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[Chris Fox]

Greetings,

I found out about MJ recently and began ripping my CD collection.  I read through the forum about various encoders.  It seemed like WMA at 96k was the way to go for me, so off I went.  After ripping most of my collection I went to try MediaServer, only to find out that WMA doesn't stream.

So this time I want to get it right.  I have a couple of goals:

1. I want be able to use MediaServer.  I have several computers networked (both 10/100 wired and 802.11b wireless) around the house and don't want to have to maintain multple libraries.  

2. I'd like easy support for a Digital Audio Player yet (don't have one yet though).  When synchronizing with a Digital Audio Player, does MJ auto-convert to the proper format or do I need multiple copies of each track?  How do others on this board handle this?

3. Although I'm far from being an audiophile, I'd like to have good sound quality.

4. Storage space is not a huge issue for me (given the price of hard drives), but I don't want to go overboard.  I have ripped about 150 CDs (most of my collection) and at WMA 96k it takes about 5 GB.  It looks to be about a 10:1 compression, so I expect about 50 GB would be needed for WAV/APE.


- WMA and WAV are not and option, since they can't stream.

- APE looks good from a quality standpoint since it is lossless, but it doesn't compress very much.  When it comes to streaming across my wireless network (which does not have a super-strong signal level), it may require too much bandwidth.  I'm also not sure how well it would work with a Digital Audio Player...

- I know nothing about OGG other than the fact that it does support streaming.

- MP3 might be the best choice since it streams, is supported by virtually all Digital Audio Players, and at 192k should compress at 5:1 (just a guess) and has good sound.

Any advice?

Thanks,
Chris

[ChicoSelfs]

WMA can´t stream??

[sekim]

192 would do just fine. However, you can also try VBR mp3 and get fair compression. Not as much as constant bitrate though. Sound quality is up to personal tastes. I like it because, to me, it sounds better then the constant bitrate. Best thing to do is try a few files and see what meets your needs.

[TED!]

Based on what you want to do which is read a audio file from a centeral disk drive at various locations in your house, You do not need a streamer. If you have a media player on each computer all you have to do is load up a play list that points to the proper location on the centeral disk. You can even keep the playlist file on the centeral drive. Set the play list up as read only and you can select a play list form 1 or more computers at the same time.

As to your use of 96 K as a encoding rate bump it up to 128 and even higher. The higher the better. Unless you are using cardboard for speakers you can hear the difference. If you are using a system that Best Buys sells for between 700-1000 dollars for a amp and speakers you will hear the difference. If you are using cardboard and computer speakers keep it as low as possible. The problem with keeping it low is that if you upgrade your sound system you will have to upgrade your audio files. In my opion the Media 8 encoder from microsoft is superior to all MP3 encoders.  I should know as I listen to the encoded material on a professional (JBL) montior system. The JBL speakers are true professional speakers and not available to the general public.

When you rip get a program called AudioGrabber it is a stand alone ripper and comes complete with plug ins for all types of encoder codecs. It is on the web and rated as the best available. It is shareware and well worth the 29 bucks.
You are embarking on a great adventure of tailoring your music library to your tastes. Make sure you use the best tools available to accomplish your goals. Editing and assembling playlists is a lot of fun.

[JJ199]

Related Question........I am just starting to rip all my CDs. I've been using basic(I guess) mp3 encoding @ 160. First, is this good enough for storing all my songs on disk with the possibility of creating custom audio cd's for playback anywhere? And second, can any of these other formats( ie OGG, VBR, Win Med be played on the many dvd/cd players that support "MP3" playback?

This is VERY confusing stuff!!.........Thanks for your help!

[nila]

VBR isn't a format. It's a type of mp3. It stands for Variable Bitrate Recording I think.
If you want to do it so that your rips are almost identical to the original CD's then if you want to use constant bitrate you should be doing it at 192 as this is meant to be CD Quality. To get even better quality however you should be encoding them using mp3 VBR at high quality. These are pretty much perfect copies.

mp3 and wma are the only two major formats supported by portable mp3 players, dvd players etc at the moment.
Later I'd imagine other formats will be supported too but not for a few years at least.

[Sérgio]

My recomendation: MP3, the encoder the latest LAME (3.92 I think), and pass the option "--alt-preset standard". That will create a high quality VBR MP3 file, around 192 kbps, but with a lot better quality than 192 kbps constant bitrate. That is because, as I think it was already explained, VBR finds the "easier" parts to encode and encodes them at lower bitrates (at the necessary bitrate so the sound isn't distorted), which saves space for encoding the more "difficult" parts at higher bitrates. And LAME is definetely, without a doubt, the best MP3 encoder around. Get the encoder at http://www.hot.ee/smpman/mp3/

If you're a quality fanatic, you can encode at 320 kbps constant bit rate. That's the best MP3 can give.

If that's still not enough, try Monkey's Audio. That's a LOSSLESS compression format. It's kind of like zipping the file. It's the exact same quality as a WAV, only smaller due to sophisticated compression formats. You can thank Matt for that He's the one who developed it. And it is excelent. Files get around a 800/900 kbps bitrate, which is excellent for lossless. Check it out at www.monkeysaudio.com

By the way, Matt, thanks for Monkey's Audio. And why did you never show up at your site again?

Sérgio

[Sergio]

Sorry, missed the part about APE's. Guess you already knew them.

Sérgio

[Matt]

When you rip get a program called AudioGrabber it is a stand alone ripper and comes complete with plug ins for all types of encoder codecs. It is on the web and rated as the best available. It is shareware and well worth the 29 bucks.

Media Jukebox does everything that AudioGrabber does, and more.  There's really no need for a third party ripper... especially since MJ 8.0 implemented EAC-like "secure" ripping.

By the way, Matt, thanks for Monkey's Audio. And why did you never show up at your site again?

Thanks Sérgio -- you're too kind.  And I don't know where I've been... just hanging low for a while I guess.

-Matt

[RhinoBanga]

Personally I use the "best" for each stage of the whole process:

1)  Audiograbber for ripping ... I've been using it for years and I haven't got the courage to switch to using MJ just yet
2)  Helium2 for tag/file maintenance ... it has an awsome UI and is amazingly configurable.
3)  MediaJukebox for playback ... again a perfect and simple to use UI which is extensible ... plus you get a whole load of other features.


With these three in my toolbox I feel that there is nothing I can't do

[Chris Fox]

Wow! Thanks for all the suggestions.  I guess I have some more thinking to do.  I think I'm leaning towards the LAME encoder, but I'll have to try a couple of samples first...

Chris