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cdparanoia and LG (HL-ST-DT) drives don't mix! by PipianJ · 2012-12-02 11:24 · Score: 2 · on Slashdot Asks: SATA DVD Drives That Don't Suck for CD Ripping?

I've done a lot of work on streamlining my own ripping process (I've got well over 900 CDs to be ripped and tagged) and in the process, I got involved in helping out with developing rubyripper, a wrapper for cdparanoia. In the process, I've learned a lot about doing accurate rips and figuring out the various intricacies of the CD format. One of the things I observed was the relatively slow speed of ripping on my LG Blu-ray drive: it behaved exactly like you described: It would take 15 minutes to rip something (effectively ripping at 2x, 4x at BEST).

Now these drives do have something called "RipLock" to limit the ripping speed of DVDs and Blu-Rays, but this feature ostensibly doesn't affect CD ripping. What I eventually learned, however, is that the LG/Hitachi (HL-ST-DT) drives which make up the majority of DVD drives out on the market today actually do not have a firmware which plays well with the way that cdparanoia does its ripping and error checking. It turns out that HL-ST-DT drives actually read at a slower speed until they have read enough sequential sectors (about 30 seconds of audio), at which point they will actually speed up to full speed and stay at that speed.

Thus, my solution to the slow-ripping problem was to actually use cdda2wav in non-paranoia mode (so as to read sequential sectors) to read the first 30 seconds of the CD audio so as to warm up the drive speed. Once this is done, I can then run cdparanoia as before, and actually can rip at a reasonable rate.

Of course this isn't to say that the HL-ST-DT drives are very good. They've got a pretty big sample offset (+667) and actually have a pretty bad successful rip rate (closer to 90% instead of 97 or 98%). The best investment I've made so far is to buy a Plextor PX-716UF, which I use to rerip CDs that don't rip right on the HL-ST-DT drive. By doing this, I've probably managed to eliminate 4 out of every 5 "bad" rips; the only remaining "bad" rips are from obviously physically damaged discs (cracks, pitting, etc.), which I consider a pretty good hit rate. Of course the only downside of these drives is that they don't play well with the DVD-side of dual-discs.

Yep, you heard me right: old Plextor drives STILL can't be beat in rip quality with practically any drive out today. (But make sure you get an old one, not one of the newer ones that's just a rebranded Hitachi that claims to be a Plextor. Basically, any Plextor with a rip offset of +30 is good, but you might also want to refer to the Plextors on this list)

Accuraterip accuracy list by Aggrajag · 2012-12-02 08:41 · Score: 4, Informative · on Slashdot Asks: SATA DVD Drives That Don't Suck for CD Ripping?

You might find the following list very useful. It was made by the author of Accuraterip:

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?25782-CD-DVD-Drive-Accuracy-List-2012

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible? by Lumpy · 2008-10-23 04:44 · Score: 4, Informative · on Open-Source DRM Ready To Take On Big Guns

Line patch cords work... but it takes only a couple of minutes on google to find the answer...

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t=11045

dbpoweramp is an awesome program. by using that setup I can convert an entire book in a few minutes instead of taking the hours the book is long.

Honestly, did you even try to search? I typed in audible to mp3 and it was link #5

Re:AAC vs. FLAC/SHN convenience by QRDeNameland · 2006-01-13 11:43 · Score: 1 · on iPod Owners Not Thieves

dBpowerAMP Music Converter is a free Windows download which will convert between virtually all audio codecs and has a "Preserve ID Tags" option. However, SHN does not support tags so it can't transfer them, and many times I find even FLACs on eTree lack tags. Unfortunately, you have to buy the plugin for dBpowerAMP to edit tags directly, but there are a number of free tag editors out there, MP3Tag being my personal fave.

Re:Stupid Unless... by Lumpy · 2005-12-14 03:32 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft and MTV to Launch Music Service

Actually there are programs that will convert it to mp3 easily and cleanly.

I use one to convert my audible files to mp3

it's called DB PowerAMP music converter

works great with the right plugins.

dBpowerAmp by Bun · 2005-11-09 12:48 · Score: 1 · on Dealing with Digital Music and Vendor Lock-In?

I use dBpowerAmp and keep my music in the mp3 and FLAC formats. If I get music as a WMA or maybe buy it from iTunes (only did it once because a 128kbit mp4 isn't my idea of quality audio), I convert it immediately to one of those ubiquitous formats. There are codecs available for every major audio format out there, and the dBpowerAmp preserves all the id tag information. The beauty of the app is that as long as you have the codecs, you can always convert your music to whatever format you need.

You Convert by AgentX24 · 2005-11-09 08:46 · Score: 1 · on Dealing with Digital Music and Vendor Lock-In?

There are various DRM removal tools for the various formats out there, and once you've done that you can convert to MP3, or even OGG with http://www.dbpoweramp.com/.

rip lossless by mckwant · 2005-09-16 02:45 · Score: 1 · on Space Saving Technologies for the Home?

For the love of God, rip to a lossless codec. I just re-re-refinished ripping my 1200 CDs to flac, and I've never been happier. I don't have the network space you do, but they sit happily on 60 or so DVDs, and, thanks to a quick donation to dbPowerAMP, getting them into whatever mp3 format I want is just a matter of processor time.

I'm not married to flac, but just the convertability of the lossless codec is easily worth the hassle. Pick one, stick to it.

Re:Mass Converter for Windows? by anhdres · 2005-08-10 14:37 · Score: 1 · on Ogg Vorbis Share Reaches 12.3% on P2P Traffic

converting your already lossy audio files to another lossy codec (like OGG) is no good. You'll only get more artifacts and such. Plus, I don't think you'll find many places where you can play ogg and you can't play mp3... BUT, if you want to play with it, I may suggest you try the dbpoweramp converter at http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm , the swiss army knife of audio transcoding. You just install the codec plugins you want and that's it.

if you're using windows... by RMH101 · 2005-04-14 22:07 · Score: 1 · on Which Lossless Audio Codec, and Why?

then http://www.dbpoweramp.com/ is what you want. rip to lossless FLAC with this or any other tool, and store on a big, cheap-ass IDE disk.
then use dbpoweramp to batch-convert (maintaining folder structure etc) to format of your choice for playback on whatever device you're using.
the advantage of this is that you rip once, and then batchconvert periodically overnight - so when you're using a small capacity MP3 player you can use 128 MP3s, and when you get an ipod you can rip to higher bit rates. all you need is a spare bit of IDE storage for your temporary lossy data.

Re:My steps towards a quieter system by Anonymous Coward · 2005-02-20 09:14 · Score: 0 · on 5 Simple Steps to a Quieter PC

This guy created a 'silent' performance PC: http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t=6869

It has a Thermaltake fanless PSU (big heat sink out the back), a sythe ncu-2000 CPU heat sink - even bigger 0.5KG heatsink, a Zalman vga heatsink and 2 low speed chasis fans (the fans on the system), the rest is passively cooled. It isn't a slow PC either, 3GHz AMD 64.

Ripping to .ogg by ToeNipples · 2004-12-10 08:17 · Score: 1 · on Hacking the iPod Firmware

Hey there, what software do you use to RIP to .ogg ?

Nothing beats dBpoweramp (now in version 11) with lame 3.96. Just download it http://www.dbpoweramp.com/ and install the free codecs for AAC, OGG, WMA, FLAC, etc.

Re:Lossless? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-12 03:42 · Score: 0 · on Johansen Cracks AirPort Express Encryption

Apple Lossless Encoder (ALE) files are placed in an mp4 container. See This forum

Re:I have an easier method: by real_smiff · 2004-05-18 13:08 · Score: 3, Insightful · on How To Play Your iTunes Music On Other Systems

This method (the one discussed in the article) is superior* because it doesn't involve transcoding.

*from an audiophile (i.e. not legal) perspective

Re:Here is why I buy CD's by Anonymous Coward · 2004-04-21 17:28 · Score: 0 · on Shifting From P2P To Stream Ripping

Rip to FLAC then transcode to whatever format you want via dBpowerAMP

Hard drive space is alot cheaper than wasting my time to re-rip a bunch of CDs

Re:Opensource Ate Freeware by HoneyBunchesOfGoats · 2004-03-19 13:08 · Score: 1 · on Freeware for Windows -- Where Did It Go?

I use dBpowerAMP to convert between audio formats in Windows. It's got plugins for nearly every format you could want, it integrates very nicely with the Windows Explorer (right-click, pick 'Convert'), and it's completely free :).

Re:Opensource Ate Freeware by yomegaman · 2004-03-19 10:11 · Score: 1 · on Freeware for Windows -- Where Did It Go?

You want the dbPowerAmp Music Convertor found here.

Re:Ipod killer by mekkab · 2004-01-07 10:38 · Score: 1 · on iRiver Announces 40G Player & Previews 2004 Line

yeah, finding a free audio converter is some HARD stuff! And the AAC audio codecs! Impossible! Especially with google!

Re:Ipod killer by mekkab · 2004-01-07 10:38 · Score: 1 · on iRiver Announces 40G Player & Previews 2004 Line

yeah, finding a free audio converter is some HARD stuff! And the AAC audio codecs! Impossible! Especially with google!

Re:Aiming at the low end by zeno_2 · 2003-12-30 16:54 · Score: 1 · on iPod Jr. Rumors Become More Substantial

How to convert AAC to MP3:

Mac

Windows

I couldn't find anything for linux but im sure they are out there..

Re: It also does not support Ogg by ratpack91 · 2003-12-16 08:45 · Score: 1 · on Winamp 2 + Winamp 3 = Winamp 5!

no it doesn't and I can't find a plugin either. Try the dbpoweramp converter, its a lot better for converting/ripping anyway.

When oh when will they make an Ogg player? by StringBlade · 2003-10-28 02:59 · Score: 1 · on Dell DJ: Yet Another MP3 Player

So far every piece of consumer audio hardware using a compressed medium is MP3 (at least that get any publicity). Why do we keep sticking with MP3 when each encoder/decoder requires patent royalties to be paid and the total file size of the encoded song is larger than it has to be?

There are some very cool Ogg Vorbis software players available for Windows and some less-cool ones for Linux and Mac.

I think Vorbis has shown that it is an efficient, royalty-free codec worthy of more mainstream attention (read: hardware players) and there are plenty of converters to change over your existing collection of MP3s to a smaller (file size) collection of Vorbis without a noticable loss of quality.

Blows my mind.

I prefer dbpoweramp by strech · 2003-10-19 06:10 · Score: 1 · on iTunes for Windows Reviews

I tried out ITunes, but overall I still prefer dbpoweramp as a music player.

It's playlist functionality is kinda weak, but the Music Collection works out quite well, more than covering the flaws. (Apart from the not-very-random 'selective play'). Much less footprint too (5 megs RAM player, 8 megs for jukebox, 0% CPU usage for both on WinXP here; Athlon 1800+).

It's also got better codec support (quite a lot there) - notably ogg and several non-lossy codecs (though I haven't tried the non-lossy). I'd suggest getting the beta version(s) - (seperate player and ripper/converter), they've worked just as well for me and have some minor additional features.

Summary of all posts so far, with site links. by mdfrq · 2003-10-09 17:36 · Score: 1 · on Top 10 Software Titles Every Home PC Needs?

I've tried a good deal of the stuff listed. The following are the most intuitive, free, software products I have encountered. They increase productivity, and are stable.

Freeware List: If you can think of it, it's in here.
OpenCD: Precompiled CD with all open source software.
Doom9.org: Famed site for lots of media tools.
Trillian: AIM, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo! IM software all in one.
AVG Anti-Virus: Free AV
SpyBot (Spam Remover): Free Spam Remover/Search & Destroy
Firebird: Web browser w/ adblock & popup control.
FileZilla FTP: FTP Client
Smart FTP: Free Client, better looking, faster
Kerio: Personal Firewall, better than ZoneAlarm
Textpad: Text Editor.
PuTTY: SSH Client.
CygWin: Linux emulation.
FFDshow: DivX/XVid decoder.
TweakUI: Microsoft's famed Powertoy for Windows XP.
WinAce: Fast, high-compression (40% smaller, faster compression than ZIP).
WinAmp: MP3 player, with this skin.
dBpowerAMP: Music Converter (copies CDs to MP3)

One last thing, don't use Outlook. Find a better program: Eudora, Thunderbird, or PegasusMail (in that order) are safer/more powerful. Windows comes bundled with great software, just like Mandrake - but their internet package leaves much (security) to be desired.

Lovely. Not that I'll use it... by puntloos · 2003-10-09 06:59 · Score: 0, Troll · on Apple to Launch iTunes for Windows

Crippled songs and DRM aren't my cup of tea. Obviously that isn't the only thing that iTunes does. Its main purpose as far as I could discern is to 'conveniently manage music'. As well as providing an iPod management interface.

However I hate management software. Especially USERFRIENDLY management software that 'knows what I want'. What I want is to copy music to my iPod, and listen to it. I for example didn't want my friend's itunes (mac) to sync his music database (4 songs) with my ipod (1800+ songs) i.e. delete all my songs.

If you just want to send music to your iPod, use:

ephpod (latest version 2.73), freeware, supports AAC/MP4
Sveta Portable Audio, shareware, encodes AAC/MP4 as well, $19

Plus, both now have features that do not render the music files on your ipod inaccessible(hidden dir and renamed) in normal firewire harddisk mode.

For Windows: Free and minimalistic by Bilange · 2003-10-08 16:01 · Score: 1 · on Top 10 Software Titles Every Home PC Needs?

Media Player Classic - Windows ol' mplayer2.exe on steorids. Reads DVD, too. Tons of options, thats a must.

Foobar2000 - Created by an ex Winamp developper, its main goal is to be minimalistic. Tired of all those players sucking your ressources just for loading/displaying the skin? Try this.

Irfanview, image viewer, already mentionned

dbPowerAmp Music Converter - audio converter. supported: CDa/mp3/wav/ogg/wma, name em all. To convert, just right-click on the file in the file explorer.

PuTTY, of course

SmartFTP - not minimalistic, but quite complete FTP client

Also, I personally use Microsoft WTS Client to connect to my WindowsXP box. Shame on me. Should i switch to VNC? (I liked the sound feature in XP's :/)

Re:Before anybody says.. by EpsCylonB · 2003-09-22 23:20 · Score: 1 · on Listening Comparisons For Audio Codecs At 64kbps

I have a 64 MB muvo, I use a program called DMC Power Amp to downsample mp3 files on the fly while I copy them over.

If you are willing to go as low as 96 or 64 kbps then you will find that you can fit a very respectable amount of music in 64 MB. I'm not a fidelity fascist and am only listening on a cheap pair of headphones so I don't consider such low bitrates to be such a problem.