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Author Topic: Using your computer for CD storage ? Greg Mueller Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1687 From: Port Gamble, WA Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-16-2006 09:31 AM                        This might be slightly off topic, but.... I was going to buy one of those CD players that holds 300-400 CDs, but of the 3 I've found (Sony Pioneer JVC) none of them has an interface with a computer. I've heard brief mention of a way to put all your CDs on a computer and then play them from the hard drive. This seems like a great idea as I would think there is a way you could build a data base and have them display in multiple ways etc etc . Can someone recommend some software that will do this type of thing?  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 04-16-2006 10:29 AM                     iTunes  |  IP: Logged Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 04-16-2006 10:34 AM                        iTunes It's free, it's easy to use, and it's flexible about what format and what compression level (if any at all...I use 192kbps) you want to import with. You can then use your PC just like an iPod. Play certain CD's, build playlists, play in shuffle mode...Plus, if you have high-speed internet, you can take advantage of podcasts and some streaming. I'd use it even if I didn't have an iPod. Actually, any of the major media players (Windows Media, Real Player), will do this now. But I prefer iTunes.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 04-16-2006 10:57 AM                     You don't even have to do the iTunes thing. First, a standard 16-bit 44.1kHz LPCM audio track running at 1.4Mb/s will have better audio quality than a bit-crushed iTunes AAC file running at a mere 128kb/s data rate (which is what you typically get when buying a 99 cent song from iTunes). In terms of cost per megabyte, it is cheaper to buy a portable large capacity hard disc drive and simply rip the LPCM .WAV files to it rather than buying stacks of blank CD-R discs. Maxtor, Seagate and Lacie all make excellent drives in large capacities. Their 300GB, 500GB, 600GB and 1TB models often have 16MB memory caches and 7200rpm spindle speeds. Some even boast Firewire 800 connections (in addition to USB 2.0 and Firewire 400). These drives are not only fast enough to store lots of CD-quality audio; they can also directly capture and store many hours of digital video as well. I have around 300 or so store bought compact discs in my music collection. I could rip all of them to just one high quality 300GB portable hard drive and have quite a bit of room to spare.  |  IP: Logged Brian Michael Weidemann Expert cat molester Posts: 944 From: Costa Mesa, CA United States Registered: Feb 2004 posted 04-16-2006 06:54 PM                        I agree that with the high capacity drives out there, compressed audio formats aren't worth using. I was thinking about a 60GB iPod as soon as I did the math and realized just how much music I could put on there at straight, uncompressed .wav ... It wouldn't hold my whole CD collection, but I wouldn't want it to. If I hand picked my favorite artists and albums, the ones I would WANT to listen to anywhere, anytime, it would be perfect. As for playlists on a computer, I wouldn't want my whole collection available for shuffle play. Or, at least, I wouldn't use it. But, what I AM doing is putting important, special, and other favorite CD's on my hard drive, uncompressed .wav, just as back-up, and for making copies I can keep in my car without ever wearing out the "master". My good ol', trusty Winamp 2.8 is still the best player, and I refuse to upgrade beyond it. It doesn't invasively search my whole system for anything and everything it can play and make libraries. I'm almost scared to put iTunes anywhere near my system.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 04-16-2006 07:20 PM                        iTunes works much better than just about anything else, though WinAMP is pretty good. If you like WinAMP then you might feel that iTunes is too big because it can be nearly the size of a web browser whereas WinAMP only takes up about 32x8 pixels of screen space.  |  IP: Logged Greg Mueller Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1687 From: Port Gamble, WA Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-16-2006 09:09 PM                        Bobby What soft ware do you use? Now I'm thinking a dedicated computer with one or more h-drives. Copy the CDs uncompressed to the h-drives. Drives are so cheap now.... Correct me if I'm wrong but it wouldn't take a real fast computer or a lot of memory to do this would it? Here's another question.... I have a 5 disc Sony CD player now. Could I put the output of that into the input of the computer? That way I could load up the CD player and not have to be around while the CDs were copied into the computer.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 04-16-2006 09:24 PM                        You cannot do that. But it should only take a couple of minutes to copy an entire CD to the hard drive. I don't know how it works on Windows, but on the Mac you just insert the CD into the drive and drag the tracks to a folder on the hard drive. The end. Track names and everything are copied. I'm sure it's nowhere near that simple on Windows.  |  IP: Logged Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 04-16-2006 09:35 PM                        iTunes for Windows works the same way. Click and drag. (You also have to be online for iTunes to import the track names.) And just to clear up any misconceptions, iTunes WILL import CD's in raw WAV format if you want it to. You don't have to import in a compressed format. iTunes allows importing in: AAC (16-320kbps), MP3 (128-192kbps), AIFF, Apple Lossless, or WAV formats.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 04-16-2006 09:53 PM                     You can try this program to copy CDs to HDD. Not too bad at all... -Monte  |  IP: Logged Greg Mueller Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1687 From: Port Gamble, WA Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-16-2006 10:07 PM                        Ok that's different than I thought. I thought you actually had to play the CD to put it in the hard drive  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 04-16-2006 11:16 PM                        The Apple Lossless (Quicktime 7 required, I believe) is a 2:1 compression with zero loss of anything, so you could put twice as much music in the same amount of space. But it will take a bit longer to import that way since it has to encode. Sam, I was talking about just popping the CD in and dragging tracks without iTunes. If you try to do that on Windows, it creates "shortcuts". I think if iTunes is installed, the CDDB only needs to be checked the first time you put in the disc, after that your computer will automatically remember the track names, etc forever and ever.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 04-17-2006 12:22 AM                     quote: Greg Mueller What soft ware do you use? It depends on the computer. Usually it's just whatever the computer had bundled into it, be it Adaptive EZ-CD creator or some Sonic stuff. I just use whatever I can to rip the CD files to the hard disc drive. I have a copy of Sound Forge and that's really good for making finely tuned CDs where you have to actually get in and edit the audio on a single track or a series of tracks. I have quite a few discs where one song transitions into the next. If you want just one tune you have to pick an edit point and fade it. I don't trust the actual track mark and get better results zooming into the waveform and making the edit at the right spot. I don't have iTunes installed because I haven't caved and bought an iPod or portable MP3 player like so many other folks. Basically I don't give enough of a shit about most current music these days to bother with it. I also don't want applications constantly scanning my hard disc searching for music to update or auto-deleting something off the hard disc or MP3 player if it doesn't match up with another device. That crap is like some asshole grabbing the handlebars when you're trying to ride a bike. So I don't have drag and drop. Whoopie freaking doo. At least I have absolute control on where my music files reside, where I can burn them, store them and all that good shit without the application deciding it knows best and not me.  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 04-17-2006 01:56 AM                  Bottom line important: Transfer it in the digital *.wav domain...not the analog conversion or MP3 crap. I personally like to only record the tunes/cuts I like from any CDs, LPs, and 45s...the rest I don't transfer...they can rot in hell!  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 04-17-2006 02:28 AM                        Are there any vinyl players out there with a digital coax or optical output or perhaps a firewire connection so that I may transfer them to my computer in perfect digital clarity instead of getting clicks and pops?  |  IP: Logged

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