From multiple MTS file to mp4

[mcgyver83]

Hi all,
I got my wedding day movie as a list of MTS files (~14MB each) as a "gift" (I didn't paid for the video).

Right now I have to convert them to mp4 to be able to play the video using Plex Media Server.
I red about converting each file to mp4 and after join them, or join MTS files and after convert the single file.

I want keep the quality of the file, I'm using a mac book.

Could someone suggest me how to do this?

Thanks!

[smrpix]

You should be able to easily rewrap them with ffmpeg, no conversion necessary. A good front end for this is shutter encoder. It will make merging easy as well.

But 14mb is weird. Normal MTS files, especially spanned ones for lengthy events should be in the 2GB range.

[mcgyver83]

Thanks, I used handbrake, I will try your suggestion.
Is easy to configure a rewrap and avoid conversion? Should I take care of some "flag"?

I saw some suggestion with ffmpeg from terminal but I'm not able to understand if a conversion will happen or just rewrap

These mts file are slice of the video, not a seamless sequence.
Looks like they are wrote on the camcoder memory each time he stopped the record.

[johns0]

Thread moved to the mac forum where you can get more help.

[smrpix]

Haven't used handbrake in a while but I don't recall there being a rewrap option. That's why I suggested shutter encoder as a user friendly ffmpeg front end.

If these are spanned clips that are supposed to connect continuously from head to tail it's really best to import the entire folder structure into a real NLE like Premiere.

Again, the 14mb is very worrying. Those file sizes are quite small.

[johns0]

They could be 30 second clips so no need to worry if they play ok.

[mcgyver83]

Sorry, some files are 14MB but size is different for each, the biggest one is 3,9GB.

Each file is a clip without connection to the next, it isn't a single video splitted but a lot of clip that I want to merge in a single video.

I'll try with Shutter Encoder to rewrap mts into mp4 and after I can use
"ffmpeg -f concat -i list.txt -c copy joined.mp4"
to merge all mp4 files into a single one

[smrpix]

You can do the re-wrapping and concatenating with command lines, you can easily do it in shutter encoder too. It will batch convert and merge in essentially one step. Either is fine.

(Don't mean to keep harping on it. I have no connection to Shutter but I find it very capable.)

[mcgyver83]

I tried to rewrap with shutter but I have an issue. Sorry but I cannot understand why I cannot copy&paste from Shutter encoder console window
I attached a slice of screenshot

[smrpix]

Looks like ffmpeg is choking on your subtitles while trying to rewrap (most likely the subs are simply a time code overlay.)

Two options -- rewrap to .mov rather than .mp4, which will make no difference in the actual video and audio (-- and then optionally. rewrap again to .mp4 form the .movs.)

Or use a simple command line in ffmpeg:

-i yourfilename -codec copy -o yourfilename.mp4

(I've tested this before posting. I got a similar error in Shutter, but both of the methods I described worked fine. My MTS files are from a Sony camcorder so I don't know if they are identical to yours.)

[mcgyver83]

Wrapped to mov and now rewrapped to mp4.
After "merge" again with shutter and let's see what happens

[mcgyver83]

UPDATE:
total size of mts files: 21GB
total size of mp4 files (mts->mov->mp4): 21 GB
size of the merged mp4 file: 39GB???
Why???

[smrpix]

The size has basically doubled.

Leads me to believe you did something twice. Perhaps you merged your movs and your mp4s? See if there are any duplicated segments.

[mcgyver83]

Sorry, you got right. I was coming back to the forum to delete my message.
Merge process done twice

[mcgyver83]

Thanks again.
Now I have my mp4 single file video that cannot play without transcoding using Plex Media Server.
I mean, video is "Direct play" but audio is recognized as AC3 Stereo and gets transcoded to AAC.

Ho can I perform this conversion using Shutter so I can avoid plex transcoding (so play without buffering)?