Music backup, storage and distribution strategy

Software & Apps
#1

So I wanna:

  1. rip all my cd’s,

  2. put them into some kind of find-able and search-able app like musicmonkey or itunes?

  3. categorize them to be able to copy and move them into mobile players and smartphones like iphone or HTC Androids.

  4. have them acessible via a home server, maybe stream them to different rooms?

I have over 300 cd’s so I wanna plan it out to rip them to a format that would have the best degree of compatibility for future use.

I am somewhat of an bargain audiophile so music quality does matter within the constraints of my limited budget.

Read a great series of articles on CDfreaks on lossy vs lossless. :slight_smile:

Now I need some guidance on what file format to use so it would be compatible with the music player, storage mechanism and mobile devices------ plus having the best quality.

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

#2

Read a great series of articles on CDfreaks on lossy vs lossless.

If you had read it, you most likely would have made up your mind which to use, lossy or lossless…If space is not an issue and if you want the best possible quality then use wav or lossless for peace of mind…Done…If you want lossy then stick to mp3 or aac for compatibility with most players…If you choose lossy, try some sample rips/conversion(s) and start with a lower bitrate and work your way up till it sounds transparent from the original file…For many (including myself ~192-256 kbps is just fine for lossy and for small file size on portables(iPod)…But that’s just me!..Are you looking for specific compression, bitrates etc. and such?..
What proggie will you be ripping with?..I recommend EAC or dBpoweramp, and I would rip to flac for archiving…Some prefer ripping to wav…

#3

After I read the article, my approach changed.

rather than first selecting a format that might paint me in a corner, I decided to work backwards with selecting the most-used or widely acceptable players for mobility, then see what most people are using.

No decision on bitrate Not sure what is the best compromise that leans to better audio playback.
Lossless for permanent storage, I wanna rip them once.(or not)
Using these files, can I convert them to lossy for portability?

Rip to FLAC and WAV both? If that’s the best ultimate approach, then I’d rather do both at that time since I have that CD in my hand.

I have EAC, but have not purchased a player, most likely will be ipod.

Media server is an HP media.

#4

Simply rip to FLAC. No need for a copy in WAV format.
You can then create copies in whatever format you need (mp3, wma, etc.) for your portable players.

Michael

#5

[QUOTE=mciahel;2573403]Simply rip to FLAC. No need for a copy in WAV format.
You can then create copies in whatever format you need (mp3, wma, etc.) for your portable players.

Michael[/QUOTE]

Yeah that^^^^ :iagree:

#6

300CD’s?

Frankly since that many CD’s will fit with room to spare on a 250gb HDD don’t bother storing them (Archive) in any losless compression codec, store them as what they are… WAV

FLAC is to save space… spoace that is now far less precious than it was even 2-3 years ago.

With retail HDD space selling for <$0.10/gb why bother?

I doubt your entire collection as wav would take up more than 200gb of space (I’ll personaly bet 185gb)
But also don’t go running out to buy a PAIR of 250gb HDDs to store them on… 500gb drives actually cheaper most days, they are often on sale for $40 each plus shipping.

buy TWO because any data you have only ONE copy of WILL get lost

USE EAC to do your ripping.

From the EAC window press F9 then choose the tab for “File Names” in the left hand block enterthe following:
"%D%C\0%N %T"

this will, automatically create a directory (Folder/subfolder/file) tree structure.

Example AC/DC’s song " Hells Bells" off the album "Back in Black"
be saved as “C:\AC-DC\Back in Black\001 Hells Bells.wav”
(C: being an example, on my computer it’s actually “H:”

Now click the tab for “Directories” and choose where (which drive) you want your computer to
save these wav files to… on my Computer it is “H:\WAV Archive”

preset this way (assuming that your discs are all in good condition and you have everything else in EAC set correctly) all you’ll need to do is sit there soing something else and feed your computer another disc when it finishes extraction.

If you use EAC V1.0 Beta you’ll get to choose which album art jpg to save with the WAV files.

As a note though a music CD has a capacity of 702Mb you’ll discover that 1000music CD’s don’t require anywhere near 700gb of storage space, because most Music CD’s aren’t anywhere near full, on average they’ll have slightly less than 500gb of actual data on them…

My 1000Cd collection takes up a bit less than 600Gb

If you have a WAV you can make ANY OTHER KIND of codec now in exsistance or that someone will create later… later in one step.

Now for “accessability” mp3’s seem pretty universal for listening…

I have mp3 copies of ALL my music, because having my entire collection take up slightly less than 100gb is a bit easier to keep on my laptop than 600gb would be…

Compression rate? I personally use 160Kbit/sec for any “portable” application and 320K for "home/desktop use.

Is there a difference in audio quality with the higher bitrate? Not as much as you’d think
but at home storage space isn’t an issue.

I compress enough to make it fit where I want to store it.

70-ish Gb on my notebook’s 500gb drive is OK, at home having my music playback library take
up ALL of a mirrored pair (it’s actually a mrrored trio but only two are physically connected
at any given time) of 160gb HDDs is a “so what?”

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