Publisher to MTS Converter

Convert Publisher (.pub) to MTS

MTS is the camcorder-facing face of MPEG-2 Transport Stream — the container Sony, Panasonic and Canon consumer camcorders write to SD cards, and the one a lot of editing suites and set-top players expect when they say "AVCHD". Turning a Microsoft Publisher document into .mts gives you a video slide of every page, in a container that drops straight into a timeline alongside camcorder footage.

The conversion reads the .pub with LibreOffice's Draw component (the libmspub importer), renders each page at 300 DPI, then encodes the page images as a silent slideshow. The default codec is H.264, which is the right answer for .mts — the other entries in the dropdown exist for the container, not for this source.

How to Convert Publisher to MTS

1. Upload Your Publisher File: Drag your .pub onto the page or click "+ Add Files". Every page in the publication becomes one frame of the finished video.
2. Set Image Duration: This is the control that matters most. It opens at 5 seconds per page, and the dropdown runs from a single frame (1/60s) up to 10 seconds. A four-page newsletter at the default becomes a 20-second video.
3. Leave Video Codec on H.264 and Pick a Video Resolution: H.264 is preselected and is the only codec here that both fits inside an MPEG-2 Transport Stream cleanly and handles a full-resolution page. "Video resolution" opens on "Keep original"; switch to a Fixed Resolution such as 1920 x 1080 if the file has to match camcorder footage.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert". Files upload over an encrypted connection, are processed on our servers, and are deleted automatically after a few hours. No sign-up, no watermark.

What the Encoder Actually Does

At 300 DPI an A4 page renders to 2481 x 3508 pixels and is even-rounded to 2480 x 3508 before encoding. A page longer than about 13.6 inches crosses the 4096-pixel ceiling and is scaled down to fit it, so Legal and Tabloid publications lose some render detail at "Keep original".

.mts Is Not the Same Thing as .m2ts

This trips people up constantly, because both extensions carry the same H.264 elementary stream. The difference is packet framing, and ffmpeg decides it from the output extension:

We verified this by encoding the same frames twice: the .mts file begins 47 40 11 10 … and its length is an exact multiple of 188, while the .m2ts file begins 0e bf 46 22 47 … and is an exact multiple of 192. So an .mts from this converter is a plain transport stream. It is also not a disc: a real AVCHD volume needs a BDMV/STREAM directory layout and Dolby Digital or LPCM audio, and this output is a single silent file. If you specifically need the 192-byte BDAV framing, use Publisher to M2TS instead.

Codec Choices, and the One That Fails

The dropdown lists DivX, H.264, H.265, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and Xvid. On a still-image source they do not all behave:

• H.264 (default) — correct choice. Handles the full 2480 x 3508 page and is what every .mts reader expects.
• H.265 — encodes fine and is smaller, but the .mts extension implies AVCHD to most players, and AVCHD readers do not decode HEVC. Only pick it if you control the player.
• MPEG-2 — works, and is the classic transport-stream codec, but the file comes out several times larger than H.264 for the same page.
• MPEG-1 — fails on this source. MPEG-1 accepts only a fixed set of broadcast frame rates and this pipeline encodes stills at 1 fps, which is not among them, so the encoder refuses to open. Choose anything else.
• MPEG-4 / Xvid / DivX — these are capped at 2048 pixels per side by our encoder settings, so a full-resolution page is scaled down to roughly 1448 x 2048 before encoding. They also ignore the Quality Preset on a still source (see below).

Rate control: Quality Preset is the default mode and it is translated into a codec-aware CRF for H.264 and H.265 — the "Very High" tier sits around CRF 18 at 1080p and shifts up slightly for larger frames. On the non-CRF codecs (MPEG-1/2/4, Xvid, DivX) that translation scales the source bitrate instead, and a still image has no source bitrate, so the preset does nothing there. On those codecs use Constraint Quality and set a Max bitrate — that is the mode that reliably reaches the encoder.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the output silent?

Because there is no audio anywhere in the pipeline. A Publisher document has no sound track, and the audio-codec control is hidden on every image-to-video page for that reason. The result is a single video stream with no audio stream at all — not a silent audio track, but none. If a downstream tool insists on an audio track, add one after the fact in an editor.

How long will my video be?

Pages multiplied by Image Duration. A six-page brochure at the default 5 seconds per page produces a 30-second video. There is no separate total-length control, so if you want a specific runtime, divide it by the page count and pick the nearest Image Duration value.

Why is the frame rate 1 fps, and can I raise it?

Every frame is a static page, so encoding at 1 fps stores one picture per page instead of twenty-five identical copies of it — the file is dramatically smaller and looks exactly the same. There is no frame-rate control on this page. If you need a conventional 25 or 30 fps file for an editor that rejects 1 fps material, re-encode the finished .mts with a normal frame rate.

Will an AVCHD camcorder or Blu-ray player accept this file?

Playback of the stream itself is likely on anything that reads H.264 in transport streams. Being recognised as AVCHD is a different question: that requires the BDAV 192-byte framing, a BDMV directory structure and AC-3 or LPCM audio. This is a plain 188-byte transport stream with no audio, so treat it as an .mts-named video file rather than as camcorder media.

What resolution do the pages come out at?

At "Keep original", the 300 DPI render — 2480 x 3508 for an A4 page, 2550 x 3300 for US Letter — capped so that neither side exceeds 4096 pixels. That is a portrait frame, which looks wrong in a 16:9 timeline. If the video will sit alongside landscape footage, pick a Fixed Resolution such as 1920 x 1080; the page is then fitted inside the frame and the empty space is filled with the Background Color.

Why is my page letterboxed with white bars?

Because Background Color defaults to White on image sources and a portrait page does not fill a landscape frame. Change Background Color to Black (or any of the other colours in the dropdown) if white bars look wrong against your other footage. The same colour is used for any transparent area in the original artwork, since no video codec can store an alpha channel.

Should I use MTS at all, or is MP4 a better target?

For anything that is not going into a camcorder-oriented workflow, MP4 is the better container — same H.264 stream, far better support in browsers, phones and web players. .mts earns its place when an editor or player specifically expects transport-stream files from AVCHD media. Publisher to MP4 produces the same slideshow in the friendlier container.

What happens to my Publisher file after the conversion?

It is uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours — never shared, never made public, and no account is required. The output is not watermarked. If you need the pages as still images rather than as video, Publisher to TIFF renders each page at the same 300 DPI.