Ubuntu – Remove Audio Streams of videos – recursively without converting audio or video with FFMPEG

conversionffmpegscriptssoundvideo

Lets say for example you have a season of a TV show, the best encode you can find, but it has multiple audio streams, that you don't need. You don't want to re-encode and loose video/audio quality and waste time but you don't want to waste the space for the extra audio streams. And depending on the order of the streams the wrong stream may be default.

How can I recursively strip/convert all video files in a file tree and keep only the audio stream(s) needed?

I have read ffmpeg is the best tool for this.

Best Answer

Uncomment the line you wish to use and the file type. You can add many more "presets/FLAGS", this is just an idea. 

sudo nano /media/audio.sh

---Script for Recursive Conversion of Video stripping Audio Streams and not converting anything!

#!/bin/bash

#Uncomment a Preset FLAGS depending on video/subtitle/audio stream wanting to keep, easy to find which stream via playing in VLC and hitting CTRL + J (when not in fullscreen)

#TO ADD SUBTITLES< THEY MUST BE SAME NAME AS FILE*Check out Filebot Filerenamer*
#Don't Strip audio and do subtitles at the same time, do one at a time
#To add subtitles, just uncomment the line under ADD SUBTITLES

#TO FIX AUDIO SYNC
#Use hotkeys J/K in VLC to find correct value
#DONT use FLAGS, just OFFSET 

#FLAGS DESC:
#"-map 0:0 -vcodec copy" -- which video stream to copy
#"-map 0:1 -acodec copy" -- which audio stream to copy
#"-map 0:2 -scodec copy" -- which subtitle stream to copy
#"-itsoffset 0.2"        -- DELAY Audio by 0.2 seconds can do -0.2 for opposite effect!

###Video Stream 0 Audio stream 1 Subtitle Stream 2
#export FLAGS="-map 0:0 -vcodec copy -map 0:1 -acodec copy -map 0:2 -scodec copy"

###Video Stream 0 Audio Stream 1
#export FLAGS="-map 0:0 -vcodec copy -map 0:1 -acodec copy"

###Audio Stream 2
#export FLAGS="-map 0:0 -vcodec copy -map 0:2 -acodec copy"

###Audio Stream 3
#export FLAGS="-map 0:0 -vcodec copy -map 0:3 -acodec copy"

##FIX AUDIO SYNC
#export OFFSET="-itsoffset 0.2"

if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
    TRANSCODEDIR="."
else
    TRANSCODEDIR="$1"
fi

    ##To remove source files after conversion and rename back to original w/o *FINAL*, uncomment second line #&&find (Must become 1 line of code IE: Hit delete 2 times)
    ##I do not reccomend using this unless you are 100% of what you are doing, it will delete source files even if conversion fails, basically unless you are creator of files
    ##ANY files without FINAL will be deleted, be warned, I have personally deleted many a files I didnt want to by using this line :P
    ##USE ALIASES (and confirm script results) INSTEAD OF &&FIND REMOVE AUTOMATION

    #AVI
    #find "$TRANSCODEDIR"/* -type f -name "*.avi" -exec bash -c 'ffmpeg -i "$1" $FLAGS "${1%\.*}"FINAL.avi ' __ {} \; 
#&& find . -type f -not -name '*FINAL.avi' -name '*.avi' -delete && rename 's/FINAL//' *.avi
    #AUDIO SYNC
    #find "$TRANSCODEDIR"/* -type f -name "*.avi" -exec bash -c 'ffmpeg -i "$1" $OFFSET -i "$1" -map 0:v -vcodec copy -map 1:a -acodec copy -map 0:s? -scodec copy "${1%\.*}"FINAL.avi ' __ {} \;
#&& find . -type f -not -name '*FINAL.mp4' -name '*.avi' -delete && rename 's/FINAL//' *.avi

    #MKV
    #FROM ORIGINAL STREAMS
    #find "$TRANSCODEDIR"/* -type f -name "*.mkv" -exec bash -c 'ffmpeg -i "$1" $FLAGS "${1%\.*}"FINAL.mkv ' __ {} \;
#&& find . -type f -not -name '*FINAL.mkv' -name '*.mkv' -delete && rename 's/FINAL//' *.mkv
    #ADD SUBTITLES
    #find "$TRANSCODEDIR"/* -type f -name "*.mkv" -exec bash -c 'ffmpeg -i "$1" -sub_charenc CP1252 -i "${1%\.*}".srt -vcodec copy -acodec copy "${1%\.*}"FINAL.mkv ' __ {} \;
#&& find . -type f -not -name '*FINAL.mkv' -name '*.mkv' -delete && rename 's/FINAL//' *.mkv
    #AUDIO SYNC
    #find "$TRANSCODEDIR"/* -type f -name "*.mkv" -exec bash -c 'ffmpeg -i "$1" $OFFSET -i "$1" -map 0:v -vcodec copy -map 1:a -acodec copy -map 0:s? -scodec copy "${1%\.*}"FINAL.mkv ' __ {} \;
#&& find . -type f -not -name '*FINAL.mp4' -name '*.mkv' -delete && rename 's/FINAL//' *.mkv

    #MP4
    #FROM ORIGINAL STREAMS
    #find "$TRANSCODEDIR"/* -type f -name "*.mp4" -exec bash -c 'ffmpeg -i "$1" $FLAGS "${1%\.*}"FINAL.mp4 ' __ {} \;
#&& find . -type f -not -name '*FINAL.mp4' -name '*.mp4' -delete && rename 's/FINAL//' *.mp4
    #ADD SUBTITLES
    #find "$TRANSCODEDIR"/* -type f -name "*.mp4" -exec bash -c 'ffmpeg -i "$1" -f srt -i "${1%\.*}".srt -c:v copy -c:a copy -c:s mov_text "${1%\.*}"FINAL.mp4 ' __ {} \;
#&& find . -type f -not -name '*FINAL.mp4' -name '*.mp4' -delete && rename 's/FINAL//' *.mp4
    #AUDIO SYNC
    #find "$TRANSCODEDIR"/* -type f -name "*.mp4" -exec bash -c 'ffmpeg -i "$1" $OFFSET -i "$1" -map 0:v -vcodec copy -map 1:a -acodec copy -map 0:s? -scodec copy "${1%\.*}"FINAL.mp4 ' __ {} \;
#&& find . -type f -not -name '*FINAL.mp4' -name '*.mp4' -delete && rename 's/FINAL//' *.mp4

--Alias and Automation

sudo nano ~/.bashrc && sudo source ~/.bashrc 

alias audioscript="sudo cp /media/audio.sh ./ && sudo nano ./audio.sh ; nohup ./audio.sh > convert.nohup &"

alias mkvfinal="find . -type f -not -name '*FINAL.mkv' -name '*.mkv' -delete && rename 's/FINAL//' *.mkv && find . -name 'audio.sh' -delete && find . -name 'convert.nohup' -delete"

alias avifinal="find . -type f -not -name '*FINAL.avi' -name '*.avi' -delete && rename 's/FINAL//' *.avi && find . -name 'audio.sh' -delete && find . -name 'convert.nohup' -delete"

alias mp4final="find . -type f -not -name '*FINAL.mp4' -name '*.mp4' -delete && rename 's/FINAL//' *.mp4 && find . -name 'audio.sh' -delete && find . -name 'convert.nohup' -delete"

alias srtremove="find . -name '*.srt' -delete"
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