Memories: Uploading 1 hour of audio in a 15 MB file

My son gave me a video of him telling a story. Some of it had interesting family history..

But I faced some technical issues. The mobile version of FamilySearch the Memories app is limited to 5 minutes of audio (not video). Uploaded audio files are limited to a file size of 15 MB. The video was over an hour long and 1.75 GB in size. 

I knew that I needed to extract the audio from the video. I found instructions on the internet for doing this on my computer using VLC Media Player, which I already had installed.

Basically: Click Media > Convert/Save > Add Video > Convert/Save > Profile Audio > MP3 > Convert/Save > Browse (select a file name and a location) >Start

The result was a 65 MB MP3 audio file, the right file format but much too big.

I loaded it into the free Audacity software and deleted one of the stereo tracks, and saved the file. This was a lot smaller, but at 37 MB it was still too large. I reset the Preferences to a lower bit-rate, but it was still too big. When I lowered the bit-rate to 11 kbps the audio file was now 15 MB, 

I was concerned that the audio quality might be unusable, but it still sounded good when i played it back from FamilySearch Memories,. 

Success!

I soon found a simpler way to do this entirely online if the input file is less than 100 MB in zize.

Go to https://www.online-convert.com/
Click Convert Audio > MP3 and select the VIDEO file.
Change the bit-rate to 12 kbps

The result will be an MP3 audio copy that may be the size you need.

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I am sure there are other ways of doing this as well. I am just glad I was able to get the audio file I needed. If your file is too large for the online file converter, you should be able to re-trace my steps to accomplish the task by using VLC and Audacity (with its MP3 plugin). Or (more simply) use VLC to create the MP3 file and  then use the online converter to lower the bit-rate.

I wish you success!

Bill

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