MTS to MKV without re-encoding?

[amirh1]

Hi,
I own a Panasonic GF1 camera and record AVCHD lite movies with it. They use an MTS format/container. I want to be able to play them with my Samsung TV using Samsung's streaming software, but that software doesn't accept .mts files. It does accept .mkv though, and I know that the movie format (AVC and AC3) can be played on my TV.

So all that's left is to convert the MTS to MKV without re-encoding (e.g. keeping AVC video and AC3 audio). I've tried searching for a tool to do this. Does anyone know of a solution?

Thanks!!

[poisondeathray]

mkvtoolnix doesn't support reading from transport streams , so you could use haali muxer (comes with haali media splitter, "gdsmux") , and then mkvtoolnix to add in the audio . If you need to you could demux the audio from the .mts with tsmuxer to add in later with mkvtoolnix. eac3to would be another option that should be able to do this

[cal_tony]

.......If you need to you could demux the audio from the .mts with tsmuxer to add in later with mkvtoolnix.

If you can demux the audio with TSmuxer than you should also be able to demux the video with it as well. If so, than you should be able to remux both streams into a mkv with mkvtoolnix.

Tony

[amirh1]

.......If you need to you could demux the audio from the .mts with tsmuxer to add in later with mkvtoolnix.

If you can demux the audio with TSmuxer than you should also be able to demux the video with it as well. If so, than you should be able to remux both streams into a mkv with mkvtoolnix.

Tony

Thanks Tony, that's what I've tried and it works! Fast and simple. Unfortunately, the video on the TV is choppy but I think that has to do with the TV's decoding software. It seems like I can't get away from re-encoding, either that or I figure out how to stream the vids to my Samsung Blu-ray player (that one should be able to play .MTS - I hope)

[ulapines]

Mkvmerge assumes framerate 25 fps when remuxing video and audio.
If the framerate in the original mts differs from that and you didn't specify another
it could explain the choppy video.

[amirh1]

Mkvmerge assumes framerate 25 fps when remuxing video and audio.
If the framerate in the original mts differs from that and you didn't specify another
it could explain the choppy video.

Yes, I've noticed that. I changed it to 29.97 based on the following MediaInfo output (tried 59.94 but that made the video play at 2x speed):

Frame mode : Frame doubling
Duration : 44s 511ms
Bit rate : 7 900 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Original frame rate : 59.940 fps

[DRP]

.......If you need to you could demux the audio from the .mts with tsmuxer to add in later with mkvtoolnix.

If you can demux the audio with TSmuxer than you should also be able to demux the video with it as well. If so, than you should be able to remux both streams into a mkv with mkvtoolnix.

Tony

If I demux an MTS file using this tsMuxeR application and click the checkbox marked "Change Level" and specify 3.2 down from 4.2 for compatibility with a hardware player, is this conversion lossless in the eventual output?

I've tried it, and sure enough MediaInfo reports the output as having level 3.2 compression instead of the original source level 4.2, but it still doesn't play on my hardware player which reports "Video File Not Supported". The demuxing process was incredibly fast at only 8 seconds. Not enough time for a complete re-encode to another level, so I'm suspicious about what's going on. Anyone know for sure? Does it just change the information in headers that MediaInfo reads whilst not touching the actual compression level?

[KarMa]

mkvtoolnix doesn't support reading from transport streams

In the past year I've been muxing .TS (H.264/AC3) into .MKV with mkvtoolnix, without issue or warnings. This may or may not extend to .MTS.