[LAU] m4a file conversion. Did Apple lock it up ?

[Rob]

On Wednesday 06 April 2011 22:46, vogel at ct.metrocast.net wrote:
>  Iphone. It has a voice recording app. I think I actually did capture
>  it, but when I migrate the file to my computer what I get is an m4a
>  file for which I'm not finding appropriate software.
> I'd like to convert it to a wav file so that I can try to enhance it
>  with audacity.

Found an m4a file on one of my old hard disks.  Sure enough, Audacity 
wouldn't import it, even though it tried to use ffmpeg.  But vlc and 
mplayer played it fine.  The quickest thing to do is one of these two 
commands:

  mplayer -vo null -ao pcm:fast:file=file.wav file.m4a 

or even simpler,

  ffmpeg -i file.m4a file.wav

If you're not comfortable with command line stuff, install vlc, run it, 
open the m4a file, verify it plays as you expect, and then File -> 
Convert/Save and convert it to a WAV file there (select WAV for both 
encapsulation and codec).

The resulting file in all three cases opened fine in Audacity.

Rob