Convert MPG to ALAC — Free Online Tool
Convert MPG video files to ALAC audio, extracting the MP2 or MPEG audio track and re-encoding it into Apple's lossless format stored in an M4A container. Ideal for archiving audio from MPEG-1/2 video sources — such as VCD rips or broadcast recordings — at full lossless quality in an iTunes and Apple ecosystem-compatible file.
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
MPG files typically carry audio encoded in MP2 (MPEG Layer II), the standard audio codec for MPEG-1/2 video used in VCDs, DVDs, and broadcast streams. During this conversion, FFmpeg demuxes the MPG container to extract the audio stream, discards the MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video stream entirely, and re-encodes the MP2 audio using the ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) encoder. The result is stored in an M4A file — an MPEG-4 audio container. Because MP2 is inherently a lossy format, the ALAC output is a lossless encoding of the decoded MP2 audio; it will not recover detail lost during the original MP2 encoding, but it will preserve the decoded audio signal exactly, with no additional generation loss from this conversion step.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg command-line tool. In this browser-based tool, the equivalent FFmpeg.wasm WebAssembly binary runs locally in your browser — no files leave your device. |
-i input.mpg
|
Specifies the input MPG file. FFmpeg reads the MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 program stream, identifying both the video stream (mpeg1video or mpeg2video) and the audio stream (typically MP2) for processing. |
-c:a alac
|
Sets the audio codec to ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), telling FFmpeg to decode the MP2 audio from the MPG and re-encode it losslessly using Apple's alac encoder for output into the M4A container. The duplicate -c:a alac in the resolved command is redundant but harmless — the effective instruction is the same. |
output.m4a
|
Defines the output filename with the .m4a extension, which signals FFmpeg to use the MPEG-4 audio container — the correct and standard container for ALAC audio, compatible with iTunes, Apple Music, and all Apple devices. |
Common Use Cases
- Archiving the audio commentary or soundtrack from VCD or broadcast-recorded MPG files into a lossless format for long-term preservation without further quality degradation.
- Extracting MP2 audio from MPEG-2 broadcast recordings and converting to ALAC for import into an Apple Music or iTunes library with lossless playback on iPhone or Mac.
- Pulling audio from old home video MPG files — commonly output by early DVD camcorders — to preserve the audio in a format playable on all Apple devices without transcoding loss.
- Preparing audio from MPG source files for use in Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro X projects, where ALAC in M4A is a natively supported and editable lossless format.
- Converting MPG training or lecture recordings to ALAC so the audio can be played back via AirPlay or HomePod without lossy re-encoding by Apple's ecosystem.
- Stripping and losslessly preserving the audio track from MPEG-1 VCD rips before the original MPG files are deleted, ensuring the audio can be re-encoded to any format later without compounding lossy artifacts.
Frequently Asked Questions
ALAC will losslessly encode whatever audio data is decoded from the MP2 stream, but MP2 itself is a lossy codec — meaning some audio detail was permanently discarded when the MPG was originally created. This conversion introduces no new quality loss: the decoded MP2 audio is captured exactly and stored losslessly in ALAC. Think of it as a lossless snapshot of the MP2 audio at its current quality, not a restoration of the original uncompressed audio.
ALAC is a codec, not a container format — it requires a container to store the encoded audio. Apple designed ALAC to live inside the MPEG-4 container, and M4A is the standard file extension for MPEG-4 audio files. This is the same container used by AAC audio from iTunes, so M4A with ALAC inside is universally recognized by Apple devices, iTunes, and most modern media players.
The MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video stream is completely discarded. ALAC is a pure audio format and M4A is an audio-only container, so there is no way to retain video in the output. FFmpeg automatically handles this by selecting only the audio stream for encoding. If you need to keep the video, you should choose a video output format instead.
The ALAC output will be significantly smaller than the MPG file because it contains only audio — the video stream (which accounts for the vast majority of an MPG file's size) is dropped entirely. Compared to the audio-only portion of the MPG, ALAC will typically be somewhat larger than the original MP2 stream because lossless compression is less aggressive than lossy MP2 encoding, though the exact ratio depends on the audio content and original MP2 bitrate.
The single-file command shown can be adapted for batch processing in a shell script. On Linux or macOS, you can run: for f in *.mpg; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a alac "${f%.mpg}.m4a"; done. On Windows Command Prompt: for %f in (*.mpg) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a alac "%~nf.m4a". This loops over all MPG files in the current directory and produces a matching M4A for each. The browser-based tool processes one file at a time, but the FFmpeg command is provided precisely so you can run bulk conversions locally.
Yes. Apple added native ALAC playback support across its entire hardware ecosystem starting with iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra, and ALAC in M4A is fully supported in the Apple Music app on all current Apple devices including iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and HomePod. Files converted with this tool can be imported directly into your Apple Music library and will play back in lossless mode without any transcoding.
Technical Notes
MPG audio streams are almost always encoded in MP2 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer II) at bitrates typically ranging from 128 kbps to 384 kbps, particularly in VCD and broadcast contexts. Less commonly, MPG files from DVD sources may carry MP2 at higher bitrates or occasionally AAC. FFmpeg's ALAC encoder (the native alac codec) produces bit-perfect lossless output and is well-tested for M4A encapsulation. One known limitation: MPG containers do not support embedded metadata tags, so title, artist, album, and other ID3-style tags will not carry over — the M4A output will have an empty tag structure, which you can populate separately using a tag editor like MusicBrainz Picard or iTunes after conversion. ALAC in M4A does support chapter markers in the container spec, but since MPG sources do not carry chapter data, no chapters will be present in the output. If the MPG source has multiple audio tracks (rare but possible in MPEG-2 program streams), FFmpeg will select the first audio stream by default; use -map 0:a:1 to explicitly select an alternate track when running the command locally.