FLAC to MP3 conversion software-any good freeware?

[Thump553]

My music for my home audio system is all FLAC (all CDs ripped and in storage). I'll be playing mp3s in the car via a mp3 player. Any suggestions for (preferably freeware) conversion software for this?

 

[Anubis]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2169824

 

[RallyMaster]

I use something called FLACsquisher.

 

[Brainonska511]

Foobar2000 can do it. It's what I use to convert my flac to mp3 for my Sansa Fuze.

 

[zerogear]

I just use MediaMonkey to sync to my mp3 player, and set it as a rule to automatic convert to mp3 when I sync.

 

[Rifter]

foobar2000

 

[bobdole369]

Foobar2000 can do it. It's what I use to convert my flac to mp3 for my Sansa Fuze.

This is the easiest. have a 320k and a -v 0 preset. It's LAME

 

[Fallen Kell]

I use lame and metaflac and wrote a shell script (linux/unix)... I am sure it can easily be converted if you use windows to a bat:

#!/bin/bash
FLAC=$1
MP3="${FLAC%.flac}.mp3"
[ -r "$FLAC" ] || { echo can not read file \"$FLAC\" >&1 ; exit 1 ; } ;
metaflac --export-tags-to=- "$FLAC" | sed 's/=\(.*\)/="\1"/' >tmp.tmp
cat tmp.tmp
. ./tmp.tmp
rm tmp.tmp
flac -dc "$FLAC" | lame -b 192 -h --tt "$Title" \
--tn "$Tracknumber" \
--tg "$Genre" \
--ty "$Date" \
--ta "$Artist" \
--tl "$Album" \
--add-id3v2 \
- "$MP3"

 

[Brainonska511]

At a curiosity, is there a good FLAC --> WMA Lossless converter or if you can do it in Foobar, how would you set it up? I'm interested in putting music on my HTPC eventually, but the plugins for WMC/WMP FLAC playback aren't very good (no metadata displayed, etc...)

 

[Binky]

Mediamonky (not free) does the conversion on-the-fly for your portable drives. This makes it MUCH easier to store some or all of your music in whatever format you desire, but when you sync your portable device it will automatically convert it to whatever format you choose. It's very useful. Obviously, this slows down the sync process.

 

[Ronstang]

At a curiosity, is there a good FLAC --> WMA Lossless converter or if you can do it in Foobar, how would you set it up? I'm interested in putting music on my HTPC eventually, but the plugins for WMC/WMP FLAC playback aren't very good (no metadata displayed, etc...)

I use CueTools to do transcoding. It is free and a nice piece of software. It will also do the mp3 conversion for you and boasts many useful features like AccurateRip verification.

 

[Brainonska511]

I use CueTools to do transcoding. It is free and a nice piece of software. It will also do the mp3 conversion for you and boasts many useful features like AccurateRip verification.

Thanks for the suggestion. My long-term goal is to eventually hook up some sort of stereo system to my HTPC, but part of that would be having my music in lossless format (where applicable) in a WMC friendly format - mp3 are good in WMC.

I normally use CDex though for ripping.

 

[Ronstang]

Thanks for the suggestion. My long-term goal is to eventually hook up some sort of stereo system to my HTPC, but part of that would be having my music in lossless format (where applicable) in a WMC friendly format - mp3 are good in WMC.

I normally use CDex though for ripping.

Currently the best solution for lossless playback in WMC is the WMA lossless format. There is nothing wrong with it so there is no reason not to use it. HDs are cheap these days so I have my whole CD collection on one HD in FLAC and WavPack and plan to simply transcode whatever I want on my new HTPC when I build it later this year. I prefer WavPack for storage and archival purposes and it plays fine in Foobar2000 but it is not supported in Windows Media Center.

 

[Ronstang]

It seems that I have misinformed you. I just successfully got WavPack tracks to play both in WMP and WMC with full tag and album art support. I simply downloaded and installed two little pieces of software. You will need CoreWavePack 1.1.1 (a directshow filter that works in x64 systems or it wouldn't work for me) and WMPTagPlus 1.2. This should also work for FLAC if you have the proper filters in place to play them in WMP.

It was really neat seeing my WavPack tracks show up all nice and tagged in WMC. Thank you firing up my curiosity about this issue.

 

[Brainonska511]

It seems that I have misinformed you. I just successfully got WavPack tracks to play both in WMP and WMC with full tag and album art support. I simply downloaded and installed two little pieces of software. You will need CoreWavePack (a directshow filter that works in x64 systems or it wouldn't work for me) and WMPTagSupport from Softpointer. This should also work for FLAC if you have the proper filters in place to play them in WMP.

It was really neat seeing my WavPack tracks show up all nice and tagged in WMC. Thank you firing up my curiosity about this issue.

That's good to know, I guess. I'm trying to avoid adding codec packs to my HTPC, just because I've read about people breaking live-TV support with them. I may be overreacting with it, but eh... I don't rip my movies to computer and don't get my other media from 'alternative' sources.

I will definitely look into CueTools for FLAC --> WMA Lossless conversion for the day I put music on my HTPC.

 

[Ronstang]

That's good to know, I guess. I'm trying to avoid adding codec packs to my HTPC, just because I've read about people breaking live-TV support with them. I may be overreacting with it, but eh... I don't rip my movies to computer and don't get my other media from 'alternative' sources.

I will definitely look into CueTools for FLAC --> WMA Lossless conversion for the day I put music on my HTPC.

Codec packs are bad, individual codecs or filters on an "as need" basis don't seem to cause as many problems and it is much easier to identify and uninstall the offender also. The best thing to do is determine all the things you want to do in WMP/WMC that require extra software or tricks to get them to work and then simply load a virtual machine and do all your testing on it. At least that way you won't do any permanent damage to your current install.

 

[Brainonska511]

Codec packs are bad, individual codecs or filters on an "as need" basis don't seem to cause as many problems and it is much easier to identify and uninstall the offender also. The best thing to do is determine all the things you want to do in WMP/WMC that require extra software or tricks to get them to work and then simply load a virtual machine and do all your testing on it. At least that way you won't do any permanent damage to your current install.

I like the sound of that. I'm just too lazy to do that, but it doesn't matter. Standard stuff seems to play fine on the default arrangement of WMC.