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archive cd collection

post #1 of 24
4/28/09 at 5:41pm
Thread Starter 
I am sure this has been discussed in the past ad nauseum but am looking for current opinions. What is the best most versatile and convenient format to archive my cd collection. I use ibm laptop with vista so obviously have WMC. I have a zune which recognizes only wma files. Purposes for archive include:

1) back-up.
2) convenience
3) ultimate playback off computer.
4) transfer to zune and possibly other devices.

I prefer to only archive my 600 cd collection once and therefore want the highest quality and versatile format.

?wma lossless vs FLAC vs wav?

appreciate all your opinions.

Thanks! Eric.
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post #2 of 24
4/28/09 at 5:52pm
I would choose FLAC since it has tons of support and is taggable. You can then batch-convert all your music at once to another format such as lame vbr mp3 which could be used on any mp3 player.
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post #3 of 24
4/28/09 at 6:21pm
I'm converting my 500 CDs to flac as we speak. As Punnisher said - excellent support on all platforms, free format, easily convertable to lossy format of your choice. Half size compared to WAV too.
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post #4 of 24
4/28/09 at 6:37pm
Thread Starter 
What's the best program to convert to FLAC? And then the best program from FLAC to wma lossless? (to get to the zune?) Would there be a downside to converting directly to wma lossless via WMP (to save a step now) and then down the line converting from wma to FLAC if I ever needed to? Thanks again!
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post #5 of 24
4/28/09 at 6:43pm
Well if you want to use WMA lossless on your portable, then it might be easiest to go straight to that.

It all depends on what your player supports and what you like to use.
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post #6 of 24
4/28/09 at 6:51pm
EAC
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post #7 of 24
4/28/09 at 7:08pm
There's not really a point in choosing WAV, since the others will be smaller and support more tagging options. I, personally, do not archive any data in a format that is not free and open. I do not want my access to the data to be dependent on proprietary software that may someday become unavailable. That means FLAC is the winner for archiving.

For the Zune, I would just keep a mirror copy of the collection in mp3 format. I don't think you'll be able to fit the whole collection onto a Zune in a lossless format. The whole collection probably will fit as mp3s.

On Windows, people will suggest EAC. Search the forums for a lot of info setting it up. I use RubyRipper on Linux.
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post #8 of 24
4/28/09 at 10:18pm
I really like EAC. Here are a couple of links that might be useful:

EAC Guides

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/ea...torial-402765/

The post by olblueyez was really of help in properly configuring EAC.
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post #9 of 24
4/29/09 at 1:15am
Thread Starter 
Thanks everyone. This has helped a lot. One other question. When using a copying program such as nero, when choosing the back-up cd or copy cd function, does it copy directly without converting so that the copy is indeed as good (the same as) the original? I do appreciate everyone's responses.
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post #10 of 24
4/29/09 at 1:07pm
EAC -> FLAC imo.
It has great software support (both encoding and decoding), embedded checksums for verifying the content if needed, widely renowned, ...
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post #11 of 24
4/29/09 at 1:13pm
eac and whatever lossless file format your hardware upgrade path supports, imho. alac for apple systems, wma lossless for windows systems and flac for portable hardware you may own that supports it, as it is well supported by all platforms being open source.
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post #12 of 24
4/29/09 at 7:41pm
How do you convert FLAC to mp3 and retain the tags?

JB
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post #13 of 24
4/30/09 at 4:33am
I use a mac and MAX is able to do so. for more info check here:

Max from sbooth.org
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post #14 of 24
4/30/09 at 1:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jolly Bodger View Post
How do you convert FLAC to mp3 and retain the tags?

JB
Depends which OS you use.
Like 'smallcaps' I use Max, and am very pleased with it. It use LAME for MP3 encoding...
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post #15 of 24
4/30/09 at 1:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jolly Bodger View Post
How do you convert FLAC to mp3 and retain the tags?
On a Windows system, foobar2000 is very hard to beat for batch conversions. Just install foobar2000, FLAC and LAME and get everything set up right. Hopefully you use foobar2000 already and know how this works...
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