Audacity Forum

I have a whole lot of AVI files (all the same format) that I need to extract WAV from at the highest quality possible.

I was able to import an AVI file as raw data in Audacity 1.2.6 (Win XP).

Playback was strange, with a staticky click sound at regular intervals (not just at the beginning). But the WAV file exported from Audacity was fine. Can I assume that Audacity produced the same quality as the original? The analysis and the preferences both say 16 bit and 44,100 sample rate. But there is not a one-to-one correspondence between the two dialog boxes (e.g., the import analysis refers to "endian" which has no equivalent in preferences and which was something new to me).

So assuming that what works continues to work and Audacity would be inclined to faithfully reproduce the sound, is there any way to batch process?

I saw a page on "apply chain" but it's not in my Audacity 1.2.6 and, anyway, I think it applies just to FILE > OPEN not raw data.

I see some info on SOX which looks like a learning curve. I've used command line before; that doesn't frighten me. It's the audio vocabulary/variables that I'm not familiar with. And I'm not sure it will extract from AVI.

Thanks for any tips and advice,
Jeanne

Step one. Stop using Audacity 1.2.

Download and install Audacity 1.3.12 from here...

http://audacityteam.org/download/

You can have both versions on your machine, but only use one at a time. Audacity 1.3 Projects will not open in 1.2.

Now go back up there, download and install both the "lame" software and the "FFMpeg" software. Between them, they will (should) natively recognize and manage AVI without the Import step. Just File > Open.

Koz

Thanks so much but, for the moment, I"m a tad worse off (even after rebooting just to be sure).
I downloaded and with FILE > OPEN I get a message that ffmpeg can't read.
I can FILE > IMPORT > RAW DATA AVI but if I export WAV it now has the noise that didn't get exported before.

I can also see chains. But there is no FILE OPEN.
With (1) IMPORT and then (2) EXPORT or without IMPORT, I get a message that ffmpeg can't read.

Any thoughts? I feel like I'm closer and now it hurts even more. ... Gosh how I'd like to batch process this. There ought to be a way.

Thanks again,
Jeanne

I'm confused about which version of Audacity you are actually using (you've posted in the Audacity 1.2.x part of the forum, but FFmpeg is only available for Audacity 1.3.x)
I would highly recommend that you use Audacity 1.3.12.

AVI files can be problematic because there are so many different codecs that may be involved - Try using SUPER (from erightsoft) to convert the AVI files to WAV (it's free and can do batch conversions).