New User dont you just love us !!

[heavenly doddy]

Hi all,
ok as you can see new to this game. Have just bought R13, never had an ipod so have spent hours going through all the Q & As think i am on the right track but need some help.
I have started to rip all my cds & from what i have read i am going for the FLAC as my master library & mp3 for the ipod. Using the dual rip function. Ok first Q the Lame mp3 i have set to VBR (max kps) is this good & the right choice ?.
I have set 2 folders to take the flac & mp3 tunes then i thought i just drag the mp3 into itunes is this how it works ?. What i noticed is that once ripped the tracks are all in one long line, can i then put them into folders with generic tunes Pop, rnb etc & then into bands if i have more than 1 album ! or will this hamper the transfer to itunes ?. I hope that made sense.
I am going to buy an ext hard drive to put the music library on... anything i should be aware of when choosing one ?.
The next step is to get sonos but i need to get all this right first. No doubt i will need more help but if you could help me out that would be great. Any other advice please feel free to get me going.
Thanks
Heavenly

[Spoon]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

Lame set to max kbps will be 'transparent' on the iPod, that is you should not hear a difference.

[heavenly doddy]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

Hi Spoon
Not that clever ?, when you say transparent, what do you mean. Am i wasting time & space with the vbr setting... just got through 30 cds tonight !!.
Also doing more research tonight some one asked the same kind of Q as me & reply was not to rip with a dual flac & mp3 but just do flac then batch copy why is this ?.
Really glad i got db it all seems to be going so well !!!. I think i am so mixed up with reading so many threads.
A quick itunes related Q what setting would you download from them at AAC or Apple LOssless.
Thank you again.

[LtData]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

Transparent means you can't tell that the file is a mp3.

For the iPod, I would personally use m4a at about 160-192kbps, and NOT mp3.

[cosmopolous]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

OK, I this thread looks like a relevant one. I've been reading through many without finding an answer to my question.

I have my primary collection in flac on a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+. ~2500 discs.
I would like to convert the library to a format compatible with iPods, m4a (mgeg-4) looks like the ticket.

I downloaded and installed the Nero codec.

I can successfully convert a single track. But when I try and convert more than one track, it balks:

[COLOR="black"]Error converting to m4a Nero (AAC), 'X:\Audio - FLAC - TEST\Aerosmith - Rocks\01 Back In The Saddle.flac' to 'E:\Audio - dbp - TEST\Aerosmith\Aerosmith - Back In The Saddle.m4a'
Unable to read from File 'X:\Audio - FLAC - TEST\Aerosmith - Rocks\01 Back In The Saddle.flac'

Error converting to m4a Nero (AAC), 'X:\Audio - FLAC - TEST\Aerosmith - Rocks\02 Last Child.flac' to 'E:\Audio - dbp - TEST\Aerosmith\Aerosmith - Last Child.m4a'
Unable to read from File 'X:\Audio - FLAC - TEST\Aerosmith - Rocks\02 Last Child.flac'[/COLOR]

Any ideas? I know the source files exist. I can do them individually.

Also, I was converting to a final destination folder back on the NAS but was getting write-behind errors. I did find the thread describing that problem. In this instance I was NOT writing back to the NAS.

Am I missing a setting that would allow for multiple file copies? I am running a multi-core XP set-up.

TIA

[cosmopolous]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

Sorry, I neglected to mention I am running R13.1

[LtData]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

Can you convert the FLAC files if you convert them on your local machine in the C:\ drive, or something with a shorter path?

Have you tried the beta [Encode Local] utility codec?

[cosmopolous]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

ok, I moved the src and destination folders to my C: drive and re-executed the test. Everything worked as expected. So the question is: is it a path length issue? hard to believe since the NAS path is [COLOR="red"]X:\Audio- FLAC - TEST\[album name][/COLOR]

Obviously, converting from the NAS directly is the ideal solution.

Any suggestions appreciated.
TIA

[cosmopolous]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

I guess I will need to search out your suggestion:
[COLOR="red"]Have you tried the beta [Encode Local] utility codec?[/COLOR]

[Spoon]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

dBpoweramp is not able to read the source file, nothing to do with encoding, something about X:\ perhaps there is no permissions to read the files?

[cosmopolous]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

ok, I did a little testing. I created a copy of the album folder on the NAS and removed everything but 1 track. I did the conversion on the folder, using the specified local working dir. The file converted correctly, the new album folder was created and the converted file placed there on the NAS no problem.

I put 2 tracks in the copied album folder and repeated the test. I even removed the newly created destination folder. I even used the track that worked previously so I know it was able to find the file the first time. I verified that the tmp work folder was empty.

[COLOR="red"]Error converting to [Encode Local], 'X:\Audio - FLAC - TEST\Aerosmith - A Few Rocks\02 Last Child.flac' to 'X:\Audio - MP4 - Final\Aerosmith\Aerosmith - Last Child.IGNORE'
Unable to read from File 'X:\Audio - FLAC - TEST\Aerosmith - A Few Rocks\02 Last Child.flac'
m4a Nero (AAC): Error overwriting file 'c:\tmp-dbp\409550656-dblocalencode.m4a'

Error converting to [Encode Local], 'X:\Audio - FLAC - TEST\Aerosmith - A Few Rocks\01 Back In The Saddle.flac' to 'X:\Audio - MP4 - Final\Aerosmith\Aerosmith - Back In The Saddle.IGNORE'
Unable to read from File 'X:\Audio - FLAC - TEST\Aerosmith - A Few Rocks\01 Back In The Saddle.flac'[/COLOR]

It created the destination folder and put one file in it, the second file "Back In The Saddle" but the file size is 48KB.

So it appears that it can find the src files and can convert them if one at a time. When it's > 1 the process fails.

[cosmopolous]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

Further testing results:

I copied the src album folder, with 2 tracks to my local HD and repeated the conversion.

[COLOR="red"]Error converting to [Encode Local], 'C:\solderfolder\Aerosmith - A Few Rocks\02 Last Child.flac' to 'X:\Audio - MP4 - Final\Aerosmith\Aerosmith - Last Child.IGNORE'
m4a Nero (AAC): Error writing audio data to StdIn Pipe [clEncoder::EncodeBlock]

Error converting to [Encode Local], 'C:\solderfolder\Aerosmith - A Few Rocks\01 Back In The Saddle.flac' to 'X:\Audio - MP4 - Final\Aerosmith\Aerosmith - Back In The Saddle.IGNORE'
Error copying to 'X:\Audio - MP4 - Final\Aerosmith\Aerosmith - Back In The Saddle.m4a' insufficient space? [clEncoder::EndConversion]

Error converting to [Encode Local], 'X:\Audio - FLAC - TEST\Aerosmith - A Few Rocks\01 Back In The Saddle.flac' to 'X:\Audio - MP4 - Final\Aerosmith\Aerosmith - Back In The Saddle.IGNORE'
Unable to read from File 'X:\Audio - FLAC - TEST\Aerosmith - A Few Rocks\01 Back In The Saddle.flac'[/COLOR]

Again, it created the destination folder on the NAS but this time created two files 2.34MB and 5.0MB tags complete.

[cosmopolous]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

Last test.

I kept the new src dir on the local drive with 2 files in it (same 2 as before)
I changed the destination dir to a new local folder (on the c: drive). Everything else the same; same local working dir...

Essentially I removed the NAS as the src and dest dir.

[COLOR="red"]
Error converting to [Encode Local], 'C:\solderfolder\Aerosmith - A Few Rocks\02 Last Child.flac' to 'C:\solderfolder\music-tmp\Aerosmith\Aerosmith - Last Child.IGNORE'
m4a Nero (AAC): Error writing audio data to StdIn Pipe [clEncoder::EncodeBlock][/COLOR]

Output dir was created and one file placed in the dir: Back in the Saddle and it's size was 6.8MB

[Spoon]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

Your NAS is stopping File IO...

The last error about stdio, nero is quitting, your source files are 44.1KHz 16 bit. 2 channel?

[cosmopolous]

Re: New User dont you just love us !!

Correct 2 channel, 16 bit 44KHz
Still looks like the multi-cpu may be clobbering itself writing the local working files?

Original:

[COLOR="blue"]Artist Aerosmith
Title Back In The Saddle
Album Rocks
Track 01
Disc
Genre Rock
Year 1993
Rating
Composer
Size 30.68 MB (35% Compressed)
Original Size 47.16 MB
Length 4 minutes 40 seconds
Channels 2 (stereo)
Sample Rate 44.1 KHz{CR}
Sample Size 16 bit
Bit Rate 1,411 kbps
Encoder FLAC reference libFLAC 1.2.1 20070917
Encoder Settings
Audio Quality Perfect (Lossless)
Contains Album Art, CRC, ID Tag [Vorbis Comments]
Channel Mapping
File 01 Back In The Saddle
Type flac File [.flac][/COLOR]


Converted copy:
[COLOR="blue"]Artist Aerosmith
Title Back In The Saddle
Album Rocks
Track 1
Disc
Genre Rock
Year 1993
Rating
Composer
Size 6.66 MB (86% Compressed)
Original Size 47.17 MB
Length 4 minutes 40 seconds
Channels 2 (stereo)
Sample Rate 44.1 KHz{CR}
Sample Size 16 bit
Bit Rate 196 kbps
Encoder AAC (LC)
Encoder Settings
Audio Quality High (Lossy)
Contains Album Art, ID Tag [Apple iTunes]
Channel Mapping
File Aerosmith - Back In The Saddle
Type m4a File [.m4a][/COLOR]