Audacity Forum

Hi All,

After the very helpful advice on getting the best from my old audio tapes in editing and exporting to mp3, I wonder if there might be another function that I've missed or might be handy to add to Audacity.

I graduated from manual recording of radio progs onto cassette tapes, to using the timer of my HDD DVDR to record them as video (VOB/VRO) at the lowest resolution. This still gives files several times bigger than the normal 128kbps of mp3s, so I have been using an 'unactivated' version of AVS Video Converter (laptop not powerful enough for video editing) to extract the audio track from the video file as mp3. I then have to save and fill out properties sheets one at a time... This is slowish but as the AVS converts at speed it is much quicker than copying the sound track in real time.

As far as I can see there is no way to import the sound from video into Audacity, other than to convert it first, (or play the track in real time - too slow), in which case one can only export it again by doing a second conversion, which unfortunately spoils the sound.

It would be handy to be able to import a whole VR or Video sound track into Audacity and then edit it into separate tracks before exporting each as mp3. Currently one has the option of importing raw data, but for the VOB file I tried it with, I got a bright red screen and an interesting sick making noise when seeing what it sounded like.

As taking advantage of the timer recording facilities of modern dvdrs is a very handy way of collecting audio, I'm sure there must be plenty of other Audacity users out there who would like to be able to import sound from 'audio video' too. Perhaps there is already a codex add on or converter that I have missed?

All the best,

S

Are you using Audacity 1.3.12 with the latest FFmpeg installed?
I've tried with some video files (a wmv file and an avi file) and the sound has been imported correctly - I've not got any VOB files handy at the moment.
There may be differences depending on what OS you are on - I'm using Linux which uses a different build of FFmpeg to what Windows uses.

Hi Steve,

I've just shut it all down, then I heard you come through on my blackberry...

Don't know much about ffmpeg and codexes and may have missed some of the necessary add ons but didn't see anywhere I could specify what I wanted to do in Audacity (beta).

I also have VLC media player: this recognises all the formats but only seems to convert to its own format - rather as Audacity saves as au.

Anyhow, I'll have to sleep on it for now.

Thanks as always for your dedication.

S

Spamlet wrote:may have missed some of the necessary add ons but didn't see anywhere I could specify what I wanted to do in Audacity (beta).

See here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.ph ... tallffmpeg
Ensure that you have the latest (1.3.12) beta: http://audacityteam.org/download/beta_windows

Marvellous Steve!!!

You and the Audacity designers have thought of everything!

I can now drag and drop the vob files straight into Audacity and it copies and exports them perfectly!

I haven't tried VR mode (all one track) 'video' yet, but with this Isuspect I can probably divide into tracks and export and label all in one go.

Why not include the libraries in with the main programme download? as unless one thinks to take advantage of this excellent forum, the user may never discover just how much Audacilty can do. It really is brilliant!

One small point: I notice in tagging the files that when one saves some metadata, the dialogue only gives the option of saving as .xml, but unless one actually writes .xml in the filename one's-self, it is not added and when one goes to load it into the next track, it doesn't show up. Also, if one makes a minor change to the data and saves again, it tries to save as tag rather than the xml file one is editing. So, in the long run it is easier just to keep rewriting the tag.xml file rather than name one's own.

Anyhow, you have just made it incredibly easy for me not to miss my favourite radio shows and listen to them when and where I like.

Excellent!

S

I have moved this thread fom the "Adding Features To Audacity" section to the "Recording Techniques" section (though technically this not recording but extraction). I also left a shadow link on the "Audio Processing" section.

WC

Spamlet wrote:Why not include the libraries in with the main programme download?

I believe that there are legal/licensing issues that prevent that from being done.

MPEG 1, Layer 3 (MP3) is licensed from Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. That's what "lame" does.

H.264 compression/format is licensed from MPEG-LA (Apple, Microsoft, Sony, et al.). That's what "FFMpeg" does.

None of these software packages, real or open source, can be included in the free Audacity program deliverable. What you do later is up to you.

Koz