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Topic: Newbie needs rip & burn advice in a hurry! (Read 3303 times) previous topic - next topic
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Newbie needs rip & burn advice in a hurry!

Hello,

I have looked at many posts on this website and have learned a great deal.  However, I am still confused about some matters.

I want to rip about 1000 CDs that I have purchased legally onWindows 2000 systems.

My goals are:



Ease of playing any song that I want
Flexibilitu for future players (portable and auto)
Archives (Once only ripping)
Ability to place CDDB music information in an Access Database
Do all of these in one step, if possible.  Is this possible?


The 1st two questions what I need to know urgently:

PERSONAL DATABASE
I need to save all the CDDB and any other available information to at MINIMUM a CSV file and preferably to an ACCESS 2000 database.  How would any of the above applications tie into such and "inventory" program and which would your recommend?


What is the approximate amount of time to rip and encode an entire CD using
EAC and LAME
EAC and FLAC
EAC and Monkey Audio

I've been convinced that EAC is the ripper of choice.  However, I have questions about some of the other tools

Questions:

ENCODERS

LAME
FLAC
Monkey Audio

I like the ideas of a lossless encoder giving me the ability to go to MP3.  Which one of these encoders would you recommend and why?  Any other suggestions for encoders are welcome.

TRANSCODERS
Do I need one? Any suggestions?

PLAYERS
I guess that would depend on the type of encoder I ended up with.  Please suggest the best one that would go with your recommended encoder.



Thanks

Newbie needs rip & burn advice in a hurry!

Reply #1 –
Since you're looking to archive your music I suggest you look into FLAC and Monkey's Audio for compression. Both are lossless which means there is no loss in quality and they can sometimes get 50% compression. There is a lot of information on this board that will explain ripping with EAC and encoding with FLAC and Monkey's Audio so I won't go into it; search the forums. For playback on your PC and transcoding to other formats (MP3, AAC, etc) I recommend foobar2000.

Newbie needs rip & burn advice in a hurry!

Reply #2 –
well i think the key points that will decide what format you use are:
* Flexibility for future players (portable and auto)
* Archives (Once only ripping)
* about 1000 CDs

lossless:
to archive ~1000 CDs to any lossless format will necessitate a pretty huge HD or backup plan. also, only flac is well supported as far as flexibility/players go. (which wouldn't be the lossless codec of choice, imho - optimfrog or monkeysaudio have the best efficiency - la is somewhat unknown unsupported)

lossy:
lame mp3, ogg vorbis, faac/itunes/nero aac --> these all meet your criteria
musepack would meet your criteria if it ever gets real hardware support (and what i would hope and/or archive with anyways)

edit: answers to your other questions:

ripper = EAC/cdex (windows) or grip/k3b/cdparanoia (linux)
player = foobar2000/winamp2/winamp5 (windows) or xmms/bmp/lamip (linux)

you'll only need a transcoder after you've decided what format you will encode with initially (and really only if that choice is lossless...)  musepack can encode from almost any lossless codec, so that is a null issue with that codec.


later

Newbie needs rip & burn advice in a hurry!

Reply #3 –
Quote
Since you're looking to archive your music I suggest you look into FLAC and Monkey's Audio for compression. Both are lossless which means there is no loss in quality and they can sometimes get 50% compression. There is a lot of information on this board that will explain ripping with EAC and encoding with FLAC and Monkey's Audio so I won't go into it; search the forums. For playback on your PC and transcoding to other formats (MP3, AAC, etc) I recommend foobar2000.

Thanks!  You've helped me to narrow my options down.
 

Newbie needs rip & burn advice in a hurry!

Reply #4 –
Quote
well i think the key points that will decide what format you use are:
* Flexibility for future players (portable and auto)
* Archives (Once only ripping)
* about 1000 CDs

lossless:
to archive ~1000 CDs to any lossless format will necessitate a pretty huge HD or backup plan. also, only flac is well supported as far as flexibility/players go. (which wouldn't be the lossless codec of choice, imho - optimfrog or monkeysaudio have the best efficiency - la is somewhat unknown unsupported)

lossy:
lame mp3, ogg vorbis, faac/itunes/nero aac --> these all meet your criteria
musepack would meet your criteria if it ever gets real hardware support (and what i would hope and/or archive with anyways)

edit: answers to your other questions:

ripper = EAC/cdex (windows) or grip/k3b/cdparanoia (linux)
player = foobar2000/winamp2/winamp5 (windows) or xmms/bmp/lamip (linux)

you'll only need a transcoder after you've decided what format you will encode with initially (and really only if that choice is lossless...)  musepack can encode from almost any lossless codec, so that is a null issue with that codec.


later

Thanks for your suggestions!  And for a level of detail that I needed in terms of compression efficiency.