Changing music file extensions

Brute · Last edited by Brute on Wed Mar 04, 2009 11:14 am; edited 1 time in total

I know with some things you can simply rename a file with a different extension and everything will work out fine. For example, I'll be online and want to save a picture and it wants to save as .bmp or .gif, I'll type in [name].jpg and it will become a properly functioning .jpg file. Now, I was wondering if you could do the same for music files? I want to convert some files from .wma to .mp3, but I don't want to have to find a music file converter.
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mcwkm · Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:50 am Post subject:

I don't believe this is possible without conversion software although I am not 100% sure. Also if your mp3 player supports the file type, I see no point in converting them seeing how you won't gain any audio quality after the switch.

Also you forgot the g in changing.

Brute · Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 11:17 am Post subject:

Well, I'm an obsessive compulsive disorder kind of guy, especially when it comes to my files. All of my music is in MP3 format. I decided to download a file converter and change all the songs that way since Windows Media Player gave me a message whenever I tried playing the songs I "converted" the other way, although it would still play them. Anyway, I don't know if my MP3 player will play other file types, and I don't really care to find out.
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ClickFanatic · Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:04 pm Post subject:

Extension renaming works if the two extensions represent the same file format or the file formats are hardly different (ie. one is based on the other and has many similarities).

WMA and MP3 are completely different file formats. First of all, the compression used is different, and the information contained in the file may be ordered or encoded differently.

Programs use different reading methods for different files. The extension usually tells them what kind of file they have.

If you rename the extension, the content of the file doesn't change with it. The only thing you achieve is giving a false indication of the file format to software that open the file.

So many programs will fail to open the file if the extension doesn't represent the actual file form. The reason why you can still open files with false extensions is because the program you use to open it with 1) tries an alternative method when the first one fails, 2) tries to guess the file format by reading its raw content.
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pharmer4 · Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 3:20 am Post subject:

Also, you can corrupt your file in some versions of windows if you change the extension, so it won't recognise it as either.

I think this only happened to me on older versions (ie 95 or 98 or something), but I can't remember the type of file it was.
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mcwkm · Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 11:43 am Post subject:

Myst · Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 8:04 am Post subject:

Hmm... I've got a feeling that Windows Media Player will recognise that the file isn't what it says it is, and then gives you the option of "Trying to play it anyway." Then it will play it. But no, it won't technically still be the new file type, just appear that way.

And don't quote me on that - I could be completely wrong.

Brute · Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:12 am Post subject:

Yea, Myst, I believe you're right. It did tell me something was up but it would try to play it anyway, and it did work. I think I'll just stick to the proper way of doing it, by downloading free file converters every time I rip a CD Laughing

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ClickFanatic · Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:22 am Post subject:

Brute · Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:35 am Post subject:

I just downloaded something called Switch. I got it once before, liked it, so I just got it again.
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LP-SolidRaven · Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 3:45 am Post subject:

Constantly converting between music formats will significantly lower the quality of your music considering the fact that both mp3 and wma do lose some data when compressing.
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Jacky · 3.14159265358979323846264 Joined: 01 Jan 2005 Posts: 4175

You mentioned about saving a BMP image as a JPG with a browser by using the JPG extension.

That may not totally work, even if your image editor or viewer can view it.

Same applies to audio files.

You can for example change the extension of a WMA file to MP3, but players do not rely on the extension alone to recognise the file.

If you download a program called MediaInfo you will know that inside these audio and video files there is some data inside which tells you what type of file it is (MP3, WMA, etc.) and even the codec used to encode it.

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