Monday, May 12, 2008

How to Capture Audio from Video

I have recently been trying to capture audio from some video clips that I have, and just didn't know how to do it. I thus stumbled upon an awesome way using Ubuntu Studio's default movie player, Totem Movie Player.

It is very simple, let me explain...

  • Open JACK and start it.
  • Open your video of choice using Totem.
  • Go to Totem's Edit menu and select Preferences.
  • Select the Audio tab in preferences.
  • Use the scroll down menu to change the Audio Output Type to AC3 Passthrough
  • Your movie audio is now passed through JACK and can be recorded with any recording package which uses JACK i.e. Ardour.
  • The Totem audio outputs can be viewed from JACK's Connect menu.
And if you're wandering why on Earth something like this would be useful...well, you can always choose your favorite line from a movie and convert it into an SMS/Text message tone.

Other posts you might find interesting:
Beginner's Guide to Ubuntu Audio Recording
Live Sound, Monitors and Pepper Spray
My Favourite Linux Audio Effects
Hydrogen Drum Machine Basics
Microphone Review: Shure's SM57

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey,

This is something I've been wanting to find out for a while.. that is, how to make totem output to jack. But when I click on "AC3 Passhthrough", I don't see any changes. when i restart totem, it is set back to stereo. anyone know what is going on?

Brian the Lion said...

Hey Rich,

I'm not entirely sure what the problem could be. The only thing I can think of is that JACK must be started before "AC3 passthrough" is selected. You will then see a new stereo connection within the JACK connections tab. I am running Ubuntu Studio - Gutsy Gibbon, so possibly the other OS versions have a fault?

Later,
Brian

Haley said...

This was lovely thanks for sharing this