Extracting audio from MP4 video into MP3

.mp4audioextractmp3

I downloaded a few MP4-encoded videos from which I'd like to extract the audio stream into MP3 files for easy listening on my digital player.

Most likely, VLC can do this, but the instructions followed on their forums gave out a "bubbly" sound file.

Here are the files specifications:

  • Audio mp4a 44100 Hz
  • Video AVC1

Best Answer

Use ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i input_file.mp4 -vn -b:a 128k -c:a libmp3lame output_file.mp3

(Don't forget to adjust the audio bitrate, -b:a, otherwise you might get a huge file even for a low quality source.)

Many digital players actually support AAC audio as well, so you can try extracting the original AAC audio stream, without having to reduce quality even more:

ffmpeg -i input_file.mp4 -vn -c:a copy output_file.m4a

For older versions of ffmpeg, you'll need to use -ab & -acodec options instead of -b:a & -c:a.

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