Convert a music video to a song in VLC Media Player

Photo from the Wireless Ground blog

VLC Media Player is perhaps the best media player out there. It's open-source, so it's free and you can play practically any kind of sound or video with it. Maybe not everything, but it does support a ton of formats.

Besides playing and even streaming stuff, it can do a lot more. For example, you can turn a video into an MP3 file (or even OGG, MP4 and more if you like them better). It's really simple. Follow the steps:

• Open VLC Media Player.
• Click Media in the menu bar and select Convert/Save...
• VLC will display a dialog that asks you to tell it where the file is. You have the option to browse to a file, which you'll probably do if you are converting a video to an audio track, or you can browse to a network location, a CD/DVD or capture device.

• Browse to the file on your PC by clicking 'Add...', or use the Network tab to browse to the file if it's on a network.
• If you are converting a DVD to another format or anything, you can use the Disc tab and follow the instructions. I cannot guarantee that this tutorial will be exactly the same like for converting a DVD.
• Now click the Convert/Save button at the bottom of the dialog box. A new dialog will appear.
• Set the destination, where you want to save the file to. Name it something.
• Now change the profile to Audio - MP3, or whatever other format you want. After this, the second screen should look like the following:

Click the image to see clearly

•  Now, once you click Start, the conversion should start. For me, a screen from my video was displayed while the progress bar moved as the work was done. This may change in later versions, though.

Once the conversion is complete, you will find a new MP3 in the folder you saved the file to. You're done! Have fun.


Remember to check out my archives. I have fun tips and tricks, like my recent post on getting a Chrome-like omnibar for Firefox, remotely signing out of Facebook or useful time-savimg keyboard shortcuts for Google Chrome.

Also, do you have all of the must-have free software geeks should have and do you know the difference between Google Chrome and Chromium?

Convert a music video to a song in VLC Media Player