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[Bobnoznothing]

My question is:
Why is it not possible to rip a CD in AAC format with MC ? Is there a plug-in that exist or is there a plan to implement this in a later release of MC ?

My background:
I am a novice at this. My objective is to transfer my rather large CD collection on a hard drive to use a PC as a jukebox for casual listening at home. Over the last 3 days I have installed iTunes and played with it, pretty good but left me hoping for something better. Then I found MC, installed the current demo and find it very good. I also read on the subject and made listening tests and came to the conclusion that AAC encoding was probably the best choice. Before I proceed with the task of ripping all my CDs, I would like to find a single tool that does it all and best. I would hate to use iTunes for ripping and MC as a player, I am concerned with possible hurdles between them. Also I am still confused about the Copy protection aspect, working from my own CDs, is there any restrictions on what I can do with the compressed files ?

[JimH]

AAC encoding requires an expensive license we don't have.

If quality is important, please try APE (Monkey's Audio) or any lossless codec.

[Bobnoznothing]

AAC encoding requires an expensive license we don't have.

If quality is important, please try APE (Monkey's Audio) or any lossless codec.

Decoding is free? MC imports and plays back AAC files, doesn't it ?
Lossless solutions are too heavy for me, if AAC is not avail I could maybe settle for MP3 at 160 KBs VBR. But I'm still pondering all this...

Thanks for the reply !

[JimH]

MC can play AAC files using the Quicktime engine.

[bjsolem]

Bob - I'm predicting that you will be very happy with Media Center.  The organizational power is like nothing else out there.  And if you have a digital camera, you'll probably find your self organizing  your pictures in MC as well.

There is no right answer to what format you should rip your files with.  The most important consideration is to make sure that you rip your collection at a high enough quality that you will never have to rip it again.  

A lot of people that use MC swear by ape for this reason.  It is a complete copy of the original.  Once you have a complete reproduction, you can re-encode to lower formats for mp3 players etc. and keep the original large file.   But once you are stuck with a bunch of 128k mp3's (like me) the only way to improve the quality is to get the discs out and re-rip them.  It is not a task that I am looking forward to......

I'm not suggesting that ape is the answer for you, just make sure that whatever you rip your collection to is something that you can be happy with for a long time.

[pank2002]

You can use an external encoder. Search. There's at least two guides on how to get it to work with either FAAC or nero's.

[modelmaker]

An album in wav format occupies aprox. 500mb. APE compresses at about 2 - 1, without loss of information (lossless), and therfore uses half the storage space, mp3 VBR Hi (192 or better) compresses at 6 or 7 to 1 with some loss of data. an mp3 at 128bps and 10+ to 1 is very lossy. (I'm sure someone will correct me on these stats if I'm wrong).

Ape (monkey's audio) was developed by Matt Ashland, a member of the J River team and therefore MC will always have the latest encoders and best support.

Your decision about format should be mostly based on the sound quality you will find acceptable in your listening environment and less so on memory capacity.

Also realize that HD memory keeps getting cheaper, so, buy what you can afford now, when you run out of room, just add another or bigger drive then. You should also consider a backup HD at some point, (sooner rather than later).

As an example, my choice was and is mp3 VBR - Highest Quality,(generaly 256kps).
I don't play CDs thru my home audio system anymore, the only audio source now (other than video sound) is my PC using MC. My ears are no longer aware that there is a difference between the PC and the CDs themselves. I'm happy with my choice.

There is no right answer to what format you should rip your files with.  The most important consideration is to make sure that you rip your collection at a high enough quality that you will never have to rip it again

I agree totally with bjsolem here.

[kiwi]

Yeah,

My feeling is rip now with APE (or other lossless format), HD space is cheap, you can usually find deals for $0.50 a gig.  Then you'll never have to take the time to rip again.  

At that point, you can easily convert your songs to whatever format you like.  And afterwards, you can always change it...  you don't have any transcoding issues of going from one lossy to another lossy format.

btw, if you're looking to encode to AAC, you might poke around and see if there are any command line tools (or other tools) that can act as a wrapper around QT.  I remember seeing something at one point in time.

Also, a second benefit to having all your music ripped to a lossless format is that you can make your lossy version more specific to your needs.  i.e. if you're going to be playing it back on laptop speakers, or cheap headphones, encode to 128kbs, if you're going to have better reproduction, go higher, to 160 or 192.

kiwi