And maybe you want to covert to those files to another format – say MP3 to Ogg. There’s no lack of audio converters for the Linux desktop, but if you’re looking for one that’s small, simple, and fast, then look no further than Gnac.

Let’s take a look at Gnac and how to use it.

Installing Gnac

You can download binaries for several Linux distributions from the Gnac website. For Ubuntu users, the easiest way to install Gnac is to open a terminal window and run the following commands:

add-apt-repository ppa:gnac-team/ppa
apt-get update
apt-get install gnac

You can also download and compile the source code or build the latest sources from a GIT repository.

Setting Up and Using Gnac

Before you convert your first audio file, you should set one or two of the program’s preferences. To do that, start Gnac and then choose “Edit > Preferences“.

The one setting that you’ll want to change is the folder in which Gnac saves the converted files. By default, it drops those files into the same directory as the source audio files. That can get messy, especially if the source directory contains a lot of your music. You can tell Gnac to save the converted files in a subfolder of the source directory by clicking the Subfolder option, and then typing a name for the subfolder. Or, click Custom folder and then choose a folder in your /home directory.

If you want to get rid of the source files and only keep the converted ones, click the Delete original files after conversion option.

Once that’s out of the way, it’s easy to use Gnac. How easy? You can either drag and drop files on to the Gnac window, or click the Add button on the toolbar button to add one or more files to convert. Then, choose the format to which you want to convert the audio. After that, click Convert.

The speed of the conversion depends on the size and number of audio files that you’re converting. On average, it takes about 20 seconds to convert a file. Not too shabby.

Turning the Knobs

Gnac can handle all of the audio formats that the GStreamer multimedia framework supports. Out of the box, you can convert between the following formats:

• Ogg
• FLAC
• AAC
• MP3
• WAV
• SPX

The factory settings for those formats are fine for most people. But you might want to fiddle with those settings to, for example, increase the quality of the audio or make the file a little smaller. To do that, click the button Edit beside list of formats in the Gnac window.

Click on one of the formats, and then click the Edit button.

Depending on the format, you can change the quality (worst to best; the default is usually in the middle), the bitrate, the number of channels, and the sample rate. To change any of those settings, either select an option from a dropdown list or click and drag a slider with your mouse.

You’ll have to experiment a bit to find the settings that work best for you and your needs.

If you need to quickly convert audio files, then Gnac is a great choice. It’s simple and powerful, and gets the job done quite nicely.

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Usually for different types of media conversions, we have separate programs installed: one for video format conversions, one for audio format conversions, and one for image format conversions. With DVDVideoSoft’s Free Studio, you can get a single program for all your media type conversions.

Free Studio is a freeware for Windows that supports an impressive range of video formats as well as audio and image formats. Find our comprehensive coverage of this remarkable freeware below and see why you should be using it.

Download and Installation

Free Studio runs on Windows XP, Vista, and 7. In order to get the program, you will need to download its setup file which is in the EXE format and about 60MB large. That seemingly large setup size completely justifies itself once the program’s features are explored and understood. In addition to the features, which we highlight in the following paragraphs, the program supports multiple languages. A total of 12 languages are supported including Dutch, English, Spanish, French, and Italian.

The multi-language support certainly helps deliver features to a wider audience unlike most media conversion freeware that targets only English-speaking computer users.

User-Interface

When you run the program for the first time, this is the type of picture you will see:

The big bright buttons let you enter different categories of media tools. A clicking sound can be heard as you place the mouse pointer over these buttons. The sound nicely adds to the overall feel of the program.

In case you want to change the default language without reinstalling the program, you can do so from the top-right.

Overall, the interface maintains a fresh look without ever tiring its user. If we were to grade it, the interface would get an ‘A’.

Let us now move on to the type of media tools offered by Free Studio.

Image Tools

Using the “Photo & Images” button from the main window of the program, you can enter the images portal of Free Studio. Here you will see an impressive list of image tools you can use.

Starting from the top of the list, you can use these tools to:

• Convert the format of images and resize them
• Convert videos to individual JPG images
• Create 3D photographs
• Record a portion of your screen to create a screencast

Thus not only do you get handy image tools, but you can also record screencasts thereby eliminating the need of an extra application for the purpose.

Audio Tools

From the main window, the “MP3 & Audio” button lets you access the program’s audio tools.

The audio tools let you perform the following functions:

• Convert audio files between various formats
• Edit audio files
• Extract audio from videos
• Burn audio to an optical disc either as an audio CD or as an MP3 disc

Like the image tools, the audio tools save you the need to have a bunch of other programs installed. The audio tools section of Free Studio will replace your current software for audio format conversions, audio editing, and audio extraction from video.

Video Tools

Free Studio offers an impressive array of video tools. These tools are spread out into 5 categories that are visible in the program’s main window. The first category is “YouTube” and its tools can be seen in the following image:

The YouTube tools let you download videos from YouTube and directly convert their file format thereby effectively merging the download and conversion steps. The application even lets you upload videos to YouTube from its interface.

The second set of video tools is categorized as “CD, DVD, BD.” The tools included under this category can be seen in the following image:

These tools are basically disc-writing tools. In other words, these tools let you burn videos to a video CD, a DVD, or a BluRay disc after passing the video through the appropriate file conversions.

The third category of video tools is “DVD & Video.” See the following image for the list of tools it contains:

As you can see in the image, this category offers video tools that you will probably be using the most. From video editing to video format conversion, tools in this category perform all those functions.

The “Mobiles” category of video tools will let you convert videos for specific devices. These will come in handy when you do not know which video formats your devices can handle. The following image is what tools in this category look like:

The last category of video tools is “Apple Devices.” The function of this category is the same as “Mobile” with video tools for each Apple device labeled separately.

Usage

Method of usage of all tools offered by Free Studio is nearly the same. Once you click on a tool in one of the abovementioned categories, you will encounter a window similar to the image below:

The top section is where you specify the input file. You can specify multiple files in case of batch conversions. Underneath you specify the output folder path and details of the output format. When your preferences are set, you click on the “Convert” button to initiate the process.

Conclusion

Take a look at your installed programs. As we pointed out earlier, you will notice you have multiple applications installed for nearly all the functions that are being offered by Free Studio. Replacing all those applications by a single program will not only be convenient but also significantly free up your disk space. With the advantages it offers, Free Studio is a must-have application for all computer users.

DVDVideoSoft’s Free Studio.

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• Mobile Media Converter: A Cross-platform No-Brainer Media Converter

The Mobile Media Converter (MMC) is a free video and audio converter for converting between popular desktop media formats like MP3, Windows Media Audio (wma), Ogg Vorbis Audio (ogg), Wave Audio (wav), MPEG video, AVI, Windows Media Video (wmv), Flash Video (flv), QuickTime Video (mov) and commonly used mobile devices/phones formats like AMR audio (amr) and 3GP video. iPod/iPhone and PSP compatible MP4 video are also supported.

Simple UI, great functionality

One thing that I like about MMC is that it is simple in design and does not contain any extra stuffs to misled its users. Regardless you are using Windows, Linux or Mac, you will get the same interface throughout. There is a +/- button for you to add/remove file(s), a button to select the output destination, a dropdown bar to select the output format and a Convert button to start the conversion. That’s it.

Its simple design is by no mean an indication of a lack of functionality. On the contrast, it is packed with plenty of features that you will find it useful.

Supports a variety of media formats

Be it video or audio formats, MMC has covered it all. It is able to convert between the commonly used formats, such as OGG, MP3, WMA, WMV, MP4 WAV, AVI etc. Unless you are using a device that required a special codec, MMC should have you covered.

Batch conversion

MMC supports batch conversion of videos/audios. Simply add a bunch of videos/songs to the application and it will batch convert them and save them all in the same folder.

Advance setting

Most of the time, you won’t have need for this, but if you are keen to change the output bitrate, codec, channel, size etc, then this is the place to go to.

Youtube downloader

We have previously covered several Youtube downloader desktop apps. Here’s another one to add to your collection.

The best part about this is that after downloading the Youtube video, you can convert it to the format that you want, or just to extract the mp3 track in the video. This is great if you just want to get the music out of the video.

Trim/crop

If you think that is all, then you are wrong. MMC also allows you to trim/crop your video before converting. One thing though, this functionality is hidden on its interface and you have to perform extra steps to edit the video.

On the Video entry, right click your mouse. You should now see the options to Trim/Crop. The Trim function is for you to determine the start and end length of the converted video while the Crop feature allows you to change the aspect ratio of the video.

Suggestions for Improvement

One thing that I found lacking is the ability to stop the operation once the conversion start. While testing this out, I accidentally clicked the Convert button and the conversion starts without showing a prompt. Neither does it provide a Cancel button for me to stop the operation. I have two choices: wait for 30 minutes for the conversion to complete or to kill the application completely. I choose the latter. It will be great if it stop the operation in mid-way.

Another thing that is lacking is the support for subtitle files. For converting movie to iPhone format, until it supports adding of subtitle files to the video, I will still stick with my XviD4PSP . Other than that, this is one of the best media converter that I have come across so far.

What do you think?

Image credit: Houkwing

Mobile Media Converter

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SoundConverter is an application for GNOME that can take in most audio format (Ogg Vorbis, AAC, MP3, FLAC, WAV, AVI, MPEG, MOV, M4A, AC3, DTS, ALAC, MPC, Shorten, APE, SID, etc…) and convert them to WAV, FLAC, MP3, AAC and Ogg Vorbis format.

Installing SoundConverter

SoundConverter requires the gstreamer ugly library to encode audio files into MP3 format. If you have not installed it, click here to install.

Install SoundConverter here. Alternatively, you can install via the terminal:

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse soundconverter

Converting audio files

Go to Applications -> Sound & Video -> SoundConverter

Go to Edit -> Preferences.

Under Type of result?, click on MP3. Choose Variable (VBR) – Best quality for Bitrate mode.

Other options that you can configure in the Preferences page include the location to store the converted files and the labeling format of the files.

Once you are done, click Close to return to the main menu.

Click on the Add File to add the FLAC (or any other audio format) file that you want to convert.

If you have a bunch of audio files that need to be converted, you can place them all in one folder and use the Add Folder to select them all.

Alternatively, you can also drag and drop your audio files to the SoundConverter main window.

Once ready, click the Convert button to start the conversion

The time taken to perform the conversion is dependent on the number of files you include. On average, a 4 minutes audio in FLAC format will take about 20s to convert to MP3 format.

After the conversion, you will be able to find the MP3 files in the folder that you specified earlier.

Enjoy!

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