I am in need of some detailed advice from y'all - who know a lot more about this than I. I want to digitize the 500 LP collection that I have lugged from place to place for the last 25 years. Here are the assumptions regarding hardware and software I am proceeding under (feel free to ridicule my ignorance) :

1. I am aware that the quality of old previously played LP's will not be perfect so debating the best lossless codec is perhaps irrelevant in my case

2. I have a windows PC, audio technica turntable with a built in pre amp that is connected to my PC, and I have a 500 GB external hard drive to store the files on

3. I want to use free software as much as possible....can I use Audacity to convert the analog to digital? Would they be recorded to .wav? What settings - VBR, etc should I select to record?

4. I would like to store the files in a compressed lossless format - I tentatively picked FLAC. Is there a way to record directly to a compressed lossless format without going to .wav first? The latest version of FLAC may do this, but various forums indicate there are still bugs to be worked out. Can I record directly to Apple Lossless? If so, how?

5. If they are recorded as .wav, how do I convert to FLAC? Should I use media monkey? BTW, at what stage in this process do I tag files? (after recorded to .wav, or thereafter?)

6. I want to be able to put most of the files on a portable device with huge capacity. I don't know of any large capacity portable that plays FLAC natively. I know a lot of people on these sites resent Apple (? for their proprietary business practices), but 320 GB holds a lot of music.

7. How do I convert FLAC files to an Apple supported format (MP4 or Apple Lossless)? Does dbamp do this? Are there other suggestions for a PC user (I saw a post on how it can be done on Mac OS - see earprick.wordpress.com how to play flac on itunes on mac).

8. Is this whole idea of mine stupid? Should I just get rid of the LP's and get over it? I thought it would be cool to record 1 or 2 each evening - it would give me a chance to listen to nostalgic music and feel like I kept these vinyl LP's for a good reason.

Told you I need some help. Thanks for your advice.

I'll give these a shot having done about 40 LPs or so:
1) No sound quality difference in lossless codecs - choose based on other criteria (hardware support, compression, etc.)
2) That should do it.
3) Yup, Audacity would do it. I know it will record to WAV which wouldn't have any settings, but I'll leave it to others as to other software that would do this too/better if possible. I think there is one that automatically detects tracks for example.
4) FLAC is a good choice, other lossless formats are good too. There are ways to record directly to a lossless format without going to .wav first - not sure if Audacity can be made to do that, not sure about recording directly to Apple lossless.
5) Lots of ways to convert .wav to FLAC - can use FLAC command line, Foobar2000, many other choices. I use Foobar2000 to do it. I don't think .wav has metadata tags (I could be wrong here), so you'll have to tag after converting.
6) Search the FLAC section of this forum for HW support.
7) Apple supports MP3 too, and the LAME encoder makes some decent MP3 files; you don't have to use MP4 or ALAC. You could use a number of apps to convert, even use Foobar2000/dbamp with Nero to create MP4s if you want.
8) Not stupid at all. How much you want to do will depend on how much time you have. At 1~2 each evening you'll be done in no time (= 2 years or so:)

I recommend you make judicious use of the search on this forum to bone up on FLAC and I know there are several good LP recording threads.

Good luck and enjoy getting your old music in a more convenient format.

>edit: MP4 instead of MP3 reference<

The soundcard does the analogue to digital conversion. Recording programs only capture what is handed to them, so it can be saved on disk.

Everything comes in as PCM data. Direct recording on a PC is to WAV. Anything else takes more PC resources; it inputs as WAV and encodes to something else in the background. Many people have to optimize everything to avoid problems, without any extra processing going on at the same time as recording. The most certain approach to quality is to record, then later encode to something else if you want something else. If you want to do any editing or clean-up of vinyl defects, you must keep it in WAV until all that is finished.

Setting with WAV are only two, sample rate and bit depth. 44.1kHz sample rate is good, you can’t get better -- unless you have one of the many gaming/multimedia soundcards that records only at 48kHz, then resamples to whatever rate you’ve specified in the recording program. Record at 48kHz, to avoid the poor quality hardware resampling in those cards for the best results. Resample with good software after recording if you need 44.1kHz (such as for audio CDs).

16 bit will make the data capture as good as possible. 24 bit can be advantageous if one is going to do much post recording processing, but you will be very hard pressed to detect any difference when vinyl is the source.