Free online VGM to AVI converter

VGM files contain game music rather than video, so a device or editor that accepts only AVI needs the music rendered and paired with generated visuals. The resulting AVI has video, such as a plain background, plus the VGM’s audio; it does not recover footage from the VGM file.

What the VGM format is

VGM, or Video Game Music, records sound-chip commands used to reproduce music and sound effects from games. Emulators and game-music logging tools create VGM files, which are commonly played with VGMPlay or other compatible players. A VGM file contains no picture track.

What the AVI format is

AVI is a container that can hold video and audio encoded with different codecs. It is supported by many desktop media players and some older editing or playback applications. AVI is useful when a particular application requires it, but the file’s compatibility depends on its codecs; AVI itself does not guarantee that every player can decode the contents.

How to convert VGM to AVI

Online on 101convert.com

1. Open the VGM-to-AVI converter page on 101convert.com and upload the VGM file. You can add several files for batch conversion; the page shows the per-file size limit.
2. Before converting, choose what the video shows using the settings offered on the page.
3. Start the conversion and download the AVI file when it is ready.

Offline with desktop software

For a local conversion, first render the VGM audio to WAV with VGM2WAV, included with some VGMPlay distributions, then use FFmpeg to create an AVI with a generated black background. Install FFmpeg for your operating system and run the bundled VGM2WAV utility according to its included usage instructions; a typical command form is vgm2wav input.vgm output.wav.

After rendering, run:

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i color=c=black:s=1280x720:r=30 -i output.wav -c:v mjpeg -q:v 3 -c:a pcm_s16le -shortest output.avi

This creates 720p black video at 30 frames per second, with MJPEG video and uncompressed PCM audio. Replace output.wav with the rendered audio filename and output.avi with the desired destination filename.

Quality and compatibility

The audio quality depends on the VGM renderer and its settings; the video settings do not improve the source audio. The example uses codecs commonly associated with AVI, but playback still depends on the target device supporting MJPEG and PCM. Choose a different supported video or audio codec if the receiving application requires one.