Ripping formats and software for PC

[Pete H]

I need to start ripping all of my media to my home media server including cd's, vinyl and movies and need some advice and opinions regarding formats and software. There's probably a couple hundred CD's, 150 albums and 70 movies that will be the start of this and I've got 6 terabytes of storage at the present time.

I'm I'm doing this primarily to have everything at my fingertips as well as preservation of the media. I'm also looking at some happy medium with regards to quality and file size and more mainstream format.

I said PC for a reason because I do not own a piece of apple gear and I have no plans to do so. (not slamming apple gear but just a choice to stay with things I know)

I've tried doing detailed searches on the forum and keep getting kicked off so links to recent threads regarding this information would be great too.

Thanks!

[Rich_Guy]

I use WAV (lossless) for ripping and use the highest quality settings with Windows Media Player this has always been very good for sound quality and WAV is a widely used and excepted format, FLAC is very popular but not as widely excepted a format.

My favorite source for music listening has been my home built HTPC, I use this together with my MHDT Havana NOS tube DAC

HTPC Specs

Case - Origen AE H7

Operating System - Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Motherboard - intel H55TC (Micro ATX)
* 2.93GHz processor speed
* Expandable up to 16GB DDR3 memory
* 4MB L3 cache
* 8-channel HD audio
* Gigabit Ethernet
* 12 USB ports
* HDMI, VGA and DVI
CPU - intel core i3 530 processor
* 2.93GHz processor speed

CPU Cooler - SilverStone NT06-PRO

Power Supply - Ultra X3 ULT40073
* 600-Watt, ATX
* Modular wiring

Hard Drives - System drive - SAMSUNG 830 Series 2.5-Inch 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
* Western Digital WD5001AALS Caviar Black Hard Drives 500GB, 7200 rpm, 32MB, SATA-3G (1000GB total, two drives)
* Storage Drive for DVR TV and Movies - External Seagate Expansion 2TB USB 3.0 Black Desktop Hard Drive STBV2000100

Memory - Crucial Ballistix 8GB (2GB x 4) Model BL2KIT25664BN1337
* 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600)

Sound Card - ASUS Xonar Essence ST 24-bit 192KHz

TV Tuner Boards - Two Hauppauge 1229 WinTV-HVR-2250 cards (four tuners)
USB 3.0 - Western Digital SuperSpeed USB 3.0 PCI Express (PCIe) Card

Blu-ray Drive - Lite-On Blu-ray drive model IHOS104
* Blu Ray ROM - BD-ROM 4X, DVD-ROM 8X, CD-ROM 32X, SATA
* TotalMedia Theatre 6 Blu-ray software

DVD Drive - Sony AD-7240S-0B Optiarc
* DVDRW Drive - DVD+R 24X, DVD-R 24X, DVD+RW 8X, DVD-RW 6X, DVD-RAM 12X, SATA

Edited November 23, 2013 by Rich_Guy

[Mighty Favog]

The last PC I had built came with Roxio 8 (5 years ago) and I was pretty impressed with one of the presents it had for importing vinyl. The levels set to click and pop reduction, hiss and noise reduction seem to be spot on. It made a Cd of a 40+ year old sound effects record sound pretty impressive considering what they were using during the initial master recording. But there's still an eq to play with too.

I think the current version is Roxio 10. I haven't tried it yet but hopefully it's just as impressive.

The front end gear was a Yamaha PF800 turntable, Shure V15xMR ctg. and a lightly modified Carver C1 preamp fed to an Auzentec Mystique Gold sound card.

[tromprof]

For audio I use Exact Audio Copy (free software and very fussy about getting it right) and ripping to FLAC files. No reason to rip to WAV files, they take up more room than FLAC and you will not be able to tell the difference between the two. DVDs are a bit more tricky. The assumption is that if you are trying to rip a DVD you are stealing it, so DVDs come with anti piracy protection built in. I use 123 Copy DVD to copy any DVD or Blu-ray. It costs around $50 or so, but seems to have not trouble with copy protection issues. The only problem with copying your DVDs/Blu-rays to the hard drive is they take up a lot of room. You will fill up your hard drive in a hurry with movies.

[Rich_Guy]

You will fill up your hard drive in a hurry with movies

Yes you do, I prefer to use an external hard drive dedicated just for movie storage, currently I use a 2 TB drive and will probably be adding another in the near future.

[Mallette]

Pete, it's no longer rocket science. Many PCs "comes with" sound chip sets are quite good, and better sound cards are very inexpensive. The Asus Zonar line is outstanding at the low end. As to software, somebody has already mentioned EAC, which remains the game to beat. While it can't perform miracles, I've had it chew on a beat up CD for a day or so and eventually recover it. The also aforementioned Roxio is another good solution.

As to format, I've stuck with wav as it remains universal and file size no longer means anything. No point in switching the the file format "du jour" just to save a few cents worth of bits and bytes.

Dave

[Rich_Guy]

The Asus Zonar line is outstanding at the low end

Asus Zonar's top of the line Essence ST is the nicest built in sound card I've found and does a great job as a DAC on its own, however I connect my Essence ST to my MHDT Havana tube DAC by digital coax. The result is a very nice warm yet detailed sound quality that reminds me very much of vinyl but with all the benefits of digital.

Asus Zonar's Essence ST sound card.

Edited November 24, 2013 by Rich_Guy

[The Dude]

I spent a lot of time over here.

http://www.avsforum.com/f/26/home-theater-computers

I used Makemkv which I think allows you to reformat the dvd format. Along with media center master. It had taken me quite a bit to learn and figure out but once I did it went well. I am using xbmc for my front end but there are others that work well. I never got my music and photos synced to xbmc but I usually use my receiver as it uses dlna for music.

[Pete H]

Pete, it's no longer rocket science. Many PCs "comes with" sound chip sets are quite good, and better sound cards are very inexpensive. The Asus Zonar line is outstanding at the low end. As to software, somebody has already mentioned EAC, which remains the game to beat. While it can't perform miracles, I've had it chew on a beat up CD for a day or so and eventually recover it. The also aforementioned Roxio is another good solution.

As to format, I've stuck with wav as it remains universal and file size no longer means anything. No point in switching the the file format "du jour" just to save a few cents worth of bits and bytes.

Dave

I'm trying to find a clean download for EAC that's not loaded with a bunch of bloatware and I've downloaded the trial version of dbpoweramp so I can play with a couple and I also have a copy of Roxio so that should give me a decent overview of what's available for free or if the db software is worth the $40. Handling some of the "less than pristine" cd's I have will probably make the decision since I want to rip everything and put them away for good. The db is supposed to allow you to rip to multiple formats at the same time which sounds very attractive since I need to have small mp3 files for my GF's players and maybe the other programs offer that too.

I haven't purchased a sound card yet and have just really started looking at them so for the time being I'll have to see what the Asus can do, it's a M5A99X and I should have it hooked up to the receiver tonight. I'm hooking it up with HDMI and it's a 40' run that I will use a mono price "Redmere" cable that I just received yesterday and jacked it into the TV to take a quick look and didn't notice any signal degradation at all, in fact the Blu Ray that I popped in looked fantastic so I would expect I will get similar results when it's direct to the Onkyo.

I understand what you're saying regarding storage space but if I can't hear any difference between the WAV and the FLAC file then I will opt for the FLAC because I'm set up with multiple backups, one internal and one external so it all starts adding up in size and dollars so after I rip the same piece in both formats and burn them to disc for an a/b listen, my decision will be made.

The music comes first and then I'll have to get into the DVD's and Blue Rays and I can see all 6 internal bays in the tower filling up rapidly. I really appreciate the info and opinions from all of you so keep it coming.

[Mallette]

I use Mirrorfolder to provide real time sync between my server and the local drives. I've found it better, at least for me, to keep all backed up on an NAS, but run from a local drive that is kept sync'd with the NAS via Mirrorfolder, or whatever you prefer.

I am pretty backed up against all but destruction of the house.

If there's bloatware with EAC they must be under new management. I've had several versions and getting it straight from their homepage I've never seen an ad.

Dave

Edited November 24, 2013 by Mallette

[Rich_Guy]

The music comes first and then I'll have to get into the DVD's and Blue Rays and I can see all 6 internal bays in the tower filling up rapidly. I really appreciate the info and opinions from all of you so keep it coming

Yes I keep all my music well backed up, it's on my two internal drives of my HTPC one drive is just for backup and my music is also kept on two drives of my desk computer again one drive is just a backup. I don't worry at all about the size of music files but I do try to get the best quality.

I don't keep any movies or TV on my internal drives, I only store them on my external drive and I don't bother to back them up.

[derrickdj1]

I store my music on a My Book Live 3 TB external hard drive, a copy on my PC and in the cloud wherever that is. This way I have access to it thru the whole house. I guess I am behind the times since I still use lossy files. But, the SQ is good.