22 September 2010

m3u playlist - mp3 extraction fail

I was sent an m3u playlist. The client wanted an 11 minute transcription of an mp3 within the playlist, which was sourced from a website. I had to figure out how to extract the mp3 from the m3u and looked at various websites giving instructions on how to 'save as' or 'save target as'. Unfortunately I wasn't getting this option. Basically I couldn't find a quick and easy way of extracting the mp3 for transcription without downloading additional software.

So as the mp3 sound file was really clear and I only needed to transcribe 11 minutes I played it from the website and used my mobile phone Record Sound function to record the mp3. I then transferred the amr sound file from my mobile phone to my PC and used Switch to convert it from amr to mp3, which allowed me to load the mp3 into my transcription software... simple.

6 comments:

  1. .m3u files are just text files saying where to find the .mp3's for the playlist

    For example, this is a .m3u I've got, opened in notepad:

    #EXTM3U
    #EXTINF:285,Boston - More Than A Feeling
    01 - More Than A Feeling.mp3

    So if you wanted to find the path to the audio, you could just open the .m3u in notepad or some other text editor.

    As for converting, Audacity is a great (free!) audio editor/converter - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

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  2. Thanks for your comment Max. So say I've got the file path http://www.sterlingtimes.org/radio_enoch_speech_002.mp3, which opens a page that plays the mp3, how can I save that mp3 to my PC? I can't see a way of doing it. When I click File in my browser there is no 'save as' or 'save target as' option.

    Any advice gratefully received.

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  3. If using Firefox, simply doing File > 'Save page as' should let you save the mp3 to your computer

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  4. Ah fantastic, I couldn't save the mp3 using IE but in Firefox it gave the option 'Save Page As' and that did the trick. Saved the mp3 to my PC with no problems.

    Thank you Max, I'm sure this will come in useful in the future.

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  5. the .m3u file i got doesn't have location information. it's just a 20-track playlist. where are these 20 mp3s?

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  6. Thank you for your comment. Have you tried using Firefox to open the 20-track playlist? Then click 'File>Save Page As' as above.

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