title: Ripping audio from a YouTube video link: https://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/ripping-audio-from-a-youtube-video/ author: lembobro description: post_id: 459 created: 2008/08/30 13:26:09 created_gmt: 2008/08/30 13:26:09 comment_status: open post_name: ripping-audio-from-a-youtube-video status: publish post_type: post

Ripping audio from a YouTube video

My youngest loves You Tube. A recent favorite is Al Yankovic’s “E-Bay”. So far, I think at least 1,000 of the 16,842,198 views of it are his — and I may actually be underestimating.

Anyway, I decided to see how hard it would be to extract an .mp3 audio file from the .flv (Flash Video) source.

First, I downloaded the .flv using the free Fast Video Download add-on for Firefox.

Next, I fired up ffmpeg in a terminal window, using the following syntax:

ffmpeg -i '"Ebay" by Weird Al Yankovic.flv' weirdal_ebay.mp3

(this should be entered all on one line -- note I had to enclose the long filename of the original file in single quotes)

That’s all there is to it! Just point an mp3 player, like xmms, at the output file and enjoy.

Oh, and here’s the original ‘tube embed for my little guy:

Anyone who still isn’t using Linux as their primary desktop should really think again.

Now I just have to figure out how to run my kids latest favorite game on ‘nix. Wait! That would be Runescape, which does run on Linux — in any browser that can load the Java plugin. Thanks Dr. Gosling, again.

Copyright 2004-2019 Phil Lembo