On Sat, Jan 12, 2002 at 11:30:18AM -0800, Bob Miller wrote:
>Ripping and encoding through Globecom. One click rips, encodes, and
>enters into the database.
If you want a fast first cut, doing 800 discs shouldn't be that bad. I did
our collection of 600 discs in about 2 weeks of just feeding new discs in
when an old one popped out. At the time, I was using "grip", which I
patched so that it would eject the CD when the rip was done, and start a
new rip when a new CD was put in. The "0-click" ripping/encoding...
Once I ripped a CD, I'd put a little yellow, round, sticker on it that I
got from the local office store. Like the size of a 3-ring binder hole
punch, on the inner ring of the CD.
There were a few problems with this though. First of all, FreeCDDB data
was pretty questionable. Is it ZZ_Top, Zz_Top, or ZZ-Top? Also, I have a
lot of discs that I got incomplete rip or encodes of.
The other thing I would do, if doing it over again, is to encode at
multiple rates. I did all my stuff at 192kbps, which sounds pretty darn
good, but does make for fairly large files. I'm thinking I'd probably use
128kbps variable and something like 64kbps variable if doing it again, and
store both files.
Listening to it on the laptop through $20 headphones, on in the car (even
though the Audi has a pretty fine stereo) is far from an ideal audio
environment. When I'm in front of the $5k stereo at home though, I'd like
something pretty good... In the van? Who cares... It's going through a
tape to mini-stereo adapter, and one of the channels of the amp is dead.
I can hardly notice though because on the high it's running at least 90db
of just noise from driving...
When I'm mobile, I value having more selection rather than quality.
I did end up inserting all the CD information into a database while doing
the ripping... I don't think I *EVER* touched it again. If I did it
again, I'd probably just save the track information in a file next to the
mp3 in a text format, and use that to set the mp3info values.
Another thing I'd probably do is try to normalize the peak level in the wav
files using sox before encoding. It's particularly annoying to have soft
and loud mp3s and constantly be adjusting the volume. Or at least I'd want
to save this information so theoretically the player could make some
adjustments for me while playing.
>It turns out that you can't really use VBR with icecast (I think). I
>did not know that. So either I'll re-rip with CBR or I'll figure out
>a way to re-encode on the fly.
Well, the way I'm distributing audio to the machines with the speakers is
using http. Works great... I usually play by using "mpg123", which can
directly handle reading from an HTTP server, so it's no trouble...
Sean
--
Memory is like an orgasm. It's a lot better if you don't have to fake it.
-- Seymore Cray, on virtual memory
Sean Reifschneider, Inimitably Superfluous <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
tummy.com - Linux Consulting since 1995. Qmail, KRUD, Firewalls, Python
