How to Convert Real Player Media to MP3
I have some old real media files that I needed to convert to mp3 format. The main reason was that I wanted the media to be available on my newly purchased iPhone. Plus I don’t use real player any more. In any case, after two days of searching and trying different products, I found a *free* product that did the job! The product is ‘Free RM to MP3 Convertor’ by Jodix.com. My files were in *.rm format, however, the product page at Jodix claims to convert *.ra and *.rmvb to mp3 as well.
The product is bit dated – it was release in February 2006. I got an error message when I tried to install it on a 64-bit Vista machine. I installed it on a Windows 7 RC and was able to convert real media files in mp3 format.
The sotware is very easy to use. Default settings would work for most people. The size of the mp3 file was not an issue for me, so I chose a variable bit rate. I was able to convert a 30MB rm file to a 80MB mp3. My guess is that the size tripled because of the variable bitrate setting and the fact that *. rm files were not optimized to begin with. The software speed was remarkable as it converted 30 mb files on an average of 10 mintues.