Need to Convert RealMedia Audio Files to MP4 H264 Video Format

[Hightime7898]

Hello folks,

I have a lot of real media audio files, I need to convert them to MP4 H264 video format. It doesn't matter that the real media files are audio and have no video, I just need them to be converted to the MP4 H264 video format. Any ideas? It doesn't have to be freeware, I don't mind buying some good software if it will enable me to do this efficiently since I have a lot of files to do.

At the moment, the only way I found I was able to do it was to convert the files to mp3 and only then some of the software I was testing out would convert the mp3 to mp4. I want to cut out this step of having to convert from rm to mp3 first, I want to be able to convert straight from rm to mp4 h264.

Thank you.

 

[13thmonkey]

would handbrake do it? or is the codec wrong?

 

[Hightime7898]

would handbrake do it? or is the codec wrong?

Oh, just to be clear I'm a novice so have no idea about codecs and anything else. But I did try Handbrake earlier today and just again now when you mentioned it just to make sure. Basically when I try to select the realmedia (.rm) file as the source in Handbrake it doesn't even acknowledge it, it doesn't select it? It just says, "No valid source found."

 

[13thmonkey]

Ah, not tried rm's, was thinking more about the output side.
http/fileinfo.com/extension/rm
the xilisoft option might work for you?
These are actual media files and not just links (Rm's are odd in that they can be either a full on data file or a link to a streaming location), the best way to tell is to tell us how big they are, if they are a a couple of KB's then they are probably just links.

 

[photonboy]

Hi,

I don't understand WHY you're trying to do this so it's hard to help. Let's get some facts.. a regular video has three components:

1) Audio (i.e. MP3, Vorbis, AC3 etc),
2) Video (i.e. H.264, H.265, MP2 etc),
3) Container (the "glue" that combines audio, video, subtitles etc.)
- (i.e. MOV, MKV, AVI etc)

You can try to create a "video" with no actual video content but WHY? If you simply convert the AUDIO you could mux it with a video later doing video editing if that's something you needed to do.

So if you're already able to convert RM audio to MP3 there's no good reason to go any further. Creating a video with only audio content serves no purpose and just causes issues with playback or trying to remux later with other video content.

 

[Hightime7898]

Thank you both for your responses. 13thmonkey, I tried Xilisoft but it didn't work.

Photonboy, I apologise for not making myself clear and I totally understand what you mean, the reason I want to do this is because I need to insert this file into Adobe InDesign as a video file in order to get it to play with audio controls like pause, rewind, forward, seek etc., I could insert it as an mp3 audio file but when I do that, InDesign only gives me the option of playing, stopping and resuming but no seeking, I can't forward or rewind the audio, and for the project I'm working on this is major.

You know I just tried Aimersoft Video Converter and it did successfully convert the rm to mp4 h264 but it would still not work in InDesign. So I just downloaded Adobe Media Encoder and ran the mp4 file created by Aimersoft through it and I can now add it to InDesign ok, but this is strange because both are mp4.

On the Mac, when I choose Get Info for the file converted by Aimersoft from rm to mp4 it says that it is an MPEG4 movie with AAC codecs.
That same file which I then ran through Adobe Media Encoder says it is an MPEG4 movie but its codecs are H.264, AAC.

 

[Hightime7898]

So folks, I think that's the way I'm going to have to do it, use Aimersoft Video Converter to convert the rm to mp4, and then run it through Adobe Media Encoder. It would have been good if the mp4 produced by Aimersoft would've done the job, then I wouldn't have to run it through AME, but nevermind.

Thank you both for your resoponses.