Audiophile help wanted - Windows Media

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NightWulfe

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If there are any audiophiles out there, I hope they can help.

I have recently migrated to KDE 3.5 with Amarok etc etc... I don't want to go through the whole risk and schlep of trying to install WMV/WMA support on my nice stable smooth Linux installation. I know I will probably end up doing it anyway at some point but I'm willing to be naive for now.

Does anyone here know of a decent batch conversion tool to convert all my WMV and more importantly WMA files to MPG and MP3 respectively?

I have tried using Media Monkey, and various other tools, but I don't have space to convert 93GB worth of security cam vids and audio recordings while leaving the original files lying around. I realise I will probably have to leave the converter running for a week or two ;) but I need something that can delete the original file without me losing quality or getting pops and cracks.

Any ideas???
 
You can probably write an easy script to get gstreamer to do it for you

Run this on one file to see if you have all the neccessary gstreamer plugins installed

gst-launch filesrc location=filename.wma ! spider ! lame ! filesink location=filename.mp3

If that works, run this script in the parent directory. This will create a script containg all the filenames that need to be converted

find . -name *.wma -exec echo gst-launch filesrc location="'{}'" ! spider ! lame ! filesink location="'{}'" \; | sed -e 's/wma/mp3/2' > convwmamp3
chmod +x convwmamp3
./convwmamp3

This will create a script called 'convwmamp3'. The last line causes it to run. Wait for it to complete and you are done.

Or if you have access to a Mac or Windows machine, run iTunes and copy the songs into it. It will convert them
 
Last edited:
<stupid question> How u gonna convert .wma files without having some sort of playing support (codecs) installed ? </stupid question>
Dont get me wrong I'm a Mplayer fanatic.
 
JStrike said:
Or if you have access to a Mac or Windows machine, run iTunes and copy the songs into it. It will convert them
Click to expand...
Unfortunately that doesnt work on a mac - I cant remember if it ever did.

However - since Windoze dropped Media Player for the Mac and gave it to Flip 4 Mac you can now open those wma files in Quicktime (yey), save them as a mov file then import to iTunes. Cant guarantee what the quality will be like.
 
stepper : It is a valid question. It cant be avoided

bwana : True. Flic4Mac is very nice

hrm...That script reminded me why I left Linux for OS X
 
Last edited:
Having WMA files on your computer is never pleasant
 
stepper said:
<stupid question> How u gonna convert .wma files without having some sort of playing support (codecs) installed ? </stupid question>
Dont get me wrong I'm a Mplayer fanatic.
Click to expand...

Um, with the Windows that's still left on my other partition?
 
You will need to do it on windows then. iTunes is your best bet
 
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