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Now that I have switched to Ubuntu for (personal usage; work is still on Windows platform), I am trying to accomplish the re-ripping of my library as much as possible in the Linux domain. Granted, to get my library (or a selection of it) onto my ipod, I will still use iTunes on my corporate laptop, however I do not want to store my library on it, preferring to keep that at home.
My preferred codec/quality is Apple Lossless as my iPod is my primary listening device at this time.
I'll admit to being a long time EAC fan (:teufel8
but am willing to be converted. In the past, when running Windows as my main O/S, I would use EAC with Otto's iTunes encoder to accomplish this, but at the time, I did not rip as lossless.
Here's how I have set up to try to accomplish this:
1) An external USB drive is connected to my Ubuntu desktop. The format of this drive is NTFS so that I am able to connect it to a Windows machine and read the files if necessary. I have also created a shared folder on this disk (via Samba). The disk is only via USB temporarily. Having worked through the proof of concept I will most likely install it as an internal disk in my Ubuntu system.
2) My iTunes "client" on my corporate laptop is configured to use a mapped drive pointing to the above mentioned samba share as the location for the iTunes library.
3) Using Wine, I have successfully installed and run both dBpoweramp CD Ripper and EAC. (FYI - It took a bit of tweaking in the Wine configuration to get CD Ripper to recognize my DVD & CD-ROM readers whereas EAC had no issue at all)
Currently, I was able to use CD Ripper to rip a sampling of my library and successfully import them into the i-tunes library. iTunes 9 now has a dedicated folder that it scans repeatedly for new files to import so all I have to do is rip on Ubuntu and then load up iTunes on my laptop and magically the albums appear!
My only problem is that when listening to some of the tracks there are some random bursts of white noise. There are probably many potential causes for the white noise from something in the wine subsystem, the fact that I am using a USB, and so on. I thought it may have been the transfer to the iPod (which is happening wireless-ly from the Samaba share trough iTunes via my laptop's wi-fi) but noticed that the glitches were also in the source files when I played them back in Rythmbox.
One of the things I wanted to test was whether EAC handled this scenario better so I installed that too and have been able to do some test rips without issue when playing back the M4A files in Rythmbox (figuring out the command line needed for the call to coreconverter was a bit of a challenge).
My current problem though is that I can't get iTunes to import the files ripped by EAC and encoded by Coreconverter (using Apple Lossless encoder). I suspect that it has to do with the way EAC adds in the tags. Deja-vu because I remember when I did this using Otto's utility, I passed the tags I was interested in the command line and had iTunes add them instead of EAC.
So, a couple of questions on this. In writing this post, I am wondering if I haven't over complicated things. Is there a "better" way?
You might wonder why I just don't rip using the laptop - the reason is that the CD-ROM on it seems to suck. In the past, I consistently got better rip results with EAC and a standard 5.25 inch CD-ROM. I have not tried the same thing with running dbPowerAmp on the laptop but out of principle I am trying to avoid that.
My second question is on Tags. Is there a list out there somewhere describing what the tag elements are for iTunes and how to use them with CoreConverter? I searched but could not find anything.
My preferred codec/quality is Apple Lossless as my iPod is my primary listening device at this time.
I'll admit to being a long time EAC fan (:teufel8
but am willing to be converted. In the past, when running Windows as my main O/S, I would use EAC with Otto's iTunes encoder to accomplish this, but at the time, I did not rip as lossless.Here's how I have set up to try to accomplish this:
1) An external USB drive is connected to my Ubuntu desktop. The format of this drive is NTFS so that I am able to connect it to a Windows machine and read the files if necessary. I have also created a shared folder on this disk (via Samba). The disk is only via USB temporarily. Having worked through the proof of concept I will most likely install it as an internal disk in my Ubuntu system.
2) My iTunes "client" on my corporate laptop is configured to use a mapped drive pointing to the above mentioned samba share as the location for the iTunes library.
3) Using Wine, I have successfully installed and run both dBpoweramp CD Ripper and EAC. (FYI - It took a bit of tweaking in the Wine configuration to get CD Ripper to recognize my DVD & CD-ROM readers whereas EAC had no issue at all)
Currently, I was able to use CD Ripper to rip a sampling of my library and successfully import them into the i-tunes library. iTunes 9 now has a dedicated folder that it scans repeatedly for new files to import so all I have to do is rip on Ubuntu and then load up iTunes on my laptop and magically the albums appear!
My only problem is that when listening to some of the tracks there are some random bursts of white noise. There are probably many potential causes for the white noise from something in the wine subsystem, the fact that I am using a USB, and so on. I thought it may have been the transfer to the iPod (which is happening wireless-ly from the Samaba share trough iTunes via my laptop's wi-fi) but noticed that the glitches were also in the source files when I played them back in Rythmbox.
One of the things I wanted to test was whether EAC handled this scenario better so I installed that too and have been able to do some test rips without issue when playing back the M4A files in Rythmbox (figuring out the command line needed for the call to coreconverter was a bit of a challenge).
My current problem though is that I can't get iTunes to import the files ripped by EAC and encoded by Coreconverter (using Apple Lossless encoder). I suspect that it has to do with the way EAC adds in the tags. Deja-vu because I remember when I did this using Otto's utility, I passed the tags I was interested in the command line and had iTunes add them instead of EAC.
So, a couple of questions on this. In writing this post, I am wondering if I haven't over complicated things. Is there a "better" way?
You might wonder why I just don't rip using the laptop - the reason is that the CD-ROM on it seems to suck. In the past, I consistently got better rip results with EAC and a standard 5.25 inch CD-ROM. I have not tried the same thing with running dbPowerAmp on the laptop but out of principle I am trying to avoid that.
My second question is on Tags. Is there a list out there somewhere describing what the tag elements are for iTunes and how to use them with CoreConverter? I searched but could not find anything.
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