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Oh the joy about getting a CD from a local band I've been watching closely for a decade and a half! Their sixth album in 15 years. And they are turning slowly to be recognized more widely (here in Finland).

Insert it into the computer to create a legal copy for car-use. Who would store the original in the car, anyway. But the machine says it is not audio CD!? Quickly, a better look at the CD covers and there is no "Compact Disc - digital audio" logo. Strange, because it looks like and has most probably been sold as an audio CD...

And there it is (loose translation): "This CD is copy protected and there might be some problems listening it in other players, except normal CD-players." So unless you have pre 2K CD-player available, you are screwed.

Never pirated any music in my life (really!), and I'm forced to educate myself in these matters. (Isn't this the reason for EMI and others to use the Cactus copy protection..). So few google searchs and a cardware Exact Audio Copy is found, downloaded, installed and ripping the not-so-compact disc. There really should be a separate section in music stores for CD look-a-likes, preferably with a half cover warning about likely incompatibility in every jewel case!

If the music industry wants to bite the feeding hand, this is perfect example of it. And according to the band homepage, a pirate version was available from both Russia and Estonia about a month before the general lauch of the album earlier in the autumn. So they managed to irritate the most loyal fan and supporter of the band, while not being able to prevent the real piracy!

Oh, what a present (but I managed to write this rant without swearing.. or running fsck!).

Sami

mention the fact that you can't do a lot of things (like ripping to MP3) unless you pay for the Pro version.

Why would I want to use ripping software that doesn't detect read errors? I use Exact Audio Copy because I don't want to rip a CD and then discover, by ear, that the rip had errors. So who the hell cares if iTunes, Audiograbber, Zlurp!, Musicmatch Jukebox, etc. all have ripping features that might or might not properly rip any given CD?

Audio cds don't have the indexing/crc-ish sector verification info that data-cds do. That's why data cds hold 650M (or 700M for an 80-minute cds), but audio cds actually hold about 10% more. (Semi-proof-of-concept: you can drag >700M of WAV files into Nero and put them on a 700M cd.)

Thus, since there is no sector verification information, accurate reads cannot be guaranteed, and CRCs become pretty useless. An acoustic fingerprint would be better.

(Sector verification information missing in audio cds is exactly why Exact Audio Copy was created, and why so many mp3s you download from kazaa have annoying pops in them.)

Thus, I actually consider audio cds to be somewhat "analog" in nature. They certainly aren't secure, as you don't even know when your data has been lost. (You can't "hear" a missing byte...) To truly "store" your music, you must make an ISO/disk-image of your disc right when you take it out of the jewel box and burn THAT on a data disc (DVD-R...). If you really want to be thorough.

What exactly is revolutionary about the information posted there? I didn't find anything that isn't pretty obvious.

• Windows users who are totally new to ripping CDs, and
• Musicmatch/Audiograbber users who feel [or have been ill-advised] that 128kbps CBR is the way to go.
  
  Not everyone's aware of LAME, the --alt-presets or cdparanoia. At least they won't end up with MP3s they later regret [once their ears become attuned to MP3 artifacts.] The OP had mentioned 192kbps CBR, which was the reason I posted the link in response.
  
  I will soon add an Ogg Vorbis section, plus more detailed sections to accomodate portable/advanced users.
  

These methods have not only proved effective on previous schemes, we have access to a pre and this is in fact only a slightly revised version...

Firstly, use a Windows box, and TURN OFF AUTOPLAY.

You have three alternatives:

A. Use Plextools "lock to first session". Insert coaster.

B. Use VMWare 4 (from your nearest p2p network, build 4460 was cracked by ROR and relled by Infra-Red). Create a new, throwaway VM, install some version of Windows on it (don't worry, it's gonna die in a minute anyway). Be sure to share the physical CD drive with the VM, non-exclusive. Insert the coaster, let autoplay kick in and load the crappy player. Stop it playing but leave the crappy player application running... Now pause the VM. You're good to go. (If it fails, try unpausing the VM and trying again.)

C. Take a big fat sharpie and draw over the poison session.

Finally; rip with Exact Audio Copy 0.9 beta 4, NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache. We recommend you encode to LAME 3.90.3 --alt-preset standard to make mp3s virtually indistinguishable from the source (except that you can play them).

These DMCA violations were brought to you by a chain of anonymous proxies, and the letters A and Q.

Just one comment. I would add EAC (Exact Audio Copy) for ripping CDs. It can even read some so-called protected CDs. It just takes a lot longer.

"The provision of subsection (1) does not provide the right to ... make single copies in digital form of other works than computer programs and databases unless this is done exclusively for the personal use of the copying person himself or his household."

This is correctable in software, so you can consistently get the exact same rip with different drives.

I can and have make identical rips with different manufacturers' drives with this method.

ExactAudioCopy is ripping software that will allow you to make exactly the same rips using differents computers with different CD-ROM drives.

If two people start with the same source, it is entirely possible they will encode with the same options and produce the exact same file.

Maybe you should try out this ripper. It works perfectly and also managed to rip all my copy-protec^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hbroken CDs...

..and I'll say it again: I've not run across a CD yet that Exact Audio Copy has not been able to copy. It copies the track to .WAV, then uses your copy of the LAME encoder to convert it to .MP3.

What makes the deal even better: It's free.

I rip my CDs to CDR and pack away the originals using it all the time.

Err, the current mass of shitty 128kbps mp3 files made by your average aol loser is bad enough. If your method allows flying under the fingerprint radar, fine. But I wouldn't want to download that crap then.

Those people who care about quality you could catch with a simple md5 check, because they release lossless ripped by EAC with offset-corrected settings et al.

Possible solutions to scratched CDs.

• Try to salvage the disc. Products like the Data Doctor (also known as the Game Doctor) lightly buff the surface of the CDs. If the scratches are light, you should be able to rip them. There are many more similar products and services listed on Google.
• Exact Audio Copy--this is well known as the best way to extract audio from CDs. It does a decent job on scratched CDs. I had some CDs that would skip on every player I had, but I was able to get the data with no problem. It's not perfect though and will not work for severe scratches.

Now, since I like to listen to my CDs at home, work, and in the car, I was also going to burn a second copy to a CD full of mp3s to leave at work for my own person use only.

Pretty sure this type of usage was covered in the suit against portable MP3 players. It is space shifting, which is Fair Use.

This means that the quality is CD-quality

Proper LAME Settings:

LAME --alt-preset extreme -Z [inputfile.wav] [outputfile.mp3]

Use a decent CD-ripping software, such as Exact Audio Copy.

Read http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/ for detailed forums dealing with AAC/MP3/OGG and other advanced audio compression methods.

There are 22 CDs on that list that I have been able to rip. Not listed are some CDs I had a bear of a time trying to rip (I couldn't rip an image using Exact Audio Copy and could only rip individual tracks. These included discs by Front Line Assembly and Queens of the Stone Age.)

Rip a CD on two different drives and the chances that some bits will be different in the resulting files are really pretty good.

Not if you use a good ripping program like Exact Audio Copy and a reasonably good (i.e. not with multiple big scratches) cd. Of course if you then encode it, the end result will still depend on the encoder (LAME, Ogg), the version, and the settings used, so your point still stands.

I had one really odd experience that I can't explain. I use Exact audio Copy to rip CDs. Usually, I rip an image of the entire disc, so I can make a backup that is as close as possible to the original. For two particular CD (Front Line Assembly and Queens of the Stone Age), EAC was completely unable to rip the entire disc. This has never happened with any other CD I've tried. Faulty disc? No, I was able to rip the CDs track by track, just not the entire image. I don't think it was DRM (because I was able to rip individual tracks), but an odd experience anyway.

Pops and clicks, to my knowledge, are the result of poor ripping generally. Could be the ripper software, a cheap or dying CD drive, or just a really scratched-up source CD.

If you have the original CDs, re-rip them with a quality ripper/encoder pair. On Windows, I'd personally recommend Exact Audio Copy (postcardware, IIRC, that does a really nice job of error correction) and LAME (check r3mix.net for dl URLs). If you're on Linux, CDParanoia (also maintained by Xiph, apparently) is a great ripper that does a lot of error checking, and LAME is also available for encoding.

(You do have the original CDs, right? :)

Winamp: Ok, i know about XMMS. I'm fairly certain anyone who has ever used Linux does. I guess i could say the reason that i prefer Winamp to XMMS (and this may not be a valid reason in some people's minds, but there it is) is the fact that i'm more used to it. Maybe this example was a bad one, cuz that is a pretty lame excuse.

Photoshop: I HATE the GIMP. I've used the GIMP, and tried to like it, but... i don't know, maybe i'm just incredibly stupid, or maybe the GIMP needs some fine lovin' that i just haven't provided, but from my use of it, it does not compare to Photoshop AT ALL. It seems more comparable to Paint Shop Pro, i guess. A nice program all around, but it just isn't as good.

Flash MX: Yeah, i've never heard of an authoring (i guess you'd call it?) program for Flash either.

Nero: Who said i liked/used/preferred Nero's disc images? I'm aware that Nero's native image format is not original, but frankly i don't care. I've never created or burned a Nero disc image, and don't plan on it any time soon. And i know Nero functions the same as every other good CD-burning program out there, but i like Nero for ease of use, and a few features that some lesser programs don't provide. PS: I've never made a coaster with Nero, heh.

Exact Audio Copy: EAC is a VERY nice CD "ripper" that provides excellent quality rips, and offers tons of features. The error correction, C2 read features, compression handling features, etc., etc., are really unmatched by any other Windows, Linux, or Mac ripping software i've ever used (granted, i've only used one or two Linux/Mac rippers).

Hmm, so there's that i guess. I'll probably be regarded as a troll or get flamed or whatever, but eh.

How many people actually buy crippled CDs, open them, then return in principled disgust.

I bought one from CDNOW without knowing it was crippled. I contacted the company and they weren't very helpful. Basically told me to return it. I informed them that I'd do everything in my power to copy it since I wasn't about to spend more $$ to return it.

And thanks to Exact Audio Copy I did just that.

I, as a consumer, have a right to back up *legally purchased* music and data products. I ripped it using EAC, and I use the backup in my PC as well as my car.

Here's a review of the iPod I posted on Slashdot a while back in a thread about the release of the XPlay software.

A good friend of mine got an iPod as a corporate gift (he works for a major market radio station) and gave it to me since he doesn't own a Mac. Now, I don't have a Mac either, but as a tech-head and a digital audio guy I figured I could probably do something with it. I actually did consider getting a new iMac, but I'd heard about XPod (now XPlay) and figured I could check it out if I got a firewire port somehow.

Some background: I have been running Windows XP for about six months now on my homebuilt Athlon PC (T-Bird 1.33). I have been very happy with the performance and stability of XP, but the Turtle Beach Montego II Home Studio sound card I have used for years is only supported under 9x. I could get basic analog audio working by disabling ACPI in the BIOS, but with lousy driver support and no digital I/O, I realized it was time to upgrade. I thought about getting a semi-pro audio card such as those from Terratec, M-Audio, and Event, but since I also use my PC for games and home theater, I ended up getting the Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum Ex. The last Creative card I had was a SB AWE32 many years ago, and though I wouldn't touch the Live! series (especially since my mobo uses a Via chipset), the Audigy is totally killer. Now, just as posts here have mentioned the possibility of people buying a Mac to complement the iPod, a big part of the reason I picked the Audigy was for the built-in Firewire port.

Okay, time to get to the goods. I downloaded and installed a beta of XPlay and hooked up my virgin iPod. To my surprise, Windows immediately recognized the iPod as an external drive and mapped it through explorer. XPlay seemed to suggest that I should control the iPod primarily through Windows Media Player, but I have generally stayed away from WMP since they introduced v7. I have never been fond of its music library management, especially since it likes to screw with your music files even if you don't want it to--no ID3v2 tags for me, thank you. And the idea that it needs to lock up 30MB of RAM just to play one song is pretty ludicrous. A quick check revealed that WMP8 did indeed see the iPod as a portable device, but I wasn't going to use it to transfer any files.

My mp3 collection is up to about 30GB now (all ripped myself using EAC with LAME), so it was a little difficult to pick out which five gigs of tunes I wanted to take with me. Going through Windows Explorer, I ctrl-clicked the folders of my favorite albums and dragged them into the \Music folder on the mapped iPod drive. Transfer was fast but not blazing, taking about 25 minutes to copy everything over the firewire. Using the Explorer interface meant that no playlists were transferred, but the Artist/Album interface on the iPod is so good that I don't really need them anyway. I suppose that I'm not really using XPlay to its fullest, but at least WMP doesn't muck up my mp3s in the process. I'd love to see plug-in support for the iPod in my player of choice, JRiver's Media Jukebox.

Reactions: While I'm not using any of XPlay's features beyond the support for HFS, I don't really need it to. I'd much rather control things myself anyway, just doing drag 'n drops instead of becoming a slave to the software interface. I also have a first gen Diamond Rio (parallel port connection!) and the original Rio Volt, and the included software has never wowed me enough to use it regularly. Actually, that's why I liked the Volt most of all, since I could just burn my own CD's and be done with it. The iPod is definitely best of all though--the small size makes it much more convenient for the car or carrying in your pocket, and the rechargeable lithium-ion battery is just awesome. I use it in the car every day (about an hour-round trip) and only have to charge it every other week. The playback interface is the best of any I have seen--very easy to control with one hand and the white backlight works great in the dark. It does seem to skip sometimes, though it seems it's actually blank parts in the mp3 file since it happens in the same part of a song every time. My guess is that there was a blip of some sort during the firewire transfer, since the mp3s play back perfect on the computer.

Overall, XPlay does what it advertises. I can use the iPod on my PC, which would not be possible otherwise. However, there are some other features I'd like to see, such as the ability to upgrade the iPod firmware and synchronization support for programs other than WMP. Combining the huge installed base of the PC/Windows platform with the style and reliabilty of Apple hardware is a winning situation for everyone. I think that MediaFour has done just what Apple had hoped, allowing them to sell more units without getting into the headache of supporting the PC platform. And personally, I am thrilled to be an Apple user again, since my first home computer was a IIGS. Who knows, I still might pick up an iMac after all...

Well I wouldn't choose this one.
Let's say a good ExactAudioCopy v0.9 extractor (reads up to 80 times the same part to avoid errors) coupled with a nice LAME 3.92 win32 DLL would do the job !
LAME is among the best MP3 compressor so far.
They are both freeware and don't need install

C o A X

While I applaud the open source community for producing such a high-quality competitor to MP3 as OGG, the real issue of getting people to switch still lies in hardware support and easy-to-use, CDDB compatible OGG CD-rip utilities.

Hardware support is the biggie. CD ripping is a non-issue - Exact Audio Copier and CDex, which are surely the two rippers most people are using, both support Ogg perfectly well (along with a swag of other non-MP3 formats).

Use Exact Audio Copy with LAME and the --r3mix command line, and never worry about quality again.

Even better is EAC, or Exact Audio Copy. Alongside LAME, OGG Vorbis, or, for you lossless zealots, Monkey's Audio, you've got the most accurate copy of the CD that you can get.

Of course, if it's N'Sync, it won't really make a difference -- it's crap no matter which CD ripper you use.

There is an application called NeoAudio, which is a straight CDex rip off. They changed some string (i.e. replace CDex with NeoAudio), changed the logo and added some nice SpyWare and Adware. I contacted Richard M. Stallman about this issue, but unfortunately I can not do much about it, except for the fact that they are removing/changing copyright strings which they should not. So please do not download and install NeoAudio (they probably make quite a few dollars by shipping the adware) and also advice other people NOT to download NeoAudio either, and warn innocent users not to download this application but download CDex instead.

In addition there is a small but worthwhile discussion over at Freedb. Some Slashdotters have missed the fact that Mr. Faber does not claim NeoAudio violates the license, he is merely suggesting potential users make informed decisions on whether to use CDex or NeoAudio. Logically, there is no reason to use NeoAudio -- it offers no improvements over CDex.

Of course, there's always Exact Audio Copy, which has proved itself in the mp3 scene as the de-facto standard for ripping.

Oh yeah, and I meant to add that the best thing i've seen to rip via oggs is Exact Audio Copy. It absolutely rules. Check out their website - it's free for non commercial use. Just download and unpack the ogg codec, tell EAC you want to rip with an external program, it already has the commands built in. I suggest telling it to rip constant bitrate Quality 7. Remember ogg is variable regardless. I've found that telling EAC to rip variable bitrate with oggs sounds a little funny.
Anyway EAC is slow as christmas, but that's because it reads every bit like 8 times to verify it. I think it's finally gotten into most people's heads that when they rip, quality is paramount over speed. It's ripped greenday CD's that spent a year on the floor of my car, face down. Highly reccomended.

~Will

Anyway, to get EAC to work with Vorbis 1.0, download the Ogg Vorbis tools from the Vorbis web site or a mirror, and then extract the EAC program and oggenc.exe. Run EAC, and in "Compression options", choose the "External compression" tab (the libVorbis codec option doesn't seem to work for me...), choose Ogg Vorbis as the parameter passing scheme, and set up the path to the encoder. The resulting Ogg file is correctly tagged (with an Ogg tag) if you choose "add ID3 tag".

HTH.

I agree with you that CDex is very good.

You probably should also take a look at Exact Audio Copy.

Listening to that on one of those teenie Mac speakers, of COURSE it's not going to sound any different. ;) While I can't entirely vouch for the quality of AAC, from what I've heard, it's really fitting to be alongside MPEG-4 video -- MPEG-4 video was designed for Internet viewing, and IIRC, AAC was designed for the same purpose.

Really, it comes down to this:

In the beginning, there was MPEG-1 and MPEG-1 Layer 1,2,3 audio. Big deal, koz they were all more-or-less firsts in semi-quality video compression.
Then came (in no particular order) MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. MPEG-2 was a format designed for DVDs and other high-resolution media, and AC3, its companion, designed for high-quality audio. MPEG-4 was designed for Internet viewing, and, as I said, AAC was (is) its companion.

That said, there is a lot of crossing over within the formats. Personally, I encode DivX video with MPEG-1 Layer 3 audio (VBR, which is against the AVI standard, bad me, but oh well).

I don't mean to get off on a rant here, but the largest problem I see with MP3 is that people aren't using VBR. It's an EXCELLENT thing: take bits from places where they aren't needed and put them where more bandwidth is needed. You can have a "CD-quality" MP3 file using VBR -- at lower filesizes -- that you would need 320Kbps CBR to achieve.
Well, that, and people are still using Xing. stop it! Use LAME + EAC to rip and encode your CDs. Honestly.

And now, the obligatory plug. For more information on MP3 encoding, visit r3mix.net. Of course, these are facts, not opinions; I couldn't be wrong.

Listening to that on one of those teenie Mac speakers, of COURSE it's not going to sound any different. ;) While I can't entirely vouch for the quality of AAC, from what I've heard, it's really fitting to be alongside MPEG-4 video -- MPEG-4 video was designed for Internet viewing, and IIRC, AAC was designed for the same purpose.

Really, it comes down to this:

In the beginning, there was MPEG-1 and MPEG-1 Layer 1,2,3 audio. Big deal, koz they were all more-or-less firsts in semi-quality video compression.
Then came (in no particular order) MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. MPEG-2 was a format designed for DVDs and other high-resolution media, and AC3, its companion, designed for high-quality audio. MPEG-4 was designed for Internet viewing, and, as I said, AAC was (is) its companion.

That said, there is a lot of crossing over within the formats. Personally, I encode DivX video with MPEG-1 Layer 3 audio (VBR, which is against the AVI standard, bad me, but oh well).

I don't mean to get off on a rant here, but the largest problem I see with MP3 is that people aren't using VBR. It's an EXCELLENT thing: take bits from places where they aren't needed and put them where more bandwidth is needed. You can have a "CD-quality" MP3 file using VBR -- at lower filesizes -- that you would need 320Kbps CBR to achieve.
Well, that, and people are still using Xing. stop it! Use LAME + EAC to rip and encode your CDs. Honestly.

And now, the obligatory plug. For more information on MP3 encoding, visit r3mix.net. Of course, these are facts, not opinions; I couldn't be wrong.

Grandma doesn't want to have to learn to use cdda2wav, lame, and cdrecord on the command line to "rip, mix, and burn". She'll just buy a Mac or use Windows.

She could use EAC and drop a copy of the LAME DLL into the EAC directory. Tweak a few (relatively simple) settings and you have the best Windows-based ripping/encoding setup—and it's dirt-simple to operate. It'd take no more than a page to describe the installation and setup.

• LAME - the best MP3 encoder out there
• Exact Audio Copy - the best CD ripper, reads every sector at least two times to ensure maximum quality
• Standard MP3 Naming Scheme - So your MP3s are named consistantly
• Zeropaid - file sharing news and rumors
• Slyck - another news site, less community-oriented
• Blubster - A small but quickly growing MP3 community, very fast servant, good community
• EDKGuide - Once you master MP3s, the next step is DivX
• FileNexus - music, SVCDs, and DVD rips

Hope this helps!

• Bypassing it: CDFreaks article, although I don'tthink they're the original posters of this method.
• Hardware solution: AOpen CD 56X AKH/A80 (unconfirmed)
• Windows software solution #1: EAC. This is truly excellent software in its own regard, and apparently it bypasses Key2Audio nicely. You're better off Googling for EAC, as the site isn't updated often. Also check out the EAC mailing list, and this message in particular.
• Windows software solution #2: CloneCD. Many swear by it, but I haven't used it myself.

For storing CDs - mediazone cases. Very slim. I hold over 400 CDs in the shelves of my regular-sized (for a 27" TV) entertainment center.

For flexible listening solution - rip with EAC and encode with LAME at 192 or 256 vbr. Unless you spent over, say, 20 grand on your stereo, you simply will be unable to hear the difference. Store them on a modest 30-40 GB hard drive and access them via Netjuke, sending digital outputs of your sound card to your receiver.

Don't know if anyone will see this post as I caught this thread late in the game, but I though I'd share my experiences with using XPlay to access the iPod in Windows.

A good friend of mine got an iPod as a corporate gift (he works for a major market radio station) and gave it to me since he doesn't own a Mac. Now, I don't have a Mac either, but as a tech-head and a digital audio guy I figured I could probably do something with it. I actually did consider getting a new iMac, but I'd heard about XPod (now XPlay) and figured I could check it out if I got a firewire port somehow.

Some background: I have been running Windows XP for about six months now on my homebuilt Athlon PC (T-Bird 1.33). I have been very happy with the performance and stability of XP, but the Turtle Beach Montego II Home Studio sound card I have used for years is only supported under 9x. I could get basic analog audio working by disabling ACPI in the BIOS, but with lousy driver support and no digital I/O, I realized it was time to upgrade.

I thought about getting a semi-pro audio card such as those from Terratec, M-Audio, and Event, but since I also use my PC for games and home theater, I ended up getting the Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum Ex. The last Creative card I had was a SB AWE32 many years ago, and though I wouldn't touch the Live! series (especially since my mobo uses a Via chipset), the Audigy is totally killer. Now, just as posts here have mentioned the possibility of people buying a Mac to complement the iPod, a big part of the reason I picked the Audigy was for the built-in Firewire port.

Okay, time to get to the goods. I downloaded and installed a beta of XPlay and hooked up my virgin iPod. To my surprise, Windows immediately recognized the iPod as an external drive and mapped it through explorer. XPlay seemed to suggest that I should control the iPod primarily through Windows Media Player, but I have generally stayed away from WMP since they introduced v7. I have never been fond of its music library management, especially since it likes to screw with your music files even if you don't want it to--no ID3v2 tags for me, thank you. And the idea that it needs to lock up 30MB of RAM just to play one song is pretty ludicrous. A quick check revealed that WMP8 did indeed see the iPod as a portable device, but I wasn't going to use it to transfer any files.

My mp3 collection is up to about 30GB now (all ripped myself using EAC with LAME), so it was a little difficult to pick out which five gigs of tunes I wanted to take with me. Going through Windows Explorer, I ctrl-clicked the folders of my favorite albums and dragged them into the \Music folder on the mapped iPod drive. Transfer was fast but not blazing, taking about 25 minutes to copy everything over the firewire. Using the Explorer interface meant that no playlists were transferred, but the Artist/Album interface on the iPod is so good that I don't really need them anyway. I suppose that I'm not really using XPlay to its fullest, but at least WMP doesn't muck up my mp3s in the process. I'd love to see plug-in support for the iPod in my player of choice, JRiver's Media Jukebox.

Reactions: While I'm not using any of XPlay's features beyond the support for HFS, I don't really need it to. I'd much rather control things myself anyway, just doing drag 'n drops instead of becoming a slave to the software interface. I also have a first gen Diamond Rio (parallel port connection!) and the original Rio Volt, and the included software has never wowed me enough to use it regularly. Actually, that's why I liked the Volt most of all, since I could just burn my own CD's and be done with it.

The iPod is definitely best of all though--the small size makes it much more convenient for the car or carrying in your pocket, and the rechargeable lithium-ion battery is just awesome. I use it in the car every day (about an hour-round trip) and only have to charge it every other week. The playback interface is the best of any I have seen--very easy to control with one hand and the white backlight works great in the dark. It does seem to skip sometimes, though it seems it's actually blank parts in the mp3 file since it happens in the same part of a song every time. My guess is that there was a blip of some sort during the firewire transfer, since the mp3s play back perfect on the computer.

Overall, XPlay does what it advertises. I can use the iPod on my PC, which would not be possible otherwise. However, there are some other features I'd like to see, such as the ability to upgrade the iPod firmware and synchronization support for programs other than WMP. Combining the huge installed base of the PC/Windows platform with the style and reliabilty of Apple hardware is a winning situation for everyone. I think that MediaFour has done just what Apple had hoped, allowing them to sell more units without getting into the headache of supporting the PC platform. And personally, I am thrilled to be an Apple user again, since my first home computer was a IIGS. Who knows, I still might pick up an iMac after all...

- Leigh

If you are going to use Windows software from untrusted (i.e. most everyone, especially M$) sources you must take steps to protect yourself. First, trust your gut. Does the developer "smell funny"? Is the software from a startup company with no visible means of revenue? I tend to trust programs created by individuals or small teams that demonstrate some passion for what they do (EAC, or LAME for example)

Then, get Technological on their ass. Start with a personal firewall that monitors all outgoing traffic. Zone Alarm is the one I trust - gut feelings, and I've read some negative things about Black ICE. Amaze and astound your friends as you block requests from RealPlayer, Windows Update, and other "legitimate" programs that like to access the net without asking permission.

Then get Ad Aware and get that sinking feeling as you see the total number of unauthorized programs, components, and services on your system.

Finally, install Proxomitron to make make your browser behave a bit more politely by re-writing the html it sees before it sees it (and find yet another reason to love Shonen Knife. They're way kawaii!)

Forewarned and fore-armed (hairy ones, even), you stand a much better chance of maintaining control of your system.

Data Aggregation. Gracenote CDDB collects aggregate statistics on which music and artists are most commonly identified by users with the Gracenote CDDB Service. ("Aggregate statistics" means "group statistics" such as the Gracenote Digital Top Ten, not individual statistics about your personal use of the service.) Besides posting these statistics for you and other fans to enjoy, Gracenote CDDB may publish or share this aggregate information with other companies. This aggregate data, by its nature, will not reveal the identity of our users. We also use aggregate data to help us improve our servers and other components of the Gracenote CDDB Service.

The latest version of ExactAudio copy ripped White Lilies Island perfectly using a Toshiba DVD-ROM drive, after enabling C2 error correction.

I don't know if this is the drive or the new version of the software making this possible, but it is definitely one of the CDS protected CDs since it won't rip with anything else (and has the CDS logo on the back cover).

Q.

As a technology inclined DVD renter, ripping everything I buy with the excellent all-in-one program package, GKnot, I have run into one big problem. Alot of the DVDs I rent from my local independant video rental store (When you rent a video from Blockbuster and it says "This film has been edited to fit your screen", it should also read "This film has been edited to fit our mormon ideologies".)are scratched beyond belief! My pathetic PC DVD-ROM and PS2 DVD player have to skip entire chapters to get past some of the bigger scratches. This plays hell with ripping DVDs, because I have yet to find an EAC for DVDs. I think this new technology will not only save me a buck or two but also allow me those pristine, skip-free rips of all of my favorite movies!
Having a video card with TV-out and a couple of cords from radio shack later, I can play any of the movies I have ripped in full screen glory! The only thing we really need to take DVD pirating to the average consumer is DivX ;-) codec endowed DVD players. Then I can burn all of my DivX for anyone and not have to worry about the troublesome conversion from DivX->VCD or SVCD which always seems to run into problems.

I will vehemently support any method of getting me pristine copies of first-run DVDs for less!

Adam

It's sad, but you're probably right. Just in case anyone wants to archive this stuff, I thought I'd dig out links to all the software they reviewed in the article... ;)

IsoBuster
feurio!
Exact Audio Copy (EAC)
Clone CD

Unlike with MP3, at the moment there is only one reference implementation of a Vorbis encoder. There are quite a few frontends, though. If you are in Windows, your best bet at the moment is to use the incredible but slightly clunky EAC, with the command line oggenc encoder available from the main site. The main alternative is CDex, but at the moment it only supports RC2 (not RC3). If you are in Linux, then you can use any ripping program you like as long as you use oggenc as the encoder.

What options to use?

You are using LAME --r3mix at the moment, so give '-q 5' a go (with RC3 on, specify a *quality* level rather than a *bitrate*). Quality 5 (out of 10) is nominally 160kpbs, and should be comparable or better than --r3mix in quality.

For more information and discussion, check out the Hydrogen Audio (Project Mayhem) forum. Many of the developers of various audio formats hang out there, as well as people organising listening tests.

1) CDex. Has an Ogg encoder (RC2 version) embedded, and you can use the command line RC3 version with it very easily. The latest betas use the 'cdparanoia' libraries to rip. This would be nice choice once it's been updated to RC3.

2) EAC. This is the benchmark for quality ripping in Windows. It's slightly harder to set up, and doesn't integrate as nicely with passing metadata to the external ogg encoder, but it's the best Windows ripper bar none. Both pieces of software are free. CDex is also open source (useful if you happen to have a copy of VC++ floating around).

The thing is, if you read the EULA carefully it's clear that it only applies to the software portion of this so-called "CD":

"When you use the compact disc in a CD ROM drive, the technology launches an audio player (the "Player"), and plays compressed audio files (the "Content")."

In other words, "the Content" means the encrypted MP3 files on the platter, not the fux0red uncompressed audio with the messed up error correction that plays when you stick it in a normal CD player.

Of course you are presumably bound from trying to mess with the latter due to the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA. Although, for that to kick in, the access-protection mechanism needs to actually be "effective" in the eyes of the law; a valid case can be made that this mechanism is *not* effective, because according to various reports there are the following workarounds:

1) Certain if not all DVD-ROM drives (and perhaps consumer DVD players as well) can access tracks 2 and beyond *automatically*, with no extra user effort or loss in quality.

2) Widespread pre-existing utilities such as exact audio copy are reported to be able to rip the disc (as one single .wav file) just fine, with no extra user effort or loss in quality.

3) Extracting the audio from a consumer CD player with digital-out into a sound card with digital-in should result in a perfect copy, with no extra user effort or loss in quality.

Presumably nobody accessing the audio on the disc using the above three methods could be charged with using a "circumvention device", because they were just using commonly available tools and methods which were in place before this supposed access-control mechanism was even invented. Thus in my NAL opinion, the DMCA would not apply here.

Once the content is accessed, of course you are perfectly within your rights to rip to MP3 or make a backup copy for personal use, or, under the AHRA, to make copies for your friends (as long as they are distributed non-commercially). Whether you are allowed to distribute MP3s online (e.g. through a P2P network) is still an open legal question, but distributing these MP3s is certainly no more or less illegal than distributing any MP3 from a CD you don't have the copyright on.

Since when did consumers lose all of their rights as a result of buying a product?

Since the product was software. The EULA attached to their buggy player and the encrypted MP3s is unfortunate, but as we all know, not terribly unusual for the world of software--where it clearly resides. Luckily none of its provisions--especially those regarding indemnity or reverse engineering--are likely to stand up in court.

Yea, download and install this upgrade.

I've ripped and encoded about 1000 CDs.

I just finished ripping +- 1300 CD's. Took me almost 4 months...

1) Ripping requires significant manual work if you want good results - in particular, cleaning up missing or incorrect or inconsistent data from FreeDB/CDDB

I gave up on FreeDB and its typos, it was faster just to type in everything myself.

and cleaning/repairing/retrying discs that you can't get a clean rip from the first time.

I used ExactAudioCopy, it rips perfectly!

btw, i used LAME 3.89beta, it takes quite a while, but at least i'll be sure i have near-perfect mp3's... The commandline i used is: -V1 -b128 -mj -h -q1 (VBR, average bitrate over 7600 songs is 181.5). Its rather pointless to use Xing to rip over a 1000 CD's, it will not sound good.

Sure, if you want to sit down and go crazy on a 100-CD ripping binge, it's going to take forever, but "time consuming" != "impossible."

Ripping (win32) 15-20 CDs per hour isn't difficult if you have lots of hard drive space.

(linux/win32) The time-consuming encoding can easily be automated with LAME or a front end for it like (win32) Razorlame

The big question -- did you rip to uncompressed (.wav) files before encoding? And if so, did it have the aforementioned errors?

Make sure to try CD-ripping software with error correction.

I can't speak much for Linux (I only know of grip), but under Winblows try Exact Audio Copy (EAC). It's got great error correction settings and you can rip in essentially a paranoid mode if necessary.

If that doesn't help, try a different encoder. LAME comes highly recommended both from professional trials and from personal experience. Use the latest beta -- it's better than the "stable" release.