Extract audio from mp4

[johnathan.macle]

I have several mp4 files that have been burned from cds using HANDBRAKE. I am looking for a way to extract the audio to make it into an acc/mp3 file.

Thanks in advance.

Johnny

[Texas04]

Garageband? and delete the video file that might work

[XIII]

QuickTime Pro will do this.. Export audio.

[Keebler]

audio hijack will work too. simply play the mp4 and record the audio..most popular formats outputted as well.

[Canubis]

Hi, sorry for re-activating this old discussion. However, I found it on google and thought it would be more appropriate to add my question here. :-)

I have a few videos in the MP4 format and want to get the audio track saved to a seperate audio file. As the audio track is already AAC there should be no reencoding required. Unfortunetely, when I simply remove the video track using QuickTime Pro and save the remaing audio track a .mov is created. Using the export function won't be losslessly writing the data from the audio track to the disk but reencoding it as I guess.
I believe GarageBand will do just the same, not sure about Audio HiJack.

Isn't there a tool with which I can just take the audio track of a video file and save it to disk as a seperate file without reencoding it? Any ideas?

[DPA]

You don't need QT Pro! In QT, click File>Export and where it says export, chose Sound to AIFF. AIFF is the highest quality of sound export avaiable. This should help.

Regards,
David

[Canubis]

Thanks for the hint FCP.guru.guy. However, I was already aware of this possibility. And you're right, exporting the Audio into the AIFF format should't lower the quality but at the same time also increases the file size dramatically though not needed at all. I just hoped it would there would be a possibility to simply take the raw data of the audio track in AAC format and write it to directly to disk into an AAC file. Without any reencoding or reformating. Ain't there some tools out there for lossless audio editing that should also handle things like that?

[DPA]

Well, if your final destination is iTunes, you can make an AAC version and pitch the original AIFF one in the Trash (don't forget to empty once and a while) This will create a file that is the size that it should be as an AAC. If your final destination is something other than iTunes, just take the trip there for 1 minute. Add it to you library, make an AAC version, and delete both of them out of your library but KEEP THE FILES!!! When it asks you to move to Trash or keep files make sure you choose keep files other wise they will be moved to the Trash.

David

[halfthelaw]

No, FCP.guru.guy, you really don't get what Canubis is trying to do.

Canubis, here's how I do what you're describing:
1. Get Rogue Amoeba's Fission
http://rogueamoeba.com/fission/
2. Open the movie file with Fission
3. Go to File > Save Audio and you will be able to save the audio track losslessly

[1975homero1975]

it took me HOURS but i finally found something that does it. i know exactly what ur trying 2 do canubis cuz ive been tryin 2 do it for days. extract audio "as is" no compressing or converting. in other words just open the mp4 container and take it out. ur absolutly right, makes no sense to recompress.

guru.guy, do some research youll see. technically ur losing quality even if its hard 2 tell the diffrence. what we want is 2 "eject" the cassette tape & take it with us rather than "dubbing" it.

go here:

http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/arch...dio_page_2.cfm

self explanatory except it says if you get the "yamb" u wont need to download "mp4box". for sum reason my yamb didnt install mp4box but i just downloaded it from this same page and end of story.

dont know if u know how 2 put the files in m4a containers cuz i sure dont. but u can set an option 2 extract them 2 mp4 containers which is fine unless u must have m4a for some reason. otherwise the default extracts them as raw aac files.

if u already found a way let me know if ur way is faster or better for whatever reason. "flvextract" does the same with flv (flash video) files in case u need it too. works in LITERALLY 2 seconds or less, maybe 1 second. compression is not done in 1 second so u know its lossless.

[1975homero1975]

this is free, u have 2 pay with "fission" the above post by "halfthelaw" so thats why i didnt try that method so i dont know if it does what we want.

[harlequin53]

any ports to Mac OS? This is a Windows app.

[voodoofish]

Originally Posted by halfthelaw

No, FCP.guru.guy, you really don't get what Canubis is trying to do.

Canubis, here's how I do what you're describing:
1. Get Rogue Amoeba's Fission
http://rogueamoeba.com/fission/
2. Open the movie file with Fission
3. Go to File > Save Audio and you will be able to save the audio track losslessly

I think i have found a way to do this with SimpleMovieX. This is better than using Fission in that its free trial just makes you wait 12 seconds before it'll save, rather than altering it's output, meaning you can realistically use it for free, unlike fission.

To do this I added an MP4 (H.264 video/AAC audio) file to SimpleMovie X, then went Edit > Separate Tracks, then on the audio track I went File > Save As, then I renamed to file from MP4 to M4A. Once I added it to iTunes I could use it as any other M4A, and the file transfers to and plays on my iPod mini, which as far as I'm aware can't play MP4 so I'm pretty sure what SimpleMovieX is outputting is actually M4A even though it gives it a MP4 file extension.

The only thing with SimpleMovieX is it doesn't explicitly say it is doing this losslessly, but it implies it is on the page that I link to above, and once the 12 seconds has passed it saves the file so quickly it seems unlikely it is re-encoding it.

[new.to.mac]

Originally Posted by voodoofish

I think i have found a way to do this with SimpleMovieX. This is better than using Fission in that its free trial just makes you wait 12 seconds before it'll save, rather than altering it's output, meaning you can realistically use it for free, unlike fission.

To do this I added an MP4 (H.264 video/AAC audio) file to SimpleMovie X, then went Edit > Separate Tracks, then on the audio track I went File > Save As, then I renamed to file from MP4 to M4A. Once I added it to iTunes I could use it as any other M4A, and the file transfers to and plays on my iPod mini, which as far as I'm aware can't play MP4 so I'm pretty sure what SimpleMovieX is outputting is actually M4A even though it gives it a MP4 file extension.

The only thing with SimpleMovieX is it doesn't explicitly say it is doing this losslessly, but it implies it is on the page that I link to above, and once the 12 seconds has passed it saves the file so quickly it seems unlikely it is re-encoding it.

It doesn't seem to work with a file that is video - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, and audio - mp4a: MPEG-4 AAC LC. Any suggestions?

[Fomaphone]

canubis... have you looked into what compressor can do? what about mpeg streamclip?

[dhd]

Open the file in Qt Pro, press command+J extract the audio (you know that already), save it as a mov file. When is done change the extension to m4a, mp4 or whatever you need without reencoding.

let me know if it works for you.

Greetings

[Elias Hedberg]

Originally Posted by halfthelaw

No, FCP.guru.guy, you really don't get what Canubis is trying to do.

Canubis, here's how I do what you're describing:
1. Get Rogue Amoeba's Fission
http://rogueamoeba.com/fission/
2. Open the movie file with Fission
3. Go to File > Save Audio and you will be able to save the audio track losslessly

Small update to halfthelaw’s post: with the latest version of Fission (2+) there is no "Save Audio" option, just use "Save as…" and it will save the audio separately and, as far as I can tell, without doing any recompression (hence it should be the original aac track).

[efekt]

It's a free audio editing tool. You simply drag the video onto the window you open and export it to mp3. Simplz.

[justytylor]

Okay: I'm assuming you have access to QuickTime Pro 7 (where the Command-J command works).

You will open the movie in QTPro 7.

Type Command-J (or choose "View -> Show Movie Properties").

The top pane of that window will have all the resources within the .mp4 file listed. You'll have a Video track and a sound track. Click on the sound track.

Click the "Extract" button. This will open just the sound track in a new QuickTime document window.

Choose "Export..." from the File menu.

In the Export dialog box, in the Export: pull down menu, choose "Movie to MPEG-4". Click the "Options..." button next to that pull-down menu.

In the next window, choose the "Audio" tab."

In the "Audio Format:" pull-down menu, choose "pass-through".

Click "OK" to commit that change and exit this dialog box.

Name your file, click "Save" and you'll have exactly what you want: an audio-only .mp4 file with no reencoding.

[bleater]

Originally Posted by justytylor

Okay: I'm assuming you have access to QuickTime Pro 7 (where the Command-J command works).

You will open the movie in QTPro 7.

Type Command-J (or choose "View -> Show Movie Properties").

The top pane of that window will have all the resources within the .mp4 file listed. You'll have a Video track and a sound track. Click on the sound track.

Click the "Extract" button. This will open just the sound track in a new QuickTime document window.

Choose "Export..." from the File menu.

In the Export dialog box, in the Export: pull down menu, choose "Movie to MPEG-4". Click the "Options..." button next to that pull-down menu.

In the next window, choose the "Audio" tab."

In the "Audio Format:" pull-down menu, choose "pass-through".

Click "OK" to commit that change and exit this dialog box.

Name your file, click "Save" and you'll have exactly what you want: an audio-only .mp4 file with no reencoding.

I can confirm that this is the best way to achieve the desired result of extracting AAC audio from an MP4 file without re-encoding it and using only Apple-provided tools.

I would add only one more thing, which is when saving the file, give it the .m4a extension (or rename it with this extension once exported). That way, iTunes will correctly list it as "AAC audio file" rather than "MP4 video file" (even though it has no video track).

[Sami.]

Use TSmuxer.

[CJYetman]

great ideas.... thanks. but couldn't you just extract directly from the video file? another words, skip to the "Choose "Export.."" step and just make sure in the Options that on the "Video" tab you have the video format set to "none"?

I think that would do the same thing and make this a bit less complicated.
-cj

Originally Posted by justytylor

Okay: I'm assuming you have access to QuickTime Pro 7 (where the Command-J command works).

You will open the movie in QTPro 7.

Type Command-J (or choose "View -> Show Movie Properties").

The top pane of that window will have all the resources within the .mp4 file listed. You'll have a Video track and a sound track. Click on the sound track.

Click the "Extract" button. This will open just the sound track in a new QuickTime document window.

Choose "Export..." from the File menu.

In the Export dialog box, in the Export: pull down menu, choose "Movie to MPEG-4". Click the "Options..." button next to that pull-down menu.

In the next window, choose the "Audio" tab."

In the "Audio Format:" pull-down menu, choose "pass-through".

Click "OK" to commit that change and exit this dialog box.

Name your file, click "Save" and you'll have exactly what you want: an audio-only .mp4 file with no reencoding.

[SkwidSpawn]

Here's how it worked for me under Mountain Lion, for anyone who finds this on Google and simply wants to pull the audio out of a movie file:

Open the file in Quicktime Player, then go to:
File->Export… (or hit command-shift-S)


Then select "Audio Only" from the Format drop-down:


Then Save it:


It appears to work as a pass-through rip, and I don't know if it works on every file, but it worked a charm on this one, pulling out 256kb/s aac audio.

[smaghe]

Hi everybody,

Thanks to the previous messages I was able to succeed in splitting the audio from the video.
However, I needed to automate the steps, as I had a lot of videos to split.

Here's the script that I wrote :

#!/bin/bash
for f in *.mp4; do
./ffmpeg -i "$f" -vn -acodec copy "${f%.mp4}.m4a"
done


For people who aren't so much into scripts, open Terminal, type "Nano"
Paste the script. Type Ctrl + X to close the editor, a prompt asking what to do will appear, save the file with ".sh" suffix.
Assuming you saved it in a convenient folder, navigate to the directory where the script is with the terminal. For example, script being in the Resources folder (mentioned in page 2), type :
cd Desktop/Resources/
Being in the folder, where your script and videos are, you then have to make the script executable; type :
chmod u+x nameofscript.sh
Then you just have to run the script in the same folder of the videos, to do so type :
./nameofthescript.sh


Thanks for the help that you gave me.
Cheers.


Stas

[Braaam]

mpeg streamclip (free app) does the same thing as ffmpeg with a graphical interface (no re-encode). Thanks to KeithPratt for mentioning it.

Note: you have to get the beta version, regular doesn't have the 'save to track' feature.

get it here: http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html

Originally Posted by KeithPratt

• Download MPEG Streamclip
• Open video
• File > Save Track > Save Audio Track
• In Finder, change extension from MP4 to M4A
• Bada boom bada bing