Extract Audio from MPG to AIFF — Free Online Tool
Extract audio from MPG video files and save it as a high-quality, uncompressed AIFF file. This tool decodes the lossy MP2 or MP3 audio track from your MPEG-1/2 container and re-encodes it into 16-bit big-endian PCM — Apple's native lossless format — giving you the cleanest possible AIFF from the source material.
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FFmpeg Command
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Estimated output:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
MPG files typically carry MP2 (MPEG Layer II) audio, occasionally MP3 or AAC, compressed inside an MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 container. During this conversion, FFmpeg demuxes the audio stream from the MPG container, decodes the compressed audio data fully back to raw PCM samples, then re-encodes it as 16-bit big-endian PCM (pcm_s16be) and wraps it in an AIFF container. The video stream is discarded entirely. Because the source audio in an MPG file is already lossy, the output AIFF is lossless in the sense that no additional compression is applied — but the audio quality ceiling is still determined by the original MPG's audio bitrate. AIFF's uncompressed format means the output file will be significantly larger than the original audio track.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg tool, which handles demuxing the MPEG-1/2 program stream, decoding the compressed audio codec (MP2, MP3, or AAC), and encoding the output as uncompressed PCM in an AIFF container. |
-i input.mpg
|
Specifies the input MPG file — an MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 program stream container that typically holds a compressed video stream alongside a lossy MP2 or MP3 audio track. |
-vn
|
Disables video output entirely, telling FFmpeg to ignore the MPEG-1/2 video stream and produce an audio-only output file. Without this flag, FFmpeg would attempt to include video in the output, which AIFF cannot contain. |
-c:a pcm_s16be
|
Sets the audio codec to 16-bit signed big-endian PCM — the standard uncompressed audio encoding used in AIFF files. This fully decodes the lossy MP2 or MP3 audio from the MPG and re-encodes it as raw PCM samples, producing a lossless AIFF file at whatever quality level the original MPG audio contained. |
output.aiff
|
Defines the output filename and triggers FFmpeg to wrap the pcm_s16be audio stream in an AIFF container — Apple's uncompressed audio format that is natively supported by macOS applications, DAWs, and professional audio tools. |
Common Use Cases
- Importing broadcast or VCD/DVD-sourced MPG footage audio into a macOS-native DAW like Logic Pro or GarageBand, which natively reads AIFF without transcoding
- Archiving the audio track from an MPEG-2 broadcast recording into an uncompressed AIFF for long-term storage where further lossy compression would degrade quality
- Extracting dialogue or narration from an MPEG-1 video (such as a legacy CD-ROM or VCD) to edit it in an audio editor like Audacity or Adobe Audition
- Converting the MP2 audio track from a captured DVB or satellite broadcast MPG into AIFF for use in professional video post-production on macOS
- Stripping the audio from an old MPEG-2 home video file to clean it up in a lossless editing environment before re-muxing it back into a modern format
- Preparing audio samples from MPG training or educational videos for use in Final Cut Pro timelines that prefer AIFF over compressed formats
Frequently Asked Questions
No — the audio in an MPG file is already lossy (typically MP2 at 128–192 kbps or MP3), meaning some audio information was permanently discarded when the MPG was originally encoded. Converting to AIFF simply decompresses that lossy audio into an uncompressed PCM representation; it cannot restore what was lost. The benefit of AIFF is that it stops any further quality degradation — you have a lossless snapshot of whatever quality the MPG's audio track contains, which is ideal for editing or archiving.
AIFF stores audio as raw, uncompressed 16-bit PCM samples at full resolution — no compression is applied. A typical stereo AIFF at 44.1 kHz uses roughly 10 MB per minute, whereas the same duration of MP2 audio inside an MPG at 192 kbps uses only about 1.4 MB per minute. The size increase is expected and is a direct result of switching from a lossy compressed codec to an uncompressed one. This also means AIFF is not suited for sharing or streaming — it is intended for editing and archiving workflows.
Most MPG files — especially those from VCD, DVD production, or broadcast capture — use MP2 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer II) as the audio codec, though some use MP3 or AAC. FFmpeg detects whichever codec is present and decodes it automatically before writing the uncompressed pcm_s16be output. If your MPG carries an MP2 track at a low bitrate (such as 128 kbps from a VCD), the AIFF will faithfully represent that lower-quality source — the conversion process itself introduces no additional degradation.
MPG files based on MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards have very limited metadata support — they typically carry no embedded ID3-style tags or standard audio metadata beyond basic stream parameters. As a result, the output AIFF will generally not contain title, artist, or album metadata, since there is nothing in the source to carry over. If you need tagged AIFF files, you would need to add metadata manually after conversion using a tool like iTunes, Kid3, or FFmpeg's -metadata flag.
By default the command uses pcm_s16be, which produces a standard 16-bit AIFF. If you want higher bit depth — for example for professional audio work — you can change the codec flag to -c:a pcm_s24be for 24-bit or -c:a pcm_s32be for 32-bit output: ffmpeg -i input.mpg -vn -c:a pcm_s24be output.aiff. Keep in mind that since the MPG source audio is already lossy MP2 or MP3, increasing bit depth will not recover lost audio detail — it just changes the container representation. 24-bit AIFF is useful if the file will be processed through a plugin chain that benefits from additional headroom.
Yes — on macOS or Linux you can run a shell loop: for f in *.mpg; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vn -c:a pcm_s16be "${f%.mpg}.aiff"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.mpg) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -vn -c:a pcm_s16be "%~nf.aiff". Each MPG file will have its audio extracted and saved as a separate AIFF file with the same base name. The browser-based tool processes one file at a time, so the FFmpeg command is the recommended approach for batch jobs.
Technical Notes
The output AIFF uses the pcm_s16be codec — 16-bit signed integer PCM in big-endian byte order, which is the native and most universally compatible format for AIFF files on macOS. Big-endian byte ordering is a defining characteristic of AIFF (as opposed to AIFF-C or WAV, which can use little-endian), and it ensures compatibility with Apple software including Logic Pro, GarageBand, and older QuickTime-based tools. The sample rate of the output AIFF will match whatever sample rate is encoded in the MPG's audio stream — commonly 44.1 kHz for VCD-sourced content or 48 kHz for broadcast and DVD-derived material — since no resampling is performed by default. One known limitation is that MPEG-2 program streams (.mpg) sometimes contain multiple audio tracks or dual-channel MTS audio used in Japanese broadcasting; this tool extracts only the first detected audio stream. If your MPG contains MP2 audio at a low bitrate typical of VCD (224 kbps or lower), the resulting AIFF will be uncompressed but will retain any frequency roll-off or compression artifacts present in the original encode. No video data, subtitle streams, or chapter markers are written to the AIFF output, as the format supports none of these.