MP4 is a widely-used video format; you can grab MP4 files off YouTube, Vimeo, and many other online video websites. But what if you have a video of a song you love, and want to extract just the music? Read on to see two different ways to do just that.
The Power-User Way: Using Foobar2000
Foobar2000 is a lean, free and incredibly versatile audio player. Setting it up for audio conversion requires a little bit of work, but this is a one-time operation. Once it’s configured you could use it to convert batches of files very quickly, and fine-tune conversion settings to get the exact results you’re after. If you don’t have Foobar2000, here’s how you set it up:
First, go to the Foobar2000 website, download the application and install it. Don’t forget to make sure the Converter option is checked.
Next you’re going to need LAME, which a free MP3 encoder. You can get it at RareWares. If you’re not sure what to get, download the first file on the page (Currently LAME 3.98.4). It’s a small ZIP file; once you download it, extract its contents somewhere safe (not in a temporary location). I placed it under Program Files > LAME:
Next run Foobar2000, and drop a test MP4 on the playlist. When you hit Play you should be able to hear just the music.
Now right-click the file and select Convert > Convert…
Foobar2000’s Converter Setup dialog will now open; once you’re comfortable with this tool, you could use it to define any number of conversion presets. Let’s set up our first one.
Click Output format. From the list, select MP3 (LAME). By default, encoding is done at 190kbps. This should be enough for most people, but if you’re looking for something more specific, you can hit Edit and manually set bitrate and quality.
Click Back to go back to the Converter Setup dialog. You could configure all sorts of extra options here, such as the destination folder, audio processing, and what to do when the conversion is done. For now, we’re going to leave them all at default. Click Convert.
Foobar2000 will now pop up an error message, letting you know this operation may result in a loss of quality. That’s a fact of life; click Yes – we’re sure we want to do this.
You will now be asked where you want to save the resulting MP3; select a filename and click Save. By the way, this isn’t the original Michael Jackson song, but a cover version by Pomplamoose.
Since this is the first file we’re converting, Foobar2000 will now ask you where lame.exe is. Go to wherever you unzipped the LAME archive and double-click lame.exe.
You should now see a progress bar running as the conversion takes place.
That’s it! You’ve just converted your first MP4 to an MP3 using Foobar2000. The next ones are going to be much easier, since everything is set up now. All you have to do with the next file (or batch of files) is just right-click, select Convert and click [Last Used]. You can also create any number of conversion presets, all of which will appear under this menu.
The Simple Way: Using a Website
If the above seems too much of a hassle, you can always use a website to do the job. There are several websites that provide direct YouTube-to-MP3 conversion services, but one of the simplest is YouTube mp3. It lacks any fine-tuning options and works for just one file at a time, but this makes it very simple to use.
Just paste in the video URL, click Convert Video and download the resulting MP3.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
How to Convert an MP4 Video into an MP3 Audio File
Monday, November 8, 2010
MacX Video Converter Pro available free until November 15
MacX Video Converter Pro available free until November 15
by Sam Abuelsamid (RSS feed) on Nov 8th 2010 at 4:00PM
There is no shortage of video source material available both on and off-line these days, but not all of it is playable or editable on every platform. Free tools like Handbrake (here's our look at Handbrake 0.9.4) are great for ripping content from DVDs but the number of available output formats are limited.Back in the day, VisualHub was the ultimate tool for converting pretty much any video codec into another. Plus, it allowed you crop, resize, adjust video quality and even stitch files together. Unfortunately, it's no longer available.
There's also good news. Digiarty is currently making its MacX Video Converter Pro software available for free until November 15. Video Converter Pro offers what is probably the widest codec support we've seen in a while including output to FLV, WMV, MPEG4, H264 and more. There are dozens of pre-defined profiles for portable devices like phones, the Sony PSP and even DVD VOB files. It lacks some of the capabilities of Visual Hub, like cropping and ability to define a maximum size for the output video and let it pick the encoding settings.
However, if you have Final Cut (express or pro) you can convert odd-ball formats into files that can be edited and then crop and set export settings. MacX Video Converter Pro is available for free until November 15, 2010.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Simple Drag and Drop Video Conversion for Android, iPhone, and PSP with Miro
Are you looking for a way to quickly convert a movie for your iPhone, PSP, or Android device without messing with confusing settings and options? Today, we’ll look at a simple way to convert your video files with Miro Video Converter.
We’ve previously covered how to convert videos to 3GP for mobile phones with Pazera, and today we take a look at how to convert them for several different mobile devices with Miro Video Converter. We’ll be using Windows 7 in our examples, so your screen may look slightly different.
Installation
Installation is straightforward. You can find the link below.
When you open the Miro Video Converter you’ll notice instantly that the interface could not be much simpler.
Essentially all the instruction you need to use Miro Video Converter are displayed for you on the interface. To begin, just drag and drop your video file onto the designated area or click choose a file to browse for your selection.
Next, select your output or device from the drop down list.
If you select iPhone or one of the other Apple devices, you’ll have the option to Send to iTunes. This will automatically add your video to your iTunes Library when finished.
Then just click Convert.
While your video is being converted, you can track the conversion process on progress bar. Conversion times will vary depending on hardware and file size, but we found converting 700 MB to 1 GB files took between 15-20 minutes.
You final video will be output in the same directory as your original file. Miro will append the chosen format to the output filename. For example, when converting Friday.avi for the Droid, the final output file will be Friday.droid.mp4.
Now just transfer your video to your device and you’re ready to go.
Conclusion
When we first tested Miro Video Converter we found the audio output to be rather poor, but in their latest version (2.4) the audio issues have improved. While Miro gets the job done quick and easy, it’s not without it’s drawbacks. You’re likely to find yourself with a larger file size in exchange for speed and ease of use. In addition, there is no way to process more than one file at a time and you can’t convert directly from a DVD.
Miro Video Converter is available for both Mac and Windows
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