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Topic: Alternatives to EAC? (Read 10462 times) previous topic - next topic
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Alternatives to EAC?

Are there any alternatives to EAC if i'm looking for perfect rips?  I would think a project like accurate ripping software would be a popular one, however all I find are hordes of quick-n-dirty rippers.

I've been using EAC for a few years now and EAC's GUI sucks.  The menus and options are a chaotic mess.  Years go by and there is never any improvement.  In fact i'd say development is insanely slow period. I'm guessing this is because EAC is closed source with 1 developer or something.

Features like AccurateRip are of no interest to me as most of my CD collection is obscure/rare, and won't be in the database.

Is Plextools + a Plextor drive as good as EAC? I notice EAC only runs on windows, so what do all the Linux fanatics use?

Is the work put into EAC that difficult to duplicate?

Excuse my ingorance.

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #1 –
I don't find any real problems with EAC's GUI. Sure, I guess it could be neater and slightly better organised, but really it works fine the way it is now. How about an interface as customisable as Foobar's?
Acid8000 aka. PhilDEE

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #2 –
Perfect rips are dependent of the condition of the CD. If you want good error detection use EAC if you want error free rips use a CD cleaner

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #3 –
If you're prepared to manually compare two different rips I suppose you could use any CD ripper. But, you must rip twice and do some form of binary compare to ensure your rip was error free.

Quote
Is Plextools + a Plextor drive as good as EAC?
From my experience with a few problemtatic CDs and my PX-708A, I'd say Plextools was better.
daefeatures.co.uk

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #4 –
>In fact i'd say development is insanely slow period. I'm guessing this is because EAC is closed source with 1 developer or something

Take CDEX which is open source (the worlds most popular open source cd ripper) with multiple developers, it has been developed even less than EAC on the last 2 years.

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #5 –
Yeah but the GUI hasn't changed in years, its pretty ugly & the menus & dialog boxes are a mess.

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #6 –
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I've been using EAC for a few years now and EAC's GUI sucks.  The menus and options are a chaotic mess.


Not if you let yourself get acquainted to it ...

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Years go by and there is never any improvement.  In fact i'd say development is insanely slow period. I'm guessing this is because EAC is closed source with 1 developer or something.


You did notice that there are brand new versions available, including CDRDAO support with write offset correction ?

The fact that EAC development came to a near-complete halt wasn't due to the fact  that André Wiethoff (the developer) is working alone but due to the fact that André has been working on his diploma thesis and has been applying for jobs lately ...
The name was Plex The Ripper, not Jack The Ripper

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #7 –
It's free, it makes perfect rips, and you don't like it because it's not purdy enough for you?
 

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #8 –
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Yeah but the GUI hasn't changed in years, its pretty ugly & the menus & dialog boxes are a mess.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305280"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

You can change the bitmaps/icons with reshacker if you are so predisposed.

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #9 –
On my box, Plextools is much faster and gives rips as good as EAC, but it's a proprietary software.

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #10 –
From my experience, any ripper is fine as long as CD is in 'perfect shape', that is, doesn't give a read errors. However with bad CD, EAC is the only one I was able to rip and recover from errors.

I don't know what's so special about EAC error correction scheme and how difficult is it to duplicate. But the fact is that I've tried 4-5 different free- and shareware rippers, and with bad CD EAC is the only one that managed to rip.

As to GUI, I had to pock around a bit when I've first started using it, but know I guess I just got used to it. My only complain is --- to the best of my knowledge --- you have to remove some registry entries when you install a different release. I wish EAC had a standard installer.

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #11 –
My prefs are:
1. EAC
2. CDEx

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #12 –
What's about foobar 0.9 beta with "secure mode" ?
FLAC --> MP3 (Lame 3.96.1: V5 --athaa-sensitivity 1)

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #13 –
Quote
I don't know what's so special about EAC error correction scheme and how difficult is it to duplicate. But the fact is that I've tried 4-5 different free- and shareware rippers, and with bad CD EAC is the only one that managed to rip.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305348"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

This has been exactly my experience too  .
However, EAC is something complicated to understand in the beginning, but, after understanding it, anyone perceives that this software is unique, and the quality of the extractions is excellent  .

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #14 –
Well, foobar2000 0.9 has secure mode and offset correction. It's an alternative to EAC.
Linux users mainly use cdparanoia, I guess, usually with some frontend; Grip, abcde or one of numerous others....
Problem with cdparanoia is that it won't work as intended with newer drives that caches audiodata. It just reads cached data twice. If drive doesn't cache audio data, cdparanoia should probably be as good as EAC. Same problem goes for CDEx which are based upon cdparanoia AFAIK.

Nobody has mentioned good 'ole Audiograbber yet... Well, it's probably beyond EAC and CDEx qualitywise, but it's still a nice app and maybe someone would prefer it's GUI (EAC's GUI don't bother me at all....). In one single case I got a good rip with Audiograbber "Unbuffered Burst Copy" 4.00 X readspeed where EAC "Secure Mode" produced only static.

EAC "Secure Mode" is what I personally use daily.

EDIT: Why has cdparanoia development stopped BTW? Wouldn't it be possible to do something about the cache problem? Developement seems to have stopped in 2001. It's GPL'd so if somebody competent could look into it.....
"ONLY THOSE WHO ATTEMPT THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL ACHIEVE THE ABSURD"
        - Oceania Association of Autonomous Astronauts

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #15 –
Quote
Are there any alternatives to EAC if i'm looking for perfect rips?  I would think a project like accurate ripping software would be a popular one, however all I find are hordes of quick-n-dirty rippers.

I've been using EAC for a few years now and EAC's GUI sucks.  The menus and options are a chaotic mess.  Years go by and there is never any improvement.  In fact i'd say development is insanely slow period. I'm guessing this is because EAC is closed source with 1 developer or something.

Features like AccurateRip are of no interest to me as most of my CD collection is obscure/rare, and won't be in the database.

Is Plextools + a Plextor drive as good as EAC? I notice EAC only runs on windows, so what do all the Linux fanatics use?

Is the work put into EAC that difficult to duplicate?

Excuse my ingorance.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305257"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I'm probably gonna get flamed for suggesting this, but you could certainly make the switch to Linux and use grip with cdparanoia. I use both (I rip books on cd from the library for a weekly long commute) and find that they perform about the same on scratched up cd's. Between my linux box and my wife's xp box, I can rip two scratched cd's at the same time!

And hey, audacity pretty much works the same on Windoze, Linux, and Mac. To be honest, I didn't find the gui that awful on EAC. If one were REALLY concerned about intuitive GUI's, one would probably buy a Mac. 

Mark

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #16 –
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EDIT: Why has cdparanoia development stopped BTW?[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305397"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


A guy named Cristopher Montgomery coded it. Then at some point in time he decided to focus on creating Vorbis. Then he decided to work on Theora. These days, God only knows what has his attention.

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #17 –
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A guy named Cristopher Montgomery coded it. Then at some point in time he decided to focus on creating Vorbis. Then he decided to work on Theora. These days, God only knows what has his attention.


  stuff happens I guess.
budding I.T professional

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #18 –
Quote
Quote
EDIT: Why has cdparanoia development stopped BTW?[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305397"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


A guy named Cristopher Montgomery coded it. Then at some point in time he decided to focus on creating Vorbis. Then he decided to work on Theora. These days, God only knows what has his attention.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305401"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Still, isn't it somewhat strange that nobody has grabbed the GPL'd sources yet and updated it a little to give Linux users an alternative fully on par with EAC?
"ONLY THOSE WHO ATTEMPT THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL ACHIEVE THE ABSURD"
        - Oceania Association of Autonomous Astronauts

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #19 –
Quote
Quote
Quote
EDIT: Why has cdparanoia development stopped BTW?[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


A guy named Cristopher Montgomery coded it. Then at some point in time he decided to focus on creating Vorbis. Then he decided to work on Theora. These days, God only knows what has his attention.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305401"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Still, isn't it somewhat strange that nobody has grabbed the GPL'd sources yet and updated it a little to give Linux users an alternative fully on par with EAC?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305407"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

[a href="http://people.redhat.com/pjones/cdparanoia/]Here[/url] is a guy over at Redhat doing something with it...

Mark

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #20 –
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Here is a guy over at Redhat doing something with it...

Mark
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305409"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Do you know what exactly he's trying to do? I couldn't see any changelog..... I guess the cache problem ought to have high priority....
"ONLY THOSE WHO ATTEMPT THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL ACHIEVE THE ABSURD"
        - Oceania Association of Autonomous Astronauts

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #21 –
Quote
Quote
Here is a guy over at Redhat doing something with it...

Mark
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305409"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Do you know what exactly he's trying to do? I couldn't see any changelog..... I guess the cache problem ought to have high priority....
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305410"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

A note late last summer on the mailing list had said those builds "...use SG_IO instead of ide-scsi+/dev/sg...". The guy certainly has a promising email address for working on something that really enhances the value of Linux. 

Another note said Monty was looking for someone to take it over, but not later notes indicating anything official.

Now you really, really know more than I do about it.

Mark

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #22 –
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Still, isn't it somewhat strange that nobody has grabbed the GPL'd sources yet and updated it a little to give Linux users an alternative fully on par with EAC?[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305407"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Go ahead and do it

I don't know anyone that understands a lot about DAE other than spath. You don't run into optical drive experts willing to work for free all the time.

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #23 –
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Go ahead and do it
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305423"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I would if I could, I would if I could...... 
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I don't know anyone that understands a lot about DAE other than spath. You don't run into optical drive experts willing to work for free all the time.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305423"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Unfortunately.... You're absolutely right. But with all these *.nix coders around one would think that over a period of 4 years maybe somebody would look into it. But it would take somebody competent ofcourse.....
"ONLY THOSE WHO ATTEMPT THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL ACHIEVE THE ABSURD"
        - Oceania Association of Autonomous Astronauts

Alternatives to EAC?

Reply #24 –
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But it would take somebody competent ofcourse.....

Dang. I was about to throw my hat into the ring...