Making Your Own MP3s from AVIs

I just made an MP3 from an .avi file and it was a lot easier than I thought. It’s really just a matter of finding the right tools. What prompted me to start making MP3s at 11:30 PM on a Tuesday, you ask? See, there is this show called Rock Star: INXS, which I have become somewhat addicted to. One of my favorite performers, Jordis, did a song on the first night, "Baba O’Reilly," but it is not one of the songs available to download at rockstar.msn.com. So I googled it. Hmmm. It appears that the world wide web doesn’t include as many Rock Star fans as I thought.

However, I did, ahem, find an .avi file of the show. The problem was that I didn’t want an MP3 of the whole show of course, just the one song. The first step was to find a program that could isolate the part of the .avi file I wanted. I used Open Video Converter because it was a free download…and near the top of my search results. Unfortunately, the free trial version only allowed a one-minute clip to be extracted. Bummer…but I was just playing around, so I figured I’d go ahead and see how it turned out. The next step was to find a program that could extract the audio from my now much smaller .avi file. For this, I used Audio Extractor from One Stop Software. Again, a free trial version was available.

Both programs are pretty basic and easy to use. In the end, I did wind up with a decent MP3…well, except for the fact that it’s only a minute long. If I’m willing to cough up $25 for the full version of the Video Converter software, I could make the whole MP3. Perhaps someone knows of a freebie program that will do the same? Or should I just take donations from the other Rock Star fans? (I’m kidding!) I have a feeling I could get good use out of this program if I was willing to buy it, but I haven’t given up my hunt for a full-featured trial yet.