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[chriswimlett]

Up until now I've been using XLD, then DBPoweramp, for ripping, and Yate to tidy up tags before importing to iTunes.  JRiver auto-import is configured to watch my iTunes Music folder.

It strikes me though that it would be neater to do everything in JRiver, especially as I do final tag editing in JRiver anyway.  I was thinking of ripping directly to the iTunes Music folder (at the moment I rip to a temporary folder), but if I do that is there a danger of duplication if JRiver is watching the folder?  Do I need to remove the iTunes library folder from auto-import?

I do really like DBPoweramp but the demo is about to expire and it seems an unnecessary expense if I can rip in JRiver,

Chris

[blgentry]

I don't think you'll have any issue with JRiver doing it this way, but ITunes probably won't like files being dropped into it's Music folder without being told to import them.  As far as I know ITunes doesn't have any sort of "monitor folder" or "auto import" feature.  It's one of the major complaints from customers actually.

Which all begs the question, if you're a JRiver convert, why bother with ITunes any more?

Brian.

[John Gateley]

Which all begs the question, if you're a JRiver convert, why bother with ITunes any more?

Last I knew, Apple had the iPhone locked down so Media Center couldn't sync to it. Is this still true?

My wife would be thrilled if she could use MC to sync to her phone.

John

[Magic_Randy]

Last I knew, Apple had the iPhone locked down so Media Center couldn't sync to it. Is this still true?

My wife would be thrilled if she could use MC to sync to her phone.

John

The iPhone is still locked down.  You still need iTunes to sync to all Apple products except the old iPods.

[chriswimlett]

Thanks for the replies.  Syncing with an iPod is my only real reason for linking JRiver to the iTunes library. 

But this has made me think.  I've got two iTunes libraries at the moment - a legacy one of mostly 256kbps files (this also syncs with iCloud), and a more recent library where I'm putting high resolution and CD ALAC rips (ITunes Match is switched off for this).  I could use the legacy library for iPod syncing and keep the higher resolution library for JRiver use only.

Chris

[JimH]

Search for mc2itunes on our Third Party board.

[tasar]

Not to open a can of worms, but can anyone make the case of DBP or XLD rip quality over those done in Tunes ?
I can't and a group of 80 some local members could not distinguish them. JR allows for a seemless integration FROM Tune rips. One day, a 3rd party may see a way to reverse this street. Having lossless files at both venues is a redundancy I'm willing and wanting to live with. Tunes will always be my safety deposit box.

[blgentry]

^ For ripping CDs I always want to use a program that is aware of the accuracy (or lack of accuracy) of the bits coming off of the disc.  This is not because I think I can tell a quality difference.  Rather, it's so scratches or dirty discs don't cause clicks and pops and other nasty sounds to be in songs ripped from those discs.  The last time I checked, iTunes had no way to tell if it had ripped a file "correctly" or not.

XLD has the AccurateRip database linkage, so it can have a pretty good idea if it ripped properly or not.  Plus XLD has 3 different modes of ripping CDs, that are able to retrieve more information than just a basic rip.  Again, this is just to be used when the fast ripping method fails to 100% accurately rip one or more tracks.  I look at the rip information log at the end of every CD.  If I find any tracks that didn't rip accurately, I switch to a more rigorous ripping method in XLD's preferences, and re-rip the track or tracks in question.  I've been able to rip something like 99.1% of my CDs this way.  I've had very, very few CDs that I just couldn't get a good rip of one or more songs.

So for me, there's almost no other choice:  I have to use a program that knows it got the bits correct.

Brian.

[chriswimlett]

I've got a number of CDs that ripped OK in iTunes (with error checking set on), but then wouldn't play back properly.  Apart from skips and various clicks, one track jumped straight to the end.  XLD and DBPoweramp were able to save all but one of the CDs.  Since discovering this I've decided not to trust iTunes for ripping - probably over 90% of the time it will be fine, but a surprising number of CDs do contain errors, even when looked after carefully from new.

Chris

[Awesome Donkey]

iTunes lacks secure ripping, hence why using it to rip CDs is a bad idea.

[tasar]

iTunes lacks secure ripping, hence why using it to rip CDs is a bad idea.

Secure ? Seriously ? ! I have 8 years of beautifully reproduced Tune rips.
Anyone far enough along to compare DBP, XLD, Tunes, rip quality vs. JR ?
I've quizzed dozens of high end users who, unless they sourced discs from the back floor of their cars, see no quantifiable differences.

[Awesome Donkey]

I suggest reading this: http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Secure_ripping

I'd never use iTunes to rip CDs - secure ripping, in my opinion, is a must when ripping CDs. If you care about accuracy of your rips, especially when ripping in lossless, secure ripping should be used. When using iTunes to rip CDs you risk having bad rips (skips, pops, etc.) even with error correction enabled. I just prefer to have the extra confidence in my rips.

If you want to compare XLD vs iTunes rips, I suggest ripping a CD with both to Apple Lossless (make sure XLD is setup for perfect rips) and comparing both either by the hashes or using a hex editor. Just because you don't hear a difference between the two doesn't mean there isn't.

[mwillems]

I've quizzed dozens of high end users who, unless they sourced discs from the back floor of their cars, see no quantifiable differences.

Quantifiable differences are pretty easy to demonstrate.  I just finished re-ripping about 2000 cds using dBPoweramp that I previously ripped using a non-secure ripping method (some itunes, some windows media player).  The secure rips of those CDs produced different-sized lossless files with different checksums than the original rips in a significant number of cases.  I would estimate about 10% or 12% had differences, often on discs that had no significant visible defects.  

Additionally, there were also about 1% of the 2000 that couldn't produce a secure rip due to disc damage.  Almost all of those had been ripped by non-secure rippers without complaint or even an error message.  In at least a few cases, the discs in question had shipped to me already damaged, and they had only been removed from their cases once previously (to rip them).

The way dBpoweramp works, it rips once and if the checksum matches the accurate rip database it moves on.  If the checksum doesn't match the database, it runs a second read and checks for differences between the first and second read.  The neat thing about that is it alerts you when a disc might be damaged and where a non-secure ripper might not have gotten a good rip.  

When I did comparisons of the new files from discs that needed a second pass by the secure ripping algorithm, versus the "old" files, in most cases I could clearly hear pops, skips, or other artifacts in the old files, especially on tracks that secure ripping couldn't get a clear read on.

Bottom line: secure ripping doesn't matter if your discs are perfect, and you won't hear any difference in those cases, but you don't know whether your discs are perfect unless you use some kind of secure ripping software, because visual inspection is no guarantee, and non-secure ripping software will not even tell you there's a problem.

[tasar]

Well, guess I've been lucky and others have concurred. Is it possible ITunes ripper has read redundancy that's capable beyond generic "burst" ? I'd argue they've made strides, whether they've been transparent about it or otherwise. Side by side with XLD lossless, differences are unremarkable. Spending more time for the same results is a choice I'm willing to live with.

[mwillems]

Well, guess I've been lucky and others have concurred. Is it possible ITunes ripper has read redundancy that's capable beyond generic "burst" ? I'd argue they've made strides, whether they've been transparent about it or otherwise.  Side by side with XLD lossless, differences are unremarkable. Spending more time for the same results is a choice I'm willing to live with.

I think you may have missed part of what I said above about how dBPoweramp works (and potentially other secure ripping software as well).

dBpoweramp rips first in burst mode, and then only re-rips if it identified a problem based on the accurate rip comparison.  That means for the 90% of discs that have no issues, dBpoweramp is exactly as fast as iTunes or WMP.  It only slows down and re-rips when it detects errors, which is exactly when you would want it to slow down (and you can configure that behavior to control how much you want it to slow down). There's literally zero downside to using a tool like poweramp other than the cost.  

It's true that JRiver's secure ripping implementation does do the secure rip every time (need it or not), which means it's slower to rip every time, but unless you're batch ripping huge numbers of CDs, the difference in speed isn't really that significant in my opinion compared to the peace of mind you get from knowing you got the best possible rip every time.

[paul.raulerson]

I don't think you'll have any issue with JRiver doing it this way, but ITunes probably won't like files being dropped into it's Music folder without being told to import them.  As far as I know ITunes doesn't have any sort of "monitor folder" or "auto import" feature.  It's one of the major complaints from customers actually.

Which all begs the question, if you're a JRiver convert, why bother with ITunes any more?

Brian.

Huh - iTunes has always had an "Add to iTunes" folder, at least so far back as I can remember. Just drop properly tagged files into that folder and voila!  They will be imported into iTunes as appropriate. It works best if iTunes is your primary library of course.  Having MC monitor the iTunes media libraries also works just great, and MC is plenty smart enough to detect the new files and add them to the MC library.

Caveat: Be sure your music files are correctly tagged.

-Paul

[blgentry]

^ Well, I guess this shows how long it's been since I used itunes seriously.  I think my last version was either 7 or 8.  Anyway, I've looked into this feature and while it does seem to work, I don't think it will work for the OP because he seems to want to have MC and itunes both get the files and use them.  ITunes is gong to "add file to library", which means it will move the file if "keep library organized" is set.  That's really the only sane way to use itunes anyway.  If you just dump thousands of files into the automatically add folder and have itunes never move them, it doesn't make much sense does it?  That location makes little sense for MC also. 

I know that both itunes and MC mostly hide the actual location of files from you to make it easy to pick songs by artist and album cover and that kind of thing.  But having a well organized file system is the foundation of an organized collection in my opinion.

Brian.

[paul.raulerson]

Well, yes - so you let iTunes move them into the media files area, and have MC monitor the media files area for changes, not the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder. 

Me? I do not let iTunes or MC mess with the media files. I RIP them with the very best pristine metadata I can find, and then both iTunes and MC look at the same folders. It means I occasionally have to tell iTunes to import the files manually, or jus drop and rebuild the entire iTunes library. That isn't a bother for me, but I can see where some people would be nervous about doing that.

Yours,
-Paul

[chriswimlett]

I'm finding that having separate libraries is working out well.  One (mostly lossy at the moment) the iTunes library, with rock, jazz, blues, folk, etc. plus podcasts, for syncing with my iPod & iPhone.  This is the music that I listen to when on the move, gardening (when I can't avoid it), etc..

The other library is mostly classical (lossless HD) files and sits on a separate disc.  I use this for JRiver and might move it to a NAS at some point.


Thanks again for the above replies and comments which helped to clarify my thoughts.