How to convert MTS files

Welcome to the forums.

May be some people here have some experience and have found some solutions?

AVCHD can work with the lastest iMovie and FCExpress 4 directly.
There will be a learning curve wherever you start.

Al

I had a problem with my sd card in with i've rec some videos with my AVCHD cam. After it I've recovered some .mts files but now they are on my hdd. With iMovie08 or FCE I only could import directly from the cam. I've find a program -voltaicHD- that convert that files to .mov and then you can work with them. But it cost 30$ and it's a pity that iMovie or FCE don't have this option because voltaic use their codecs.

VoltaicHD from shedworx.com will convert .mts files on a Mac. You don't need to have the files in the original folder structure either. Just drag and drop a file into voltaic and hit start. Expect to wait a loooooonnnnnnngggggg time for really huge gigabite files. Hours and hours. But, they will convert.

I've been trying to convert a 2 MB file with VoltaicHD for 30 minutes! I'm using the trial software, why doesn't it work for me?

Does Roxio Toast 9 really work? I hate to spend the $70 and have it fail!

I'm using VoltaicHD too. Takes a long time, but it is working. If you don't want to spend the $30, then there seem to be people thathave figured it out for Linux and Mac over here:

http://www.fsckin.com/2008/01/03/transcoding-mtsm2ts-avchd-video-files-with-free -software/

hi i have the latest imovie installed but cannot read/play the mts files generated by my sony hdr-cx7. an you please give me some additional help. my email is maurizio_bussi@yahoo.it

many thanks

maurizio

Here's a great solution using Roxio Toast 9 (it's available as a download purchase for immediate use). Drag your mts files into Roxio Toast and burn a DVD-Video of them (don't make a data file). Roxio will convert them to a video format. You can play this video on your television.

But, you want to be able to edit the files, which are now in a standard video format. Roxio Toast can then be used to extract the video and audio files out as editable audio. And, it's fast.

Previously I used Voltaic and one 4 gig MTS file took over 17 hours to process, and then it would only play the audio on the last 10 minutes (Voltaic won't process the video after a certain number of gigabytes). Using Roxio Toast I burnt a Video-DVD and then extract an edible version in less than an hour.

When importing .mts files saved from your camera to iMovie.

Use Toast 9 with HD plugins:
Save the raw .mts files as a disk image to your desktop. When the image is finished double click the saved disk image icon on the desktop, make sure you already have iMovie open, (btw toast will be open as well since you've created a toast disk image, file extension should be .toast) iMovie then thinks your disk image is a camera, automatically creates clips and opens the import menu with five minute clips. Select your clips and import. Works every time.

Cheers,
Hewston

Message was edited by: Hewston

Interesting. In all my research to a solution, this is the first time someone has mentioned Handbrake. I will definitely give that a go. I'll let you know how it works out.

To answer RoryandCari, other than gstoner's suggestion, I haven't found any other solution, except using my Intel Mac at work to download and convert through iMovie. Which by the way does a very good job in terms of speed of download and quality of conversion.

I have actually decided to bite the bullet, and dish out some cash for a Mac Pro Quad 8. I justified it as an investment to my work, and to get future proofed. Gets delivered tomorrow. But I will still test the Handbrake suggestion.

So I tried the latest version of Handbrake. It recognizes .mts files and can convert it to m4v, avi, mkv, and omg. I converted to m4v (H.264). It does the job ok, and pretty quick by video conversion standard (a 200MB mts file took about 4 min to convert). At such a small conversion size (13.8MB) the quality is not bad, but only if you view the full 1920 x 1080 at half the size. At full 1920 x 1080 you can see the quality degradation. iMovie converts mts files at about half the size of 1920 x 1080. But the quality is so much better. It retains pretty much all the details of the original mts file. Which means it will look better when viewed on an HDTV, burned on a normal DVD. I'm sure the quality would look better if it was burned as a true Blu-ray format.

IMO, if you don't have an Intel Mac, don't require large format videos (920 x 518 or smaller), and you don't mind loosing some details, then I recommend Handbrake. It does the best job in it's class. Other than that, you'll have to get an Intel Mac and use iMovie.

I have Sony HDR-SR12 camera here, Honestly, You do need high end intel, not G4/G5 or minimac/early iMac as they don't have the "power" to perform fast enough. If you're complaining, you might consider getting Mac Pro to do the job fast enough.
I'm using Intel E8500 hackintosh here, and to convert video in VolaicHD and to convert 1gb takes 15minutes to convert. (even my G5 Dual 1.8 is still slow enough and takes 3-4x longer than hackintosh)
Also toast works as well and latest version of iMovie can load them aswell..
Cheers
Tristan

iMovie foes not play/convert individual .mts files; it needs the complete folder structure from the camcorder to interpret them. Then it converts them to AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) which is more editing-friendly. You have to convert individual files to use them. Use MPEG Streamclip (free) to convert them to AIC.

Or import direct from the camera and have iMovie do the conversion for you.

I have same problem and managed to convert with Toast. Is MPEG streamclip any better? I have downloaded it but found I have to buy Quicktime mpeg coder as well. Although it is not that expensive there is little point if it does not produce a better result than Toast.

If you want a fast convert to a H 264 file use either of these.
http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/compresshd/
http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/Turbo264HD/product1.en.html

If you have a Mac with descent graphics card, you can wait until Snow Leopard hits the streets. In theory, OpenCL should support hardware acceleration of H 264 encoding onto the graphics card. Similar sets up on the Windows side, using NVIDIA hardware saw something like a 7X speed increase.

Although my post is too late, I hope it could be of some help to you.

To the question you asked, you can just use a MTS/M2TS Converter for Mac program to solve it.

And I am glad to share this nice program with you: Pavtube MTS/M2TS Converter for Mac.

I just found it a few days ago through google search. It can help the people who are using the AVCHD digital camcorders including Canon HF S11 and HF 21 to edit and convert their high definition record videos (*.mts or *.m2ts) to other video and audio formats, such as MP4, 3GP, 3G2 AVI, MPG. MOV, MKV, AVI, FLV, VOB, SWF, MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, AC3, M4A, MP3, WAV etc.
For more information please refer to: http://www.pavtube.com/mts-converter-mac/

I prefer the program as its after-sale service is wonderful. After I purchasing the program, thier support center delivered an email for greeting and helping. How warm and kind!