Audacity Forum

eager to learn wrote:OK, I installed Lame back in 9/2015. I tried opening the webm file in Audacity and got the error message that Audacity does not recognize webm – to try importing as Raw Data.

All LAME does is let you export MP3 files.

Import Raw Data is only for uncompressed audio data, not for videos.

To import WEBM videos, install or reinstall FFmpeg.


Gale

I have ffmpeg installed and Audacity has been working fine for editing.

I just get that weird message when I try to import a webm file.

I'm not at a PC with Audacity installed now so I can't can't check but which choices should be able to make to import the webm file?

I recall that wasn't an option when I clicked import which is why I chose Raw Data.

Can webm be imported as another term besides webm? Can if be imported under another terminology?

Thank you.

Can you play the file at all on your computer? You said VLC didn't work, right? ...Maybe the file is no good? Can you play it from the Internet? Like I said, if you can play it you should be able to record it as it's playing.

Can webm be imported as another term besides webm? Can if be imported under another terminology?

The internet says the audio in a webm file should be Vorbis or Opus. But, that probably won't help because there should be information in the file header telling the decoder (FFmpeg, etc.) what the format is, so you shouldn't have to do it manually. It's just like playing an audio or video file on your computer... You don't have to tell the computer what format you're playing...

I recall that wasn't an option when I clicked import which is why I chose Raw Data.

Compressed data is very similar to encrypted data and the raw compressed data just looks like (and sounds like) scrambled garbage (or noise) unless it's properly decoded. And with an audio/video file, you'd be converting the video data into sound which is also going to sound like random noise. You need the decoder (FFmpeg, etc.) to decompress the audio and separate it from the video.

I have ffmpeg installed and Audacity has been working fine for editing.

FFmpeg is for compressing/decompressing/converting files. It's not for "editing". If you open a compressed file in Audacity, it gets decompressed when you open it, and then Audacity can edit the de-compressed/reconstructed PCM data.

So, I did File>Import>Raw Data and it appeared in the purple area. I then chose File>Export>MP3 and it exported appearing as an mp3 file on my hard drive. When I tried to play that “MP3” file in VLC Media it’s just loud static noise, no music.

If the audio gets read & decompressed properly it should play from within Audacity. If it sounds like static when you play it in Audacity it's going to sound like static when you export it.