Necessity is the mother of invention.

As with 99% of what I know about technology, here is a great tutorial from my own learning experience on how to convert  .MOV audio to an .MP3 file.

First why did I need to do this?

I’m using a program for recording Skype phone calls called Call Recorder by Ecamm. The options for saving calls is either Uncompressed, 2:1 Compression or AAC Compression. The default is AAC which produces a file with the extension .mov. The initial tests using AAC Compression produced very clean recordings of my phone interviews and I was pleased. But there was one issue.  To include them into a podcast series I am developing along with another new web project (IAMA), I needed the Call Recorder files in MP3 format.

So I began looking at how to get the MOV converted to MP3.

Option one: purchase QT Pro or other conversion programs for $29.00+.  That may be where you want to go.  But I also found another way.

Option two: using an available AppleScript and the built in QuickTime AppleScript tools I could convert the .mov to .mp3 for free and get the same results, albeit one or two extra steps.   Plus I learned something new.  So here goes. It’s very simple, really.

1. Get the AppleScript

Here it is:

set saveRef to (choose file name with prompt “Save audio track as AIFF” default name “untitled.aiff”)
tell application “QuickTime Player”
export movie 1 to saveRef as AIFF
end tell

Copy the script.

2. Open your .MOV file in QuickTime

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3. Choose QuickTime Player/Services/Script Editor/Make New AppleScript

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4. Paste the AppleScript into the window like so:

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5. Choose RUN then follow the prompts to name the file and pick a location then SAVE.  Next choose RUN in the top window.

Pick a place you can find it easily like Desktop.  You’ll be importing it into iTunes.

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6. Now it will export the .mov  file as an .aiff file to the location you chose.

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7. Now open iTunes, import the file to your music library and then choose Advanced/Create MP3 Version like you might normally.

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Now you have two versions in your iTunes library, one .aiff and one .mp3 and you saved $29.00!

Hope this helps you along the way!

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