MyMediaTools

Extract Audio from MPEG to WMA — Free Online Tool

Extract audio from MPEG video files and convert it to WMA format using the wmav2 codec — Microsoft's second-generation Windows Media Audio encoder. This is especially useful for pulling audio from legacy MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 broadcast and DVD-compatible video files into a streamable, widely supported Windows audio format.

FFmpeg Command

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Estimated output:

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How It Works

MPEG files typically carry audio encoded as MP2 (MPEG Audio Layer II) or occasionally MP3 or AAC. Since WMA uses Microsoft's proprietary wmav2 codec — fundamentally incompatible with MP2 — the audio must be fully decoded and re-encoded rather than simply remuxed. The video stream is discarded entirely using the -vn flag, and the raw PCM audio is then re-encoded into WMA at the target bitrate (default 128k). This is a lossy-to-lossy transcode, meaning two generations of compression are applied, which can introduce subtle quality degradation compared to the original MPEG audio.

What Each Flag Does

Flag What it does
ffmpeg Invokes the FFmpeg binary. When run in the browser, this is executed via FFmpeg.wasm (WebAssembly), which is a fully self-contained port of FFmpeg that processes your MPEG file locally without sending any data to a server.
-i input.mpeg Specifies the input MPEG file, which may contain MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video alongside MP2, MP3, or AAC audio streams packaged in an MPEG program or transport stream container.
-vn Disables video output entirely, instructing FFmpeg to discard the MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video stream. Since the goal is audio-only WMA output, this flag ensures no video data is written to the output file, which also dramatically reduces the output file size.
-c:a wmav2 Sets the audio encoder to wmav2 (Windows Media Audio v2), Microsoft's second-generation proprietary codec. This is required because the MP2 audio from the MPEG source cannot be remuxed into WMA — it must be fully decoded and re-encoded using the wmav2 codec that the WMA/ASF container expects.
-b:a 128k Sets the WMA audio bitrate to 128 kilobits per second, which is the default for this tool. This controls the quality and file size of the resulting WMA file; higher values like 192k or 256k will produce better audio fidelity at the cost of larger files, which is worth considering given the lossy-to-lossy nature of this transcode.
output.wma Specifies the output filename with the .wma extension, which tells FFmpeg to wrap the wmav2-encoded audio in an ASF (Advanced Systems Format) container — the standard container format for WMA files used throughout the Windows Media ecosystem.

Common Use Cases

  • Extracting commentary or narration tracks from legacy MPEG-2 broadcast recordings to distribute as WMA audio files on Windows-centric platforms or media servers
  • Pulling audio from old DVD-ripped MPEG-2 files to create WMA tracks compatible with older Windows Media Player libraries and portable WMA-capable devices
  • Converting MP2-encoded audio buried inside MPEG-1 Video CD (VCD) files into WMA for archival or distribution in Windows environments
  • Stripping the audio from MPEG training or instructional videos to produce standalone WMA files for use in Windows-based e-learning or LMS systems that expect WMA input
  • Preparing audio extracted from MPEG broadcast footage for use in Windows Media streaming servers or SharePoint document libraries that natively support WMA
  • Reducing file size by discarding the video from large MPEG recordings and keeping only the audio in WMA format for easier storage and transfer on Windows systems

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, there is a theoretical quality cost because this is a lossy-to-lossy transcode: the MP2 audio in the MPEG file is decoded to raw PCM and then re-encoded into WMA using wmav2. Each lossy compression stage discards some audio information. At the default 128k bitrate, the result is generally acceptable for speech and most music, but audiophiles or professional use cases may want to bump the bitrate to 192k or 256k to minimize degradation from the second encoding pass.
The dramatic size reduction comes from two factors: first, the entire video stream is removed (MPEG video often accounts for 90–95% of the file's total size), and second, WMA at 128k is a compact audio format. An MPEG-2 file that is several gigabytes may produce a WMA audio file measured in megabytes. This is expected and correct — only the audio content is preserved.
WMA (via the ASF container) does support metadata tags such as title, artist, album, and track number. However, MPEG files often carry minimal or no embedded metadata, especially files sourced from broadcast or DVD recordings. FFmpeg will attempt to transfer any metadata it finds in the MPEG source to the WMA output, but do not expect rich tagging unless the source file was already tagged. You can add or edit WMA tags separately after conversion using a tool like Mp3tag.
wmav1 is Microsoft's first-generation Windows Media Audio codec, while wmav2 is the improved second-generation version offering better audio quality at equivalent bitrates. wmav2 has been the standard since Windows Media Player 7 (circa 2000) and is supported by virtually all devices and software that handle WMA files. Unless you specifically need compatibility with very early WMA decoders (rare edge cases), wmav2 is always the right choice and is the FFmpeg default for WMA output.
Replace the -b:a 128k value with your desired bitrate. For example, use -b:a 192k or -b:a 256k for noticeably better quality, particularly when converting from higher-quality MPEG sources. The supported WMA bitrate options are 64k, 96k, 128k, 160k, 192k, 256k, and 320k. The full command with 256k would look like: ffmpeg -i input.mpeg -vn -c:a wmav2 -b:a 256k output.wma. Higher bitrates produce larger files but reduce the audible impact of the second-generation lossy encoding.
Yes. On Linux or macOS, you can run a shell loop: for f in *.mpeg; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vn -c:a wmav2 -b:a 128k "${f%.mpeg}.wma"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.mpeg) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -vn -c:a wmav2 -b:a 128k "%~nf.wma". This applies the same extraction and encoding parameters to every MPEG file in the current directory. The browser-based tool on this page processes one file at a time, so the FFmpeg command is the recommended approach for bulk conversions.

Technical Notes

MPEG files using MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video standards almost universally carry MP2 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer II) as their default audio codec, particularly in broadcast and DVD-compatible recordings. MP2 and WMA's wmav2 codec are architecturally incompatible, so this conversion always requires a full audio transcode — there is no stream-copy shortcut available. The ASF (Advanced Systems Format) container used by WMA files supports DRM, streaming metadata, and Microsoft ecosystem integrations, which can make WMA output attractive for Windows Media infrastructure. One known limitation is that WMA/ASF does not support multiple audio tracks; if your MPEG source contains more than one audio stream (uncommon but possible in MPEG-2 program streams), only the default audio stream will be extracted. Chapter markers and subtitle data present in the MPEG source are not carried over, as neither feature is supported by the WMA format. The default 128k bitrate is suitable for general-purpose audio but represents a step down if the source MP2 was encoded at 192k or higher, which is common in broadcast MPEG-2 recordings.

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