# Experts: Video Conversion Advice



## Silv (Mar 28, 2008)

Hi all,

I've got ~200G of videos taken from my father-in-law's video camera (Sony HDR-12) cluttering up space. There's about 1500 individual files.

They seem to be AVCHD MTS files.

The directory tree is /Sony HDR-SR12 - 10-09-06/AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM/

Here's some more information about the video, taken from VLC:

Stream 0: Video
Codec: H264-MPEG-5 AVC
Resolution: 1920x1080

Stream 1: Audio
Codec: A52 Audio (aka AC3) (a52)
Channels: 3F2R/LFE
Sample Rate: 48,000 Hz
Bitrate: 448 kb/s

My question - I'd like to convert/compress some of these so as to reduce the amount of disk space usage. What would you recommend I use, and what compression/codec/whatever would you recommend? The other option is to throw it all on a BD disc and give it back to him, but that route I'd have to pay someone to do it.

Please advise..

Thanks!


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## Silv (Mar 28, 2008)

huh.. 136 views and not a single reply.. go figure.


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## rondini (Dec 6, 2001)

google gave me this
MTS converter for Mac: convert M2TS/MTS on Mac guide


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## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

here's what i would do:

download VLC as you can preview each video * on your mac to determine if there are any to be deleted. I find there are always short videos which can be deleted. They take up little space per, but together, it can add up. (* depending on how fast your mac is, previewing might be a bit choppy, but can still be done).

you can also use mpeg streamclip to convert the files into a different format. it's free and more importantly, it can do batches. go to export - quicktime and choose H.264. it should compress the files well enough. I think you may be able to merge files, but I've never needed to do that so unsure.

depending on how critical the footage is to him, you could do the BD option or buy an external hard drive and transfer the footage to it then slowly go through it as time permits.

good luck,
Keebler


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## tilt (Mar 3, 2005)

You may try IVI. IVI is free while IVI Pro is not. IVI handles pretty much any kind of video and also has the option of automatically sending it after conversion to iTunes or iMovie etc.

You can find IVI here.

Cheers


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## jellotor (Feb 22, 2008)

I believe MPEG Streamclip will convert MPEG transport streams.

You're already in a decent codec (H.264) for file size versus image quality. Getting a QuickTime container file (MOV) would be a good first step.

You could also consider downconverting with MPEG Streamclip to 720p to save some space.

H.264 is a pretty good all-around codec, in my opinion. It handles HD fine (that's what Blu-ray is, after all, H.264 compression) at decent file sizes and is, for a while at least, future proof.


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