This is an awesome conversion program that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux that was originality designed to rip DVDs to your hard drive. This open source gem also has a knack for transcoding h.264 video files. Even beter it does so using multiple threads, unlike the script that I was using before. If you have a need to convert AVCHD (or .MTS) files, I seriously recommend it.

MTS to AVI how to guide

I got my new Canon Vixia HF10 camcorder recently and had to figure out how to convert the AVCHD files that it makes. I’m running Ubuntu 8.04, which means that I can’t use any of the available windows applications, but after some searching I was able to convert my MTS files into perfectly working AVI files. In order to save others’ time I decided to make a how-to guide. It is still a work in progress and some things are probably missing, but hopefully it should be enough to help you out.

UPDATE: 12/4/2008:
I’ve found that this guide is now outdated to the point of not being useful. I would highly reccomend using HandBrake to convert your .MTS files. Although it does not give you an .AVI file directly, it does give you an easy to work with .mp4 which you can then convert into AVI if you need to.