To simplify things, you could actually skip the digital format extraction process by running ffmpeg against the MKV file directly.įfmpeg -i -acodec libmp3lame -ab 160k -ac 2 audio.mp3 rw-r-r- 1 gmendoza gmendoza 87M 12:08 audio.mp3 256, 384, etc, and adjust the audio rate to your liking as well.įfmpeg -i audio.ac3 -acodec libmp3lame -ab 160k -ac 2 audio.mp3 If you prefer a higher audio bitrate, adjust the -ab value as desired. rw-r-r- 1 gmendoza gmendoza 432M 11:58 audio.ac3Ĭonvert the 6-channel ac3 file to a 2-channel stereo MP3 using ffmpeg. Mkvextract tracks 2:audio.ac3Įxtracting track 2 with the CodecID 'A_AC3' to the file 'audio.ac3'. Using mkvextract, extract the AC3 Dolby Digital audio from track 2, saving it to a file called audio.ac3. In the following example, you see my “ ” file has an MPEG4 video in track 1, an AC3 Dolby Digital audio file in track 2, and subtitles in track 3.įile '': container: Matroska To view the existing tracks of the MKV, use the mkvmerge -i option. Sudo apt-get install mkvtoolnix mkvtoolnix-gui ffmpeg libavcodec-unstripped-52 If using Ubuntu Linux, install the relevant mkvtoolnix, mkvtoolnix-guiand ffmpeg packages. Check out the MKVToolnix and FFMpeg websites for more info on the software. All of these are available to a number of platforms, but in my examples, I’m using Linux. I’ll be using mkvextract to extract the AC3 audio, ffmpeg to convert ac3 to mp3, and finally mkvmerge to add and remux the new audio track to the MKV container. The great thing about the Matroska multimedia container is that you can easily manipulate these files without having to re-encode, saving lots of time. Now you’ll have the choice of either audio format depending on your technical requirements. Western Digital Media Player WDAVN00) will not downscale the audio from a digital format like AC3 or DTS to stereo when you don’t have a receiver or TV with a built in Dolby Digital decoder. This is useful when your media player (e.g. If you have Matroska Video (MKV) files encoded with AC3 Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS audio tracks, you may want to simply extract the audio, convert it to a 2-channel stereo format like WAV, MP3 OGG, etc, and then add it back into the MKV as a separate audio track. Posted by admin on Septemunder Tech Tips | Be the First to Comment

Mkvtoolnix gui extract audio track