Linux, open source, command-line, leisure
If you want to crunch those large FLAC files to mp3 and are looking for a quality audio converter, try ftransc. The advantage to ftransc is its ease of use from the cmdline. There is no need to be an audio expert. Using presets make ftransc very simple to use. It comes with a Qt based GUI as well. And if you are a Rhythmbox fan then you also have a ftransc plugin. It integrates with Nautilus as well. Continue reading ftransc: convert audio files
Sometimes I face a problem while transcoding multimedia files with HandBrake. I prefer to keep the audio bitrate at 96 kbps but sometimes the sound quality of the output audio file is compromised. As transcoding takes time, in many cases I extract the audio track from the source multimedia file and merge it with the video track of the HandBrake output. I use avconv for this. Other tools that come in handy (due to codec issues) are mencoder and mkvtoolnix.
Steps with example:
$ avconv -i original.mp4 ... Stream #0.1(und): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 95 kb/s ...
$ avconv -i original.mp4 -vn -acodec copy audio.aac // To extract the 4th audio track $ avconv -i original.mp4 -map 0:3 -vn -acodec copy audio.aac
$ avconv -i handbrake_out.mkv -an -vcodec copy video.mkv
$ avconv -i audio.aac -c:a aac -b:a 96k audio96.aac
$ avconv -i video.mkv -itsoffset 00:00:00.2 -i audio96.aac -acodec copy -vcodec copy merged.mkv
That’s it! merged.mkv is the file you want.
Transmageddon is a fresh video converter for Linux. It uses GStreamer in the backend. The author has announced the first release yesterday. The goal of this software is to provide a very easy interface to users for transcoding videos into formats recognized by their devices. As this is just the first release there are many exciting features in the TODO list which are yet to be implemented. One of the features already implemented is video rotation which is very useful but not commonly exposed by GUI based transcoder interfaces. Transmageddon supports all formats supported by GStreamer.
To install Transmageddon on Ubuntu, run:
$ sudo apt-get install transmageddon
Webpage: Transmageddon
Online Video Converter is for those who want to convert their videos stored online and download them. It also supports importing videos from your local disk in addition to Google Drive, Dropbox, SkyDrive and direct URLs to videos. It doesn’t seem to support any online hosting service like YouTube or Vimeo. Features:
Webpage: Online Video Converter
All the multimedia converters I have tried till date either use ffmpeg or mencoder. And sometimes I prefer using the cmdline to handle certain operations at a granular level. Probably I won’t need to do that anymore, thanks to curlew! This tiny (less than 512KB) GUI front-end to both mencoder and ffmpeg is hell of a utility for newbies and advanced users alike. Currently it is under heavy development. Because of the combined power of the two industry standard multimedia engines curlew can easily challenge any other software belonging to the same category. The only option I couldn’t find right now is the ability to join audio and video streams together. But this becomes insignificant considering its current features:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:noobslab/apps $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install curlew
Webpage: curlew
Linux has a huge array of video editors. One of the newer members is the immensely powerful Lightworks, which has announced the Linux public Beta recently after a long delay. While Lightworks is industry-standard, OpenShot on the other hand maintains a balance between a rich set of features and ease of use for the regular user.It uses ffmpeg and has plenty of features to boost your videos:
Install OpenShot on Ubuntu:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install openshot openshot-doc
Webpage: OpenShot
Unlike HandBrake, Arista supports encoding to many more formats. It has presets for many devices. The application is very simple and easy to use. Arista uses GStreamer as the backend transcoding engine.
To install Arista on Ubuntu, run:
$ sudo apt-get install arista
Webpage: Arista