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Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 8:46 pm
by Lantesh
I had some lossless .wma files that I wanted to convert to .flac, but Sound Converter was giving me issues and couldn't accomplish the task. So I did some digging and found a way to do on the Ubuntu forums. I thought I'd pass along this info in case it might help someone else. Here is the link to the original post I found the info at:

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http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=54821
And here is my clarified version of these original instructions:
How to convert wma audio files to flac:

Step 1: In Terminal enter the command

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sudo apt-get install mpg321 vorbis-tools
Step 2: Then in synaptic find and install "nautilus-script-manager" and "nautilus-script-audio-convert"
Step 3: In Terminal enter the command

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nautilus-script-manager enable ConvertAudioFile
Step 4: Now right click on the wma audio file in Nautilus and you will see a "Scripts" option with a "ConvertAudioFile" option. Use this to convert the wma to wav.
Step 5: Now use the program Sound Converter to convert the wav to flac.

This was the easiest method I could find, and worked really well. I'm sure there are other methods to accomplish the same task as well, and if you've got one post it up. The more info we can share with each other the better.

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 3:01 pm
by Husse
Interesting - I'll make this sticky
I get questions about this now and then

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 11:14 am
by Lantesh
Husse, great idea making this a sticky. This is really useful for lossless tracks that someone might have ripped in Windows Media Player, and now no longer has the original CD's. That was exactly my situation. I had ripped some of my CD's as .wma lossless several years ago. Two of those CD's left along with an old girlfriend. Using this method allowed me to maintain the music in true lossless quality, but dump the Microsoft proprietary format. 8)

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 4:33 pm
by dequire
Another easy way that I did this was using SoundConverter. Worked like a charm. http://soundconverter.berlios.de/
The sound conversion application for the GNOME environment. It reads anything the GStreamer library can read (Ogg Vorbis, AAC, MP3, FLAC, WAV, AVI, MPEG, MOV, M4A, AC3, DTS, ALAC, MPC, Shorten, APE, SID, etc...), and writes WAV, FLAC, MP3, AAC, and Ogg Vorbis files.

SoundConverter aims to be simple to use, and very fast. Thanks to its multithreaded design, it will use as many cores as possible to speed up the conversion. It can also extract the audio from videos.
I especially like the multi-core support and that fact that you can convert not only individual files but also entire folders.

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2009 7:09 pm
by dequire
I agree it is useful. Thanks for sharing. This should be moved to the How-To's section.

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2009 8:11 pm
by nadir
i mostly use pacpl, its cli but got a simple syntax. I use it to convert ogg,mp3 and flac to wav, but i think it supports wma too:
http://pacpl.sourceforge.net/
(its in the repos, i just added the link to give some info)

syntax i use is:
pacpl --to wav --outputdir . *flac
(convert all flac-files in the current directory to wav and save the result here, in the working directory (.) )

--
the side/page says it may also be embedded into the gui (amorak,konqueror etc). i didnt know that.

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 12:40 am
by alex30
it works of the compression i know and it is good

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 5:52 pm
by godsotherhand
why would you convert wav to flac? you dont get the quality back..

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 7:23 am
by newmobilesco
Thanks buddy

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 10:56 pm
by david2
Hello there, I have same problem...

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 11:28 pm
by LRC
nadir wrote:i mostly use pacpl, its cli but got a simple syntax. I use it to convert ogg,mp3 and flac to wav, but i think it supports wma too:
http://pacpl.sourceforge.net/
(its in the repos, i just added the link to give some info)
syntax i use is:

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pacpl --to wav --outputdir .  *flac
(convert all flac-files in the current directory to wav and save the result here, in the working directory (.) )
I did a huge batch of .wma files for a friend a couple of years back (think 700+ CDs ripped and stored on an external HDD). I used ffmpeg, surprisingly enough.
Were you doing the same, having copied them into your ~/Music folder:

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find ~/Music -name '*.wma' -exec ffmpeg -i '{}' -f flac '{}.flac' \; -exec rename 's/\.wma\.flac$/\.flac/' '{}.flac' \;
You end up with .flac files, all in the same directories as the originals.
To zap the originals at the same time, add -exec rm '{}' \; to the end of the command. Do remember to do a trial run with a duplicated album directory and make sure everything plays fine.

From looking on the Ubuntu forums, wma support may still not yet be present in 64-bit versions of ffmpeg; but you can always boot from a 32-bit CD or DVD to do the conversion work.

This method has the advantage of going straight from wma to flac. Unless you're an audiophile, the sensible next move is to convert to high-bitrate ogg. If you're dealing with a huge collection (and, this was a huge collection - you could put it on random play, 24hrs a day, and never hear the same track twice in a month) the command-line method is the one I'd recommend. You can leave a terminal window minimised chomping through all of the tracks whilst you use the machine for other stuff.

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 7:17 am
by FulciLives
godsotherhand wrote:why would you convert wav to flac? you dont get the quality back..
FLAC is known as LOSSLESS COMPRESSION.

That means you get a compressed file and thus a smaller size than the WAV file but absolutely NO audio quality is lost.

In fact if you compress a WAV to FLAC and then from FLAC to WAV the new WAV is 100% identical to the original WAV

MP3 and AAC and OGG are LOSSY COMPRESSION in that the file is compressed in such a way that audio quality is lost and it can then never be regained (from that file).

Anyway that is why FLAC is so popular. Smaller size yet no loss in quality. I should point out that FLAC will never be as small in file size as MP3 or AAC or OGG but it is smaller than the WAV while giving the same quality as the WAV

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:03 am
by Brahim Salem
FF Multi Converter is what you're looking for. FF Multi Converter is a simple graphical application that enables you to convert audio, video, image and document files between all popular formats, using and combining other programs. It uses ffmpeg for audio/video files, unoconv for document files and PythonMagick library for image file conversions. Common conversion options for each file type are provided. Recursive conversions are available too.

Features: * Conversions for several file formats. * Very easy to use interface. * Access to common conversion options. * Options for saving and naming files. * Recursive conversions

FF Multi Converter 1.4.0 is the latest version that has been released recently bringing more improvements and adding support for more file formats. Multi-Converter is a simple GUI that allows users to convert between many file formats such as audio, video, document and image formats.


FF-Multi-Converter 1.4.0 Installation

To install FF-Multi-Converter 1.4.0 on Linux Mint 13 (Maya) or older or Ubuntu 12.10/12.04 or older, open the terminal and run the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ffmulticonverter/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ffmulticonverter

For other non Debian-systems, you can install FF-Multi-Converter 1.4.0 from source with these commands:

cd /tmp && wget -O ffmulticonverter-1.4.0.tar.gz http://goo.gl/k7sXZ


tar -xzvf ffmulticonverter-1.4.0.tar.gz && cd ffmulticonverter-1.4.0


sudo ./setup.py install

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Brahim
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Posts: 67
Joined: Tue May 29, 2012 10:12 pm
Location: Mahdia Tunisia

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 12:52 am
by Brianivander
Brahim wrote:FF Multi Converter is what you're looking for. FF Multi Converter is a simple graphical application that enables you to convert audio, video, image and document files between all popular formats, using and combining other programs. It uses ffmpeg for audio/video files, unoconv for document files and PythonMagick library for image file conversions. Common conversion options for each file type are provided. Recursive conversions are available too.

Features: * Conversions for several file formats. * Very easy to use interface. * Access to common conversion options. * Options for saving and naming files. * Recursive conversions

FF Multi Converter 1.4.0 is the latest version that has been released recently bringing more improvements and adding support for more file formats. Multi-Converter is a simple GUI that allows users to convert between many file formats such as audio, video, document and image formats.


FF-Multi-Converter 1.4.0 Installation

To install FF-Multi-Converter 1.4.0 on Linux Mint 13 (Maya) or older or Ubuntu 12.10/12.04 or older, open the terminal and run the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ffmulticonverter/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ffmulticonverter

For other non Debian-systems, you can install FF-Multi-Converter 1.4.0 from source with these commands:

cd /tmp && wget -O ffmulticonverter-1.4.0.tar.gz http://goo.gl/k7sXZ


tar -xzvf ffmulticonverter-1.4.0.tar.gz && cd ffmulticonverter-1.4.0


sudo ./setup.py install

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Brahim
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Posts: 67
Joined: Tue May 29, 2012 10:12 pm
Location: Mahdia Tunisia
I've tried to install ffmulticonverter. But this is what I got when I type sudo apt-get install ffmulticonverter:

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$ sudo apt-get install ffmulticonverter
E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?
Any help? thanks !

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 3:06 am
by Brahim Salem
by Brianivander on Fri Dec 07, 2012 12:52 am
I've tried to install ffmulticonverter. But this is what I got when I type sudo apt-get install ffmulticonverter:

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$ sudo apt-get install ffmulticonverter
E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?



Any help? thanks !
This means the apt is busy. You cannot install 2 packages at the same time. If this is the case, than close the software/synaptic/terminal and
keep only one instance of terminal open( run only one command line at a time) and retry the installation. If this doesn't fix the issue than try this:

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/* -vf
sudo apt-get update


"Open Sesame" lock unlocked!! Now you can install your favourite software Ali Baba!!! :D

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:10 am
by mfluder
How about using Winff. It is a frontend for FFMPEG and is found in the ubuntu repository. You need to create a preset for flac, but it works great once you do that. In the last few days I have converted many files including: MP4 to FLAC and FLAC to OGG/MP3.

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 3:10 am
by ipiklu.ninja91
But this method what you have written is for Nautilus File Explorer. On Linux mint 14 cinnamon, I have nemo.
Will it work on mine as well?

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 10:42 am
by Hoser Rob
This may be a shot in the dark, but have you installed ubuntu-restricted-extras?

It should be one of the first things you do after installing ubuntu or any of the ubuntu based mint releases anyway.

If you're using debian based mint disregard this.

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Fri May 30, 2014 2:30 pm
by nasair
As most above have mentioned there other otherways. I personally still use FooBar2000 for all of my audio converting needs

Re: Instruction on how to convert lossless .wma to .flac

Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 7:26 am
by Colin66
A method using ffmpeg was described earlier in this thread.
The package ffmpeg is no longer available from the Mint 17 repositories.
You have to install the package libav-tools and then use the command "avconv" in place of "ffmpeg"
The parameters used with avconv seem to be the same as those used with ffmpeg.
e.g.

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avconv -i someFile.flv -t actualLength -ss startDelay -vn -acodec copy outFile.m4a
This will extract a .m4a (aac codec) music file from a downloaded Youtube flash video file with the same sound quality as in the original file.
"startDelay" is the time in seconds after the video begins before the audio actually starts.
"actualLength" is the final required length of the .m4a file in seconds.
i.e. these 2 values allow cropping off the start and end of original file.