Ignorance is not bliss., Information and help needed. Options

[sneetches]

Goal: To make exact copies of music cd's for a digital music library.


I am writing this becasue I have gotten mixed answers to my questions, which led to more questions. Most answers seem to be based on preference. Until about a week ago I thought that since 320kbps was the highest rate the I could rip music (iTunes), that it was the highest quality and thus "perfect." I use iTunes for the library to reference artists and albums and so on. I use the personal library to organize my music files.

1. If "lossless" means that there is no data loss, then why would it matter which compressor that i use? (referring to quality)

2. Is uncompressed better than lossless?

3. What are the important factors in choosing a compressor? e.g. multi channel, high resolution, robustness, sample rate, frequency... (many articles that I have read are referring to music recording, I only wish to rip.)

4. Is there a difference between a compressor and a ripper/grabber?

5. What is the best ripper/grabber?

6. Is there a one stop place to reference information on everything about audio quality, storage and playback? (I have read the lossless comparison page provided by H/A)

7. What does this mean: "If you later find out the codec you chose isn't the best for your needs, you can just transcompress to another format, without risk of losing quality."?



I do apologize if I am asking this in the wrong place and/or way. When it comes to things that I am interested, I like to learn everything there is to know. The internet is a good place to learn but it's sometimes difficult to know where to start. Help, all or in part, is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
james

This post has been edited by Gambit: Aug 12 2006, 01:52

[AndyH-ha]

Everything stored on a computer is of necessity store in some form or format. Audio files are coded differently than spreadsheets or web pages. Lossless, when applied to audio compression, means to use a different format, one that takes up less storage space, but does not reduce or lose any of the data (as in a zip file).

(1, 2) One trade off for this smaller storage space is that the computer must do more operations, thus take more time, to utilize such an audio file compared to its uncompressed format. Another is that only programs which "understand" the format can do anything useful with the file. Far more programs work with uncompressed formats. For (2) you must consider what kind of compression, since lossy and lossless are not the same for many purposes. With lossy you do not have the same data. It may or may not sound the same to you.

(4) "Ripping is a slang term for extracting data from an audio encoded CD. The only thing it has to do with compression is that many people want to compress everything they extract and thus set up the programs to do the two steps in sequence, without bothering them about it in between steps.

(7) Since the data is always the same with lossless compression, changing form one format to another still means no change in the data, so no change in the resultant audio when the file is played.

[boombaard]

Goal: To make exact copies of music cd's for a digital music library.

I am writing this becasue I have gotten mixed answers to my questions, which led to more questions. Most answers seem to be based on preference. Until about a week ago I thought that since 320kbps was the highest rate the I could rip music (iTunes), that it was the highest quality and thus "perfect." I use iTunes for the library to reference artists and albums and so on. I use the personal library to organize my music files.

1. If "lossless" means that there is no data loss, then why would it matter which compressor that i use? (referring to quality)

some compress/decompress faster than others, and the compression attained varies on the codec and settings used

2. Is uncompressed better than lossless?

no.. just takes less cpu usage at a hugely increased amount of disk space used

3. What are the important factors in choosing a compressor? e.g. multi channel, high resolution, robustness, sample rate, frequency... (many articles that I have read are referring to music recording, I only wish to rip.)

encoding/decoding speed, compressions attained by codec, robustness. tagging support they all have, multichannel is only needed when doing something to dvd-As, though it's nice when included
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...omparison_Table < details here, though some parts are somewhat outdated

4. Is there a difference between a compressor and a ripper/grabber?

not really.. technically there is, as the compressor would only be the encoding part of the codec, and the ripper/grabber would prolly also include the grab-from-audiocd interface. compressor is a word i don't see used very often though. EAC/Foobar2000 .9/dBPoweramp are all used by folks here i suppose, listed in (what i believe is) the order of most accurate reading algorithms (including error correction and whatnot. for eac tutorials use the search+google)

5. What is the best ripper/grabber?
see above.

6. Is there a one stop place to reference information on everything about audio quality, storage and playback? (I have read the lossless comparison page provided by H/A)

not that i'm aware. wavpack is currently the hip/hype choice for storage, flac similar, though at different compression rates (generally lower max attainable, both are asymmetrical codecs, so much faster decoding than encoding), monkey's audio is probably the best choice if you want v.good compression while still using the collection as your main database you play from (about 5% cpu use on a 2GHz pc using extra high compression, no waits between filechanges, though this can be a problem on legacy pcs) (WRT why MAC might not be your choice: There are some issues with security the dev refuses to solve and it's less robust than flac or wavpack, but unless you actually download music from sites that offer shady files, i wouldn't worry about that too much). OptimFROG might be of use when you only wish to backup your music, but at encoding speeds of <1x for better compression than M(onkey's)A(udio)C(odec), it's really not worth your time otherwise.

7. What does this mean: "If you later find out the codec you chose isn't the best for your needs, you can just transcompress to another format, without risk of losing quality."?

"transcompress"->transcode. lossless to lossless encoding. no quality loss. you can switch from any lossless encoder to any other without losing 'information', which isn't the case with lossy encoders. lossy to lossy means more information lost, which might result in audible artifacts. when you only use lossless encoders, this is no problem

I do apologize if I am asking this in the wrong place and/or way. When it comes to things that I am interested, I like to learn everything there is to know. The internet is a good place to learn but it's sometimes difficult to know where to start. Help, all or in part, is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
james

This post has been edited by boombaard: Aug 11 2006, 22:41

[ilikedirtthe2nd]

[font=Georgia][size=3]
1. If "lossless" means that there is no data loss, then why would it matter which compressor that i use? (referring to quality)

2. Is uncompressed better than lossless?

3. What are the important factors in choosing a compressor? e.g. multi channel, high resolution, robustness, sample rate, frequency... (many articles that I have read are referring to music recording, I only wish to rip.)

4. Is there a difference between a compressor and a ripper/grabber?

5. What is the best ripper/grabber?

6. Is there a one stop place to reference information on everything about audio quality, storage and playback? (I have read the lossless comparison page provided by H/A)

7. What does this mean: "If you later find out the codec you chose isn't the best for your needs, you can just transcompress to another format, without risk of losing quality."?



I do apologize if I am asking this in the wrong place and/or way. When it comes to things that I am interested, I like to learn everything there is to know. The internet is a good place to learn but it's sometimes difficult to know where to start. Help, all or in part, is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
james

1. lossless is lossless - there is no sound quality difference between codecs
2. no. lossless often has some advantages though like tagging support and error checking
3. I think most important factors are compression efficiency and compability
4. yes, the ripper extracts the raw audio data from the cd - it doesn't nessecarily come with a compressor
5. EAC is considered best here by most people
6. check the HA knowledgebase wiki
7. You can convert your lossless files from one format to another without loosing quality

[sneetches]

Thank You all very much. It took less time to register, post and read replies, than it did to scour the search engines. I really appreciate the input. dang ya'll are smart.

This post has been edited by Gambit: Aug 12 2006, 01:52

[Gambit]

While it is cute that you try to change the font and fail, please don't even try next time.

This post has been edited by Gambit: Aug 11 2006, 23:27

[sneetches]

While it is cute that you try to change the font and fail, please don't even try next time.

so three helpful people and one jerk

This post has been edited by Gambit: Aug 12 2006, 01:53

[Gambit]

While it is cute that you try to change the font and fail, please don't even try next time.

so three helpful people and one jerk

I was serious. Other than that, welcome to the forums.

[skelly831]

While it is cute that you try to change the font and fail, please don't even try next time.

so three helpful people and one jerk

Be careful around the moderators please.

EDIT: Gambit was faster. stupid internets.

This post has been edited by skelly831: Aug 12 2006, 01:57