synconv is a command line based audio format transcoder with an rsync-like behavior. It's specially useful for synchronizing a music collection with portable devices that either don't support some audio formats used in your collection or that could benefit from smaller file sizes obtained with the usage of a more lossy audio format.
synconv doesn't do the transcoding itself. Instead, it uses command line decoders and encoders (such as lame) to transcode the files. It creates transcoding pipelines that are run in parallel, optimized for multicore machines. Those pipelines are created in a way that should be familiar to users of synchronization software such as rsync. By default, if the transcoded (or copied) file is already up-to-date, it isn't overwritten, making it easier to keep files synchronized across devices.
A brief list of features:
- Support for FLAC, Ogg Vorbis and MP3 codecs
- Parallel transcoding, optimized for multicore CPUs
- Audio tags are copied from the original file to the transcoded file
- Support for re-encoding files and skipping files that can't be transcoded
- Timestamps are checked to ensure that only modified files are replaced
- Renaming filters make working with filesystems such as FAT32 easier
Use it as you would use rsync. By default, synconv will transcode to MP3 and will use multiple threads for transcoding. Existing MP3 files will not be re-encoded:
synconv /music/Artist /media/phone/See synconv(1) for more examples.
The easiest way to install synconv is through Homebrew. There is a formula for synconv in my Homebrew tap.
If you're compiling from source, you will need:
You probably want the encoders and decoders too. We currently support:
- flac (for FLAC encoding and decoding)
- lame (for MP3 encoding and decoding)
- oggenc (for Ogg Vorbis encoding, part of vorbis-tools)
- oggdec (for Ogg Vorbis decoding, part of vorbis-tools)
You don't need all of them, just the ones you will use.
To compile and install:
cd /path/to/source
cmake .
make installsynconv was created by Fernando Tarlá Cardoso Lemos.
synconv is available under the BSD 2-clause license. See the LICENSE file for more information.