Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompressed

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

So my question here is if I use level 1, would the file size be larger... why do they recommend levels 5 or 6?
Again, I do not care about space issues , the larger the file would be fine with me even if it is close to the
size of a .wav... again I am only using .flac for the metadata benefits... so if I can use a .wav file and get
the tagging and metadata information, that would be perfectly fine with me.
I am not using .aiff because those files are not always compatible with vehicle stereo systems.
They can recognize .wav and .flac (not even alac I think). I do not believe in .mp3 so that is out of the question.
I am perfectly fine with a flac file the same size or slightly greater than its corresponding .wav file
and thus I do not care about any compression levels flac may offer. Just want the tags and metadata, album art to
show up on the monitor.

[garym]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

Flac file size is largest at uncompressed and a little smaller at 1 and the smallest at 8. 5 is recommended because it is a good trade off between file size and effort in encoding (which is obviously done only one time, initially). Most of the "effort" is in the encoding *to* FLAC not the decoding part which is trivial even for a very low powered device.

By by the way, what car unit do you have that plays Flac. Most cars I'm aware of can't handle flac files.

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

Car units: Sony XAV-650BT which I have currently.
I recently tested out the Boss Audio BVNV9384RC? I think it was...
and tested out the Pioneer AVH-4200NEX which I think I will settle on
because it offers the most functionality and best lay out , directory
structure listing songs by Artist / Album / <songs>.
It seems to me the Pioneer model is the best and most well thought out when
comparing all those top of the line models.
The car (Honda Accord) I have has a double-din space if that helps.

Those are the DVD stereo models I have tested or used and all play .wav and .flac
audio files for my audiophile purposes.

[mville]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&amp;ripping uncompre

Car units: Sony XAV-650BT which I have currently.
I recently tested out the Boss Audio BVNV9384RC? I think it was...
and tested out the Pioneer AVH-4200NEX which I think I will settle on
because it offers the most functionality and best lay out , directory
structure listing songs by Artist / Album / <songs>.
It seems to me the Pioneer model is the best and most well thought out when
comparing all those top of the line models.
The car (Honda Accord) I have has a double-din space if that helps.

Those are the DVD stereo models I have tested or used and all play .wav and .flac
audio files for my audiophile purposes.

Be aware that the Pioneer AVH-4200NEX specs state that wav and flac are only supported on SD and USB media and not CD and DVD.

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&amp;ripping uncompre

I only planned to use USB and / or (micro)SD for all files.
If I play a CD , I just play the CD (CDDA) , I do not play CD-Rs
with data on them.

My intent is to move from CDs to data forms such as USB and SD... that
is why I took a week (late March/early April to rip > 1200 CDs to .wav files but I used iTunes as
it was the simplest one to use and I used my Mac( a massive project which I may have
to repeat to rip them to flac now)... I was afraid of Windows
crashing more or not being as reliable.
I am beginning to see that (some blue screens and issues with drives being
suddenly disconnected affecting my data transfer time).
I am back on Mac...
The only thing is if I use dbpoweramp on Mac , the resulting .flac files,
I am not sure I will be able to see and verify the metadata associated with each
file. Windows it is easier to see that information to verify it.
I am using Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks... maybe Yosemite or El Capitan (issues with that OS)
can view the metadata.
I will go back to Windows but just work a little bit at a time to get this done.
I think I will purchase dbpoweramp for Windows instead.

Thank you for your warnings but I never intended to store .flac / .wav files on a CD
as data. I never do with intent to play in a CD player. or use a CD player as a data
reader. Only for audio.

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&amp;ripping uncompre

My only worry with the Pioneer is now how to bypass the parking brake issue to play
DVDs without using a switch and connecting to ground then that blue remote wire...
and how to tidy up the mess of wires and connections in the back of the unit so I can
start cruising in the Honda with my moon roof open....

[garym]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&amp;ripping uncompre

re: your problems with Windows. Seems like you have a problem with your hardware or software (most likely hardware??). I use dbpa on 2 different computers (a laptop and a desktop). Neither of these is anything special (Dell computers) and I never get blue screens of death or disconnected drives, etc.

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&amp;ripping uncompre

I meant to play DVDs ... one cannot watch DVDs if the parking brake is not engaged...
oh well. I had not problem with the Sony with this.

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&amp;ripping uncompre

It is just I find Mac has been more reliable than Windows...
I am running Windows on the Mac... I probably just have too many
devices connected (remember 6 DVD/Blu ray drives) , some
USB3.0 hubs connected to either the thunderbolt port somehow or the
Express Card slot... and I am making use of the firewire port and I was
using a Belkin docking station (thunderbolt connected with 3 USB 3.0 ports,
firewire... ) so there are a lot of connections ... sometimes I have to
disable one CD drive to boot into Windows as it may hang while booting. <sigh>

I probably need to scale down some. Windows has not crashed that often but
it may at times when I am in the middle of doing something... then I have to start
that part over again.

I would much rather work under Mac OS
when it comes to something massive like this project of ripping CDs
I had all these devices connected under Mac and I had few issues and that
was why I was able to complete that task of ripping 1200+ CDs in less time
than I had expected. (6 or 7 CD rips going at a time under Mac/ iTunes ).

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&amp;ripping uncompre

I think the Windows crashed because I was trying to format a 128 GB microSD card supposedly
a Samsung one I got for $11. I believe it could be a fake ... I have had problems with it for a while
and maybe that crashed the computer.
I think I am trying to do too much...
This is why I want to make sure I get everything and the planning right and in place before I start
this project to re-rip 1200 or so CDs to flac. I want to the optimal or best file with the appropriate
data (metadata) in them so I do not have to do this again on a massive scale.

Things are in place, I think I am ready to start ripping... I did 3 CDs yesterday and tested
the .flac files (lossless, uncompressed ) in the car stereo and was pleased with the results.
Now to duplicate that process 400 times.

Thanks

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&amp;ripping uncompre

Besides, why would I want to store .flac or .mp3 or .wav files on a CD when the CD is
the .wav file so to speak, and I am trying to get away from CDs as they become slighly
scratched, smudged and may skip. CDs, having 1200 of them, become more inconvenient
to find what I want to listen , having to search volumes of CDs cases potentially damaging them
more in the process and handling them. Sometimes keeping CDs in those booklet cd cases may
cause damage (CD rot ) to them.
I think I have maintained my massive CD collection quite well through the years
(A CD I bought back in 1991 played all the way through just fine today).

Then why would I put audio data files on a CD or CD-R which itself may get
damaged, smudged, or skip? I think this is why I recently finally saw the light
to rip everything to .wav and store on 3TB hard drives and place on various
64GB USB flash drives... Having 16 or so flash drives of an entire CD collection
can fit in a small box .. better than carrying heavy CD cases around.

[Dat Ei]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&amp;ripping uncompre

1.200 CDs are just a small collection. You may want to ask Gary...


Dat Ei

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&amp;ripping uncompre

How about 1300?

Anyway, today I realized that I need to use the Mac more so.
The issue with the Pioneer car stereo is that it only reads FAT32 formatted
drives. I had invested time using exFat. The Sony read both formats.

So I could not format using the command line prompt under Windows nor using the
Disk Management tools so I used some third party software to format the USB
drives (2 of them) to FAT32. When I played those drive in the Pioneer, the audio was choppy.
At first I thought it was a grounding problem.
However, the 2 drives I formatted to FAT32 on the Mac, those audio files sounded
fine with no choppiness. I could only conclude that the Windows formatted drives
may have issues. So I will have to reformat those first 2 using Disk Utility on Mac OS.
So far I have to copy the audio files from the exFat formatted drives to a temporary directory
on a SSD drive then format the USB drive to FAT32 on Mac then copy the files back
to reformatted drive... all using USB 3.0 connected devices and hubs (USB 3.0 flash drives)
to be as efficient as possible.
It is just I cannot seem to do everything on Windows without some issues, blue screens, crashes,
not booting properly having to disconnect drives, drive letters for master hard drives, optical drives,
changing when connecting additional flash drives, sd cards, now this with possible problems formatting
to FAT32 (Windows 10 only allows NTFS and exFat).
Windows seems too sensitive to changes in hardware where Mac handles things better
and rare for a crash or hang up on Mac.
Windows break or crack
That is why I like to (feel more comfortable using) (going back to) use Mac.

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&amp;ripping uncompre

I really do (would) not put .wav files , let alone .flac files, on CD or DVD media unless
I was doing a data back up and in that case it was just a data back and not
intended to play audio or video in a CD or DVD player.
That is almost like putting in a Windows Operating system disk into a CD player, how I view it.
SOmething I would not do , but I do understand what you mean. Some of these CD
players can read data from optical drive and process the audio like an MP3 or viewing the
optical media just like a hard drive (SD or USB drive ).

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&amp;ripping uncompre

Hello, It has been a while since I have commented here or used dbpoweramp
after ripping the 1300 or so CDs conversion to flac for audio enjoyment for
Pioneer car stereo and now Fiio X5 device and tablet.

I know Apple/Mac does not support flac , so is this the reason why flac files on
that platform one cannot see the metadata information such as the album art
and other detailed information about the flac statistics when right clicking the
flac file and selecting Get Info (the equivalent to Windows' Properties option).

I think I did my best to get an email to Tim Cook and others at Apple to
have iTunes support Flac and I have not seen any movement within iTunes
updates. So I guess dbpoweramp would be a good tool to convert all the 20,000
flac files to ALAC as I may have a need to have those type of audio files on a
Mac server. I wonder if ALAC would show or preserve the metadata , album art
information I worked so hard when converting CDs to flac. I have not really converted
anything to ALAC ever... maybe I will try a test CD to see the results. I do not think I want
to redo ripping all those CDs again, though it could be a fun project to
re-rip the entire library to Flac again using all uncompressed lossless as a new
master library and then convert down to Levels 5, 8 and perhaps 1 compression for
storage on various capacities devices and having a choice as to which type of
compression to store on the type of device. Example Fiio device has limited
capacity (total 512 + 32 GBs) so I would use level 8 on that (now using level 5),
whereas the Tablet that has a USB port and a 1TB SSD drive attached, I use uncompressed lossless
on that.
It is just that I have noticed a few flac files seem to have some corruption of another song
in them. Typically these are songs I have never listened to in the past, who can listen to every song
of 20,000 songs really. But this is very rare and when I have encountered about 3 or 4 of these,
I just correct the flac file by either re-ripping from the CD if I can find it or just do a quick conversion
from a .wav file from an old master rip when I used iTunes before discovering dbpoweramp or EAC.

well that is all. I am trying to get my cousin's CDs to do again ( I used iTunes to .wav )and I want to
re-rip his library to .flac using dbpoweramp if the cousin will bring CDs out of public storage locker.



Thank you.