Audio conversion in Windows, FLAC to MP3, etc

[djlewis]

Any thoughts on how to do this in Ruby? I've tried hooking to the
dbPowerAmp DLL but there are problems that seem kinda inscrutable (see
message http://tinyurl.com/y9r86h). Too bad, because that's what I use
interactively, and it seems pretty good.

Any other ways to do audio conversions in Ruby that people recommend --
general-purpose conversion libraries for Windoze, scripting interfaces,
etc? FLAC to MP3 is the one I most want, with flexibility in the MP3
parameters. But it would be nice to have a bigger set of formats.

Thanks. --David.

 

[djlewis]

IMHO this isn't really a good application for Ruby directly. Better to
interface with a library dedicated to this purpose. Which reduces Ruby's
role to that of a simple script to submit files to a native-code conversion
library.

Yes, that's what I meant. Sorry if I did not make myself clear.

So, I'm just looking for advice and leads to ways -- libraries, command
lines, scripting interfaces, whatever -- to do that in Windows, ways
ideally are already used by Ruby developers (so this lazy and novice
Ruby developer can see how they did it ;-)). The dbPowerAmp dll looked
promising, but seems to have a mysterious glitch that nobody here or at
Illustrate has yet commented upon.

Thanks. --David.

 

[djlewis]

Well, perhaps it would be better for you to choose a suitable conversion
library, one that meets your needs and that you can make work from the
command line, then someone here will suggest some methods to simplify the
process of managing the files you need to submit to the library.

I ask this because choosing a suitable audio conversion library isn't really
a Ruby topic.

True -- apologies. This began for me as an attempt to use the
dbPowerAmp DLL directly, a more elegant solution than a command line
interface, IMHO. It's a library that a lot of folks are using in C,,
C#, VB, VBA, etc. but it failed for Ruby, presumably because of a
glitch somewhere between Ruby and the DLL. Given the success of other
languages with that lib, I suspect Ruby, perhaps the WIN32OLE module,
but I don't have the knowledge (of MS COM etc and maybe Ruby internals)
to track it down. That does seem to me to be a Ruby topic. Nobody
appears to have any suggestions, though I understand this is not a
huge, urgent thing for the Ruby community. But there might be a
problem that could crop up elsewhere between Ruby and COM.

IAC, I will give up on the DLL and go to command line techniques. I
agree, that's not a Ruby topic per se.

Thanks. --David.