ffmpeg convert stereo to mono for multiple video files

Question

I have a folder of video files listing:

1H.mp4; 1L.mp4; 2H.mp4; 2L.mp4; ....

The sounds are unbalanced for two ears - it is probably due to the recording is stereo. How can I change the audio tracks from stereo to mono for all the video files?

I assume the workflow would be extract (copy) the audio tracks out, change to mono, then insert (copy) back. I have found codes for individual files, but with hundreds of such short mp4 files, I'd like to know if I can use a 'loop' to deal with them all.

Thank you!

Answer 1

No need to extract, you can downmix two audio channels and keep video channel and generate a new file in one command.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v copy -ac 1 mono-output.mp4

Here -ac 1 says 1 audio channel, downmixed from stereo, look in ffmpeg docs. Now make a loop. Assuming you are using bash or similar unix shell

for i in *.mp4; do ffmpeg -i $i -c:v copy -ac 1  mono-$i; done