New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

[garym]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Good info on rippiNG HDCD. You should also google "ripping HDCD" and "HDCD flag". You'll learn that many HDCD disks don't actually contain all HDCD features. And consequently it doesn't actually matter that it is HDCD.

https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?27540-Ripping-HDCDs-Best-practices&highlight=Hdcd+practices

Bottom line for me: I don't use any of the HDCD ripping features. I rip them like a normal cd. This way they remain bit perfect. I've thought about also converting them all with the HDCD features as a second set of files. But I've done some ABX double blind testing in foobar comparing with and without HDCD feature ripping and frankly I hear no difference. Most of mine are Grateful Dead archive releases. I wish they would quit doing this as HDCD is a dead technology.

[schmidj]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Gary,

One reason you see HDCD releases is that a good number of people in the recording business think the HDCD encoder is one of the cleaner analog to digital converters, irrespective of the HDCD feature. I.e. listening to the recording in a non-HDCD player when digitized by the HDCD encoder. My 74 year old ears aren't golden enough to hear any difference, I'm not sure they ever were.

There are plenty of deficiencies I have and still hear in recorded music. In the early days of CD's there were some awful CDs put out, with some obvious production errors, but now most professionals know how to avoid most of the technical issues. Some are much better than others when it comes to the artistic end of the business.

Unfortunately some of the producers of the Caribbean music I collect still don't have a clue. My current issue is fixing a set of 12 CDs of old, rare recordings most of which I'll never own the analog originals of. Sadly, whoever recorded it (I won't even say mastered...) recorded all the pq track data incorrectly, some of it grossly incorrectly. So I'm ripping all the CDs "as one", and splitting the files into tracks in my audio editing software. I had to give up on the one CD where a cut in the middle was input as being 3 hours and some minutes long, followed by a mess of cuts listed as being 10 seconds long. I couldn't find any ripper that would even rip the later part of the CD. I'm still looking for software/hardware that will rip the CD while completely ignoring the table of contents.

[audioholic]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Hi ChisChas.

To be honest, I did not have to set anything in order for dBpa to keep ripping the CDs, whether that be if I left the system running all night, or if it chose to rip in 'frames'. And so no, I am not able to point you towards any such postings in my threads I am afraid.

Not that this would make much difference now - as it would be after the fact - but did you not test out Illustrate via the (free of charge) 28 x day TRIAL s/w version? Many people take advantage of this facility, and then post questions regarding their experiences (all good, bad and the ugly) as they go along. And then, based upon their experience, make their decision as to whether or not to purchase come time-bomb moment.

Yes, I fully agree that I have invested much time into trying to learn and configure Illustrate to suit my personal needs. It has not been easy, but then I am possibly older than yourself and also I am new to computers - for what it's worth.

In my experience, I ripped something like 400+ CDs at the time (circa 2011) using WMP. At least 10% did not play correctly afterwards. And - as I continued to discover until finally deciding to switch over to Illustrate - I would say that 1-10 CDs has at least 1 x track with some kind of glitch. WMP may well 'appear' to rip your collection correctly, but I believe - based upon first hand experience - that this can be far from the truth. Besides, it offers no such 'verification', and similar, as does Illustrate.

Thanks,

Paul

Just lurking late on a Saturday and saw this post and HAD to chime in...

I can attest to anyone reading this that this is indeed the case. I happen to still have about 30 CD's (was originally >100) in my collection of over 1200+ CD's that cannot be ripped on certain/all CD/DVD drives. I happen to work in the IT business, so for a while, whenever a client would toss away a PC I would grab the drive out of it and occasionally batch try the CD's in question. I have tried these same CD on well over 100+ drives, so I can say with certainty that both bad CD's and poor drive manufacturing can cause an issue with ripping CD's.

However, when played on one of these PC drives, my original 1985 Magnavox CD player, or my hi-end Mark Levinson *390, they magically seem to work ok. Now I realize this is not the case for most people and they could care less...but I'm anal that way. I'm also the guy who if a CD isn't yet in the DB (confidence=0..3), I rip it on about 10-15 drives to make sure each one matches the other before saying the rip is 'good' xD. I have a tower originally built in 2005-6 with 10 drives in it for my original ripping session (and a buddies collection) that just sits in a corner, so it's easy to swap drives, etc. when desired...

Going back into lurking mode now...

[audioholic]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

If a CD is not yet in the AccurateRip DB, the program has nothing to compare your rip against - to be sure your rip was 'perfect' after the first run through.

So it re-rips it several times (this is configurable) and compares the result to each of the previous times. If they a certain number match than this is considered a 'good' result and your results are then occasionally (or can be forced) uploaded to the online DB for the community to share.

The biggest issue with all of this business is there are different pressings, manufacturers depending on country of origin, etc. I guarantee an original pressing of a CD from 1985, of say 'U2', will be different than one purchased today. Manufacturing has MANY variables. Now add in 'remasters', 'special editions', etc. and...so it's just a crazy mess.

So just because your CD is 'the same' as a friends, doesn't mean it is

The Audioholic

[mville]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

I happen to still have about 30 CD's (was originally >100) in my collection of over 1200+ CD's that cannot be ripped on certain/all CD/DVD drives...

However, when played on one of these PC drives, my original 1985 Magnavox CD player, or my hi-end Mark Levinson *390, they magically seem to work ok. Now I realize this is not the case for most people and they could care less...

That is because there is a distinct difference between ripping a CD in CDRipper and playing a CD in a CD player.

CDRipper tries to extract the digital audio data exactly, to obtain a bit perfect copy of the data. It will keep trying until either it does or stops depending on the CDRipper Secure Settings and then reports the outcome, including any errors found.

A CD player is designed to read a CD, and when it gets errors it then interpolates the missing digital audio data, which hopefully on playback, you will not hear. So, no magic involved.

There are some CDs that will be so badly damaged/scratched or contain manufacturing errors, that will never be ripped, bit perfect, by any method, ever and when played in a CD player, will skip or you'll hear drop-outs in the audio.

[mville]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

The biggest issue with all of this business is there are different pressings, manufacturers depending on country of origin, etc. I guarantee an original pressing of a CD from 1985, of say 'U2', will be different than one purchased today. Manufacturing has MANY variables. Now add in 'remasters', 'special editions', etc. and...so it's just a crazy mess.

Artist CDs get released by different labels in different territories and yes, you are correct, some get re-issued/re-released, re-mastered, repackaged with bonus material etc. but I don't see why that is a crazy mess.

So just because your CD is 'the same' as a friends, doesn't mean it is

If it is the same CD release as a friend then it is the same CD or, it is not the same CD release. I'm not sure I have understood the point you are making.

[garym]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Gary,

One reason you see HDCD releases is that a good number of people in the recording business think the HDCD encoder is one of the cleaner analog to digital converters, irrespective of the HDCD feature. I.e. listening to the recording in a non-HDCD player when digitized by the HDCD encoder. My 74 year old ears aren't golden enough to hear any difference, I'm not sure they ever were.

There are plenty of deficiencies I have and still hear in recorded music. In the early days of CD's there were some awful CDs put out, with some obvious production errors, but now most professionals know how to avoid most of the technical issues. Some are much better than others when it comes to the artistic end of the business.

Unfortunately some of the producers of the Caribbean music I collect still don't have a clue. My current issue is fixing a set of 12 CDs of old, rare recordings most of which I'll never own the analog originals of. Sadly, whoever recorded it (I won't even say mastered...) recorded all the pq track data incorrectly, some of it grossly incorrectly. So I'm ripping all the CDs "as one", and splitting the files into tracks in my audio editing software. I had to give up on the one CD where a cut in the middle was input as being 3 hours and some minutes long, followed by a mess of cuts listed as being 10 seconds long. I couldn't find any ripper that would even rip the later part of the CD. I'm still looking for software/hardware that will rip the CD while completely ignoring the table of contents.

Thanks for the info schmidj. I couldn't agree more that early CDs were often learning experiences for the people mastering, etc. Of course no days we have the "loudness wars" that does its own damage to dynamic range of some CDs. It's always something!

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

How to win friends and influence people!!

And I'm sure you were aware I was talking about myself!

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

I have 3 drives. All cheap. Not pandering to dbpa. Pandering to my goal of getting bit perfect cd rips. And whether it's manufacturing issues, offset issues, etc., it turns out that some CDs will rip with one drive and not others. And this has absolutely nothing to do with how the CDs look. This can be true of a brand new never played cd. It's not a dbpa issue. Dbpa is just smart enough to try to get bit perfect rips and tell you if it has a problem. WMP and itunes will simply rip, ignore the error, and not tell you.

You are obviously having problems. Could be hardware related or setup related. But I've ripped many 1000s of CDs and had no issues with 99.9% of them. You've been given some excellent advice. Review it carefully and try the suggestions.

p.s. And if you want assistance from other forum members (and we are just users, we don't work here), my advice is to not call us names or adopt a "chip on your shoulder" attitude. That will not serve you well.

To repeat what I said in my other reply post, I was referring to me being a mug if I end up buying multiple optical drives, not you M8. The album in question rips the first 14 tracks but steadfastly refuses the last 2 (I'm hoping the new Asus optical drive delivered today will do the trick). Using the inferior WMP the whole album rips just fine btw and tbh, I've not experienced a ripping problem with WMP and various drives in the past either but I am fed up with the uselessness of WMP when it comes to metadata and album covers and this is the main reason I bought dBpa.

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Good info on rippiNG HDCD. You should also google "ripping HDCD" and "HDCD flag". You'll learn that many HDCD disks don't actually contain all HDCD features. And consequently it doesn't actually matter that it is HDCD.

https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?27540-Ripping-HDCDs-Best-practices&highlight=Hdcd+practices

Bottom line for me: I don't use any of the HDCD ripping features. I rip them like a normal cd. This way they remain bit perfect. I've thought about also converting them all with the HDCD features as a second set of files. But I've done some ABX double blind testing in foobar comparing with and without HDCD feature ripping and frankly I hear no difference. Most of mine are Grateful Dead archive releases. I wish they would quit doing this as HDCD is a dead technology.

Thank you for this advice, I'll turn off the HDCD option which I remember choosing originally at set up

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

If a CD is not yet in the AccurateRip DB, the program has nothing to compare your rip against - to be sure your rip was 'perfect' after the first run through.

So it re-rips it several times (this is configurable) and compares the result to each of the previous times. If they a certain number match than this is considered a 'good' result and your results are then occasionally (or can be forced) uploaded to the online DB for the community to share.

The biggest issue with all of this business is there are different pressings, manufacturers depending on country of origin, etc. I guarantee an original pressing of a CD from 1985, of say 'U2', will be different than one purchased today. Manufacturing has MANY variables. Now add in 'remasters', 'special editions', etc. and...so it's just a crazy mess.

So just because your CD is 'the same' as a friends, doesn't mean it is

The Audioholic

Again thank you for the input. The weird thing is that the Arena album in question (Contagion) has 16 tracks, the first 14 ripped with the blue orb after each one but the last two are being absolute mares and refusing to rip. The first 14 tracks also have a number in brackets (sorry I think it was 9) which I believe indicates that the track is already in the AccurateRip DB? I do understand I might run into an issue if I'm the first to rip a particular album but I wasn't in this instance.

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

That is because there is a distinct difference between ripping a CD in CDRipper and playing a CD in a CD player.

CDRipper tries to extract the digital audio data exactly, to obtain a bit perfect copy of the data. It will keep trying until either it does or stops depending on the CDRipper Secure Settings and then reports the outcome, including any errors found.

A CD player is designed to read a CD, and when it gets errors it then interpolates the missing digital audio data, which hopefully on playback, you will not hear. So, no magic involved.

There are some CDs that will be so badly damaged/scratched or contain manufacturing errors, that will never be ripped, bit perfect, by any method, ever and when played in a CD player, will skip or you'll hear drop-outs in the audio.

So if the Arena album 'Contagion' has ripped the first 14 tracks just fine but the last 2 tracks refuse to rip, what can you advise? I have just bought a new optical drive which arrived today and I'm hoping it will make the difference. I like the fact that dBpoweramp is a better quality of rip and better at providing metadata (that's why I bought it) but using the inferior WMP (but the same optical drive) the whole album ripped without drama yesterday. I'm assuming that dBpoweramp is more demanding in its determination to deliver a better quality of rip and that's why I'm unable to rip the last two tracks?

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

ChisChas, you did not understand the advantages of dBpa.


Dat Ei

I have already stated in posts in this thread that I am aware of most or all of the advantages of dBpa (I like your abbreviation btw) but I am having problems as you can read and would love some tips/hints/advice as to how I can overcome/work round the problems I'm experiencing.

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

How do you know the rips have worked using WMP? The difference between CDRipper and WMP is that CDRipper reports errors, whereas WMP does not.

However, if you are not that bothered whether your rips are error free and bit perfect, then I guess WMP may well suffice.

Using very nice HP's (AKG K812's), DAP(Questyle QP2R) and a Chord Hugo 2 amp/dac, I'm very happy with the SQ of WMP. I'm very unhappy with its uselessness when it comes to metadata/album covers. So I'm very bothered about SQ generally and would love to use dBpa principally to resolve the metadata/album cover problem with WMP.

[garym]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

I have already stated in posts in this thread that I am aware of most or all of the advantages of dBpa (I like your abbreviation btw) but I am having problems as you can read and would love some tips/hints/advice as to how I can overcome/work round the problems I'm experiencing.

The problems you've noted are often a result of:
1. bad CD (or CD with copy protection)
2. C2 error being ticked in setup when drive doesn't truly support C2.
3. Simply something about the combination of the CD and the drive that doesn't work well.

You've tried *2, so nothing much left to test until after you've tried the new drive you have coming as a test of *3. And keep in mind that you need to test with other CDs as well. One can always find a troublesome CD that creates problems, but I wouldn't make my decisons based on one or two problem CDs out of hundreds or thousands one might rip.