Linux And Free Software Tips, Tricks And Tutorials, fun with Free Software Options

[hildebrand]

I am starting this thread with a long term perspective to put together lots of useful information for our programs.
Request all to participate in this thread to spread the word about all the lovely things that can be done on Linux.

The distribution I use is Debian (from www.debian.org) but most tricks shall be generic in nature (program based). Many of the softwares are available on windows also so some tips maybe applicable for their windows versions also.

This post has been edited by hildebrand: Oct 10 2009, 07:19 PM

[hildebrand]

Tip #1: Converting bitrate of mp3 files

I sometimes have the requirement to convert high bitrate files to lower bitrate ones so that they are of smaller sizes on websites.
I normally use the lame mp3 encoder for this purpose (also available on windows).

Suppose you have a file abc.mp3 (of say 128 kbp s although its immaterial) to be converted to def.mp3 of bitrate 16 kbps then command for it is:-

lame -b 16 abc.mp3 def.mp3

Its possible to write a script to convert many files as a batch.

Note that 16 is just a number. you can convert to other standard values also although in general converting to higher values is not suggested.
The permitted values are as follows:-

For MPEG1 (sampling frequencies of 32, 44.1 and 48 kHz)
n = 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, 320

For MPEG2 (sampling frequencies of 16, 22.05 and 24 kHz)
n = 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160


It is also possible to change the sampling rate also with the following switch:-

-s sfreq
sfreq = 8/11.025/12/16/22.05/24/32/44.1/48