iPod Rip via PC or MAC

[smilinmonki666]

Ok, wierd question. I'm one for quality and will buy all my music on CD & movies on DVD/HD-DVD/BluRay.

I've started ripping my music onto my PC, currently Windows XP & ripping via iTunes. Currently ripping them in Apple Lossless Format. Now, my question is;

is it better to rip my CD's on my PC or hold out till I get my iMac? The reason I ask, is that I would like to rip my music to the .wav extension but it doesn't support artwork, only the one it downloads, but I'm scanning in my covers in as I go. So I use Apple Lossless. I've been reading that iTunes does not implement a plugin on the Mac version of iTunes so if a CD is damaged it will rip the CD damaged, so when playing that CD on my iPod, it will jump, & it has done.

Is there a difference between ripping between my PC and an iMac? Also, is there much difference in quality, I mean with the algerithm? I've been told by someone that the Mac will ripp more accuatly with the algerithm than a PC with windows would?

Is this true?

Thank you for your help in advanced...

 

[Rapmastac1]

Well, that plugin is actually a good thing because I would rather get that song damaged than not get it at all. If you do it on Mac or Windows it should pick up the track as is and import it. If it was damaged then you can just delete it, because in any other program, it won't even import that song because it's damaged.

It really doesn't matter what you use, you don't even have to re-import them into itunes if you do your work right. If you set up your itunes library on an external hd, then your songs will be ripped to that external hard drive. Then when you get your Mac, you can set up for it to use that same exact library!

So as far as quality is concerned, it's all the same (lossless is lossless no matter where you get it from).

My only question is, if you are importing a lot of music in this format, then I would suggest you invest in a server grade external Hard drive because lossless files are huge no?

 

[Bobbi Flekman]

Personal ideas...

The final format isn't of much importance here. The ripping is. If the CD is scratched it doesn't matter whether you listen to the song in a .wav or .mp3 or .aac or whatever. The rip goes faulty as the scratch will mess up the read.

In other words, if you're for quality, what you want is a good rip. There are several programs out there that will do a good job of it, unfortunately most of them are Windows based. The only one I know that is commonly regarded as the best ripper for OS X is Max. For Leopard compatibility you would need the unstable version as it is not officially supported yet. Max did fight with me though by forcing me to delete the .pslist every time I started it, but for the rest it did a good job.

What I do is run Windows in a virtual machine and use CDEx to rip them. If the CD still fouls up (happened just once so far), I use PlexTools with my external Plextor DVD-burner. Never a problem.

For more information on Audio matters you might like to try the HydrogenAudio Forums.

Good luck.

My only question is, if you are importing a lot of music in this format, then I would suggest you invest in a server grade external Hard drive because lossless files are huge no?

Lossless does not mean uncompressed. But an average CD ripped in .wav will be some 400 to 500 MB of space.

 

[smilinmonki666]

I would love to ripp all my music to .wav but as for the artwork issue, I'm unable to use this format, I know that lossless is still compressed & I prefer lossless to .mp3 any day. My CD's are very looked after, so in terms of scratches, theres only 2 or 3 CD's that are damaged due to house parties & people using the originals instead of playing the home made mix CD's.

My other question is, are there any programs that allow you to record vinyl to lossless. My first choice was to use .wav, put them on CD & then rip them to iTunes, like I do when I extract the audio from Live DVD source's but that just seems far to long winded for a vinyl.

It would be nice if there was a .wav plugin for artwork so I could add my scanned artwork for all rips. Also, theres friends demo disc's I have which will not be on the iTunes artwork library, or any other for that matter.

Why doesn't iTunes allow you to use every sound format the same, whats with the different rules. Surely its not hard to write it into the code, or is it because they just want you use there formats???

 

[gnasher729]

My other question is, are there any programs that allow you to record vinyl to lossless. My first choice was to use .wav, put them on CD & then rip them to iTunes, like I do when I extract the audio from Live DVD source's but that just seems far to long winded for a vinyl.

Why doesn't iTunes allow you to use every sound format the same, whats with the different rules. Surely its not hard to write it into the code, or is it because they just want you use there formats???

1. I used Amadeus on the Macintosh to rip LPs. It can rip to anything that is supported by Quicktime, for example Apple Lossless, AAC and MP3. I always ripped to Apple Lossless and backed that up; that way I can use any advances in noise removal that might happen in the future.

2. iTunes can only put things into files if the file format itself expects them to be there. So if for example the designers of the WAV file format didn't think that someone might want to put artwork in the file, then nobody can put it there (no idea if that is the case or not). That is usually a problem with old file formats; most newer formats have a way to add things even if the original designer didn't think of it.

 

[smilinmonki666]

would it be possible for someone to rewrite the .wav extention? That way, they could write in the tag data. Or am i just asking a stupid & pointless question?

 

[theLimit]

The .wav file format only supports audio, so if it was rewritten to also hold artwork or text, every app that supports the .wav format would have to be rewritten. This would include nearly every OS and sound application written since around 1990. That's why new file formats are invented. I would suggest you go with a lossless codec such as FLAC or Apple Lossless. That will give you smaller file sizes, tagging capability, and a bit-for-bit identical copy of the waveform when played-back / decompressed.

 

[moongravy]

AIFF is also uncompressed PCM & does support artwork.

 

[smilinmonki666]

Ok, So i've had a play with the .AIFF format & you can add artwork, so thank you for your help moongravy. I'm just now questioning the idea of re-ripping my audio to .aiff. Research tells me there is a mixed feeling about alac & .aiff. People say that there is no difference others say there is.

My main devices that are & will be used as follows:
iMac
xBox 360
iTouch
TV

now apart from the 360, they all support .aiff as it is an apple product. My main concern is being able to play my music on the go or house parties/ dinner parties. So, the TV & iTouch are the main items I will use & will work fine. However, I would like to stream music to my 360 when playing a game, so my next question is has anyone used the following on there mac:

http://www.nullriver.com/index/products/connect360