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I'm looking for a program to convert flac files to mp3, while preserving the embedded metadata (including album art).
I'm pretty sure this is possible with ffmpeg, but I don't know the command . . .
EDIT: This is on Windows 7, but I also use mac/linux, so whatever tool works the best, I'm happy to use.
Jason Sundram
Posted 2010-02-17T07:27:55.107
Reputation: 2 946
7
xrecode II preserves album art and other metadata, and is fast -- it uses all available cores. It's shareware, and works very well on Windows 7.
Jason Sundram
Posted 2010-02-17T07:27:55.107
Reputation: 2 946
1What are the limitations of the shareware? – nimcap – 2011-04-18T16:46:23.470
1
No limitation other than the nag screen that makes you wait to use it...http://xrecode.com/xrecode2/register_en.htm
– Moab – 2012-06-02T16:21:31.9231...impressively fast! Thumbs up :-) – Guðmundur H – 2012-12-18T14:25:27.730
@GuðmundurH: ...and impressively free (I don't count the nag screen). +1 – Neolisk – 2013-11-15T02:13:19.890
9
foobar2000 (on Windows) has a built-in, multi-format converter. To convert to mp3, you need to download the LAME mp3 encoder binary files; foobar2000 will ask for the location of lame.exe before converting.
sblair
Posted 2010-02-17T07:27:55.107
Reputation: 12 231
The conversion is great, and I really like it, but the embedded album art is not preserved. – Jason Sundram – 2010-02-20T21:50:22.087
1@Jason Ah, yes, with foobar2000 you may have to do some manual post-conversion work with Tag&Rename or Mp3tag or something similar. – sblair – 2010-02-21T20:04:45.580
Thanks for the 'foobar2000' recommendation. Nice conversion program. – jonathanconway – 2011-08-28T05:19:17.687
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ffmpeg -i input.flac -ab 196k -ac 2 -ar 48000 output.mp3
I'm not sure if it keeps tag and metadata. If FFmpeg doesn't work, for what platform do you need your converted (Windows, OSx, Linux) ?
Kami
Posted 2010-02-17T07:27:55.107
Reputation: 3 108
At least the version of ffmpeg I have does seem to preserve tags by default. -ab 196k specifies a constant bitrate. ffmpeg -i input.flac -aq 2 output.mp3 would encode the audio as VBR V2 instead. Five channel FLAC files are converted to two channel MP3 files by default. The sample rate is also converted to 48.1 kHz by default if it's higher than that in the input file. -ar 48000 would also convert 44.1 kHz FLACs to 48 kHz MP3. – Lri – 2012-07-14T15:12:52.210
4
Since you're using Linux, get SoundConverter.
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.
SoundConverter preserves meta information (tags).
+1 Works nicely for relatively small numbers of files, but doesn't scale to bulk conversion of ~8000 flac tracks. – starblue – 2010-11-14T10:38:34.160
3
Media Monkey can do this.
It's Windows based (but you haven't specified your OS) and the mp3 encoder that comes with the free version is time limited. However, you can just replace the dll manually to remove this restriction.
It will also do batch conversions. You can either add your flac files to the library or just browse to them using the built in explorer view, select them all and then Tools > Convert Audio Format works on all the selected items.
ChrisF
Posted 2010-02-17T07:27:55.107
Reputation: 39 650
3
Is this linux? mp3fs is an elegant solution. It is a FUSE file system that presents your FLACs as MP3s transparently.
Dan Gravell
Posted 2010-02-17T07:27:55.107
Reputation: 320
Thanks for the link -- I hadn't heard of mp3fs; it sounds awesome. – Jason Sundram – 2010-02-17T16:05:05.687
3
dBpoweramp Music Converter preserves embedded album art when converting from FLAC to mp3.
sblair
Posted 2010-02-17T07:27:55.107
Reputation: 12 231
Not free but awesome software, still using version 11.5, I like it better than any other version. – Moab – 2012-06-02T16:22:46.540
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Max for Mac OS does this quickly and easily.
Jason Sundram
Posted 2010-02-17T07:27:55.107
Reputation: 2 946
Doesn't work that well anymore. – Ory Band – 2011-08-31T23:01:48.220
Embedding album art in audio files doesn't make sense to me. It's an "album" art, not a "song" art. It multiply the space used by the number of tracks. And there's no real standard. – fluxtendu – 2010-02-17T07:56:45.513
@fluxtendu, I see your point, but I have my reasons. – Jason Sundram – 2010-02-17T16:02:50.217