Convert HEVC to AIF — Free Online Tool
Extract and convert audio from HEVC/H.265 video files into AIF format — Apple's lossless uncompressed audio container — using PCM 16-bit big-endian encoding. Ideal for pulling broadcast-quality audio from high-efficiency video sources into a format native to Mac-based audio workflows.
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FFmpeg Command
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Estimated output:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
HEVC (H.265) is a video-only container in its raw .hevc form, meaning this conversion is entirely about extracting the audio stream and transcoding it into AIF's uncompressed PCM format. The video stream is discarded entirely — FFmpeg reads the audio track from the HEVC source and re-encodes it using the pcm_s16be codec (signed 16-bit PCM, big-endian byte order), which is the native default codec for AIF files. Because AIF is uncompressed, the output file will be significantly larger than the source audio, but every sample is preserved at full fidelity with no lossy encoding artifacts introduced. The big-endian byte ordering is a legacy of AIF's origins on Motorola-based Mac hardware and is what distinguishes it from the little-endian WAV/PCM format common on Windows.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg program, the open-source multimedia processing engine that handles all decoding, stream selection, and re-encoding in this conversion. |
-i input.hevc
|
Specifies the input file — a raw HEVC/H.265 bitstream file. FFmpeg reads the video and audio streams from this file, from which only the audio will be used in the output. |
-c:a pcm_s16be
|
Sets the audio codec to PCM signed 16-bit big-endian, which is the native uncompressed audio encoding used by Apple's AIF format. This decodes whatever audio codec was in the source HEVC file and re-encodes it as raw, uncompressed 16-bit samples — the standard for CD-quality lossless audio on Mac systems. |
output.aif
|
Defines the output filename and triggers FFmpeg to use the AIF container format. The .aif extension tells FFmpeg to wrap the pcm_s16be audio stream in Apple's Audio Interchange File Format, discarding the HEVC video stream entirely since AIF cannot contain video. |
Common Use Cases
- Extracting dialogue or narration audio from an H.265-encoded video interview to import into Logic Pro or GarageBand for mixing
- Pulling a lossless audio track from an HEVC-encoded film dailies file for delivery to a sound design team working in a Mac-native post-production pipeline
- Converting the audio component of an H.265 drone footage file into AIF for archival storage alongside ProRes video masters
- Extracting the audio from an HEVC broadcast capture to use as a reference track in an Apple-based audio editing session
- Preparing audio stems from HEVC-encoded content for import into Final Cut Pro, which natively supports AIF alongside video
- Separating speech audio from an H.265 screen recording to create a clean AIF file for transcription or voiceover replacement
Frequently Asked Questions
No — AIF is a pure audio format and cannot contain video data. This conversion extracts only the audio stream from the HEVC file and discards the video entirely. If you need to retain the video, you should convert to a container format like MOV or MP4 instead.
Not higher — but it will be fully preserved without any additional quality loss. AIF with pcm_s16be stores audio as uncompressed 16-bit samples, so whatever quality existed in the source audio is retained exactly. If the original audio in the HEVC file was already compressed (for example, AAC), the conversion to AIF will not recover any quality lost by that earlier compression step.
AIF stores audio as raw, uncompressed PCM samples — there is no compression algorithm reducing the file size. A stereo 16-bit audio stream at 44.1kHz produces approximately 10MB per minute in AIF format. By contrast, audio inside HEVC files is typically encoded with a lossy codec like AAC or Dolby AC-3, which can be 10–20 times smaller. The size increase is expected and is the trade-off for having a fully uncompressed, editable master audio file.
Raw .hevc files typically carry a single audio stream which may be encoded as AAC, AC-3 (Dolby Digital), E-AC-3, or PCM depending on the source. Regardless of the input audio codec, FFmpeg decodes it fully and re-encodes it to pcm_s16be for the AIF output — so the source codec does not limit compatibility. However, if the source audio was lossy (like AAC), converting to lossless AIF will not recover lost information; it simply stores the already-decoded lossy audio without further degradation.
Replace pcm_s16be in the command with an alternative AIF-compatible codec to change bit depth: use pcm_s24be for 24-bit (common in professional audio), pcm_s32be for 32-bit integer, pcm_f32be for 32-bit float, or pcm_f64be for 64-bit float. For example: ffmpeg -i input.hevc -c:a pcm_s24be output.aif. Higher bit depths increase file size proportionally but may better preserve dynamic range if the source audio supports it.
Yes — on the command line you can use a shell loop to process multiple files. On Linux or macOS, run: for f in *.hevc; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a pcm_s16be "${f%.hevc}.aif"; done. On Windows Command Prompt: for %f in (*.hevc) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a pcm_s16be "%~nf.aif". The browser-based tool on this page processes one file at a time, so the desktop FFmpeg command is the recommended approach for bulk conversions.
Technical Notes
AIF's pcm_s16be codec uses big-endian byte ordering, which is meaningful when exchanging files between systems — DAWs and audio tools on macOS handle this natively, but some Linux tools may prefer AIFF-C or WAV variants. The 16-bit default depth means audio is quantized to 65,536 possible amplitude levels, which is CD-quality and sufficient for most production use cases; however, if the source HEVC file contains 24-bit or higher audio (common in broadcast or cinema-originated content), switching to pcm_s24be will preserve that additional dynamic range without truncation. Metadata such as track titles, chapter markers, and embedded subtitles present in the HEVC source are not carried over to AIF, as the format does not support those fields. The video stream — including all H.265-encoded frames, HDR metadata (HDR10, Dolby Vision), and any timecode tracks — is fully discarded during this extraction. Because HEVC files do not support multiple audio tracks in the raw .hevc container, there is no risk of accidentally selecting the wrong track; however, if your source is actually an MKV or MP4 wrapper containing H.265 video, you may have multiple audio streams and should specify -map 0:a:0 to explicitly select the first audio track.