Use Quicktime to covert an audio file from AAC to AC3 via CLI?

Question

Basically I want to use Quicktime to convert an audio file from AAC to AC3, I thought I might be able to use Quicktime?

But I can't seem to be able to find the CLI command for it.

Answer 1

There's a C SDK so you could compile it into your own CLI command, but that is probably overkill.

There's plenty of people out there who have scripting Quicktime using Applescript and Automator - you can get to Applescript from the CLI via osascript.

Now my understanding is that osascript & Applescript are simply a front end onto an underlying object scripting bridge - but I've no idea if there is a more direct way to access.

What I ended up doing when I had a similar requirement to batch convert files was using Automator to script the conversion flow, then linked to a Folder Action - resulting in a folder that would automatically convert the file when copied into the folder (from the CLI or GUI - it's a background daemon, not a Finder thing).

You can create quite a nice pipeline of work that way.