Convert TS to APNG Online

TS to APNG Converter

A .ts file is an MPEG transport stream — the wrapper broadcast, DVR and streaming systems use to carry video, audio and timing data as a continuous, self-synchronising byte stream. An APNG is the opposite kind of object: a single still-image file that happens to contain several frames and a delay between them, playable inline on a web page with no player, no plugin and no controls. This converter bridges the two by decoding the transport stream to individual frames and reassembling those frames as one animated PNG.

MPEG-TS Format at a Glance

APNG Format at a Glance

How to Convert TS to APNG

1. Upload Your TS File: Drag your .ts transport stream onto the page or use the file picker. Broadcast recordings, DVR captures and downloaded HLS segments all work.
2. Set the Framerate: In Advanced Options, the Framerate dropdown opens on "10 FPS (Recommended)" and runs from "1 FPS (Slideshow)" to "50 FPS (Max Speed)". This is the rate frames are sampled at and the rate they play back at, so the animation keeps real-time speed.
3. Set Image resolution: It starts on "Keep original". Choose Preset Resolutions, Width, Height, Width x Height or Resolution Percentage to scale the frames down — this is the biggest lever on the final file size, and the only way to fix an anamorphic broadcast frame.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and save the animated PNG. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours. No sign-up, no watermark.

What the Converter Does to Your Transport Stream

The stream is decoded to a run of full-colour PNG frames at the framerate you chose, and those frames are assembled into one APNG with an exact 1/N-second delay each and a loop count of zero, which the specification defines as "loop forever". A final Zopfli optimisation pass squeezes the result without touching a pixel.

Three consequences follow from that, and all three are worth knowing before you convert:

• The whole file is converted. There is no trim control on this page, so a 40-minute broadcast capture becomes 40 minutes of stored frames. Cut the segment you want first with the video cutter, which accepts .ts directly, and convert the short result.
• Interlacing is not removed. Broadcast TS is frequently 1080i or 576i, and no deinterlacing filter is applied anywhere in the pipeline, so the comb lines on moving edges are decoded exactly as recorded and baked into every frame. Deinterlace before uploading if the source is interlaced.
• Anamorphic frames stay anamorphic. PNG has no concept of non-square pixels. A 720×576 DVB capture flagged 16:9 carries a 64:45 sample aspect ratio, so its frames land as literal 720×576 pixels and look horizontally squashed. Fix it by choosing Width x Height explicitly — 1024×576 for 16:9 PAL, 854×480 for 16:9 NTSC — rather than a height preset, which preserves the stored geometry rather than the intended display geometry.

Need a different target? TS to GIF trades colour depth for universal compatibility, and TS to MP4 keeps the audio and produces a dramatically smaller file for anything longer than a few seconds.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the audio in my transport stream survive?

No. APNG is an image format with no audio track of any kind, so the AC-3, AAC or MPEG Layer II track in your .ts file is discarded during conversion. If the soundtrack is what you actually need, keep the material as video with TS to MP4 and extract or trim the audio from there.

How long can the source clip be?

Technically as long as you like, practically a few seconds. Because every frame is stored in full with no motion prediction between frames, file size grows close to linearly with duration. Running the same extraction-and-assembly steps over a five-second 854×480 synthetic test pattern at the default 10 FPS produced a 50-frame APNG of roughly 3.6 MB from an 832 KB transport stream — about 4.3 times larger, and a detailed pattern like that is close to the worst case. Ten seconds would roughly double it. Trim first, then convert.

Why does my 16:9 broadcast recording look squashed?

Because standard-definition and some HD broadcast streams store non-square pixels: a 720×576 PAL frame flagged 16:9 has a 64:45 sample aspect ratio that the player stretches at display time. PNG frames are always square-pixel, so the stored geometry is what you get. Choose Width x Height under Image resolution and enter the display dimensions — 1024×576 for 16:9 PAL, 854×480 for 16:9 NTSC — and the frames come out correctly proportioned.

Will the APNG have transparency?

Not from a transport stream. The frame pipeline preserves an alpha channel when the source has one, but MPEG-2, H.264 and HEVC as carried in a .ts file have no alpha to preserve, so the output is fully opaque. APNG's 8-bit alpha only matters here if you plan to mask or composite the loop afterwards in an editor.

How many times does the finished animation loop?

Forever. The acTL chunk is written with a play count of zero, which the PNG specification defines as infinite repetition, and there is no loop-count control on this page. If you need a play-once file you will have to rewrite that chunk with a dedicated APNG tool, or use a video target where repetition is the player's decision.

Is the framerate the source rate or a resample?

A resample. Choosing 10 FPS decodes ten frames per second of source regardless of whether the stream was recorded at 25, 29.97, 50 or 59.94 — a 25 fps source at 10 FPS keeps roughly two frames in five. Because the same rate is used for both sampling and playback delay, the result still runs at real-time speed; it simply looks less fluid than the original. Raising the framerate raises the frame count and therefore the file size at close to the same ratio.

My source is HDR. Will the colours look right?

Probably not. No tone-mapping is applied anywhere in the pipeline, so a PQ or HLG high-dynamic-range broadcast capture receives a plain colour conversion into 8-bit sRGB and usually comes out flat and washed out. Tone-map to SDR before uploading if the source is HDR — there is no setting on this page that compensates for it.

Why is my APNG bigger than a GIF made from the same clip?

Because APNG keeps 24-bit colour and stores every frame losslessly, while GIF quantises each frame down to at most 256 colours before compressing it. Video frames are noisy and photographic, which is the worst possible input for PNG's lossless filtering, so an APNG built from a broadcast capture is normally the larger of the two. That is the trade you made on purpose: no palette banding and no hard-edged 1-bit transparency. If size wins, TS to GIF is the alternative.