GraphEdit is a great multifunction conversion tool and display tool. It doesn't have an easiest of interfaces to use but it is a great tool to have around.

My example today came about when I had an audio file which I thought was Matroska but the encoders were not picking it up. I tried the output to DiskWriter option inside WinAmp but that didn't work either. So, lets use GraphEdit to see why it is so puzzling.

The first thing we do is fire up GraphEdit.

Under ther "FILE" there is an option called "Render Media File". This will allow you to select the audio file to convert, in this case it is a.ogg

Under ther "FILE" there is an option called "Render Media File". This will allow you to select the audio file to convert, in this case it is "a.ogg"

It will now display the flow chart of filters it needed to use in order to render this file to play on the system. In this example, it starts with the "a.ogg" file. It feeds the data through the "ogg splitter" first. This is probably why I couldn't feed it through WinAmp because of this extra packaging layer. Continuing along, the data is then feed through the "Matroska Decoder" to get it out of ogg format. Then runs the audio data into the Morgan Switcher then to the sound card on the system.

What we need to do here is change the output from the "Direct Sound Device" (the sound card on the computer) to another file on the hard drive. So under "Graph" we will see the option "Insert Filters".

A rather long and nasty list of codecs and filters will show up. This probably one of the less user friendly part of GraphEdit, but at the same time, the more codecs it can handle the more powerful it is.

Well most of the time, you will find the codec you need under "DirectShow Filters"

Clicking on "DirectShow Filters" gives us another long and nasty list of codecs and filters. We only need two of them; "WAV Dest" which will parse the audio data into a wave format, and "File Writer" which will write the data to a filename. So scroll down the list and file "File Writer" and click on it.

You will be asked to give a filename, so give it something like "audio.wav"

Now, that second filter we needed was "WAV Dest". Find it on the list and click on it.

When we close the filter menu, we will see this layout on the flow chart. Note, that the "WAV Dest" and the "File Writer to audio.wav" are separate boxes by themselves alas follows:

We need to rebuild the pipe to the file instead of the "Direct Sound". So first we will delete the box "Direct Sound Device" by clicking on it and pressing delete. Then we will draw a line and drag it to the "WAV Dest" box as follows. So click on the "Morgan Stream Switcher" Output pin and hold the mouse button as you drag the pin down to the "WAV Dest" input pin, like shown below.

The program will automatically snap the filter into the flow chart if it accepts it fine. Then you will now take the "WAV Dest" output pin and drag a line down to the "File Writer" filter. So click on the "WAV Dest" output pin and hold the button down while you drag the mouse down to the input pin on the "audio.wav" box; as shown below.

Again, the program will snap the filter into the flow chart and the end result will look like this diagram below.

Again, the program will snap the filter into the flow chart and the end result will look like this diagram below.

When it is ready to fire, press the green play button to begin the process. This program is not fast so you will probably need to wait for awhile. The progress bar will turn red as it is working along, but you will need to wait and wait and wait.

Once you are done, you will now have a file called "audio.wav" which is in standard Windows PCM wave parsed format. With this you can now load the file in WinAmp, MPEGEncoder or even VirtualDub. You can got back to Chapter 6 to put all the parts of the file back together again.

You can try mainconcepts but it sometimes hangs it up.