MP4 to OGV Converter

Convert MP4 to OGV Online

Turn an MP4 into an OGV — video inside the Ogg container — for MediaWiki uploads, Linux tooling, or any pipeline that specifies a royalty-free Xiph format. The important detail most converters hide: this tool writes VP8 video with Vorbis audio by default, not Theora. That is deliberate: VP8 is now the only video codec a Chromium browser will decode from an .ogv file at all. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours later. No sign-up, no watermark.

How to Convert MP4 to OGV

1. Upload Your MP4 File: Drag and drop onto the page or click "+ Add Files". MP4 and M4V inputs are accepted, and several files can be queued and converted with the same settings.
2. Choose Video Codec and Audio Codec: Video Codec offers VP8 (the default) and Theora (the legacy Ogg codec). Audio Codec offers Vorbis (the default), Opus, FLAC, and Speex.
3. Pick a File Compression Mode: Quality Preset is the default mode. Specific file size, Constant Bitrate, Variable Bitrate, and Constraint Quality give you direct control — see the mode table below before touching Constant Quality.
4. Convert and Download: Optionally drop the frame size under Video resolution or cut a segment under Trim, then click Convert and download the .ogv.

VP8 or Theora Inside the Ogg File?

Ogg is a container. It can carry Theora — the Xiph codec built on On2's VP3 and released as 1.0 in November 2008 — or VP8, and the choice changes both quality and where the file will play. Theora has now been dropped by every major browser engine: Chrome disabled it by default in version 120 and completed removal in version 123 (March 2024, citing security exposure and negligible usage), Edge disabled it at version 122, Firefox disabled it by default at version 126, and Safari never shipped it. Chromium's media type table currently registers exactly one video codec for the Ogg container — VP8 — alongside Vorbis, Opus and FLAC audio.

What Each File Compression Mode Actually Does

VP8 has no CRF scale — libvpx uses a bitrate target bounded by quantizer limits instead. That makes one mode on this page misleading if you assume it behaves like H.264, so here is the honest mapping:

OGV, WebM, or MP4?

If a page or app simply asked you for "open video", MP4 to WebM is the better target — same royalty-free position, far wider support today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this converter output Theora or VP8 by default?

VP8, with Vorbis audio. Theora is offered as the alternative in the Video Codec dropdown, not the default. Plenty of older documentation equates "OGV" with "Theora", which is why this trips people up — the Ogg container has carried VP8 for well over a decade, and VP8 both compresses better and survives in current software.

Will the .ogv still play in a browser?

In Chromium-based browsers, a VP8 + Vorbis Ogg file is the combination that is still registered as supported — Chromium's Ogg entry lists VP8 for video and FLAC, Opus and Vorbis for audio. A Theora .ogv will not play there: Chrome disabled Theora by default at version 120 and removed the code at version 123, Edge disabled it at 122, and Firefox disabled it by default at 126. Safari has never supported Ogg video. If browser playback is the whole point, use WebM instead and treat OGV as an interchange or archive format.

Why is my OGV larger than the MP4 I started with?

Because of the default rate control. With VP8 selected, the Quality Preset mode multiplies your source video bitrate — "Very High (Recommended)" asks for 1.32x the bitrate of the incoming MP4, and VP8 is not more efficient than the H.264 that was probably inside that MP4. The result is a bigger file that is not better looking. Switch to Specific file size, Variable Bitrate, or Constraint Quality with an explicit ceiling if size matters.

I moved the Constant Quality slider and nothing changed. Why?

VP8 does not implement a CRF scale, so the value in Constant Quality is not passed to libvpx on a VP8 encode, and no bitrate target is set either — the encoder falls back to its own conservative internal default, which usually looks soft at anything above small frame sizes. Use Constraint Quality (a genuine max-bitrate ceiling) or a bitrate mode instead. The field does work if you switch Video Codec to Theora, where it becomes libtheora's 0-10 quality scale and higher means better.

Which audio codec should I keep for an OGV?

Leave it on Vorbis unless you have a reason not to — Vorbis is the classic Ogg pairing and is registered for the Ogg container everywhere Ogg is supported. Opus is the better modern codec and is also valid in Ogg, so pick it when the consumer is current software. FLAC keeps the audio lossless at a large size penalty, and Speex is an obsolete narrowband speech codec kept for compatibility with old voice archives.

Does converting MP4 to OGV lose quality?

Yes. Your MP4 already holds lossy video, and the server re-encodes it into VP8 or Theora — there is no stream copy, so this is a second lossy generation. Keep the resolution on Keep original, use a bitrate at or above the source's, and expect a soft edge on fine detail and grain. Nothing on this page can restore detail the original H.264 encode discarded.

Can I convert only part of the MP4 or shrink the frame?

Yes to both, on this page. Trim takes a Start time and a Duration in seconds or HH:MM:SS.sss. Video resolution offers a percentage, a height preset (the presets set height and let width follow the source aspect), a single Width or Height, or an explicit Width x Height. Cutting the clip first is by far the biggest size lever, since bitrate is per second of video.

What happens to interlaced or non-square-pixel sources?

Nothing corrects them. There is no deinterlacing step anywhere in the pipeline, so an interlaced source keeps its combing baked into the VP8 frames. Sample aspect is also normalised to 1:1, so a non-square-pixel source (anamorphic DVD-era footage, DV) comes out geometrically wrong unless you set an explicit Width x Height matching the intended display shape.

How are my files handled, and how big a file can I send?

Each upload travels over an encrypted connection, is converted on our servers, and is deleted automatically a few hours after conversion — never shared, never made public, no account required. The practical limit is upload size and time rather than anything on this page, so a long 4K source takes a while to send before encoding even starts. Going the other way later, OGV to MP4 re-encodes back to H.264; if you only want the soundtrack, MP4 to OGG produces an audio-only Ogg file.