Pet Shop Boys Community

I've thrown together a media PC for my home theater. One of the reasons was because I wanted to digitize all my CDs and have them immediately accessible from my couch.

Has anyone done this? What compression techniques did you use, and how much disk space did it consume vs # of discs? And what software did you use?

I'm using Media Monkey for the software app. And I intend to encode high frequency listening items in FLAC, with lesser stuff at 320k. At least that's my intention. I can't get my head around the math right now.

-paul

Just finished ripping all my CD's and vinyls, excluding the stuff I don't like. Compression? No compression of course! I saved it as WAV on my PC and external harddiscs.

I dont know what it is about compression but I'm assuming thats the reason why music sounds better on the radio in alot of cases.

although I'm not good enough technically to apply it in confidence.

Ewok - How many discs and how much hard disk space?

FLAC is a lossless compression and sounds exactly the same as WAV. You can save loads of space by going to FLAC.

-paul

Im slowly getting there.

Just purchased a 500Gb External Hard Drive just for the cause.

themgnt wrote:And I intend to encode high frequency listening items in FLAC, with lesser stuff at 320k.

For mp3 files, use the V0 (formerly alt preset extreme, or APX) setting. A variable bitrate setting will save you loads of space if you'll rip a lot of cds.

themgnt wrote:Ewok - How many discs and how much hard disk space?

FLAC is a lossless compression and sounds exactly the same as WAV. You can save loads of space by going to FLAC.

-paul

Don't know much about FLAC. Of course WAV-files are big but what I saved on my PC's harddisc is 'only' about 250GB and I just wanted to make sure to get the best quality. And harddiscs are getting bigger and bigger, so space isn't really a problem. Just bought an external 400GB HD for the back-up.

I have a probable two thirds of my CD's on my computer for ease of access.

I use CDex and use variable bit rate, lowest at 160kbps, highest at 224kbps. I find that makes resulting MP3 sound more than good enough for my ears.


StevePSB

glennjridge wrote:I dont know what it is about compression but I'm assuming thats the reason why music sounds better on the radio in alot of cases.

File compression, as in mp3, makes the computer file smaller by tossing out frequencies that humans can't hear. Dynamic compression, which is what is used on the radio, makes music sound louder. Completely different things.

ah. thanks