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Remove video from a music video?

therealseebs

therealseebs

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 14, 2010
1,057
312
Yes, I'm aware of ways to remove DRM. They are uninteresting to me.

I got an album off iTunes. One of the songs in it is a music video -- a .m4v, which contains the audio, plus the video for the music video. I like the music, but iTunes CANNOT play the sound without switching from my playlist display to a large and disruptive animation.

So I want to obtain a file which contains the audio from this video. I don't care about DRM either way; I don't even know whether it's got DRM. I just want to be able to convert this to a substantially smaller file which does not produce distracting visuals whenever iTunes encounters it.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to construct search terms which yield anything on this, rather than information about removing DRM.
 
Peace

Peace

Cancelled
Apr 1, 2005
19,546
4,556
Space The Only Frontier
You could just use Quicktime to export the audio only.
 

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therealseebs

therealseebs

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 14, 2010
1,057
312
Sergeant Pepper said:
Or Max. Works with videos and any audio format you're likely to come across.
Click to expand...

Doesn't work with this file; it's a .m4v, and Max can't even try to open it.

----------
Peace said:
You could just use Quicktime to export the audio only.
Click to expand...

... That's surprisingly simple and easy. Thank you!

New problem: I deleted the video from iTunes. Now I can't add the audio to iTunes, possibly because it thinks the file with that name, artist, album, etc., is supposed to be deleted or something. *sigh*

EDIT: No, it's just that it gets added to the "videos" list. Because it used to be a video. So it's tagged in iTunes as "a video" even though it has no video components. Well, I can live with it showing the wrong icon and not being in the "Songs" list, as long as it works.
 
Dave Braine

Dave Braine

macrumors 68040
Mar 19, 2008
3,989
352
Warrington, UK
Garageband. When you load the movie, it should display video and audio as separate tracks. Just delete the video and Share back to iTunes.
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
therealseebs said:
New problem: I deleted the video from iTunes. Now I can't add the audio to iTunes, possibly because it thinks the file with that name, artist, album, etc., is supposed to be deleted or something. *sigh*

EDIT: No, it's just that it gets added to the "videos" list. Because it used to be a video. So it's tagged in iTunes as "a video" even though it has no video components. Well, I can live with it showing the wrong icon and not being in the "Songs" list, as long as it works.
Click to expand...
Did you try All2MP3, as suggested? It creates an MP3 file and you won't have the problems you're having. There's no need to use Max, Quicktime or Garageband. There's no need to open the file at all. Just drag and drop from Finder to the All2MP3 window. Done.
 
Peace

Peace

Cancelled
Apr 1, 2005
19,546
4,556
Space The Only Frontier
GGJstudios said:
Did you try All2MP3, as suggested? It creates an MP3 file and you won't have the problems you're having. There's no need to use Max, Quicktime or Garageband. There's no need to open the file at all. Just drag and drop from Finder to the All2MP3 window. Done.
Click to expand...

What's the bit rate in that app. Which actually uses AppleScript .
 
therealseebs

therealseebs

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 14, 2010
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Okay. And no, I hadn't tried All2MP3 yet, because the Quicktime Player suggestion wouldn't require a separate download, and the exported audio appears to be identical to the original. So in terms of my actual original problem, QuickTime solves the original issue; it produces a thing which plays the sound and appears to be substantively identical, rather than a reconversion to a new format. (And a data point: Running either of them through All2MP3 produces a bit-for-bit identical file, so the quicktime player export is necessarily of superior quality -- it's a bit-for-bit copy.)

Not at all sure that any force on Earth will be able to convince iTunes to reconsider whether that file is a song or a video, though. It's utterly convinced that this file, which contains no video data whatsoever, is "a video".
 
Last edited:
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
therealseebs said:
Okay. And no, I hadn't tried that yet, because the Quicktime Player suggestion wouldn't require a separate download, and the exported audio appears to be identical to the original.

Not at all sure that any force on Earth will be able to convince iTunes to reconsider whether that file is a song or a video, though. It's utterly convinced that this file, which contains no video data whatsoever, is "a video".
Click to expand...
If you use the app I recommended, iTunes will recognize it as a song.
 
therealseebs

therealseebs

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 14, 2010
1,057
312
GGJstudios said:
If you use the app I recommended, iTunes will recognize it as a song.
Click to expand...

So it appears. But now I have to choose between "re-encoding with the associated loss in quality", and "just extract the raw audio channel, don't change it, and have it look like a song". Annoying that I can't use the smaller-and-higher-quality file.

(Yes, it is by definition higher quality; it hasn't been re-encoded. Any decode-and-reencode is going to have at least some effect on quality.)
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
therealseebs said:
So it appears. But now I have to choose between "re-encoding with the associated loss in quality", and "just extract the raw audio channel, don't change it, and have it look like a song". Annoying that I can't use the smaller-and-higher-quality file.

(Yes, it is by definition higher quality; it hasn't been re-encoded. Any decode-and-reencode is going to have at least some effect on quality.)
Click to expand...
No human ears would be able to discern the difference.
 
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