Converting flac to mp3 on-the-fly?

sH · 2008-03-29 13:21:42

Hi ,

as maybe many other people I have the problem, that my Rhythmbox and portable audio player is capable of playing flac, but my car stereo is not.
Is there any burning software, that is capable of converting flac to mp3 while burning without any additional steps? (k3b maybe?)

If not, what is the preferred tool to convert between different audio formats?

thanks in advance.

Last edited by sH (2008-03-29 13:22:16)

fwojciec · 2008-03-29 13:33:26

I don't know of any program that does that, but here is a script that I use to convert from flacs to mp3s:

#!/bin/sh
# from http://www.linuxtutorialblog.com/post/solution-converting-flac-to-mp3

OUT_DIR="./mp3"
[ ! -d ${OUT_DIR} ] && mkdir -p ${OUT_DIR}

# modify the lame options to your
# preference
lame_opts=" --vbr-new -V 2 -B 256 "

for x in "${@}"
do
FLAC=${x}
MP3=`basename "${FLAC%.flac}.mp3"`

[ -r "$FLAC" ] || { echo can not read file \"$FLAC\" >&1 ; exit 1 ; } ;

TITLE=""
TRACKNUMBER=""
GENRE=""
DATE=""
COMMENT=""
ARTIST=""
ALBUM=""
Title=""
Tracknumber=""
Genre=""
Date=""
Comment=""
Artist=""
Album=""

metaflac --no-utf8-convert --export-tags-to=- "$FLAC" | sed 's/=\(.*\)/="\1"/' > tmp.tmp

. ./tmp.tmp
rm tmp.tmp

[ -z "$TITLE" ] && TITLE="$Title"
[ -z "$TRACKNUMBER" ] && TRACKNUMBER="$Tracknumber"
[ -z "$GENRE" ] && GENRE="$Genre"
[ -z "$DATE" ] && DATE="$Date"
[ -z "$COMMENT" ] && COMMENT="$Comment"
[ -z "$ARTIST" ] && ARTIST="$Artist"
[ -z "$ALBUM" ] && ALBUM="$Album"

echo "Converting ${FLAC} to MP3 format"

flac -c -d "$FLAC" | lame ${lame_opts} - ${OUT_DIR}/"$MP3"

id3v2 \
-a "$ARTIST" \
-A "$ALBUM" \
-t "$TITLE" \
-c "$COMMENT" \
-g "$GENRE" \
-y "$DATE" \
-T "$TRACKNUMBER" \
${OUT_DIR}/"$MP3"

done

You should save is somewhere that's included in PATH and then run it from within a directory containing flac files as "flac2mp3.sh *.flac" -- depending on how you named the script file of course. The script requires that flac, lame and id3v2 packages are installed. It'll create an "mp3" direcory inside the directory with flac files and place the mp3 files there. If you don't want the tags on the resulting mp3 files to have UTF-8 encoding remove "--no-utf8-convert" switch from the metaflac line.

kezar · 2008-03-29 14:03:02

Grip does it.
Soundkonverter if you use KDE.

[vEX] · 2008-03-29 14:58:06

ffmpeg should be able to do it too:

ffmpeg -i Audio.flac Audio.mp3

Might want to throw in some switches telling it what bitrate to encode to and such, check the manpage for details.

As for converting while burning I have no idea. :-/

Last edited by [vEX] (2008-03-29 14:59:09)

kezar · 2008-03-31 21:34:20

gnormalize does it too (rip+encode+cddb+normalize)

bionnaki · 2008-04-02 03:05:12

follow this wiki I wrote: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Convert_Flac_to_Mp3

very easy.

ezzetabi · 2008-04-02 08:12:09

bionnaki, I do not know if advising copying the script in /usr/local/bin is a good idea. Archlinux usually does not use /usr/local .

everyone, why there is so much love for .mp3? Isn't vorbis (.ogg) better?

kezar · 2008-04-02 09:22:35

Yep, vorbis is better and lighter. Maybe people use MP3 because it's well supported on usb players and because it is older.

dyscoria · 2008-04-02 09:28:08

OGG is also completely free of patent issues. OGG FTW!!

ezzetabi wrote:

bionnaki, I do not know if advising copying the script in /usr/local/bin is a good idea. Archlinux usually does not use /usr/local .

I think using /usr/local is suitable for this situation as the script is not part of a package. /usr/local is where you'd usually put stuff you've compiled yourself from source. The script isn't compiled as such, but /usr/local is there for a reason.

Last edited by dyscoria (2008-04-02 09:39:57)

ezzetabi · 2008-04-02 09:52:49

I think the Archway would be making a package. A such package is trivial to make and you'll have the file under the control of pacman system.

Or less intrusive, add a bin directory in $HOME and change the path for the used in .bashrc.

dyscoria · 2008-04-02 10:13:14

The Arch way is that you get to choose what to do.

Anyway, do you make a package for all your scripts? I have about 10 that I keep in ~/.scripts and manage with git. Creating a separate package for each one, or even all of them as one package with pacman would not be the simple way to do it or a good way to manage them (for me).

And I disagree with a bin in $HOME, as there is already a bin in /usr/local made for this purpose. And extra bin in the home folder would be messy and unneccessary.

But again, the arch way is that you get to choose what to do

Last edited by dyscoria (2008-04-02 10:13:38)

schivmeister · 2008-04-02 10:48:50

err..i think threadstarter knows that there are many ways to convert. he's asking whether there's any (GUI) app that can convert in the background and burn the processed ones. I'm not sure whether a for loop would be enough for threading, though.

/usr/local basically contains the stuff you do not want associated with the primary system components. You can place your custom scripts in /usr/local/bin and some not-so-well-compiled programs all around there in /usr/local/{lib,etc,include,man,src} whatever. I personally use it as testing ground, eg. make DESTDIR=/usr/local install

Last edited by schivmeister (2008-04-02 10:49:25)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-03-29 13:21:42

Converting flac to mp3 on-the-fly?

#2 2008-03-29 13:33:26

Re: Converting flac to mp3 on-the-fly?

#3 2008-03-29 14:03:02

Re: Converting flac to mp3 on-the-fly?

#4 2008-03-29 14:58:06

Re: Converting flac to mp3 on-the-fly?

#5 2008-03-31 21:34:20

Re: Converting flac to mp3 on-the-fly?

#6 2008-04-02 03:05:12

Re: Converting flac to mp3 on-the-fly?

#7 2008-04-02 08:12:09

Re: Converting flac to mp3 on-the-fly?

#8 2008-04-02 09:22:35

Re: Converting flac to mp3 on-the-fly?

#9 2008-04-02 09:28:08

Re: Converting flac to mp3 on-the-fly?

#10 2008-04-02 09:52:49

Re: Converting flac to mp3 on-the-fly?

#11 2008-04-02 10:13:14

Re: Converting flac to mp3 on-the-fly?

#12 2008-04-02 10:48:50

Re: Converting flac to mp3 on-the-fly?

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