[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CodeToad /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is it safe to say then, with 1 TB drives common now, that keeping the originals in .WAV format from EAC is the most failsafe way to go?

WAV (if they contain PCM audio data) are fail safe.
But if you care a tiny bit about storage space then store using a lossless encoder. They occupy about 60-70% of the storage space and are just as fail safe.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CodeToad /img/forum/go_quote.gif OK cool. What is the whole CUE thing? I don't understand what that does.

The CUE file are an index file of the original CD. Showing start and stop points for every track on the CD. Allowing you to reproduce an exact copy of the source CD.

 

[NiceCans]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CodeToad /img/forum/go_quote.gif OK cool. What is the whole CUE thing? I don't understand what that does.

It gives you a choice; instead of ripping the album into seperate files (one for each track) you can rip to one big file with a 'cue sheet' to tell your software where to find each track in that one file for playback. The main advantage is that playback will be the same as on the original CD regarding gaps between tracks, and you can always split them into separate files later if you wish.

 

[NiceCans]

dam, I gotta start typing faster

 

[CodeToad]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NiceCans /img/forum/go_quote.gif instead of ripping the album into seperate files (one for each track) you can rip to one big file with a 'cue sheet' to tell your software where to find each track in that one file for playback.

Oh. So if I rip everything into CUE then it limits my converting choices to those rippers that can deal with CUE files to split the songs up then?

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CodeToad /img/forum/go_quote.gif Oh. So if I rip everything into CUE then it limits my converting choices to those rippers that can deal with CUE files to split the songs up then?

Not sure if I understood you correctly...
But yes, you need an application which can handle cue files to split the songs up at a later stage. Since the cue file tell the application where to break up the large source audio file (WAV, ALAC, FLAC, ...).

 

[NiceCans]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CodeToad /img/forum/go_quote.gif Oh. So if I rip everything into CUE then it limits my converting choices to those rippers that can deal with CUE files to split the songs up then?

well, I use a free program called Cuesplitter which will split the file back into separate single-track files (while keeping the original cue + file intact), and many players can handle cue + file such as FooBar, J.River Media Center, and perhaps Media Monkey


* dam, I must be in a temporal distortion today . . . y clock is several minutes behind the rest of the world
lol

 

[CodeToad]

Yeah what I was getting at is to use EAC to CUE as the "source" for all subsequent rips but it doesn't seem to be the way to fly. Probably better to just use FLAC, which brings the next question:


If FLAC is lossless What is all the levels of compression for?

 

[evilking]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CodeToad /img/forum/go_quote.gif If FLAC is lossless What is all the levels of compression for?

ALL compression levels are Lossless, there is no difference in quality between them.

Higher compression levels will give you slightly smaller filesizes, but may take longer to encode. I say "may take longer", because with todays processors, dual and quad-core, the difference in encoding speed is neglible, so just use compression level 8.

Also, a few FLAC compatible portable players are unable to play files at the higher compression levels. I don't think any of them are still in production though...




EK