Convert MPG to AAC — Free Online Converter

MPG files store video using MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 compression alongside MP2 (MPEG Audio Layer 2) audio — the audio codec used in DVDs, Video CDs, and digital TV broadcasts. AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) is the successor to MP3 and MP2, offering significantly better compression efficiency. Converting MPG to AAC extracts the audio track and upgrades it from the aging MP2 codec to modern AAC, which delivers superior quality at lower bitrates and is universally supported by all modern devices.

MP2 audio in MPG files is a relic of the 1990s broadcast era. It requires higher bitrates to achieve the same quality as AAC — typically 192-384 kbps MP2 for what AAC achieves at 128 kbps. Converting to AAC produces smaller files with better or equivalent audio quality, and AAC is natively supported by every modern phone, tablet, computer, and web browser — unlike MP2 which requires specific decoder support.

FFmpeg demuxes the MPG container to extract the MP2 audio stream, decodes it to PCM, and re-encodes using the AAC encoder (native or libfdk_aac). Since MP2 and AAC are both lossy codecs, this is a transcode operation that introduces a second generation of lossy compression. The AAC bitrate should match or exceed the original MP2 bitrate to minimize additional quality loss. Typical MP2 bitrates in MPG files range from 128 to 384 kbps.