Converting a .WAV file to .AVI

October 13, 2021

Sometimes, there is a need to convert an audio file into a blank video file with an audio track. This can be useful if you are on a system that does not have a dedicated audio player but a video player (yes, rare, but I work with odd technologies…). Here is a quick recipe

FFmpeg to the rescue

When it comes to converting from one media format to another, I always turn to FFmpeg. It requires “coding” in the terminal, but usually, it is only necessary to write a oneliner. When it comes to converting an audio file (say in .WAV format) to a blank video file (for example, a .AVI file), this is how I would do it:

ffmpeg -i infile.wav -c copy outfile.avi

The “-c copy” part of this command is to preserve the original audio content. The new black video file will have a copy of the original .WAV file content. If you are okay with compressing the audio, you can instead run this command:

ffmpeg -i infile.wav outfile.avi

Then FFmpeg will (by default) compress the audio using the mp3 algorithm. This may or may not be what you are after, but it will at least create a substantially smaller output file.

Of course, you can easily vary the above conversion. For example, if you want to go from .AIFF to .MP4, you would just do:

ffmpeg -i infile.aiff outfile.mp4

Happy converting!