How can I extract audio track from video file and save it as mp3?

Question

What is the easiest way to extract an audio track from a video file and save it as mp3 file?

Answer 1

avidemux (tutorial) can do this.

It is inside Ubuntu Software Center or you can install it command line with:

sudo apt-get install avidemux

Answer 2

Very simple CLI solution:

ffmpeg -i VIDEOFILE -acodec libmp3lame -metadata TITLE="Name of Song" OUTPUTFILE.mp3

In case you don't have ffmpeg installed:

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

Answer 3

You can do this in VLC.

Once you have started VLC:

1. select "Media" --> "Convert/Save"
2. Click "Add..." and select the file you want
3. Click "Convert / Save" (on the bottom)
4. Provide a "Destination file:"
5. Select the "Profile" (i.e. "Audio - MP3", "Audio - Vorbis (OGG)", etc.)
6. Click "Start"
7. Relax and enjoy your shoes

You can install VLC from Synaptic or the Software Center.

Answer 4

Which video format do you want to convert from? I use audacity to extract audio from mp4 and flv videos (haven't tried other formats but I assume it'll work just the same). When you open up the file, the video part is ignored, instead you'll have only the audio to work on (like normalize or truncate silence) and then export it to any formats including mp3.

Answer 5

Using avconv (from the command line, no need to install ffmpeg as avconv is its port to ubuntu)

1. use avconv -i "input file name" to discover the file (video and audio mappings). In the example shown below, the audio that I wanted to strip had 0:0 "index". (If you read thoroughly the output from avconv -i ... command you will get this.
2. Then issue the command avconv -i "input file name" -map 0:0 -c:a copy -metadata TITLE="title name" -metadata AUTHOR="author name" "output file name"

Test it with several output file formats and see.

Answer 6

This can be easily done with avidemux (sudo apt-get install avidemux to install it).

Open the video file with avidemux, then go to "Audio" menu and you'll find a "Save..." option.

Answer 7

The best way would be to use a tool that just handles the container. For MP4 I would recommend the MP4Box tool from the gpac package. For other containers like Matroska there are projects and tools like MKVToolNix.

Retrieve information about the file (Note: You could also do this with mediainfo):

$ MP4Box -info 29c3-5400-en-hacking_cisco_phones_h264.mp4 
* Movie Info *
    Timescale 1000 - Duration 00:54:30.144
    Fragmented File no - 2 track(s)
    File Brand isom - version 512
    Created: UNKNOWN DATE
File has no MPEG4 IOD/OD

iTunes Info:
    Name: Hacking Cisco Phones
    Artist: Ang Cui, Michael Costello
    Album: Chaos Communication Congress 2012 (29C3)
    Comment: http://events.ccc.de/congress/2012/Fahrplan/events/5400.en.html
    Genre: lecture
    Encoder Software: Lavf54.29.104

Track # 1 Info - TrackID 1 - TimeScale 25 - Duration 00:54:30.080
Media Info: Language "Undetermined" - Type "vide:avc1" - 81752 samples
Visual Track layout: x=0 y=0 width=1024 height=576
MPEG-4 Config: Visual Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x21
AVC/H264 Video - Visual Size 720 x 576
    AVC Info: 1 SPS - 1 PPS - Profile Main @ Level 3
    NAL Unit length bits: 32
    Pixel Aspect Ratio 64:45 - Indicated track size 1024 x 576
Self-synchronized

Track # 2 Info - TrackID 2 - TimeScale 48000 - Duration 00:54:30.143
Media Info: Language "English" - Type "soun:mp4a" - 153285 samples
MPEG-4 Config: Audio Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x40
MPEG-4 Audio MPEG-4 Audio AAC LC - 2 Channel(s) - SampleRate 48000
Synchronized on stream 1
Alternate Group ID 1

Extracting individual tracks to raw format:

$ MP4Box -raw 1 29c3-5400-en-hacking_cisco_phones_h264.mp4 
Extracting MPEG-4 AVC-H264 stream to h264
$ MP4Box -raw 2 29c3-5400-en-hacking_cisco_phones_h264.mp4 
Extracting MPEG-4 AAC

Show original file and results:

$ ls -1 29c3-5400-en-hacking_cisco_phones_h264*
29c3-5400-en-hacking_cisco_phones_h264.mp4
29c3-5400-en-hacking_cisco_phones_h264_track1.h264
29c3-5400-en-hacking_cisco_phones_h264_track2.aac