What does it cost to convert MP4 to Opus?

$0.003 per call, paid in USDC on Base via x402.

How large can the MP4 file be?

Up to 100 MB (104,857,600 bytes), and at most 60 min (3,600 s) of media. Past a limit the call answers too_large (413).

What happens if the conversion fails?

The tool answers with a typed JSON error from the errors table. Payment is settled only after the tool has produced its result; a call that fails inside the tool is never settled.

catalogue / tools / Audio & video / MP4 to Opus

Convert MP4 to Opus

To convert MP4 to Opus, send one POST to /v1/audio-convert with the MP4 source and "to": "opus" in the body. Left out, "to" falls back to its default "mp3", so a Opus request has to send it. Each call costs $0.003 in USDC on Base via x402, with no account and no API key. The source file can be up to 100 MB and 60 min (3,600 s) long.

Endpoint: POST /v1/audio-convert
Price: $0.003 per call
Service: audio-convert
Docs: /docs/audio-convert

01Limits

Limit	Value
Largest source file	100 MB (104,857,600 bytes)
Longest input	60 min (3,600 s)
Timeout	94 s
Source formats	AIFF, AVI, FLAC, MKV, MP3, MP4, Ogg, WAV
Output formats	AAC, FLAC, MP3, Opus, WAV

02Example

A real MP4 to Opus run of audio-convert.

Request

POST /v1/audio-convert
content-type: application/json
payment-signature: <base64 x402 payload>

{
  "url": "https://grist.tools/samples/av/pair-clip.mp4",
  "to": "opus"
}

Response

200 OK
payment-response: <base64 settlement receipt>

{
  "source_url": "https://grist.tools/samples/av/pair-clip.mp4",
  "bytes": 11315,
  "source_container": "mp4",
  "format": "opus",
  "bitrate_kbps": null,
  "sample_rate": null,
  "audio_bytes": 33814,
  "audio_base64": "T2dnUwACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGS5xGoBE09wdXNIZWFkAQE4AUAfAAAAAABP..."
}

Source file: av/pair-clip.mp4, 11 KB (11,315 bytes). 4 s MP4 made by ffmpeg: a 64x36 PNG video stream at 1 fps (a slate field with a small amber square moving right), a mono 8 kHz FLAC audio track of two 500 Hz triangle beeps, and an English mov_text subtitle stream with two cues. The recorded run returned 33 KB (33,814 bytes) of Opus, 3 times the source size, with the source read as the mp4 container. Decoded, the Opus in audio_base64 opens with 4F 67 67 53 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 (ASCII OggS). Recorded with ffmpeg 8.1.2.

In the sample itself, the ftyp box names major brand isom, minor version 512 and compatible brands isom, iso2 and mp41; the top-level boxes run ftyp, free, mdat and moov, so the moov index comes after the media data; mvhd counts 4,000 ticks at 1,000 per second, 4 s; the 3 tracks are vide with sample entry mp4v, soun with sample entry fLaC and sbtl with sample entry tx3g. In the returned Opus: the first Ogg page, flagged as the beginning of the stream, has stream serial 0 and one 19-byte packet, the OpusHead: version 1, 1 channel, a pre-skip of 312 samples, an input sample rate of 8,000 Hz and channel mapping family 0.

03Format notes

MP4 as a source

MP4 belongs to the ISO base-media family, and Grist recognises it by the ftyp box type at bytes four to eight rather than by a file extension. QuickTime MOV and other files carrying the same box are sniffed as this one container, and the response names it mp4. The container can hold video, audio and text subtitle streams side by side, and each service takes one kind. audio-convert maps the first audio stream and drops the picture. video-thumbnail puts the seek before the input, so it happens at the demuxer and stays cheap in a large file, then decodes exactly one frame from the first video stream. subtitle-extract selects a text track by its zero-based position among subtitle streams. Each ffmpeg run strips container metadata and sets bit-exact flags, so outputs do not carry creation timestamps.

Opus as a target

An Opus result is libopus-encoded audio inside an Ogg container: the ogg muxer writes it, and the recorded outputs begin with the OggS capture pattern followed by an OpusHead identification header. For that reason a returned Opus file is recognised as ogg if it is submitted again, and opus never appears as a source slug. bitrate_kbps controls the lossy encode, and an optional sample_rate may be chosen from the closed set; left out, ffmpeg normally follows the source rate. The input's duration is checked first, then the first audio stream alone is encoded, excluding video, metadata and chapters. Pinned ffmpeg and bit-exact flags make repeated calls return the same bytes. With no bitrate given the encoder's default rate applies, and for the recorded low-rate mono examples that default produced larger files than the MP3 default.

04Errors

Code	HTTP
`invalid_input`	`400`
`blocked_target`	`403`
`unreachable_target`	`424`
`upstream_timeout`	`424`
`unsupported_content_type`	`415`
`too_large`	`413`
`unprocessable`	`422`
`internal`	`500`

When each is raised, and what it means for payment: /docs/audio-convert.

05Questions

What does it cost to convert MP4 to Opus?: $0.003 per call, paid in USDC on Base via x402.
How large can the MP4 file be?: Up to 100 MB (104,857,600 bytes), and at most 60 min (3,600 s) of media. Past a limit the call answers too_large (413).
What happens if the conversion fails?: The tool answers with a typed JSON error from the errors table. Payment is settled only after the tool has produced its result; a call that fails inside the tool is never settled.