RW2 to MPEG-2 Converter

RW2 to MPEG-2: A Modern Raw Meets a 1995 Codec

RW2 is Panasonic's current Lumix raw format, and the sensors behind it are large — 18, 20, 24 megapixels and up. MPEG-2 is a video codec finalised as ITU-T H.262 in July 1995 for standard-definition television. Converting one to the other works, but the mismatch has consequences you should know about before you click Convert: there is a hard pixel ceiling on the way in, a resolution ceiling on the way out if the file has to play on hardware, and a set of quality controls that do nothing on this target.

How to Convert RW2 to MPEG-2

1. Upload Your RW2 File: Drag the .rw2 onto the page or click "+ Add Files". This page accepts .rw2 only, and several files can be queued together. Everything is uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared or made public.
2. Choose a Video resolution: "Keep original" encodes at the decoded raw size, "Preset Resolutions" fixes a height and derives the width from the sensor's 4:3 or 3:2 shape, and "Fixed Resolutions" or "Width x Height" take exact numbers. This is the only control that changes the encoded bitrate.
3. Set Image Duration and Background Color (Optional): Image Duration holds each picture for anything from a single frame at 60 fps up to ten seconds; without a choice it is five seconds. Background Color paints letterbox or pillarbox bars and starts on White.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert. With multiple raws queued, Merge strategy chooses between one concatenated slideshow ("Merge images") and one clip per file ("Video per image").

The Two Ceilings a Large Sensor Runs Into

Before encoding: 4096 pixels. Every image is normalised to a clean PNG before it reaches the encoder, and that step clamps the long edge to 4096 pixels. A modern Lumix raw is usually above that. Our Panasonic DC-FZ80 sample decodes to 4912 × 3688 and comes out of normalisation at 4094 × 3074 — a proportional reduction, not a crop. On older Lumix bodies with smaller sensors the clamp never fires.

After encoding: what hardware will accept. The stream we write is a valid MPEG-2 bitstream at whatever size you asked for, but MPEG-2's Main Profile at High Level stops at 1920 × 1152. A 4094 × 3074 clip plays in VLC and ffmpeg-based software and in nothing else. If the destination is a DVD authoring tool, a broadcast ingest desk or a set-top player, type 720 × 480 (NTSC) or 720 × 576 (PAL) into "Width x Height".

The size difference between those two choices is large. The FZ80 sample at full 4094 × 3074 produced a 3,776,512-byte file for a five-second clip; the same picture at 766 × 576 came back at 235,520 bytes — sixteen times smaller, and playable on hardware. How steep that ratio is depends on the picture, since a detailed frame costs the encoder more at every size.

RW2 vs MPEG-2

What Each Control Does on This Page

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my output smaller than the raw's stated resolution?

Because of the 4096-pixel normalisation clamp. Anything longer than 4096 pixels on its long edge is scaled proportionally before encoding, so a 4912 × 3688 Lumix frame becomes 4094 × 3074. The aspect ratio is preserved and nothing is cropped. Below that threshold the raw's own dimensions are used unchanged.

Why does the Quality Preset make no difference?

MPEG-2 has no constant-quality mode, so the preset falls back to scaling the source video's bitrate — and a still photograph has no source bitrate. Constant Quality and Constraint Quality are rewritten as ordinary bitrate requests and then replaced by a minimum calculated from the output frame size. Resolution is the only lever on this page that changes the size of the file.

Why does the format say TIFF but nothing with a TIFF parser opens it?

Because Panasonic changed the magic number. A standard TIFF begins II*\0 or MM\0*; an RW2 begins IIU\0 — we confirmed that byte pattern on the DC-FZ80 file we tested. The rest of the structure is TIFF-shaped, but the four bytes a parser checks first do not match, so a generic TIFF reader rejects the file before it gets anywhere. Only software that specifically knows about RW2 will open one.

Is the output silent?

Yes, and there is no way to change that. Raw photographs carry no sound, so the Audio Codec group is suppressed on image-to-video pages and the file contains exactly one stream. That also means the .mpeg2 cannot afterwards be run through an audio extractor — a file without an audio stream fails outright rather than producing a silent track.

Do the pillarbox bars have to be white?

No. White is simply where the Background Color option starts on image sources. Pick any of the other entries in the dropdown — Black is the sensible choice for television playback. The bars only exist when the output frame is a different shape from the raw; "Keep original" and the height presets both follow the picture's own aspect ratio and produce no bars at all.

Can I put a whole card of raws into one video?

Yes. Queue the files and leave Merge strategy on "Merge images"; each raw becomes a held segment and the clip runs for the number of files multiplied by the Image Duration. Encoding happens at one frame per second, so a hundred raws at two seconds each is a 200-second video.

Does MPEG-2 handle the highlight range a raw file holds?

No. A raw stores 12 or more bits per channel of linear sensor data; the encode demosaics it, converts to 8-bit 4:2:0 and compresses. Nothing about the format preserves headroom for later exposure recovery. If that matters, develop the raw first — RW2 to TIFF keeps far more of it — and convert to video afterwards.

What if I just want a normal video file?

Use RW2 to MP4. It behaves the same way but writes H.264, which is a fraction of the size at matching quality and plays in every browser and on every phone. MPEG-2 is worth choosing only when something downstream specifically requires it.