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Re: Convert m4a --> ogg

I have installed dir2ogg 0.11.8 on Lubuntu 14.04 LTS; faad is inherently installed, Build: May 1 2012.

I would like to convert the m4a file ManjusriMantra.m4a to ogg, original size of this m4a media file is 4.1 MB. I have done this already 2 ways:

METHOD1

    avconv -i "ManjusriMantra.m4a" "ManjusriMantra.mp3"
    wait
    avconv -i "ManjusriMantra.mp3" "ManjusriMantra.ogg"

Result- Size: 16.8 MB, Sound quality: good.

METHOD2

    avconv -i "ManjusriMantra.m4a" "ManjusriMantra.ogg"

Result- Size: 36.0 MB, Sound quality: good.

I would like to do this with the dir2ogg command. I first read some online tutorials, e.g.

  1. jak-linux.org
  2. badcomputer.org

I make the below attempts:

    cd ~/Documents/a
    dir2ogg -d ~/Documents/a -m -q7
    dir2ogg -d ~/Documents/a --convert-m4a -q7
    dir2ogg ManjusriMantra.m4a
    dir2ogg -d ~/Documents/a --convert-m4a --quality=9

but in each I encounter:

    INFO: Converting "/home/a/Documents/a/ManjusriMantra.m4a" (using faad as decoder)...
    ERROR: Input file "(stdin)" is not a supported format
    WARNING: No tags found...

Does anyone know what I did wrong? Why doesn't dir2ogg work? Since I always get such bloated file sizes, anything else to use beside dir2ogg?

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1 Answer 1

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When you use the repository avconv under Trusty Tahr to convert with the simple commandline:

avconv -i input.m4a output.ogg

you actually encode to flac: a lossless format with quite a large file size. Hence your inflated output! (This is certainly not the case with a modern FFmpeg which has a more sensible default of libvorbis.)

To encode a reasonable sized, high quality ogg vorbis file try the following:

avconv -i ManjusriMantra.m4a -c:a libvorbis -q:a 7 ManjusriMantra.ogg

and you should be pleasantly pleased with both sound quality and file size.

dir2ogg can be massaged enough to work but it is a really old and tired application that might be better left asleep :).

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