just wondering..

main features i'm looking for:
1) ability to convert to VBR mp3s such as V0 and V2 without paying for licence
2) supports FLAC

EAC and..or foobar2000

are you saying EAC and fb2k can convert?
how effective are they compared to dbpoweramp
because i have both programs but was completley unaware of this feature if that's what you mean

EAC can't convert flac to mp3, but fb2k certainly can.

I personally use batch scripts that I have created which rely on lame.exe, flac.exe, tag.exe to do the job, but I'm guessing you'd prefer a GUI.

Did I read somewhere that LameDropXPd accepts flac and can preserve tag information as well?

Maybe MediaMonkey (I don't know the current version but the v. 2.5.x ...)?

http://www.mediamonkey.com/

Juha

actually i'd much rather do it your way since i want to use Lame 3.98 and nothing really supports it yet
except i wouldnt know where to start
links to guides?
or could you help?

foobar2000 supports Lame 3.98 just fine. If you want to use a fractional -V setting like say -V 3.1415927, make a LAME preset, change the Encoder to "Custom" and set your -V value.

Voila. Simple and fast.

oh sik i didnt kno it already had support for final
aha i'm fine with v0
i'ma play with it right now

The only really significant change for LAME in terms of integration with other programs is that it allows for floating-point values for -V x. foobar2000 is not yet updated to allow for this, but the new LAME version should work everywhere the old one did.

lol look at this stupid review of foobar i found on pcworld
dumba**

"Reviewed by: theonlybuster

06-07-2007

Duration of ownership: 1 Weeks

Strengths: Easy to use and alot of customizations.

Weaknesses: Looks and acts very primitive and very simplistic because it is. Add ons have to be downloaded and installed seperately.

Overall Evaluation: Unless you want a stone-aged audio player, keep moving. Not worth the time at all."

MediaCoder. Open Source.

There's no accounting for taste.

For some people all that counts are fancy skins...

How do you get foobar to copy the tag info from the FLAC file to the MP3 file?

It should do it automagically...

AFAIK it does it by default. I've never had to set anything, and foobar tags the MP3s according to the FLACs.

C.

Canar is too quick!
And of course I meant "by default-wizardry".

I've never been able to get Foobar to copy the exact tag from FLAC to MP3. Also ignores the Album Art when converting.

@jamesbaud, I think you consider purchasing dBpoweramp. It is WELL worth it and something you will use often, if you want easy conversion and good cd rips.

Only $36USD!

Funny, I've never not been able to get foobar2000 to copy the exact tag from one file to the next, and I've been using it for years...

Same.
And it's free.

C.

Really? And that includes Album Art? I am simply right clicking on FLAC files and clicking convert. What do I need to do, to get Foobar to copy Album Art?

Thanks

Foobar will NOT copy embedded album art. Google the forum for lots of discussion on this. Edit: Dbpoweramp will convert FLAC to other formats and copy all the tags including embedded album art.

what about media encoder?

That's why I suggested purchasing dBpoweramp...

It can't be why, as you suggested it prior to anyone mentioning embedded album art.
i.e. if the OP had been me, you would have suggested I pay "Only $36USD!" for no reason, as I don't embed album art. Isn't it only coincedence that this seems to be of relevance? Or have I missed something?

C.

I got the impression the OP wanted to copy the WHOLE tag including Album Art.

Even then does it make sense to pay $36 when there are freeware alternatives available? I'm sure a simple batch job with mp3tag can copy ALL tags after converting the files with the stock binaries.

I was only suggesting it as an option. IMO It makes life easy to mass convert files and copy all the tags.

Placing album art in individual MP3s, especially when ripped as several files per disc, is quite wasteful, as the art is reproduced for each album unless some other technique is used to solve that redundancy. Just because ID3v2 can handle it does not mean it belongs there.

When you consider the size of some of the scans that people include (I've seen scans in the MBs), that can add significant bloat to a rip.

There's no one universal way to handle album art at the moment. The best way that I can see is to toss the scans as files in the folder with your music, but that's hard to automate.

I think the rest of the world would disagree with that statement, times move on and 60K for album art is nothing (500x500 as jpg). 15 tracks = 900KB when the mp3s themselves might takeup 30MB.

Just because your software supports it does not make it any less a waste of space, nor does it mean that your statement is anything more than your opinion. I'm not about to get into a flame war about this.

1024x1024 PNG comes to what, 0.5MB? And that's not even on the large end, especially considering some scans that I've seen people use with albums. 500x500 JPG is not archival grade. 300DPI scans of the 12cm x 12cm cd covers work out to roughly 1440 x 1440 pixels in size, and that's not even considering the case of vinyl scans, nor the case of more image data than just the cover.

If you're concerned with doing things properly, stuffing that data inside an ID3v2 tag for each file is silliness. Maybe if you were ripping to one-file-per-album that would be sensible, but even one-file-per-disc is redundant in many cases.

Even Apple have back tracked on this one, they used to embed album art into each file, however more recent versions of iTunes keep one copy separately rather than embedding it.

Actually, that's partially incorrect. If you add your own art manually via iTunes (like dropping an image in the "drag album artwork here" box), it's stored in each file. All iTunes Store purchases also include lightly compressed 600 x 600 Album Art... yes, in each file.

The only album art not stored in the file is the art used if you ask iTunes to "find Album Art" all by itself when none exists... and that was a relatively "new feature."

Rest assured album art is done propperly, if you wish it can be written to folder.jpg only, or both (internal external), or internal only. We even have utitlity codecs to import and export folder.jpg batch style.

Apples reasons I am sure are ones of not allowing the album art to be used outside of iTunes <> iPod.