How to rip a specific audio segment from a video file using ffmpeg on Linux

I wanted to grab the last "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" quote as a WAV file from BBC's ill-fated The IT Crowd sitcom (you can grab the torrents - get the package with all 6 episodes using Azureus, and only download those you want - easy to do).

ffmpeg made quick work of it.

The full command:

ffmpeg -i input_file.avi -f mp3 -ss "00:02:40:" -t 20 outputfile.wav

The explanation:

-i input_file.avi
the input file
-f wav
format output as wav (other formats & codecs: ffmpeg -formats)
-ss "00:02:40"
start at that position; can also take seconds from the start
-t 20
20 second duration
outputfile.wav
the output file

Thanks to jtpratt's Converting video in linux using ffmpeg and mencoder.


Written by Andrew Ittner in misc on Fri 04 August 2006. Tags: technology