How to Convert .MTS (AVCHD) to MP4 with HandBrake (Easy Step-by-Step Guide)

In this video, I show you how to convert .mts (AVCHD) to MP4 with HandBrake. Some camcorders (like Sony and Canon) record in .mts, which is not suitable for YouTube. MP4 is a universal format that is good for YouTube and video editing programs. HandBrake will also compress your video into a smaller file size, so you can upload it to YouTube faster.

HandBrake website: http://handbrake.fr

YouTube video encoding specifications (Recommended over Vimeo): https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en

Vimeo Compression Guidelines and conversion tutorial videos: http://vimeo.com/help/compression

HandBrake tutorial with settings: http://www.shoemoney.com/2011/11/02/how-i-encode-awesome-h-264-mpeg4-streaming-movies-for-the-web

How to compress and upload video for the web: http://youtu.be/2Kz3wxW-s1g

UPDATES. In case my annotations went by too quickly in the video, here are some things I wanted to add.

--Check the box for "Large File Size" if your video is 4GB or higher. If your video is long, HD, and/or shot with a DSLR, you'll probably need to do this.

--If your video is "interlaced," like recorded in 1080i, you need to go to the "Video Filters" tab. Next to "Decomb," select "Default," from the drop-down menu. Decomb works better than regular Deinterlace.

You do NOT need to do this if your video is "progressive," like 1080p.

--YouTube recommended bitrates:

8000 kbps for 1080p

5000 kbps for 720p

2500 kbps for 480p

--Audio sample rate can be 48 khz.

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Closed Caption:

hey guys in this video I'm going to show
you how to use handbrake to convert but
that mts AVCHD files from your video
camcorder into mp4 files that are
suitable for YouTube and editing
programs so the first step is we need to
go to the handbrake website and
handbrake . FR so handbrake is a free
open source software program so you can
download without having to pay anything
click on download and you'll see that
handbrake is available in the right of
operating systems so i'm running windows
seven on a pc so i would download the 64
bit version and actually one reason why
i created this video tutorial was
because handbrake look slightly
different on them on Windows vs max and
most of the tutorial I software for macs
and this made this confusing when I was
trying to use handbrake on windows
alright so after you've downloaded and
break you can open it up
alright so now we're in handbrake to get
your video click on source video file so
my video i put on the best top cell
scroll down there there's my video i
click on it click open
ok now it's loaded into handbrake so
before i get into the settings
the great thing about the leather
handbrake community is that they've
created all of these presets already for
you so if you already know that you want
to output your video just to the ipod or
iphone or android you can just select
this the preset that you want and then
click on start but to get the best
quality you really need to set your own
custom settings which I'll share with
you so you can find the settings that
i'm using on on vimeo.com another video
sharing website so if you do a Google
search for vimeo compression guidelines
you'll see this and thereby useful
useful list of all of the different
criteria that we used for their
compression settings
so I use this as a guide when I was
setting things up in hand brake right
let's go back into handbrake so the
first thing you want to do is under
output settings you want to set the
container to be mp4 and you also want to
check the box for web optimized this
will allow your video to start playing
even before it's fully loaded which is
really good
alright and then fur and more fick will
set this to none video filters will
leave alone will click on the video tab
for the video codec will select H dot
264 that's already selected for us for
the frame rate will use same as source
and then for higher-quality will choose
a variable framerate so for quality will
set the average bitrate so vimeo says
that if you're filming in standard in
standard definition you would choose two
thousand but my video is in HD so I'll
set that to 5,000 alright so you have an
option for to pass encoding so it makes
your video quality higher but it's also
a lot slower to render so i would only
check this box if you have a video with
a lot of fast movement for example
sports or advanced performance with
turbo first past I've heard bad things
so I would never check that box now
let's go into the Audio tab so vimeo
says that the highest they'll accept is
44.1 so let's set it to that and with
the bit rate for this I feel if you're
only using a simple video we just have
someone talking I think 128 would be
enough but if you have more sound
effects and music you probably want to
set this to be higher so i'll set it for
160 ok so subtitles and chapters will
leave alone in the Advanced tab
we'll set the reference frame 24 that'll
make for higher-quality ok and now we're
done now you only just have to hit the
start button click on that and I'm break
we'll start converting and compressing
your video now one last thing though we
can actually save all of these as a
custom preset so if you go down under
the preset choices click on the button
add so give your preset a name so i'll
give mine mts to mp4 for picture size
just leave it and none save Filter
setting leave that box checked and click
on add
ok so now you'll see that under presets
we have our own preset now mts 2.mp4
i'll show how useful this is by getting
out of hand brake and opening it again
ok so let's say just shot another video
and need to convert so go to handbrake
select your video again
ok so now instead of going through all
of those settings I can now just click
on my custom preset mts mp4 that i just
created and boom
everything is done so you can see that
mp4 selected web optimized is checked
and everything else and these other time
should be the same
yep
looking good looking good so now the
next time i'll upload a video i just
need to open handbrake select my video
click on the preset and click start
I won't need to mess around with the
settings anymore so i hope this helped
you guys out and save time so that you
don't need to spend time mess around
with settings and you can spend more
time writing scripts and shooting videos
and doing all that fun stuff so if you
have suggestions though for better
settings definitely leave a comment
alright I'm Marcus and I hope this helps
you up signing out