Perl Audio Converter

Perl Audio Converter (PAC) is an open source, multiplatform, freely distributed and easy-to-use command-line software that has been designed from the offset to be used for converting multiple audio file types from one format to another.

Features at a glance

Key features include CD ripping functionality with CDDB (Compact Disc Database) support, tag preservation, playlist and batch conversion, independent tag reading and writing, and support for a wide range of audio file formats.

Furthermore, the software features a powerful audio tagger, recursive directory support, directory structure preservation, parallel processing functionality, as well as extensions for the Konqueror, Dolphin, Thunar and Nemo file managers.

Supported audio file formats

Perl Audio Converter supports a wide range of audio file formats, among which we can mention MP2, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Monkey Audio, FAAC (AAC/M4A/MP4), Musepack (MPC), Wavpack (WV), OptimFrog (OFR/OFS), TTA, LPAC, Kexis (KXS), AIFF, AC3, Lossless Audio (LA), AU, SND, RAW, VOC, SMP, RealAudio (RA/RAM), WAV, and WMA.

In addition, the 3G2, 3GP, 8SVX, ADTS, AL, AMB, AMR, APE, AVR, BONK, CAF, CDR, CVU, DAT, DTS, DVMS, F32, F64, FAP, FLA, FSSD, GSRT, HCOM, IMA, IRCAM, MAT, MAUD, MAT4, MAT5, MPP, NIST, OFF, OPUS, OGA, PAF, PRC, PVF, RA, RF64, SD2, SF, SHN, SOU, SPX, SRN, TAK, TXW, VMS, VQF and W64 audio file formats are also supported.

Featuring a Nautilus script, the application is capable of extracting audio streams from a wide range of video formats, including AVI, MKV, RM, ASF, RV, DivX, MPG, MPEG, MOV, QT, OGM, VOB, VCD, WebM, M4V, NSV, PSP, SVCD, FLV, NUV, OGV, SMK and WMV.

Under the hood, availability and supported operating systems

As its name suggests, Perl Audio Converter is written entirely in the Perl programming language, which means that it is supported under all GNU/Linux distributions, as well as on various BSD flavors. It’s distributed as a source tarball, supporting both 32-bit and 64-bit hardware platforms.

What is new in this release:

• Updated OGG Vorbis & SPX tags to use TRACKNUMBER instead of TRACK
• Fixed coverting to "wma, ra, & mmf" thanks to bug report by Timothy E. Harris
• Fixed missing semicolon bug in Nemo/Nautilus/Thunar script
• Fixed overwrite message to show output file, not source
• Fixed Thunar PACPL-Konvert script thanks to Timothy E. Harris

What is new in version 5.0.0:

• Minor code optimizations/changes
• Updated README program description
• Fixed amr encoding
• Fixed mmf, ra, wma, and other codecs supported by ffmpeg
• Added a few obscure audio formats supported by sox/sndfile-convert including: rf64 (sndfile) 8svx amb dat dvms f32 f64 fssd gsrt hcom txw vms

What is new in version 5.0.0 Pre:

• added GNOMEDIR variable to the Makefile in case your gnome installation is not located in the default /usr directory
• updated directory structure for plugins
• updated configure script to use the following...
• --enable-kde (for the KDE service menu)
• --enable-nautilus (for the nautilus script)
• --enable-nemo (for the nemo action script)
• the kde and nautilus/nemo options cannot be used together. you can however use both nemo and nautilus (assuming you have both installed) by default none of the options are enabled
• removed install.sh & README for nemo script directory

What is new in version 4.0.5:

• added support for KDE4 (konqueror/dolphin) service menus
• removed all previously included mime types.
• removed support for KDE3 (konqueror/dolphin) service menus. the old pacpl.desktop can still be found in the source package under plugins/d3lphin for those that still need it.
• the amarok script no longer works in 2.0* due to various changes. a new one is in the works however, and will be included in a future release.
• fixed typo in tag string when encoding mp4/m4a using faac. thanks to Steve Harrold for reporting the issue.
• fixed FLAC encoders list in codecs.conf.
• fixed Makefile.in to include translations from the last release. thanks to Bram Schoenmakers for spotting the fowl-up

What is new in version 4.0.4:

• added Romanian translation thanks to Sabadac Petru-Gabriel
• added Dutch translation thanks to Sander Pientka
• added Italian translation thanks to Marco Bignami
• added flake to supported FLAC encoders
• updated Russian translation
• updated Turkish translation thanks to Osman Karagoz
• updated mime type names to prevent conflicts
• fixed mp4 encoding/tagging via ffmpeg. thanks to Neil Stewart for reporting the changes in the latest ffmpeg.
• fixed a few typos/errors in the man page. thanks to Reuben Thomas.

What is new in version 4.0.3:

• added encode/decode support for m4b (iPod audio book)
• added d3lphin to the configure script
• added option --defopts. this allows you to turn off/remove all default encoder options set by the program, and allows you to completely customize them via --eopts.
• updated po directory (moved to /usr/share/pacpl/locale)
• fixed various inconsistencies in Makefile.in and configure.ac thanks to Cristian Greco for the patches, suggestions, and Debian package.
• fixed link for ape encoder/decoder (mac) in README file
• fixed bug when encoding to mp3 using bladeenc. --eopts was not being read into the command.

Requirements:

• Perl