Re: Going digital
I suppose I could put the CDs into a couple storage boxes in the garage, but really, what's the point? I mean, if I thought I might want to "re-rip that music when standards change", I could just burn lossless. Of course, I don't want to do that though, because that's like ~300 meg per disc. Anyway, I'm 99% sure there exists a lossy good enough that I will never know the difference, but I want to use the best lossy/software/strategy that meets the criteria I need:
1) quality good enough that I can reasonably expect I will never hear the difference. (Since I'm not an audiophile, WMP's MP3 encoder 192 CBR might be enough actually, but I don't know.)
2) auto-import on CD insert, auto-eject on rip complete
3) works with iPod
I stayed up most of the night reading about this stuff, and am making no progress in deciding my strategy.
- iTunes mp3 encoder gets flamed alot for suck quality
- WMA lossy format gets flamed alot for suck quality
- WMA can be converted from iTunes into AAC
- AAC wont play on non-iPod players
- AAC might be playable in WMP if I have a codec
- but .m4a's created by iTunes won't merge seamlessly with WMP's library system
- I still don't really know what all tagging means, in relation to file/directory or softwares' library view
- Exact audio copy with LAME is supposed to be the best encoder
- But EAC is slow as molasses
- And EAC doesn't seem to auto-rip on CD insert
- EAC uses freedb for CD information and it sucks ass. It mis-recognized the very first DJ mix CD I tried. (Both WMP and iTunes knew it.)
- I tried another downloadable EZ something, and it was faster than EAC, but had automation and freedb problems.
- WMP makes folders with the album cover embedded in the folder icon, which is cute, although not important
- Showing the current song's album cover during playback on an mp3 player's display would be cute, but not important
- Having a mangable library is important
- 256 CBR MP3 on WMP seems about 30 meg larger (like 90 versus 60) than 192
- iTunes lets me rip in VBR
- AAC VBR should be the best quality, with less space than MP3
- iTunes' UI makes it look like it can rip VBR MP3, but I'm not sure the result is actually VBR
- iTunes seems to take a heinous performance hit when browsing libary stored across my LAN
Can anyone recommend a site where they talk about this stuff?
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