Convert TS to MP3 — Free Online Tool
Extract and convert the audio track from a MPEG-2 Transport Stream (.ts) file into a universally compatible MP3 using the LAME encoder. This is especially useful for pulling audio from broadcast recordings, DVR captures, or HLS stream segments where you only need the sound.
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FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
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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
A TS file is a broadcast-grade container that typically carries multiplexed video, audio, and sometimes subtitle streams — often encoded with AAC, AC-3, or MP3 audio. Converting to MP3 discards all video streams entirely and re-encodes whichever audio stream is present into MP3 using the libmp3lame encoder. Because TS audio is commonly AAC or AC-3, this always involves a full audio transcode (not a stream copy), which means the audio is decoded from its original codec and then re-encoded to MP3. The result is a single-track, audio-only file with no video, no subtitles, and no transport stream overhead.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg command-line tool. In the browser-based version of this tool, this runs via FFmpeg.wasm compiled to WebAssembly, so no files leave your machine. |
-i input.ts
|
Specifies the input file as a MPEG-2 Transport Stream. FFmpeg's TS demuxer will parse the program map tables to identify all available video, audio, and subtitle streams contained in the broadcast container. |
-c:a libmp3lame
|
Selects the LAME MP3 encoder to transcode the audio stream. This is necessary because TS audio (typically AAC or AC-3) must be fully decoded and re-encoded — there is no codec-compatible stream copy path into MP3. |
-b:a 128k
|
Sets the MP3 output audio bitrate to 128 kilobits per second, the standard default for general-purpose listening quality. Increase to 192k or 320k for music from high-quality broadcast sources, or reduce to 96k for voice-only content to save space. |
output.mp3
|
Defines the output filename and signals FFmpeg to use the MP3 muxer. All video and subtitle streams from the source TS file are automatically dropped since the MP3 container is audio-only. |
Common Use Cases
- Extracting the audio from a DVR-recorded broadcast TV show to keep as a music or spoken-word file
- Pulling the audio commentary track from a live sports broadcast captured as a .ts file
- Converting HLS stream segments (.ts chunks) downloaded from a streaming source into a single listenable MP3
- Archiving radio broadcast recordings captured via SDR or digital tuner software, which typically output .ts files
- Stripping the audio from a security camera or IPTV recording stored in TS format for transcription or review
- Preparing audio from a broadcast capture for upload to a podcast platform that only accepts MP3
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes — this is a lossy-to-lossy transcode in most cases. If your TS file's audio is already encoded as AAC or AC-3, FFmpeg must fully decode it and then re-encode it to MP3, which introduces a second generation of lossy compression. At 128k bitrate the result is generally acceptable for speech and most music, but audiophiles or archivists should use a higher bitrate like 320k to minimize degradation. There is no lossless path from TS to MP3 since MP3 is inherently a lossy format.
No. MP3 is a single-track audio format, so only the first (default) audio stream from the TS file will be extracted and encoded. Many broadcast TS files carry multiple audio tracks — for example, a primary language and a secondary language or descriptive audio. If you need a specific track other than the default, you would need to add a stream selector flag like '-map 0:a:1' to the FFmpeg command to target the second audio track.
Both are silently discarded. The MP3 format has no container structure capable of holding video or subtitle data, so FFmpeg automatically drops those streams. No video re-encoding occurs, which means the conversion is faster than it would be if you were producing a video output format. Only the audio content survives in the output file.
Replace the '128k' value in the '-b:a 128k' flag with your preferred bitrate. For example, use '-b:a 320k' for the highest standard MP3 quality, or '-b:a 96k' to produce a smaller file suitable for voice recordings. The range of common values is 64k (very small, voice-only quality) up to 320k (near-transparent for most listeners). Changing this flag is the single most impactful quality decision when producing an MP3 from a broadcast TS source.
Yes, on a desktop you can run this command in a shell loop. On Linux or macOS, use: 'for f in *.ts; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a libmp3lame -b:a 128k "${f%.ts}.mp3"; done'. On Windows Command Prompt: 'for %f in (*.ts) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a libmp3lame -b:a 128k "%~nf.mp3"'. The browser-based tool processes one file at a time, so the desktop FFmpeg command is particularly valuable when you have a large batch of broadcast recordings to convert.
Some TS files — especially those captured from live streams or DVRs — contain timestamp discontinuities or corrupted PTS/DTS values, which can cause FFmpeg to stop processing early or produce sync issues. Adding '-fflags +discardcorrupt' or '-max_interleave_delta 0' before the input can help stabilize reading. If the TS file is segmented (e.g., HLS chunks), you should concatenate the segments first using FFmpeg's concat demuxer before running the MP3 conversion.
Technical Notes
TS (MPEG-2 Transport Stream) was designed for error-resilient broadcast transmission, so it carries overhead like PAT/PMT tables, null packets, and PID-mapped streams that have no relevance to audio-only output. FFmpeg's TS demuxer handles this automatically. The most common audio codecs found inside TS files are AAC (typical for DVB and HLS), AC-3/E-AC-3 (common in ATSC North American broadcast), and occasionally MP2 (legacy broadcast). All of these require full decode-and-reencode to produce MP3 output — there is no remux shortcut. ID3 metadata tags are supported by the MP3 container and FFmpeg will attempt to map any stream metadata it finds, but broadcast TS metadata is sparse and often absent, so do not expect rich title or artist tags in the output. If the TS file contains multiple audio tracks (e.g., stereo and 5.1 surround), only the first mapped stream is converted; the 5.1 AC-3 track, if selected, will be automatically downmixed to stereo by the libmp3lame encoder since MP3 does not support multichannel audio beyond joint stereo.