MyMediaTools

Convert MTS to MOD — Free Online Tool

Convert MTS (AVCHD) camcorder footage from Sony or Panasonic devices into MOD format, the MPEG-2-based container used by JVC and Panasonic camcorders. This tool re-encodes the H.264 video stream and AC-3/AAC audio from the MPEG Transport Stream into a MOD-compatible file using H.264 video and AAC audio, running entirely in your browser with no uploads required.

FFmpeg Command

Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg

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Estimated output:

Conversion Complete!

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How It Works

MTS files use the AVCHD standard, packaging H.264 video and AC-3 or AAC audio inside an MPEG-2 Transport Stream container — a format designed for robust streaming and broadcast delivery. MOD is a different camcorder format used by JVC and Panasonic devices, based on MPEG-2 Program Stream with a modified container structure. Because the two containers are fundamentally different in how they organize stream data (transport stream packets vs. program stream packs), a full remux is not possible — the video must be decoded and re-encoded into a new H.264 stream using libx264, and the audio is encoded fresh as AAC at 128k bitrate. The result is a MOD file that can be read by legacy JVC/Panasonic camcorder workflows and compatible editing software.

What Each Flag Does

Flag What it does
ffmpeg Invokes the FFmpeg program, the open-source multimedia processing engine that handles the decoding of the AVCHD transport stream and re-encoding into the MOD container. In this tool, FFmpeg runs locally in your browser via WebAssembly (FFmpeg.wasm).
-i input.mts Specifies the input file — an MTS file in the AVCHD format, typically recorded by a Sony or Panasonic camcorder. FFmpeg reads the MPEG-2 Transport Stream container and demuxes the H.264 video and AAC or AC-3 audio streams for processing.
-c:v libx264 Sets the video encoder to libx264, which re-encodes the decoded H.264 video from the MTS source into a new H.264 stream suitable for the MOD container. A full re-encode is necessary because the two containers cannot simply be remuxed.
-c:a aac Encodes the audio as AAC using FFmpeg's built-in AAC encoder. This handles the case where the MTS source contains AC-3 (Dolby Digital) audio, which is not compatible with the MOD format's audio codec expectations in this configuration — the audio is transcoded fresh to AAC.
-crf 23 Sets the Constant Rate Factor for libx264 to 23, the standard default that balances file size and visual quality well for typical camcorder footage. Lower values (e.g., 18) produce higher quality at larger file sizes; higher values (e.g., 28) shrink the file at the cost of more noticeable compression artifacts.
-b:a 128k Sets the AAC audio output bitrate to 128 kilobits per second, which is a reasonable default for stereo camcorder audio. If your MTS source had a high-bitrate AC-3 surround track, increasing this to 192k or 256k will better preserve the audio fidelity in the MOD output.
output.mod Specifies the output filename with the .mod extension. FFmpeg uses this extension to determine the output container format — the MOD format, a modified MPEG-2 Program Stream used by JVC and Panasonic camcorder workflows.

Common Use Cases

  • Transferring footage from a Sony or Panasonic AVCHD camcorder into a JVC camcorder-based editing workflow that expects MOD files
  • Archiving MTS clips into MOD format for compatibility with older Panasonic editing stations or proprietary camcorder software that only accepts MOD input
  • Combining footage from multiple camcorder brands (Sony AVCHD and JVC MOD) into a unified MOD-format library for a unified post-production pipeline
  • Re-packaging MTS footage for playback on standalone DVD or Blu-ray recorders that accept MOD files from JVC/Panasonic sources but reject AVCHD transport streams
  • Testing MOD file output for quality and compatibility before committing to a large batch conversion of MTS footage from a multi-camera shoot

Frequently Asked Questions

The command shown converts a single file. To batch process multiple MTS files on your desktop, you can use a shell loop. On Linux or macOS, run: for f in *.mts; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "${f%.mts}.mod"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.mts) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "%~nf.mod". The browser-based tool processes one file at a time, so the FFmpeg command is particularly valuable for large batches or files over 1GB.

Technical Notes

MTS (AVCHD) and MOD are both camcorder-native formats but come from fundamentally different technical lineages. MTS wraps H.264 and AC-3/AAC in an MPEG-2 Transport Stream — the same container architecture used in broadcast television and Blu-ray — which provides robustness against data loss but requires full parsing of TS packets to extract streams. MOD, by contrast, uses a modified MPEG-2 Program Stream structure originally designed around MPEG-2 video, though this tool outputs H.264 inside the MOD container for better quality at smaller file sizes. Because MOD does not support multiple audio tracks, any secondary audio streams (e.g., a commentary track or ambient mic channel sometimes found in multi-mic AVCHD recordings) are silently dropped — only the primary audio track is encoded. Similarly, AVCHD closed-caption or subtitle data will not carry over. The MOD format also lacks chapter support, so any chapter markers embedded in the MTS source are lost. File sizes may vary: CRF-based encoding means the output size depends on the visual complexity of the footage rather than a fixed bitrate, so static scenes compress more aggressively than fast-motion or high-detail content.

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