OGG, M4A, AAC, MP3 Music Transcoder written 4 years ago

A utility to transcode music files.

About

Nowadays music can arrive on your PC in a variety of formats, OGG; MP3; FLAC; AAC… But chances are that your portable music device won’t play them all. This utility intends to solve this problem, by transcoding a wide variety of media files into standard MP3 files.

Another problem with portable music devices is lack of storage space. Many of the flash players out there have limited (< 1GB) of storage. In order to squeeze more music on your device, this utility helps by allowing you to select a lesser bitrate for your files, so that they take up less space.

Formats Supported

The utility will transcode from the following formats into MP3:

• OGG
• MP3
• AAC
• M4A
• FLAC

Note files must not contain DRM (ie not bought from itunes). Unfortunately I can’t find a free WMA decoder, so Windows Media is unsupported.

Download

The required files can be downloaded here:

Installation

1. Extract contents of Zip file to a convenient location.

2. Double click “setup.vbs”. This will begin configuration process.

   • The first Prompt will ask you for a location to save Files to.

     If you are transcoding files for use in an MP3 player, you should enter the drive letter of the player.

     — or —

     If you are transcoding files to keep on your hard disk, enter the path of the directory to store the files.

     Note the directory must exist.

     — Examples —

     
         C:\MP3s 
         J:\
     
     

   • The Desired Bitrate determines the quality of the produced files.

     As a guide, 192 Kbps produces near CD quality sound. 128 produces near radio quality.

     For my MP3 player, I use 100 Kbps, for the best compromise between quality/size. I can barely hear the difference, over the noise of the bus.

     As this script uses the LAME encoder, the default LAME presets are also available:

     • Medium
     • Standard
     • Extreme
     • Insane

     These behave as expected, in terms of both file size, and processing time.

     Note by default the script will produce variable bitrate (VBR) files. In order to produce Constant bitrate (CBR) files, specify “cbr ###”, where ### is the desired bitrate.

3. All done! The settings will be stored for all future transcodings.

Usage

1. Locate the Files you wish to convert via an explorer window.

   • If any folders are selected, all files and sub- directories will also be parsed.

   • Multiple file selections are perfectly good!

2. Right click on the selected files, and choose “Send to” -> “Compress to MP3”.

3. The script will then begin to execute, and prompt you for the name of the location to store the files.

   • This directory will be created inside the output folder, and the files created inside.

   • Existing Folder structure will be preserved.

   • Encoding time may vary, depending on Disk speed, processor speed and quality options selected.

     The conversion process runs at minimum priority, in order to minimise disruption.

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