Hello! I've been ripping CDs for a while, but just recently clued in to things like audio quality and audio formats (which is why I eventually researched and purchased dBpoweramp). This means that I will be re-ripping my entire collection. I just had a couple of questions to make sure that I don't have to repeat this lengthy process more than once.
1. How do I go about ripping my CDs to Broadcast Wave Format (BWF)? I downloaded the codec BWFMP2 from Codec Central (which was listed for Braodcast Wave Format), but this appears to be an MP2 file wrapped in a WAV file – i.e., lossy. This confuses me, because from what I understand, a BWF file is a WAV file (literally, it uses .wav), but with extra metadata information stored, and therefore more desirable for archiving purposes. Every article and forum I've read states that BWF and WAV are both sonically equivalent (i.e. uncompressed), so does anyone know how I can rip to BWF, but uncompressed (like WAV), not lossy BWFMP2?
From what I've managed to gather, would rip to WAV, but add bext (Broadcast Extension) chunks – how would I go about this? The listed tags do not seem to be typical bext tags, but rather just ID tags. Also, should I still rip to 16 bit and 44.1 kHz? Since I am ripping from a CD, using 24 bit (DVD) and 48 kHz (DAT) would be upsampling and therefore pointless, correct? Or should I just leave all fields (Channels included) to [as source]?
2. After researching audio formats and codecs, I have settled to keep archive copies in uncompressed format. Since deciding which uncompressed format – WAV, AIFF, or Uncompressed FLAC) – is best has proven to be too much of a headache, I have simply resolved to rip to all three (storage is not an issue), which at least is the safe route. My question here is, should I use the Multi-Encoder to rip to all three at once, or just rip to one – say, WAV (or BWF, depending on the answers to Question 1) – and then use the Batch Converter to convert the files to the remaining two formats, thereby having files in all three? Is there any advantage to ripping to all three formats at once off the bat, or is it fine to convert, since converting from lossless to lossless (or in this case, uncompressed to uncompressed) results in zero audio quality loss?
I ask because ripping to all three at once takes forever, and if both methods produce the exact same result, then I might as well just use the quicker method of the two (though I have not used the Converter yet, and therefore do not know how quicker it is, or even if it is quicker, than ripping). Since I will also want to have a mobile copy (most likely MP3, have not decided which lossy format fits my needs best yet), should I also use the Multi-Encoder to rip to this lossy format, or just Batch Convert the uncompressed files at a later time?
Thank you all in advance so much for reading this! Since I am relatively new to this, I am obsessing ripping my CDs to perfection, and really appreciate the help and advice you all give to the uninitiated such as myself!
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Originally Posted by MusicAnoobis
