Free online MPG to FLAC converter

Source format: mpg

MPG is a common filename extension for MPEG media files. In practice, an .mpg file usually contains video with an audio track, most often encoded as MPEG-1 or MPEG-2. It is widely used for older digital video, DVD-related content, archived TV recordings, and files exported from legacy cameras or editing tools. Because .mpg is a container for audiovisual data, the audio you want to keep may be only one part of the file.

Target format: flac

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. It is a lossless audio format, which means it compresses audio without discarding quality. FLAC is popular among music collectors, archivists, and anyone who wants high-quality audio storage with smaller file sizes than uncompressed WAV. It supports metadata, is widely compatible with modern players, and is a strong choice for preserving audio extracted from a video file.

How to perform the conversion

The best approach is to extract the audio stream from the MPG file and encode it to FLAC. A reliable desktop tool for this is FFmpeg, which is free, fast, and works on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

1. Install FFmpeg if it is not already available on your system.
2. Open a terminal or command prompt.
3. Run a command like ffmpeg -i input.mpg -vn -c:a flac output.flac.
4. If the MPG file contains multiple audio tracks, choose the desired one with stream mapping, for example ffmpeg -i input.mpg -map 0:a:0 -vn -c:a flac output.flac.
5. Check the resulting output.flac in an audio player to confirm the conversion succeeded.

If you prefer a graphical workflow, Audacity can import many MPG files through FFmpeg support, after which you can export the audio as FLAC using File → Export → Export as FLAC. This is useful when you want to trim, normalize, or inspect the audio before saving it.

You can also convert the file on 101convert.com for free, without installing any software.

Notes on quality, compatibility, or limitations

FLAC is lossless, but the conversion cannot improve the original audio quality. If the MPG source uses compressed audio such as MP2 or AC-3, the FLAC file will preserve that audio exactly as decoded, but it will not restore detail that was never present in the source.

Because .mpg usually contains video plus audio, converting to FLAC removes the video entirely. If you need both audio and video, keep the original MPG or convert to a different container instead.

Compatibility is generally excellent for FLAC in modern software, but some older portable devices and legacy players may not support it. Also, if the MPG file has unusual codecs, damaged streams, or copy protection, extraction may fail or produce incomplete audio.