[FFmpeg-user] Tips for converting MTS to DVD/mp4

[Marck Vaisman]

Hi,

I recently installed compiled and installed ffmpeg from source on
Ubuntu following this guide:
https://ffmpeg.org/trac/ffmpeg/wiki/UbuntuCompilationGuide

I have many videos taped with a Canon VIXIA HF20 in MTS format. Most
of the files have the following encoding:

Input #0, mpegts, from 'acto.mts':
  Duration: 00:22:23.36, start: 0.452000, bitrate: 24025 kb/s
  Program 1
    Stream #0:0[0x1011]: Video: h264 (High) (HDMV / 0x564D4448),
yuv420p, 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 59.96 fps, 59.94 tbr, 90k tbn,
59.94 tbc
    Stream #0:1[0x1100]: Audio: ac3 (AC[45]3 / 0x332D4341), 48000 Hz,
stereo, s16, 256 kb/s

I'd like to convert these large MTS files into smaller mp4 for making
DVDs (witout editing) and for sharing, and making them playable in
machines with less resources. I'd like to keep the HD quality of the
videos. I've searched extensively online and through the mailing list
archive as well but I have yet to find the best set of parameters to
do so.

Has someone defined a profile to do this? What are the best set of
ffmpeg parameters to achieve what I'd like to do?

Thanks for your help.
Marck

p.s. below is ffmpeg information on my system.

ffmpeg version git-2012-06-02-1bf22c3 Copyright (c) 2000-2012 the
FFmpeg developers
  built on Jun  2 2012 12:35:14 with gcc 4.6.1
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-libfaac --enable-libmp3lame
--enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb
--enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264
--enable-nonfree --enable-version3 --enable-x11grab
  libavutil      51. 56.100 / 51. 56.100
  libavcodec     54. 23.100 / 54. 23.100
  libavformat    54.  6.101 / 54.  6.101
  libavdevice    54.  0.100 / 54.  0.100
  libavfilter     2. 77.100 /  2. 77.100
  libswscale      2.  1.100 /  2.  1.100
  libswresample   0. 15.100 /  0. 15.100
  libpostproc    52.  0.100 / 52.  0.100
Hyper fast Audio and Video encoder
usage: ffmpeg [options] [[infile options] -i infile]... {[outfile
options] outfile}...