catalogue / tools / Audio & video / Ogg to AAC

Convert Ogg to AAC

To convert Ogg to AAC, send one POST to /v1/audio-convert with the Ogg source and "to": "aac" in the body. Left out, "to" falls back to its default "mp3", so a AAC 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

01Limits

LimitValue
Largest source file100 MB (104,857,600 bytes)
Longest input60 min (3,600 s)
Timeout94 s
Source formatsAIFF, AVI, FLAC, MKV, MP3, MP4, Ogg, WAV
Output formatsAAC, FLAC, MP3, Opus, WAV

02Example

A real Ogg to AAC 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.ogg",
  "to": "aac"
}
Response
200 OK
payment-response: <base64 settlement receipt>

{
  "source_url": "https://grist.tools/samples/av/pair-clip.ogg",
  "bytes": 12553,
  "source_container": "ogg",
  "format": "aac",
  "bitrate_kbps": null,
  "sample_rate": null,
  "audio_bytes": 11183,
  "audio_base64": "//FsQEV//AEQVCwkah2KhMuwwFjUFCWJ/0yl5qpSSvEt559nE+3Stuq5q1X//2HG..."
}

Source file: av/pair-clip.ogg, 12.3 KB (12,553 bytes). 4 s Ogg file: a 64x36 Theora video stream at 1 fps (a slate field with a small amber square moving right) and a mono 8 kHz FLAC audio track of two 500 Hz triangle beeps, both muxed by ffmpeg, plus a two-cue OGM text subtitle stream added by the generator. The recorded run returned 10.9 KB (11,183 bytes) of AAC, 89% of the source size, with the source read as the ogg container. Decoded, the AAC in audio_base64 opens with FF F1 6C 40 45 7F FC 01 10 54 2C 24. Recorded with ffmpeg 8.1.2.

In the sample itself, 16 Ogg pages carry 3 logical streams: Theora 3.2.1 video of 64 by 36 pixels at 1 frame per second (serial 0), FLAC 1.0 mapping audio at 8,000 Hz with 1 channel (serial 1) and an OGM text stream (serial 2). The end-of-stream pages hold granule positions 2,250 for serial 2, 67 for serial 0 and 32,000 for serial 1. In the returned AAC: it opens with an ADTS frame header carrying no CRC: MPEG-4 AAC LC, 8,000 Hz, 1 channel, a first frame of 555 bytes, and buffer fullness 0x7FF, the value that marks a variable bitrate stream.

03Format notes

Ogg as a source

An Ogg file opens with the capture pattern OggS, and the container can carry Vorbis, Opus or Theora streams. Grist sniffs that pattern and hands Ogg to three of the conversion services on these pages. Audio conversion decodes the first audio stream, leaving any Theora picture aside. A thumbnail request seeks before opening the input and decodes a single frame from the first video stream, discarding sound. Caption extraction maps a subtitle stream counted from zero among the subtitle streams and serialises it through ffmpeg. Because audio-convert writes its Opus output inside Ogg, a file produced by that service comes back as an Ogg source, not as a separate Opus format. Theora is a lossy video codec, so a frame taken from it carries compression noise into the thumbnail, unlike a clip whose video stream is itself stored losslessly.

AAC as a target

AAC output is a raw ADTS stream: ffmpeg's aac encoder writes through the adts muxer, and no MP4 container is built around it. Each ADTS frame carries its own header, and the stream is written straight to a pipe without a seekable file. The bitrate_kbps setting applies, but AAC has its own lower ceiling, because it is the slowest encoder of the set and that ceiling keeps a maximum-length input inside the encode deadline. Only the first audio stream is encoded; video, metadata and chapters are dropped, and bit-exact flags keep output reproducible for the pinned ffmpeg. sample_rate is optional, otherwise ffmpeg normally keeps the source rate. AAC is a destination only: a raw ADTS file would pass the MPEG frame-sync sniff, yet nothing proves ffmpeg would receive the right demuxer, so it is not accepted as a source.

04Errors

CodeHTTP
invalid_input400
blocked_target403
unreachable_target424
upstream_timeout424
unsupported_content_type415
too_large413
unprocessable422
internal500

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

05Questions

What does it cost to convert Ogg to AAC?
$0.003 per call, paid in USDC on Base via x402.
How large can the Ogg 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.

06Related