Convert OGV to MP3 - extract audio
OGV is the Ogg-container video format from Xiph. Audio is Vorbis or (less often) Opus - both browser-native, both stuck outside browser playback (see Audio codecs explained for where each fits). Wave decodes the audio stream in your browser and writes a portable 192 kbps MP3.
What actually changes
Ogg Video files pair Theora or VP8 video with Vorbis or Opus audio inside an Ogg container. Wave discards the video track entirely and decodes only the audio, then re-encodes it to MP3 through libmp3lame at variable bitrate around 190 kbps. Vorbis is the far more common audio codec inside .ogv (nearly every Wikipedia OGV, most Linux distro promotional videos, most open-source project demos); Opus appears in a smaller share of files, mostly from newer WebRTC-derived encoders.
The conversion is always a re-encode - Vorbis and Opus share no bitstream compatibility with MP3, and neither is a subset of the other. Wave uses the wasm engine's libvorbis and libopus decoders to reconstruct the PCM samples, then hands them to LAME. The re-encode is transparent for any reasonable Vorbis or Opus source at Wave's target bitrate; both codecs at 128-192 kbps are already at the "no consumer can hear the difference" range, and 192 kbps MP3 preserves that transparency in the output.
The Xiph.Org Foundation shipped Ogg in 1993, Vorbis in 2000, Theora in 2004, and Opus in 2012 - a two-decade run of royalty-free codecs designed to give the free-software world a video and audio pipeline that would never require a patent licence. Wikipedia adopted OGV as its native video format in 2007 precisely because it was the only royalty-free option, and the format's largest visible archive today is still Wikipedia's hosted-video collection: educational videos, dictionary pronunciations, and historical film restorations, all in .ogv with Vorbis audio.
Wave's MP3 output at 192 kbps VBR is a fair equivalent to any reasonable Vorbis or Opus source. Opus at 64 kbps is actually better than MP3 at 64 kbps, but that gap disappears entirely above 128 kbps on either codec, and MP3 is the format that plays everywhere - every phone, every hardware media player, every voice assistant, every car head unit. Extraction to MP3 is the practical answer when you have a Vorbis or Opus source and need it to play on a device outside the browser.
Three steps.
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Step 1
Drop the .ogv or .ogg video file onto the card.
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Step 2
Pick MP3 as the output format.
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Step 3
Convert. Save the MP3.
Answers, specifically.
Does Vorbis audio decode losslessly first?
Yes - libvorbis is a bit-exact decoder for the Vorbis bitstream. The re-encode to MP3 is the only lossy step in Wave's pipeline, and at 192 kbps VBR that step is inaudible on any consumer setup.
What if my .ogv has no audio track?
Wave detects that during inspect and stops with a friendly message. Wikipedia has some silent .ogv files (historical footage) - those can't be extracted to MP3.
Why not stay in Ogg and extract as .ogg audio?
MP3 plays on every consumer device that plays sound. Ogg Vorbis has partial support (Android and Firefox, missing on iOS, macOS Music, most car stereos). Wave outputs MP3 for portability.
Wikipedia OGV files?
Yes, all decode through Wave. Wikipedia's OGV files are conservatively encoded (Vorbis at 96-160 kbps stereo, or mono for spoken-word content), and re-encoding to MP3 at 192 kbps preserves quality with room to spare.
What about Opus audio in .ogv?
Handled the same way. Wave's wasm engine includes libopus, and the decoder feeds PCM samples straight to LAME. Opus is more common in .opus and .webm files than in .ogv, but a small share of newer .ogv exports use it.
Ogg Speex support?
Yes. Speex was Xiph's narrow-band voice codec, used mostly for voice recordings and some VoIP archives. Wave decodes it and re-encodes to MP3. Speex source material is already voice-bandwidth-limited; the MP3 will preserve every audible bit.
File size compared to the original .ogv?
Much smaller. A one-hour .ogv with 300 MB of Theora video and 60 MB of Vorbis audio becomes an 85 MB MP3 file. The video track is what dominates the OGV's size; discarding it leaves you with audio-only output.
Do Ogg comments (metadata tags) carry over?
Basic tags (title, artist if present) map to ID3v2 in the output. Ogg's comment format is text-based and maps cleanly to ID3 for the fields both formats define.