Is there a way to tell what the Source Codec of a CD is that you're about to rip?

Topic.

There are a few CDs in my huge collection that were copied/burned and given to me as gifts from Friends. I'd like to be able to tell if they're 'lossless' or 'lossy' first and foremost. Also which Codec (AAC, AIFF, mp3, Wave, etc) a given CD was created in.

Sorry if this is a stupid question and obvious. Thanks in advance!

Short answer: No.

Slightly longer answer: You might be able to find some programs which will analyze the audio and try to guess if it's been packed with a lossy codec, but determining the codec (and version) will be impossible.

I think you can.
MP3Tag can display more about audio files than just the metadatas tags.
link: [url]http://www.mp3tag.de/en/[/url]
free software, not much to lose, give it a try
I use it frequently for managing my music files.
good luck

[QUOTE=Theleb_Kaarna;171721]There are a few CDs in my huge collection that were copied/burned and given to me as gifts from Friends. I'd like to be able to tell if they're 'lossless' or 'lossy' first and foremost.[/QUOTE]

What format are the CDs, CD-DA (Red Book standard) or CD-R (optical data disc)?

[QUOTE=mville;171787]What format are the CDs, CD-DA (Red Book standard) or CD-R (optical data disc)?[/QUOTE]Roughly 90% of my CDs are Red Book, 7% are SACDs and HDCDs, and 3% are CD-Rs. I'm assuming there's really no instance where a Red Book, SACD or HDCD would be 'lossy'. It's the CD-Rs that I'm wanting to be able to identify (lossy or lossless).

[QUOTE=Theleb_Kaarna;171788]Roughly 90% of my CDs are Red Book, 7% are SACDs and HDCDs, and 3% are CD-Rs. I'm assuming there's really no instance where a Red Book, SACD or HDCD would be 'lossy'.[/QUOTE]

Are you trying to identify whether the resulting file formats are lossy/lossless OR whether the source files used to create the CDs were lossy/lossless. It is possible to create lossless files from a lossy source e.g. create a flac from an mp3 OR create a Red Book audio CD from mp3 files?

I suspect the Red Book CDs, SACDs and HDCDs were created from original CDs, but only your friends will know for sure.

[QUOTE=Theleb_Kaarna;171788]It's the CD-Rs that I'm wanting to be able to identify (lossy or lossless).[/QUOTE]

If you simply want to know whether the CD-Rs contain lossy or lossless files, the file suffix e.g. mp3, flac etc. will tell you whether the files are lossy or lossless.

[QUOTE=mville;171789]Are you trying to identify whether the resulting file formats are lossy/lossless OR [B]whether the source files used to create the CDs were lossy/lossless.[/B] It is possible to create lossless files from a lossy source e.g. create a flac from an mp3 OR create a Red Book audio CD from mp3 files?[/QUOTE]What I bolded: ...the "source files". Also, I'm unclear on your second sentence. Let's say for example, you have a CD-R that contains 'lossy' mp3 music files. I've always assumed that these files could never be restored to a 'lossless' state (ie, restored back to their Red Book quality). But you're saying they can be?? -or- are you saying I could create a 'lossless' of an mp3... but it's still just an mp3. Kinda like a duplicate 'copy' of the original mp3?


[QUOTE=mville;171789]I suspect the Red Book CDs, SACDs and HDCDs were created from original CDs, but only your friends will know for sure.[/QUOTE]My Red Book, SACDs and HDCDs are store-bought, so I know they're not 'lossy'. Really (and I should have made this more clear originally, my apologies) my CD-Rs are what I'm wanting to know about here.


[QUOTE=mville;171789]If you simply want to know whether the CD-Rs contain lossy or lossless files, the file suffix e.g. mp3, flac etc. will tell you whether the files are lossy or lossless.[/QUOTE]I don't have the CD-R's music files saved digitally anywhere. The music is just on the discs themselves only. What I'm really hoping to be able to do is load a given CD-R into my PC, then have some software tell me if the music files contained on it are 'lossy' or 'lossless', and, possibly, what the Codec is. Maybe dBpoweramp has this funtionality and I'm just missing it? I look again tonight after work...

[QUOTE=Chip;171784]I think you can.
MP3Tag can display more about audio files than just the metadatas tags.
link: [url]http://www.mp3tag.de/en/[/url]
free software, not much to lose, give it a try
I use it frequently for managing my music files.
good luck[/QUOTE]Thanks for the link, I'll definitely look into this!

[QUOTE=Theleb_Kaarna;171797]I'm unclear on your second sentence. Let's say for example, you have a CD-R that contains 'lossy' mp3 music files. I've always assumed that these files could never be restored to a 'lossless' state (ie, restored back to their Red Book quality).[/QUOTE]

Correct.

[QUOTE=Theleb_Kaarna;171797]I'm unclear on your second sentence. Let's say for example, you have a CD-R that contains 'lossy' mp3 music files. I've always assumed that these files could never be restored to a 'lossless' state (ie, restored back to their Red Book quality). But you're saying they can be?? -or- are you saying I could create a 'lossless' of an mp3... but it's still just an mp3. Kinda like a duplicate 'copy' of the original mp3?[/QUOTE]

No. I am not saying they can be. I am saying that it is possible to create a file which is a lossless format e.g. flac from a lossy format e.g. mp3, but you do not gain any quality by doing so. So, if any CD-Rs contain files in a lossless format e.g. flac, alac, wav etc., only the person who created those files knows what the original source file format was used to create them.

[QUOTE=Theleb_Kaarna;171797]I don't have the CD-R's music files saved digitally anywhere. The music is just on the discs themselves only. What I'm really hoping to be able to do is load a given CD-R into my PC, then have some software tell me if the music files contained on it are 'lossy' or 'lossless', and, possibly, what the Codec is. Maybe dBpoweramp has this funtionality and I'm just missing it?[/QUOTE]

No software is going to be able to tell you what format the original source files used to create the files on the CD-Rs were, unless the information was explicitly written to tags during the original conversion, like the way CDRipper does when creating the Source tag during the ripping process. Software can tell you what the format, codec info etc. is for the files you have, but does not know anything about the original source files that was used to create them.

Thanks mville for all your answers and for the clarification. It's all making sense now. And darn. Was hoping for a way to tell if lossy or lossless. Oh well...

Thanks again=)

Like I wrote earlier: You *might* be able to find a program that will analyze an audio file and look for certain things in it that might indicate it has been packed lossily. Not foolproof though.