MP3 Encoding & Conversion

[Chainsaw_Willie]

Seems the collective always has an answer for my computer questions, so here's another one.

I've finally taken a leap into the late 20th century and have ripped my entire CD collection to my hard drive as MP3 files. The easiest, most convenient way to do this was to use Windows Media Player. With the quality set at 256 kbps everything sounds fine for the most part (there is occasionally something that just doesn't sound quite right compared to listening directly to the CD, but it's rare and not a big deal.)

My question is about file sizes. I also have a program by AVS called "AVS Audio Converter." I've experimented a little with it and with it creating files at the same bit rate, the file sizes are only about 60% of the size of the files created by Windows Media Player. The problem is, that like every other AVS program I've used, this program has glaring flaws that make it too much of a PITA to use to convert my whole collection. It doesn't recognize the track names on CDs (just displays them as "Track1, Track2, etc." and doesn't automatically create a directory with the album name. It does have some cool capabilities, like the ability to create files using a variable bit-rate which further cuts down on file size without sacrificing quality but the interface is so piss-poor that it's just not worth it.

So, is there any free or very low cost software out there that's as convenient as Windows Media Player but as efficient and customizable as AVS Audio Converter? Obviously if I'm going to go through all the trouble to rip all these CDs I want to keep the file sizes as small as possible while still maintaining good quality.

Thanks for any input.

[milton]

I use Media Monkey for organizing and playback, check out the free version. I think it has a 30 day trial for ripping CD's.

[PNWbrit]

winamp.....

[DJSapp]

WMP is most likely pumping the mp3's full of meta-data. Album art, artist info, track names, etc. I'm pretty sure you can control what info is put into the ripped tracks.

That said, winamp is faster and better. iTunes is 100x worse.

[roark]

It's slower, but I always use exact audio copy + LAME for extraction/conversion. For browsing/listening: Zune (seriously, it's like a better WMP, and can handle ~1TB of tunes pretty well). Heard good things about Media Monkey in this regard as well, but no first hand experience.

[zombinate]

media monkey works, but foobar is sweet. I use EAC for precision, encode to Flac (lossless so big files relative to mp3 but about half the size of just a copy from the disc), then use foobar to convert to whatever format I am liking for the time being.

I also agree that the Zune software is totally Boss. I am thinking about switching to a windows phone, just for the zune integration.

[Snow Dog]

It doesn't recognize the track names on CDs (just displays them as "Track1, Track2, etc." and doesn't automatically create a directory with the album name. It does have some cool capabilities, like the ability to create files using a variable bit-rate which further cuts down on file size without sacrificing quality but the interface is so piss-poor that it's just not worth it.

CDs don't contain meta data like track & album names. Rippers use the product id and a third party database like Gracenote to aquire the album metadata. I used to rip to 192kbps to save space but now I rip to the max (320kbps) for mp3 since space is so cheap. The LAME codec used to be the best so any program that uses it should produce quality files. I use iTunes because it's convenient and the files will end up there anyway. The latest iTunes creates the files in the iTunes music directory instead of letting me pick the directory. It's the latest "feature" Apple introduced. I don't rip enough CDs to wory about it.

[Chainsaw_Willie]

Most CDs do indeed have at least the track name encoded. You don't have to be connected to the internet for the name of the tracks to show up when you put a disc in the drive, and I know for a fact my car stereo isn't connected to the internet yet it displays the track names as they're playing. Newer CDs often have album name and artist info as well, older ones generally don't.

I guess I should give Winamp another shot. I've installed it and played around with it and honestly I didn't like the interface. It was just a lot harder to figure how to get it to do what I want than WMP which is pretty intuitive if also quite basic.

[rabbit]

abcde

http://lly.org/~rcw/abcde/page/