PACPL for audio transcoding

[pemur1]

Okay. It finished. I posted everything in the other thread.

[peter_babeone]

The installation was fine, but I have a problem with the formats .wma and .ra.

Does anybody know, how to solve it.

Thanks lots

[cozmicharlie]

What do you mean you "have a problem"?

[peter_babeone]

I followed your tutorial and installed without any problems. But I got an error, when I converted from .wma to .mp3. I'm using the last version 4.02 and Ubuntu Hardy

duc@vn:~/Desktop/esl-lab/easy$ pacpl -t mp3 A\ Fun\ Day.wma
Perl Audio Converter - 4.0.2

Converting: [A Fun Day.wma] -> [mp3] decode failed with exit status: 256


Total files converted: 0, failed: 1

It seems to be okay with other extensions, for example

duc@vn:~/Desktop/Entertainment/music/2_mp3$ pacpl -t aac Maria.mp3
Perl Audio Converter - 4.0.2

Converting: [Maria.mp3] -> [aac] ..done.

Total files converted: 1, failed: 0
duc@vn:~/Desktop/Entertainment/music/2_mp3$ ls -al
-rwxrwx--- 1 root plugdev 2970980 2008-07-17 12:09 Maria.aac
-rwxrwx--- 1 root plugdev 1506160 2008-02-21 14:43 Maria.mp3

[peter_babeone]

After working around, I know now, this isn't the problem of pacpl.
My wma music files are copyrighted, therefor it didn't work

[cozmicharlie]

After working around, I know now, this isn't the problem from pacpl.
My wma music files are copyrighted, therefor it didn't work

That is a problem. You have to be careful when you purchase music from the on-line stores like itunes. You are actually not buying the music but buying a license to play the music and that license restricts you.

Glad you got pacpl up working though.

Enjoy!

[eldeingles]

Hi, there...seeing the app most promising I have just given it a go.
Done everything posted above.
I get the message:

aa@aa-desktop ~/pacpl-4.0.2 $ pacpl --to mp3 01.flac
Perl Audio Converter - 4.0.2

error: could not find suitable application to encode: mp3

and so?

I'm on Mint Elyssa

[cozmicharlie]

Hi, there...seeing the app most promising I have just given it a go.
Done everything posted above.
I get the message:

aa@aa-desktop ~/pacpl-4.0.2 $ pacpl --to mp3 01.flac
Perl Audio Converter - 4.0.2

error: could not find suitable application to encode: mp3

and so?

I'm on Mint Elyssa

make sure you have the codecs installed. You should install all the gstreamer codecs (good, bad, ugly, base) and also install the flac code. I also install the lame mp3 codec. These should all be available in the Mint repository since Mint is based on Ubuntu. If you can't find I am sure the Mint forums or wiki has instructions for installing all the codecs. Post back though if you are still having problems.

[dan73]

Hi Cozmicharlie, thanks for your useful advice about installing PACPL

I'm new to Ubuntu, but have been enjoying using it for the past few days since my Windows died (again) this time due to a virus. T

I am enjoying Amarok as a music player and finding it far superior to the bloated winamp in windows. Most of my files are burnt from CD using AAC. I'm trying to use K3B to burn some CDs which is integrated with Amarok as CD burner, but it doesn't like the AAC files. Also Amarok refuses to FF or Rewind AAC files.


What I want to do is convert all my AAC files to MP3, and place them in a new folder , leaving the original files intact.


I looked at the long help for PACPL but couldn't really figure it out, I'm not to bright with regards to using terminal and commands unless things are spelt out for me clearly. Also there doesn't seem to be any tutorials for PACPL anywhere, their website is a bit sparse.

[cozmicharlie]

dan73 - Glad you are enjoying Ubuntu.

Yes - I agree that you won't find much help on the PACPL website. PACPL is developed by an individual and he just doesn't have time to write exhaustive manuals. He is very good about answering any questions though and you can always ask on this thread. If I can't help you I will ask the developer and he will always respond.

To convert from aac to mp3 is simple. The command is:

pacpl --to mp3 --only aac --outdir yournewdirectory yourfile.aac

so say I have a folder with my aac files named aacMusic in my home directory and in them I have music1.aac music2.aac etc. I want to convert them to mp3 and place them in a new folder in my home directory called mp3Music. The exact command is:

pacpl --to mp3 --only aac --outdir /home/cozmicharlie/mp3Music Home/cozmicharlie/aacMusic

Note this converts all the music1.aac files in the folder (but by using the --only it only converts aac files so if you have other files such as a text or jpeg it ignores them). If you want to convert individual files then use those instead of the whole directory so it would be:

pacpl --to mp3 --only aac --outdir /home/cozmicharlie/mp3Music Home/cozmicharlie/aacMusic/music1.aac Home/cozmicharlie/aacMusic/music2.aac

That should convert them to mp3 and move them to the new directory. A couple things to remember - if you have file name with spaces use quotation marks (or change the file names). So if my music files were named music 2.aac I would have to list them as "/Home/cozmicharlie/aacMusic/music 2.aac". Linux does not like spaces. Also if you want to tag then add the tag you want to the command such as --artist "Eric Clapton" etc.

Enjoy

Post back if you have any further questions.

and of course add any other parameters you like such as tags, place in a different folder ect.