I am trying to convert a real player audio file to mp3 for my daughter's
school project. From what I have read, I need to use mplayer to convert to
.wav and then lame to convert to mp3. I tried the following:

mplayer -vo null -vc null -ao pcm:waveheader The_Zero_Hour_08_14_44.rm

on a 3.4 MB input file and all I get out is a 44 B .wav file.

The rm file plays in movie player just fine. This is the output I get:
mark@orca:~/Desktop/tokyo$ mplayer -vo null -vc null -ao pcm:waveheader
The_Zero_Hour_08_14_44.rm
MPlayer SVN-r31918 (C) 2000-2010 MPlayer Team
Can't open joystick device /dev/input/js0: No such file or directory
Can't init input joystick
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote
control.

Playing The_Zero_Hour_08_14_44.rm.
REAL file format detected.
Stream mimetype: audio/x-pn-realaudio
[real] Audio stream found, -aid 0
Stream mimetype: logical-fileinfo
Clip info:
 title: The Zero Hour - August 14, 1944
 author: http://earthstation1.com/Tokyo_Rose.html
 copyright: 1997 J. C. Kaelin wandarer@earthlink.net
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
[ac3 @ 0x35eb660]frame sync error
AUDIO: 11025 Hz, 1 ch, s16le, 16.0 kbit/9.07% (ratio: 2000->22050)
Selected audio codec: [ffac3] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg AC-3)
==========================================================================
[AO PCM] File: audiodump.wav (WAVE)
PCM: Samplerate: 11025Hz Channels: Mono Format s16le
[AO PCM] Info: Faster dumping is achieved with -vc null -vo null -ao
pcm:fast
[AO PCM] Info: To write WAVE files use -ao pcm:waveheader (default).
AO: [pcm] 11025Hz 1ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Video: no video
Starting playback...
A:1678.9 (27:58.9) of 1679.0 (27:59.0) ??,?%

Exiting... (End of file)
mark@orca:~/Desktop/tokyo$

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Mark