Extract Audio from M2TS to WMA — Free Online Tool
Extract audio from M2TS Blu-ray and AVCHD files and convert it to WMA format using the wmav2 codec — ideal for bringing high-definition disc audio into Windows Media Player and legacy Microsoft ecosystems. This tool strips the video stream entirely and re-encodes whichever audio track is present (typically Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, or AAC) into a standard WMA file.
to
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
M2TS files are MPEG-2 Transport Stream containers typically carrying multiplexed video, one or more audio tracks, and often subtitles — all common on Blu-ray discs and AVCHD camcorders. During this conversion, FFmpeg discards the video stream entirely using the -vn flag, then decodes the primary audio track (which in M2TS files is often a high-bitrate format like Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD MA, or AAC) and re-encodes it as Windows Media Audio using the wmav2 codec. Since WMA is a lossy, audio-only container with no support for multiple tracks, only the default audio stream is extracted. The result is a single, self-contained .wma file suitable for Windows Media Player and WMA-compatible devices.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg tool, which handles the full pipeline of demuxing the M2TS transport stream, decoding the audio, and re-encoding it into WMA format — all running here via FFmpeg.wasm in your browser. |
-i input.m2ts
|
Specifies the input M2TS file — a Blu-ray or AVCHD transport stream container that may contain HD video, multiple audio tracks, and subtitles. FFmpeg reads and demuxes all streams from this file before processing. |
-vn
|
Disables video output entirely, ensuring the HD video stream from the M2TS file is discarded and not encoded or passed through to the WMA output, which is an audio-only container. |
-c:a wmav2
|
Sets the audio encoder to wmav2 (Windows Media Audio version 2), Microsoft's standard WMA codec, which produces a .wma file compatible with Windows Media Player, Xbox, and most WMA-capable devices. |
-b:a 128k
|
Sets the audio output bitrate to 128 kilobits per second for the wmav2 encoder. This is a reasonable default for general listening quality; if your M2TS source has a lossless Blu-ray audio track, consider increasing this to 192k or 256k to better preserve fidelity. |
output.wma
|
Defines the output filename and tells FFmpeg to write the result as a WMA file. The .wma extension signals FFmpeg to use the Windows Media Audio container, which holds the wmav2-encoded audio stream and supports WMA metadata tags. |
Common Use Cases
- Extract the audio commentary track from a Blu-ray rip in M2TS format to listen to on a Windows device that has WMA support but limited codec coverage
- Convert AVCHD camcorder footage from a family event into a WMA audio file to share with relatives who use Windows Media Player on older PCs
- Pull the stereo audio mix from an M2TS broadcast recording to create a WMA file for use in a Windows-based digital signage or kiosk system
- Archive the audio portion of a Blu-ray concert recording as a WMA file for playback on older portable Windows Media devices or Zune hardware
- Downmix a multi-track M2TS audio stream to a single WMA file for ingestion into a legacy Windows-based media management system that only accepts WMA input
- Extract spoken dialogue or narration from an AVCHD video project file into WMA format for use in a PowerPoint presentation or Windows-native application
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. FFmpeg fully decodes the M2TS audio stream, regardless of whether it is DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby TrueHD, or AAC, into raw PCM audio internally before re-encoding it as WMA using the wmav2 codec. This means you are not doing a direct stream copy — the audio is decompressed and then recompressed into the lossy WMA format. Some quality loss relative to the lossless Blu-ray source is inherent and unavoidable in this process.
By default, FFmpeg selects the first (default) audio stream in the M2TS container. Blu-ray M2TS files often contain multiple tracks, such as a primary lossless mix and a secondary stereo or commentary track. If you want a specific track, you can add -map 0:a:1 (for the second audio track) to the FFmpeg command before the output filename to target a different stream. WMA does not support multiple audio tracks, so only one can be written to the output file.
Replace the -b:a 128k value in the command with your desired bitrate. The wmav2 codec supports options including 64k, 96k, 128k, 160k, 192k, 256k, and 320k. For example, use -b:a 192k for better fidelity when the source is a high-quality Blu-ray audio track, or -b:a 96k to reduce file size for voice-only content. Keep in mind that WMA is a lossy format, so increasing bitrate improves quality but cannot recover data discarded by any upstream compression in the M2TS source.
M2TS files rarely carry rich audio metadata like track titles or artist names — they are transport stream containers primarily designed for video delivery rather than music tagging. WMA does support metadata tags such as Title, Artist, and Album, but since the M2TS source is unlikely to have these fields populated, the output WMA file will generally have minimal or no metadata. You can add metadata manually by appending flags like -metadata title="My Title" to the FFmpeg command.
M2TS files are significantly larger because they contain a full high-definition video stream alongside the audio, often at several gigabytes for even short recordings. This conversion discards the video entirely with the -vn flag and re-encodes only the audio at 128k bitrate using the wmav2 codec, which is highly efficient for audio-only output. A 4GB Blu-ray M2TS file might produce a WMA output of only a few dozen megabytes, depending on the duration of the content.
The displayed command processes a single file, but you can adapt it for batch processing in a terminal. On Linux or macOS, use a shell loop: for f in *.m2ts; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vn -c:a wmav2 -b:a 128k "${f%.m2ts}.wma"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.m2ts) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -vn -c:a wmav2 -b:a 128k "%~nf.wma". This is particularly useful when ripping multiple M2TS chapters from a Blu-ray disc structure.
Technical Notes
The wmav2 codec (Windows Media Audio version 2) used here is the standard WMA encoder in FFmpeg and produces files broadly compatible with Windows Media Player, Xbox consoles, and older WMA-capable portable devices. WMA is inherently a lossy, audio-only format — it cannot carry video, chapters, or subtitle data from the M2TS source, and it supports only a single audio stream per file. M2TS audio on Blu-ray is frequently encoded in lossless formats like Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio; converting these to WMA at 128k will introduce lossy compression artifacts, so users prioritizing archival quality should consider a higher bitrate or a lossless output format instead. The older wmav1 codec is also available in FFmpeg but offers inferior compression efficiency compared to wmav2 and should only be used for compatibility with very old WMA decoders. Channel layout handling is worth noting: if the M2TS source contains a 5.1 or 7.1 surround mix, wmav2 will attempt to encode it with the same channel count, though playback on stereo devices will depend on the WMA decoder's downmix behavior. DRM features native to the WMA container are not applied by FFmpeg.