Please add 2 specific features to allow for a much more automated ripping process

[dms]

Hi there! I am a new customer of your product, having purchased it to aid in a project where I am re-ripping my collection of about 1200 CDs. My previous rips were in MP3 and not secure (Itunes), so I am redoing my collection with secure/accuarate rips, and in lossless.

Due to the high volume of discs to be ripped, I am using two computers at once, one is a mac using the donation-ware XLD software, and the other is a PC using dBpoweramp reference.

While I am very happy with the product overall and commend you on your excellent work, the concurrent use of both programs has given me a chance to notice that there are two very specific aspects of dBpoweramp that make a large ripping project much less "automated" for the average user with one drive per computer, that it seems to me would be trivial to implement on a programming level:

1-dBpoweramp does not have an optional preference setting to "automatically begin ripping" once the disc is inserted and the title info is looked up. As a result, every time I put a disc in, I have to stop and wait for the data to be looked up, then manually click on the "rip" icon in the upper left. This is not ideal at all for two reasons:

a-It goes against the goal of just quickly putting a disc in, while walking by the computer, when you see a previous disc has finished ripping and has auto ejected

b-Even when sitting and using that same computer, it is way too easy to "forget" that last step of clicking the rip icon when you are multi-tasking. As a result, I have had several times when I put the disc in and then time goes by before I remember to do that last step.

I have seen some discussion on the forums that you can get this feature by purchasing a 2nd program called Batch Ripper, that provides this auto start feature. However, that feature seems to be aimed at professional situations and has many other features, whereas I, like many customers I imagine, just want to use your main program, dBpoweramp, but have the ripping process be as automated as possible.

By contrast, XLD on the mac has this feature and it makes a big difference. You put in a disc, it starts ripping, period (as an optional setting of course)

2-dBpoweramp can be set to auto eject the disc, but does not have a preference for the eject process to reflect the status of if all of the rip was accurate. It would be ideal to have a preference setting that lets you know that if you see/hear that disc eject, then all tracks were ripped accurately with accuraterip, and you can not give it a 2nd thought and proceed to put in the next disc. By contrast, if any of the tracks were not accurate or secure, then it can make a "finished" sound, but not eject the disc. This serves as your warning that something was not ideal, and to check out the log.

Again, this is how XLD does things, and it makes things so much easier. If I hear/see a disc eject, I don't even need to look at the saved log, since I know all tracks were ripped accurately. With dBpoweramp, I always need to stop and carefully look at the log, because I have no idea if all the tracks were ripped accurately or not.

When you combine both of these issues above, it really does slow down the process of ripping a large collection, compared to using XLD. With XLD on the mac, I can just blindly feed it discs with the monitor turned off, and just know that's all I have to do and that if a disc ejects, all was accurate and no need to check logs. With dBpoweramp, things are much more "hands on": I have to keep the monitor on, wait and click the rip button (and remember to do so), and then carefully check the popup log window at the end to make sure there were no innacurate rips.

Could you please let me know if either of these features are planned, and if so, when we might expect an update with them implemented.

If they are not planned, could you please let me know the idea of why this would be so, such as too difficult to implement on a technical level, or if it is a business decision, in order to protect sales of the batch ripper program.

Thanks!

[Spoon]

The reason why CD Ripper cannot do automated ripping, the commercial providers - AMG and GD3 do not allow it, that is the only reason.

Batch Ripper is a free program if you have dbpoweramp reference, yes there is a per lookup fee on metadata (if you use AMG / GD3), you can disable these and use freedb & musicbrainz and you have the same metadata as XLD.

Take a look at Batch Ripper for bulk ripping, it was written for such from the ground up. If you want to stick with CD Ripper, you can set the option to 'mark insecure tracks as error' and use the DSP effect 'move destination file on error' to separate out the files which have an error.

Or you can run PerfectTUNES on the library at the end, it will separate out those albums with ripping errors.

[dms]

Thanks Spoon for the prompt and detailed answer, very much appreciated. Apologies for my post being so long, I wanted to make sure I clearly conveyed the workflow I was looking for.

I went ahead and downloaded/installed the batch ripper program (I did not realize it was included for free with the license I bought, and am now using it to rip discs. Indeed, it is giving me at least part of the workflow I am looking for, in the sense that once I start the "batch" going, it will automatically begin the next rip just by inserting the disc. I unchecked the AMG and GD3 options for metadata since I still have 1000 CDs to go and it said I only get 400 lookups.

Now, some additional quick quesitons if I may (I was not clear where to find the official user's manual for the product).

1-In terms of what to encode the rips as, where to put them, and whether to rip securely, does the batch ripper just use all of the choices/settings that I had already configured for the (non-batch) CD ripper program? The rips from the batch ripper seem to be going to my desired folder and are still ALAC, so I assume so, I just got confused since the batch ripper does not seem to have its own settings page that I can get to, from its screen (the way the other program does)

2-If I were to hook up a 2nd USB CD drive, will it let me use both at the same time for ripping through my collection quicker? I know it will work with robot spindles, multi-drive towers, etc but I was not sure about 2 standard consumer USB drives hooked up to two USB ports.

3-One of the things I am most concerned about is knowing that all tracks were ripped accurately and passed accurate rip, at the time of taking the disk out of the drive and putting in the next one. I see, after ripping my fist disc in the batch ripper, that it does give you a message (in my case "all 12 accurate". However, can I assume that if any of the rip was not accurate, that it would tell me so as well?

Going further, is there some way to tell the batch ripper to not eject the disc when the rip is completed, if not all tracks were ripped accurately? By doing so, this would allow me to have the same "leave the monitor off, don't even think about it" mentality that XLD allows, because I would be able to know that if I hear the disc eject, all rips were accurate and I don't need to look at any message on a screen to know so.

Thanks!

[Spoon]

1) before you start ripping there is an edit profile button, which takes to a CD ripper where the settings can be changed (then close to go back to batch ripper).
2) Yes, be sure to run the batch ripper configuration program and configure the new drive for manual load/auto eject

>that it would tell me so as well?

Yes that message would say inaccurate

There is an option

--lengthms="2000" --userclickok="yes"

on the reject, you would have to set CD ripper to mark insecure as error, then the disc will be 'rejected' and can force an OK click.

[dms]

Thanks very much for the additional info.

I had one other thought you might consider, for the next version of the main CD ripper program. You mentioned that "The reason why CD Ripper cannot do automated ripping, the commercial providers - AMG and GD3 do not allow it, that is the only reason"

What about adding a preference option, in the main CD ripper program, that has the program automatically rip upon insert, but when you turn this preference on, it force-disables lookups from AMG and GD3, and instead just makes the meta-tags from the remaining providers that don't have those above restrictions?

With this option, you would allow users to use the main program, with all of its specific advantages over the batch ripper, and it would rip upon insert (which is a very desired function for some folks I would imagine, and at the same time, it would not violate the policies of AMG and GD3.

With this approach, users like me who are perfectly happy with tag info from less providers, but really want auto rip on insert while using the main program, have a choice. Nice and flexible.

Thanks!