[Resolved] Audio Conversion Question

[bhamm77]

I have alot of music on my system that was ripped or dowloaded using Win Media Player. K3b will not allow me to burn CD's in Kubuntu using these files because they are wma files. >

So I searched out how to convert the files to mp3, so that I could burn on to CD's using kb3. I found what seemed like 2 solid ways to do this.

• 1. using a bash script w/ mplayer & Lame.
• 2. using the program soundconverter

Neither of these worked for me...

Question: Is is legal for me to convert these? If so, why so complicated?

This was the bash script that I made. It did not truly convert the files to mp3, seems like it only changed the file extension.

#!/bin/bash

current_directory=$( pwd )

#remove spaces
for i in *.wma; do mv "$i" `echo $i | tr ' ' '_'`; done

#remove uppercase
for i in *.[Ww][Mm][Aa]; do mv "$i" `echo $i | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`; done

#Rip with Mplayer / encode with LAME
for i in *.wma ; do mplayer -vo null -vc dummy -af resample=44100 -ao pcm -waveheader $i && lame -m s audiodump.wav -o $i; done

#convert file names
for i in *.wma; do mv "$i" "`basename "$i" .wma`.mp3"; done

rm audiodump.wav

SoundConverter didn't work for me either

Is it possible for me to get this done? & do any of you know a method that works

[eddieg780]

Re: Audio Conversion Question

I have used Audacity to convert music files from one format to another. Works well. I believe it's in the repositories.

[Ole Juul]

Re: Audio Conversion Question

You guys are probably way ahead of me, but isn't SOX the standard for converting? It's also in the repos.

[bhamm77]

Re: Audio Conversion Question

Eddieg,

thanks for the tip....But Audacity couldn't do it either. Arrrg! It seems that it can convert most audio files but not wma. Something rather difficult about those wma's

Ole Juul,

I'm not sure about SOX yet, but I will give it a try. Haven't yet read anything about SOX in my searches.

Believe me, I'm not way ahead of you. I've only been using Linux/Kubuntu for a little over 6 months. I'm loving it though. Learning more & more about Hardware/software/programming & how an OS works every week. Even wrote my 1st few programs in C++ about a month ago.(baby programs)

I will get back with you guys about SOX

[tnorris]

Re: Audio Conversion Question

Give ffmpeg a try. It converts just about every format to every other format for audio or video. Because of all the options it has it can be a little confusing, but google for something like "ffmpeg wma mp3" and you can usually find some sample command lines to model yours after.

[eddieg780]

Re: Audio Conversion Question

Do you have kubuntu-restricted-extras installed? It contains lame so you can convert to mp3's.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Audio Conversion Question

VLC also has the ability to convert between formats.

[bhamm77]

Re: Audio Conversion Question

FFmpeg seemed like a good idea. I did a search and got much help, but when I tried it.......see for your self

ffmpeg -i 01 Heaven.wma -ab 32 Heaven.mp3
FFmpeg version 0.5-svn17737+3:0.svn20090303-1ubuntu6, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
 configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-swscale --enable-x11grab --extra-version=svn17737+3:0.svn20090303-1ubuntu6 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --disable-stripping --disable-vhook --enable-libdc1394 --enable-shared --disable-static
 libavutil   49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
 libavcodec  52.20. 0 / 52.20. 0
 libavformat  52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
 libavdevice  52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
 libavfilter  0. 4. 0 / 0. 4. 0
 libswscale   0. 7. 1 / 0. 7. 1
 libpostproc  51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
 built on Apr 10 2009 23:20:33, gcc: 4.3.3
01: no such file or directory

Looks like ffmpeg isn't recognizing the wma file at all. But it's here!

I have Lame & Mplayer installed as well as ffmpeg. I also have Kubuntu-restricted-extras

ben@ben-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install kubuntu-restricted-extras
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
kubuntu-restricted-extras is already the newest version.

Still have not tried VLC or SOX. I will give these a try.

****EDIT****

Tried VLC..... It at least created another file (doesn't play on any of my players including the VLC that created it), thats the most I've gotten so far on any of my attemps.

[bhamm77]

Re: Audio Conversion Question


ffmpeg is working. Tried it one more time. Haven't quite figured out why it worked this time vs the last time, but i did install moc-ffmpeg-plugin, that could be it. I also used a wma-file from a different directory. Sounds just fine & k3b is willing to burn it. That's just what I wanted.

ffmpeg -i 07\ Machinehead.wma 07\ Machinehead.mp3
FFmpeg version 0.5-svn17737+3:0.svn20090303-1ubuntu6, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
 configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-swscale --enable-x11grab --extra-version=svn17737+3:0.svn20090303-1ubuntu6 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --disable-stripping --disable-vhook --enable-libdc1394 --enable-shared --disable-static
 libavutil   49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
 libavcodec  52.20. 0 / 52.20. 0
 libavformat  52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
 libavdevice  52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
 libavfilter  0. 4. 0 / 0. 4. 0
 libswscale   0. 7. 1 / 0. 7. 1
 libpostproc  51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
 built on Apr 10 2009 23:20:33, gcc: 4.3.3
Input #0, asf, from '07 Machinehead.wma':
 Duration: 00:04:15.51, start: 1.578000, bitrate: 129 kb/s
  Stream #0.0: Audio: wmav2, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 128 kb/s
Output #0, mp3, to '07 Machinehead.mp3':
  Stream #0.0: Audio: libmp3lame, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 64 kb/s
Stream mapping:
 Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Press [q] to stop encoding
size=  2004kB time=256.47 bitrate= 64.0kbits/s
video:0kB audio:2004kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.001560%

Once again. Thanks for all the HELP!

[tnorris]

Re: Audio Conversion Question

ffmpeg is working. Tried it one more time. Haven't quite figured out why it worked this time vs the last time, but i did install moc-ffmpeg-plugin, that could be it. I also used a wma-file from a different directory. Sounds just fine & k3b is willing to burn it. That's just what I wanted.

It didn't work the first time because you forgot the "\" after the "01". Notice the error was "01: no such file or directory"

[GreyGeek]

Re: Audio Conversion Question

....
It didn't work the first time because you forgot the "\" after the "01". Notice the error was "01: no such file or directory"

That's a major problem with command line tools. Powerful as they are, they are equally touchy about switches and parameters.
There is NO consistency between tools. One tool requires "-" before a parameter, another requires "--". Some require both, in different circumstances.
Unless one has a photographic memory having a second konsole open to the man page is almost mandatory.

That's why, when ever and if at all possible, I prefer GUI admin tools.

[bhamm77]

Re:[Resolved] Audio Conversion Question

Thanks tnorris. That is correct. I have started letting bash do its auto-complete on the files I'm selecting. That gets it right everytime.

BTW, would you happen to know how to get ffmpeg to convert multiple files(other than list ing each file), such as (dir1.wma) to (dir1.mp3) ?

for example, I tried:

ffmpeg -i *.wma *.mp3

this doesn'twork because it names all the output files *.mp3

Anyone know how to do this? Feel free to give your tips or links for using ffmpeg. The man pages are still hard for me to understand.

[skunk]

Re: Audio Conversion Question

look for winff in the repos

winff is a graphical front end to ffmpeg that handles multiple files.

http://winff.org/html_new/

[bhamm77]

Re: Audio Conversion Question

look for winff in the repos

winff is a graphical front end to ffmpeg that handles multiple files.

First of all let me just say.... Skunk, You da Man! 8)

Winff works like a charm! I can select mulitple files via GUI for conversion into another directory keeping the same file name with the new extension.

This is ablsolutely what I was looking for.

I appreciate all you buntu's who helped me out on this!