Convert HEVC to WAV — Free Online Tool
Extract and convert the audio track from an HEVC/H.265 video file into a WAV file encoded with 16-bit PCM — the gold-standard uncompressed audio format. Ideal when you need lossless, universally compatible audio from high-efficiency video content without any further quality degradation.
to
FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
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Settings
Note: Browser-based encoding uses approximate quality targets. For precise CRF compression, copy the FFmpeg command above and run it on your desktop.
Estimated output:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
HEVC (H.265) video files carry compressed video alongside an audio stream — commonly AAC, AC-3, or another compressed codec. This conversion discards the video stream entirely and decodes the compressed audio, then re-encodes it as raw 16-bit signed little-endian PCM (pcm_s16le) wrapped in a WAV container. Because WAV/PCM is uncompressed, the output is a faithful, lossless representation of the audio as it existed in the HEVC source — there is no audio generation from the video, no quality-stacking compression, just decoded and uncompressed audio. The HEVC video data is dropped and never written to disk, making the output file audio-only.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg media processing tool. In the browser version, this runs via FFmpeg.wasm compiled to WebAssembly — the same underlying logic as desktop FFmpeg, executing entirely on your device. |
-i input.hevc
|
Specifies the input file — in this case an HEVC/H.265 video file. FFmpeg will detect and demux both the H.265 video stream and the compressed audio stream (commonly AAC or AC-3) from this container. |
-c:a pcm_s16le
|
Sets the audio codec to 16-bit signed little-endian PCM, which is the standard uncompressed audio encoding used in WAV files. FFmpeg decodes whatever compressed audio format was inside the HEVC source and re-encodes it as raw PCM — introducing no further quality loss beyond what already existed in the source. |
output.wav
|
Defines the output file as a WAV container. Because no video codec is specified and the output format is audio-only WAV, FFmpeg automatically drops the HEVC video stream — only the decoded and re-encoded PCM audio track is written to the file. |
Common Use Cases
- Extracting a clean dialogue or voice-over track from an H.265-encoded video production file for use in a professional audio editing session in DAWs like Pro Tools or Adobe Audition
- Pulling uncompressed audio from an HDR HEVC master file for archival or broadcast delivery, where WAV PCM is required by the receiving platform
- Separating the soundtrack from a 4K HEVC home video so it can be independently edited, synced, or noise-reduced before being remixed back into a video project
- Converting the audio from an H.265 security camera clip into WAV for forensic audio analysis software that requires uncompressed PCM input
- Preparing narration or interview audio captured inside an HEVC video file for transcription services or speech-to-text pipelines that prefer WAV format
- Stripping audio from HEVC screen recordings to produce a standalone audio file for podcast episodes or video essay voiceovers
Frequently Asked Questions
Not better — but it will not be any worse either. The audio track inside an HEVC file is typically already compressed (e.g., AAC or AC-3). This tool decodes that compressed audio and stores it as uncompressed 16-bit PCM WAV, which is a lossless representation of what was in the source. Any quality loss that existed from the original compression step is already baked in; converting to WAV simply prevents any further generational loss from additional encoding.
HEVC is a highly efficient video codec that compresses both video and audio aggressively — the audio inside is often AAC, which achieves 10:1 or greater compression ratios. WAV with PCM audio is completely uncompressed, so a single channel of 16-bit audio at 44.1kHz requires about 5MB per minute, and stereo doubles that. Additionally, the HEVC file's video stream is gone, so you are comparing a mixed compressed media file to a raw uncompressed audio-only file, which naturally results in a large WAV even for short clips.
HEVC video files commonly carry AAC, AC-3 (Dolby Digital), EAC-3, or occasionally Opus audio. Regardless of which compressed audio codec is inside, FFmpeg will fully decode it to raw PCM before writing the WAV file. The source codec does affect the baseline quality ceiling of the output — if the original audio was low-bitrate AAC, the WAV will be an uncompressed version of that low-bitrate audio — but the conversion process itself introduces no additional quality loss.
Yes. The FFmpeg command uses pcm_s16le by default (16-bit signed little-endian PCM), but you can swap this for pcm_s24le for 24-bit depth or pcm_s32le for 32-bit. Simply replace pcm_s16le with your preferred codec in the command: ffmpeg -i input.hevc -c:a pcm_s24le output.wav. If your source audio was recorded at high bit depth, choosing 24-bit output will better preserve the dynamic range.
On Linux or macOS, you can loop over all HEVC files in a directory with: for f in *.hevc; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a pcm_s16le "${f%.hevc}.wav"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.hevc) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a pcm_s16le "%~nf.wav". Each file is processed sequentially, and the output WAV files will be named to match their source HEVC counterparts.
WAV has limited and inconsistently supported metadata capabilities compared to video containers. FFmpeg will attempt to copy basic metadata tags into the WAV INFO chunk, but complex or video-specific metadata embedded in the HEVC file — such as GPS coordinates, camera model, or chapter markers — will not be preserved. If metadata retention is critical, consider using a format like FLAC or AIFF that has more robust tagging support.
Technical Notes
The output WAV file uses pcm_s16le — 16-bit signed little-endian PCM — which is the most universally compatible PCM format and the WAV default. This format supports sample rates up to 192kHz and works natively on virtually every operating system, DAW, and audio tool without requiring codec installation. One important limitation: WAV files are capped at approximately 4GB due to the 32-bit size field in the RIFF container header. For very long HEVC source files with high-sample-rate audio (e.g., 96kHz stereo), the resulting WAV could approach or exceed this limit; in such cases, consider splitting the source or using a 64-bit WAV variant (RF64). The HEVC video stream is completely discarded — no video re-encoding occurs, so processing is faster than a full video transcode and depends primarily on audio decode speed. Multi-channel audio (e.g., 5.1 surround) from the HEVC source will be preserved in the WAV output with all channels intact, provided the source codec is supported by FFmpeg's decoder.