How to convert MPG to MP3 online
- 1
Drop your MPG file
Drag your MPEG-1/MPEG-2 Program Stream file onto the box above, or click it to pick a file.
- 2
Wait a few seconds
Conversion starts on its own and runs on your device, not on a server.
- 3
Download your MP3
Click Download to save the MPEG-1 Audio Layer III file.
MPG vs MP3: format overview
MPEG-1/MPEG-2 Program Stream
Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) · 1993
- Compression
- lossy
- Transparency
- No
- ✓ Plays on old DVD players, VCD players and set-top boxes
- ✓ Simple, long-established MPEG-1/MPEG-2 video
- ✗ Much larger than H.264 MP4 at similar quality
MPEG-1 Audio Layer III
Fraunhofer Society · 1993
- Compression
- lossy
- Transparency
- No
- ✓ Universal compatibility — plays everywhere
- ✓ Good compression at 128–320 kbps
MPG magic bytes: 00 00 01 BA
MP3 magic bytes: 49 44 33 (ID3) / FF FB
Why convert MPG to MP3?
MPEG files (.mpg and .mpeg) are videos from the VCD and DVD era, plus many TV and camcorder recordings. Often you only need the sound: a song from a concert clip, a talk you want to hear on a walk, or audio for an editing project.
MP3 is the audio format that plays everywhere — phones, car stereos, speakers and every music app. Converting drops the video and keeps a small, easy-to-share sound file.
Got a file that Windows calls "MPEG-4" instead? That's an MP4 or M4A file, not an MPEG-1/2 video. Use the MP4 to MP3 or M4A to MP3 converter for those.
Common reasons to convert MPEG to MP3:
- ›Keeping the music or speech from a video clip
- ›Listening to a recorded lecture or sermon on your phone
- ›Saving the soundtrack of an old DVD or TV recording you made
- ›Getting audio you can drop into a podcast or video editor
Quality & file size: MPG to MP3
The MP3 is 192 kbps, keeps the source's sample rate and is stereo. In our test, a 46.6-second MPEG-2 video with 384 kbps MP2 sound at 48 kHz became a 1.12 MB MP3 at 48 kHz in about 2 seconds.
MPEG videos usually carry MP2 or AC-3 (Dolby Digital) sound, which is already compressed, so the MP3 is a second lossy step. At 192 kbps the difference is hard to hear, but the MP3 can't sound better than the original.
A 5.1 surround track is mixed down to stereo, because MP3 holds two channels at most. A video with no sound at all gets a clear "no audio track" message instead of an empty file.
The video part is dropped, so the MP3 is a small fraction of the MPEG's size — about 1.4 MB per minute at 192 kbps.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert MPEG to MP3?
Is MPEG the same as MP3?
My file says MPEG-4. Will this work?
Will the MP3 sound worse than the video?
What happens to surround sound?
How big an MPEG file can I convert?
Your MPG file never leaves this tab — FormatDrop has no endpoint that receives file data. How it works