Rip CD Collection/Terrabyte Hard Drive

[BrodyBoy]

Re: Rip CD Collection/Terrabyte Hard Drive

Well, you did indicate that you wanted the best result possible and only wanted to do it once. Many of us who have been at this for years would suggest using dbpa instead of itunes.

Ditto....!

[BrodyBoy]

Re: Rip CD Collection/Terrabyte Hard Drive

Yeah, I'm ripping the CD's as ALAC but in the library on my computer they're showing up as m4a files and whatnot and importing them into my Ipod as MP3's even though it says they're ALAC in the kbps section.

ALAC files are m4a files. What is the problem or question? It's not really clear what your objective is, or what issue you're having. You can get more targeted, specific guidance if you explain exactly what you're trying to do and what's not working.

It's not clear (to me, anyway) where dBpoweramp even fits into your project, which now appears to be ripping to ALAC in iTunes and loading your music (in ALAC? in mp3?) onto your iPod. dBp doesn't come into play for those tasks.

[Wayne]

Re: Rip CD Collection/Terrabyte Hard Drive

Yeah, I'm ripping the CD's as ALAC but in the library on my computer they're showing up as m4a files and whatnot and importing them into my Ipod as MP3's even though it says they're ALAC in the kbps section.

ALAC files should be created as m4a files. Have you checked your iTunes settings with regards to how it transfers the files to your ipod?

[garym]

Re: Rip CD Collection/Terrabyte Hard Drive

ALAC files should be created as m4a files. Have you checked your iTunes settings with regards to how it transfers the files to your ipod?

yes, and even if they were somehow m4a lossy files, itunes would bring them in as m4a (AAC) files *not* mp3 files. Something is odd here.

[wurmhole]

Re: Rip CD Collection/Terrabyte Hard Drive

Alright, back to step 1.

How do I rip all my cd's in the best possible quality so that I can transfer the losless music onto future terrabyte HD's and play them on my Ipod at best quality. I have a Mac with a CD drive and a PC with no optical drive.

[BrodyBoy]

Re: Rip CD Collection/Terrabyte Hard Drive

Alright, back to step 1.

How do I rip all my cd's in the best possible quality so that I can transfer the losless music onto future terrabyte HD's and play them on my Ipod at best quality. I have a Mac with a CD drive and a PC with no optical drive.

The best possible quality would be using a lossless codec (one supported by all your playback devices) with some sort of error-checking/verification upon ripping. dBp does this quite well, but it is a Windows program. You could install it on your Mac, but this requires something like Parallels. Personally, I'm a bit wary of making one platform pretend to be another (especially when you have both available to you), so I'd be inclined to spend a few bucks (probably $20-30) to add an optical drive to the PC.

If you want to load your lossless files onto your iPod (if that's what you mean by "best quality"), ALAC would be your best codec choice. iPods also support AIFF and WAV, but tag support is more limited for those formats, as we've already discussed, and their much bigger files fill up even the largest-capacity iPods in a hurry. ALAC at least offers a little compression to help with that. (I'd still recommend using a lossy version on the iPod....as I mentioned earlier, iTunes will transcode on-the-fly as you load the music. You'd fit a lot more on there that way.....)

If the iPod is determinant...i.e., if you want a lossless codec that covers all your bases and don't want to create any alternate versions for the iPod....your question is pretty much answered. Rip to ALAC. The only question is which machine to use. ALAC is still a good choice even if you opt to transcode to lossy for the iPod, because it's the most iTunes-friendly option.

A digital music library can be moved around as needed. When you say you want to transfer it into future HDs, that's a non-issue at this stage. Whatever codec you use, you can always copy or move the files to a different computer, new drive, or NAS....whatever future set-up you may use.