-generation loss, and at the default preset the encoder is already conservative: H.264's "Very High" tier resolves to CRF 18 at a 1080p reference and drops two steps for a smaller frame, so a 720×480 rip encodes at CRF 16.

What You Get Is a Transport Stream, Not an AVCHD Volume

The practical consequence: the download imports into AVCHD-aware software such as tsMuxeR, multiAVCHD or an older Sony/Panasonic PC suite, which build the surrounding structure for you. Copying it onto an SD card by itself will not produce a volume a camera can browse.

Common Errors and How to Fix Them

• "The editor imports the video but reports invalid audio" — the AAC default. Re-run with Audio Codec set to AC3.
• "My authoring tool rejects the clip outright" — usually a non-AVCHD codec or an out-of-spec frame size. Confirm Video Codec is H.264 and the frame is 1080p or smaller.
• "The picture is soft after I chose 1080p" — you upscaled a standard-definition rip. Set Video Resolution back to "Keep original"; enlarging adds pixels, not detail.
• "The output has no sound" — the source .mpg had no audio elementary stream, or its track failed to decode. Play the original first and confirm it has sound.
• "The file is bigger than the MPG it came from" — expected when the preset targets a conservative CRF. Use Constant Bitrate or Specific file size if a size budget matters more than fidelity.
• "My commentary track vanished" — only one audio stream survives, and with no track picker the one with the most channels wins (lowest index on a tie).

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the .mts file this produces a genuine AVCHD file?

It is a genuine MPEG transport stream carrying H.264, named with the extension AVCHD tools look for — which is enough for most editors to auto-detect it, and not enough to make it an AVCHD volume. Real AVCHD media carries a BDMV directory tree inherited from the Blu-ray specification, with clip information and playlist files alongside the streams; a single downloaded file has none of that. Tools like tsMuxeR and multiAVCHD exist precisely to build that structure around a stream you supply.

Which audio codec should I pick for an AVCHD workflow?

AC3. The AVCHD specification permits Dolby Digital (AC-3) or uncompressed linear PCM, and this page defaults to AAC, which is outside the spec. Most editors will still decode an AAC track — transport streams carry AAC perfectly well — but a strict validator, a disc-authoring template or a hardware deck can refuse it. Since LPCM is not among this target's audio options, AC3 is the one spec-legal choice available, and it costs nothing to select.

What is the difference between .mts and .m2ts, and which do I get?

They are the same H.264 elementary stream wrapped two different ways, which is why "just rename it" advice is only half right. This page produces plain 188-byte transport-stream packets. An .m2ts file uses BDAV framing: each 188-byte packet gets a 4-byte arrival-timestamp prefix, making 192-byte packets, which is what Blu-ray and AVCHD structures store. The muxer chooses framing from the output extension, so if your downstream tool specifically wants BDAV packets, convert to MPG to M2TS rather than renaming this file.

Does MTS support Full HD, and what is the bitrate ceiling?

Yes to 1920×1080. AVCHD 1.0 caps video at 24 Mbit/s on flash and hard-disk media and 18 Mbit/s on DVD; the later AVCHD Progressive revision raised the ceiling to 28 Mbit/s and added progressive 1080p modes. For a DVD- or VCD-sourced MPG those ceilings are academic — the source is standard definition running at a few megabits — so aim at matching the source rather than filling the envelope.

Will converting to MTS make my old footage HD?

No. This is a lossy-to-lossy re-encode from MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 to H.264, and no codec can reconstruct detail the original encoder discarded. A 720×480 or 720×576 source stays standard definition in every meaningful sense; selecting a 1080p preset stretches it across more pixels and usually looks worse, not better, because scaling amplifies the existing compression artefacts. What you gain from this conversion is compatibility with AVCHD tooling, nothing else.

Why does the converted clip still show combing, and why did my DVD rip go squashed?

Two separate legacy problems, both inherited from the source. Combing on horizontal motion means the source is interlaced, as most DVD and broadcast MPG is; nothing in this pipeline deinterlaces it, so the fields carry across untouched — you need a desktop tool with a yadif or bwdif filter before upload. Squashing comes from anamorphic pixels: DVD material stores a 720-wide frame with a non-square pixel aspect and a flag telling the player to stretch it. Any resize here inserts a scaling step that normalises pixels to square and drops that flag. Either leave Video Resolution on "Keep original", or use Width x Height and type the display dimensions yourself — 854×480 for 16:9 NTSC, 1024×576 for 16:9 PAL.

Can I convert several ripped segments and join them into one clip?

You can convert them in one batch, but they come back as separate files — this page converts, it does not concatenate. Transport streams are unusually forgiving about being joined end to end, so a same-settings batch can often be concatenated afterwards with a tool such as tsMuxeR, provided every segment shares a codec, resolution and frame rate. If joining is the actual goal and AVCHD compatibility is not, converting each piece to MP4 and merging there is a far less fragile route.

How are my files handled during conversion?

Your upload travels over an encrypted connection, is converted on our servers, and both the upload and the finished .mts are deleted automatically after a few hours. Nothing is shared or made public, there is no sign-up and no watermark. The real constraint on a long capture is upload size and time over your own connection — if you only need one segment, trimming the source first with Video Cutter shrinks the upload considerably.