Help getting rid of 300 CD changer and building PC Music 'server'

Hi,

I ordered a 120 GIG HD, another 120 GIG USB2.0 for back-up, a Plextor DVD-RW driver for burning DVD-Rs (already have a couple Plextor drives), a M-Audio 7.1 sound card ($99.00), and 65 foot of SPDIF coax cable to run from my bedroom to my HT/processor in the living room.

I never was into this before and don;t know anything about tag files or any ripping burning software besides EZCD creator and burninn a few CD-R's here or there in the past... but I have new goals obviously.

I am only into lossless compression, will never do lossy. Have heard great things about FLAC, but also heard great things about J Rivers MEdia Center... so I was planning on just using Media Center with APE lossless compression. Should I use APE or Windows lossless? I'd use FLAC but APE and WM lossless is already a part of J Rivers Media Center. I would be glad to entertain all ideas, I haven't started ripping yet.


1) Ripping my CD collection to my PC in lossless (would have prefferred FLAC, but decided to use APE becasue that is what Media Center uses).

2) Ripping my DTS CD as well as DVD music to my PC.

3) Ripping my DD DVD-V music to my PC.

4) Making CD-R and particularly DVD-R samplers of my library ripped to the HD with Media center for use with my car DVD/CD player which is very high end as stated above... please see above. I'm assuming I can use DVD-R for increased storage space over CD-R. I have a Plextor DVD-R/W drive in the mail on the way to me...

I am not using my PC as a HTPC because I don't have the time/money to convert to HTPC and will stay with my DVD player/equipment for the time being.

Furthermore, can I make DVD-R's for my car? I have a killer DVD plyer and setup and would like the incresed storage space of DVD-R instead of CD-R... can I simply take advantage of the greater storage space of DVD-R for my music? If I burn from my library made with media center, will it know to convert from APE to .wav? Doesn't it have to do this to be playable on CD-R and DVD-R?

Further, I do have really cool Clarion Pro DVD player with motorized 7 inch screen... can it take advanage of tagged info?

If there is anything better than Media center, please let me know. I would appreciate all advice on software choices so I can start ripping tonight...

Thank-you!

Chris