Audio converter

[dfisher052]

Does anyone know of a free audio converter that will convert a Real Player ram file to mp3?

[bat999]

... a Real Player ram file...

Hi
Are you sure that the "ram" file is an audio file?
Usually Real Player audio files end in .ra or .rm.
Often the "ram" files only contain information pointing to an audio stream on a website.

[dfisher052]

It plays in VLC as an audio. If I change it to ra it still plays as an audio. I want to change it to mp3 so I can play it in my mp3 player. I have a couple of audio converters, but they do not accept ram, ra or rm.

[netmask56]

There are many audio conversion programs that will do this - just Google and you will find them, as a starter check this out Pazera Free Audio Extractor is will convert .RA files to AC3 or MP3 etc...

[Keyser]

It plays in VLC as an audio.

If VLC plays it, VLC will probably be able to convert it too.

[dfisher052]

Tried both Pazera and VLC. Neither one worked.

[sneaker]

If VLC can play it it should also be able to convert it. You must be doing it wrong. Since VLC is based on ffmpeg there should be thousands of other ffmpeg based softwares who can do it as well. You could of course try ffmpeg itself:
ffmpeg -i "input.ram" "output.mp3"

Or a GUI like TEncoder. And don't say "didn't work", post what exactly you are trying and what error messages, if any, there are. If you believe it's not your fault upload a sample file here so we can check.

[netmask56]

Tried both Pazera and VLC. Neither one worked.

Pazera works for me - upload a sample file

[dfisher052]

Never having done this before I do NOT know how to get the ra file into this post. Any help?

[jagabo]

Click on the "Upload files/Manage attachments" button below the edit box.


[Attachment 41171 - Click to enlarge]

Then select the file, upload it, wait for it to finish, and close the popup. Only certain types of files are allowed. I don't know if .RAM is one of them. You may have to archive the file and upload it as .ZIP.

[dfisher052]

I think this worked.

[Keyser]

As suspected, your .ra file contains just a link to the actual media. Open the .ra file in a text editor (like notepad) and paste the link to the VLC converter. I tested it. It works!

Alternatively, you can paste the link to your browser and download the .rm file.

[pippas]

Converting the downloaded .rm file to mp3 also works in Pazera, Audacity or with NCH Switch converter (free version)..

[jagabo]

I think this worked. (ZIP file)

You really thought they were able to encode two hours of audio in a 64 byte file? The others are right. The file isn't an audio file, it's a only a link to:
http://vintageradioclassics.com/realaudio/radioclassics170101.rm

[netmask56]

This is the Mediainfo report on the file I converted using Pazera.

General
Complete name : C:\Users\Netmask\Downloads\sample.ra
Format : RealMedia
File size : 27.8 KiB
Duration : 3 s 482 ms
Overall bit rate : 64.0 kb/s

Audio
ID : 0
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Codec ID : dnet
Codec ID/Info : Real Player 3
Duration : 3 s 482 ms
Bit rate : 64.0 kb/s
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 11.025 kHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 27.2 KiB (98%)

[dfisher052]

According to VLC codec Information, this file is: MPEG AAC Audio (raac).
When I changed ra to mpeg it still played in VLC but would still not convert in ANY of the converters I tried, including all mentioned here. I think I've given up on this one. Thanks all for your input.

[jagabo]

VLC had no problem converting the rm file to mp3. Either by first downloading the RM file and converting it, or by converting directly via the URL.

[dfisher052]

Thanks jagabo for url suggestion...that worked.