About flac2mp3 ============== flac2mp3 is a perl script that will search for flac files within a directory hierarchy and convert them all to mp3 format, creating a matching directory structure in the process. I wrote it as I have a large collection of flac files but need to convert them to mp3 format for use with my iPod. There are a few programs that can do basic file format conversion but I found that it was hard to detect which files were new in my flac collection and to convert just those files. I also find I update the metadata in my flac files fairly often (when I spot mistakes, etc.) and needed a way to update just the tags rather than running the whole conversion process again. flac2mp3 can do this. It can take a directory structure like this: lossless | +--Coldplay | | | +--Parachutes | | | +-- 01 - Don't Panic.flac | 02 - Shiver.flac +--The Chameleons | +Script of the Bridge | +-- 01 - Don't Fall.flac 02 - Here Today.flac And produce a directory structure like this: lossy | +--Coldplay | | | +--Parachutes | | | +-- 01 - Don't Panic.mp3 | 02 - Shiver.mp3 +--The Chameleons | +Script of the Bridge | +-- 01 - Don't Fall.mp3 02 - Here Today.mp3 The command to do this is: flac2mp3.pl /path/to/lossless /path/to/lossy Now, suppose I notice that I've spelled "coldplay" wrongly. I simply use a tag editor to correct the flac files then run flac2mp3 again to update the tags in the mp3 files: flac2mp3.pl /path/to/lossless /path/to/lossy flac2mp3 will detect that just the tags have changed in the flac files and update the mp3 files without re-transcoding. Command-line options can be seen by typing "flac2mp3.pl" with no options: Usage: ./flac2mp3.pl [--pretend] [--quiet] [--debug] [--tagsonly] [--force] [--tagdiff] <flacdir> <mp3dir> --pretend Don't actually do anything --quiet Disable informational output to stdout --debug Enable debugging output. For developers only! --tagsonly Don't do any transcoding - just update tags --force Force transcoding and tag update even if not required --tagdiff Print source/dest tag values if different Installation ============ As of v0.2.6 all non-standard perl modules are supplied in the archive. Installation should be as simple as extracting the archive into a directory of your choice. For example, on linux: # cd ~/bin # tar zxvf flac2mp3-0.3.0.tar.gz On Windows, you can use Winzip or other utility to unzip the file and extract the archive. Mailing lists ============= The following mailing lists are available: List address: flac2mp3-announce@robinbowes.com Description: Read-only list for announcements To subscribe: flac2mp3-announce-subscribe@robinbowes.com List address: flac2mp3-devel@robinbowes.com Description: Developer discussion To subscribe: flac2mp3-devel-subscribe@robinbowes.com List address: flac2mp3-general@robinbowes.com Description: General user discussion To subscribe: flac2mp3-general-subscribe@robinbowes.com Please report any issues to robin-flac2mp3@robinbowes.com Robin Bowes July 2007