[BDA_ABAT]

Howdy all! Just received a 2nd gen 20GB iPod. Nifty device!

Got a question about the amount of time that it usually takes to rip CDs.

Am using EAC + LAME with default settings, accuracy checked as more imporant than speed. Seems to take FOREVER to rip the information. Some disks take ~ 30-45 minutes, Is this usual?

PC is PIII 1GHz, 512 MB RAM, Win XP, 48X CD drive.

Also, when a CD is dropped in to the drive, frequently I need to manaully ask for a download of freedb info to recognize the artist/song info. Is this usual? Or is there a setting that needs to be checked to automatically find the album info.

Thanks!
Bruce

 

[blessingx]

I don't use EAC since I'm on a Mac, but try enabling the "fast" tag. As in "--alt-preset fast standard" or "--alt-preset fast extreme"... instead of "--alt-preset standard" or "--alt-preset extreme". It nearly doubles the speed on my system. Lame though is a pretty slow encoder.

 

[Hirsch]

Hi Bruce,

Yes, it's usual. EAC/LAME can be very slow, LAME in particular. If I use my 800 MHz box, the extraction proceeds at a reasonable rate, but compression can take hours. If I do several disks at a time, the number of compression tasks in the queue keeps growing...

My 2.6 GHz box can compress much faster, and I don't have the time lag on that one. Extraction takes about the same amount of time.

There are faster ways to do it, but they don't sound as good.

There is a way to get EAC to automatically connect to freedb. I'll look at my setup later and see if I can figure out what I did.

 

[GSTom1]

You really have to weigh what is more important to you...speed or quality.

For me, I prefer my mp3s to be high quality and without errors, so I am willing to wait and let EAC/Lame take as long as necessary. There's nothing worse than poorly encoded mp3s that you need to redo from scratch. Just listening to them would make your ears cringe.

If you examine the whole process, you'll notice that ripping CDs to wav files is a relatively quick process while encoding the wavs to mp3 using Lame is very slow and arduous. What I like to do is rip a bunch of CDs using EAC, but instread of having the wavs encode as they are being ripped, I take all the wavs and encode them overnight using a front end version of Lame called Razor Lame. That way, I can get several CDs done at once instead of having to wait for one CD at a time.

Check out Razor Lame here:

RAZORLAME

 

[john_jcb]

Another dumb question that ties into the time to rip CD's.

Assuming you want high quality, good sounding copies on an ipod, how many CD's can you put on a 20 gig machine?

 

[bandit1200]

When using EAC and Lame as an external compressor (lame.exe)
you can set EAC to start the compression immediately as the files
are ripped.

Then you can insert CD's as fast as they can be ripped, and the
compressions will queue up. That speeds everything up.

Go to the "EAC --> EAC Options... --> Tools" tab and check
"On extraction start external compressors in background"

One thread is sufficient, as LAME uses about 100% CPU time
when running, multiple threads won't buy you much.

I've had 100+ compression tasks lined up with no problems.

That should speed things up considerably.


-Bandit.

 

[GSTom1]

Quote:

Originally posted by john_jcb Another dumb question that ties into the time to rip CD's. Assuming you want high quality, good sounding copies on an ipod, how many CD's can you put on a 20 gig machine?

CDs ripped at 192 kbits are usually around 100 MB or so. Assuming a perfect world, you could fit around 200 CDs on your 20 GB iPod.

On my Zen 60GB, so far I have uploaded about 250 CDs, all encoded at 192 kbits, which take up about 22 GBs of space.