Verified local conversion

MPEG to AU

Pulling the soundtrack out of a .mpeg video into .au audio keeps what you can hear and drops the picture entirely. Free, private, and validated — the file never leaves your browser.

Private for supported formats — processed in your browser

Convert supported files

Runs on your device

Drop MPEG files here

Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.

Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.

About converting MPEG video to Sun audio

Pulling the soundtrack out of a .mpeg video into .au audio keeps what you can hear and drops the picture entirely. An .mpeg file holds an MPEG program stream: video and audio multiplexed together using the original MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 standards. These files come from Video CDs, DVD-authoring workflows, and older capture hardware, and they remain readable by virtually every conversion tool.

An .au file is the Sun audio format, one of the earliest structured audio files, created for Unix workstations. A minimal header followed by sample data, classically 8 kHz mu-law telephony audio, makes .au about as simple as an audio format can get. For this route the practical draw is so simple that nearly any audio tool can parse it and pCM variants preserve the recording exactly — balanced against essentially obsolete outside legacy systems, which is worth knowing before you commit a large batch.

Why convert MPEG to AU?

The usual reason to take .au audio out of a .mpeg file is that only the sound matters — a talk, interview, song, or podcast segment. Keeping the video stream would waste storage, and a dedicated audio file is easier to trim, tag, and play. On the source side, mPEG-1 and MPEG-2 need roughly twice the bitrate of H.264 for comparable quality; on the target side, the payoff is so simple that nearly any audio tool can parse it, which is exactly what you want for maintaining sound assets in vintage Unix and Java software.

MPEG vs AU at a glance

AspectMPEG video (.mpeg)Sun audio (.au)
Format typeContainer — quality depends on the codecs and settings insideLossless — every pixel or sample is preserved exactly
How it stores dataprogram streams were engineered for reliable storage media, in contrast to the error-hardened transport stream used for broadcasta 24-byte header carries a '.snd' magic number, data offset, encoding type, sample rate, and channel count
Strongest athandling digitized VHS or Video CD contentmaintaining sound assets in vintage Unix and Java software
Weak spotmPEG-1 and MPEG-2 need roughly twice the bitrate of H.264 for comparable qualityessentially obsolete outside legacy systems
Metadatathe program stream carries essentially no descriptive metadata; the specification predates any notion of embedded titles or tagsan optional annotation field in the header can hold a short text string; no formal tag structure exists
01

Add your MPEG file

Drop one or more .mpeg files onto the converter above, or browse for them. They load into browser memory only — nothing is uploaded, so there is no size-based pricing and no server queue.

02

Pick AU as the output

Select .au in the output menu next to each file. The menu only offers targets this engine can genuinely produce, so if AU is selectable, the route is real and validated.

03

Convert on your device

Press Convert. A WebAssembly FFmpeg build demuxes the audio track and re-encodes it locally; the video stream is simply discarded.

04

Verify and download

Each result is signature-checked before the download unlocks, so a failed encode can never masquerade as a valid AU file. Outputs keep the original filename with the .au extension.

MPEG to AU questions, answered

Will converting MPEG to AU lose quality?

Since mpeg is container-oriented and au is lossless-oriented, the conversion preserves the source content exactly as stored; no additional compression pass is applied beyond what .au itself requires.

Is it private to convert MPEG files here?

Yes — the .mpeg file is processed inside your browser tab and never uploaded. A WebAssembly FFmpeg build demuxes the audio track and re-encodes it locally; the video stream is simply discarded. Close the tab and the file is gone from memory.

Where will the AU file work?

Audio tools such as Audacity, sox, and ffmpeg open .au readily, and Java's sound APIs still accept it. Consumer players, phones, and browsers dropped meaningful support long ago, so conversion to WAV or MP3 is the practical route.

Will the AU file be bigger or smaller than my MPEG?

Much smaller — the video stream is usually 80–95% of a .mpeg file's weight, and it is discarded entirely. The remaining audio is re-encoded at the bitrate implied by your quality setting.

What happens to the metadata in my MPEG file?

This converter strips container metadata deliberately (the FFmpeg command runs with metadata mapping disabled) so exported files do not leak recording details. In the source, the program stream carries essentially no descriptive metadata; the specification predates any notion of embedded titles or tags; none of it is transmitted anywhere because the file never leaves your browser.