Converting a .mts HD video file to more useable/flexible format?

Question

I had a friend ask me this and I was not sure what to recommend. A large 19 min. HD video was shot with a Panasonic HDC-SD9P in 1920x1080. They want to send this video to friends and obviously the file off the camera is way too large. It uses a what seems to be proprietary .mts format. I have not dealt with this format before, so I am a little scratchy on details of it. Is there some simple conversion software that I could recommend to this person to get the video in a distributable format like mp4 or similar and reduce the resolution to get the file size down?

Facts: I am no where near the machine, so everything thing is by email/phone, This is a windows platform.

I would prefer some recommendation on software people have actually used and can speak for. This is for a standard computer user, so trying to find something they can figure out. This can be for windows, mac, or linux.

Answer 1

On my machine VLC media player has no problem reading MTS files, and you can use it to transcode the file.

Also see this interesting article : Best way to Convert AVCHD (.MTS) >> H.264 SD (MP4).

Answer 2

I think the XviD4PSP would be a good tool for your need.

Easy use and high quality program for converting videos for PSP, PS3, Xbox 360, iPod, iPhone, BlackBerry, Hardware DVD and PC.

Tips.

• The XviD4PSP needs Microsoft .NET framework
• the .mts file format is described here
• sometimes it helps tools if you rename the .mts file to .m2ts

Site notes on minimal system requirements.

Windows Vista, XP SP2, Server 2003.
Microsoft Framework 3.0
Best and most simple way - install latest Klite Codec Pack and forgot about it.
Also in this case you get fast decoding function for almost any input media file format.

Answer 3

You will find a lot of proposals for reading and converting AVCHD format files on wikipedia.
I read those coming from my Panasonic DMC-TZ7 with mpc hc, and I combine them with tsMuxeR (just combine, no fancy effects, but it is lightning fast).

Answer 4

there is an free and automated batch conversion pack available. Just unzip it, put your MTS files in the folder and run the BAT file. No other user interaction needed. After some time you will have MPEG-4 AVI files, which are much smaller and more suitable to send.

There is also large discussion thread on Videohelp.com. No need to buy a converter.

Answer 5

You could do much worse than trying the free and open source HandBrake (it just converted the MTS video coming out from my Panasonic GH2), as suggested in this thread too: Free software for viewing/converting AVCHD