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Multi-drive Ripping / Burning Support?
jasonisnuts writes "I currently have a DVD-ROM (internal), a CD-RW (FW), and a DVD-RW (FW), and I also have a massive assortment of music CDs that I want to rip and catalog. Are there any free, shareware, or commercial utilities for Mac OS X that support ripping CDs from multiple devices at the same time and offer full CDDB/GraceNote support? And does this same utility or another offer burning to multiple sources in multiple formats? This will all be done on a Sawtooth 500MHz (upgrading soon)."
Sawtooth is a codename for a particular motherboard that Apple used for certain PowerMacs. There were different G4 500mhz motherboards that had different capabilties, i.e. bus types, etc.
Well I think it would run fine. iTunes will detect both drives fine and would I'd imagine rip them, however your processor might bug out on you if you did them at the same time, unless you had enough ram like 512MB or above. otherwise I wouldn't generally recommend it. Might add tons of artifacts and poop to the ripped file. Especially if you are only running it all on one bus.
haven't ever tried ripping from multiple drives at once, but it should very well be possible, but on your 500 sawtooth, ripping form three drives at once will be pretty slow. maybe 1.5X tops..
but as for burning, you can use toast. you take the copy you have and make two other copies (AFAIK this is not illegal) open each one and set it to a specific drive.
and on this note, i would assume there it is likely feasible to do something similar with an mp3 ripper, iTunes however, will only allow for one copy to be running at a time.
Live EVERY week... Like it's Shark Week
I'm pretty sure abcde will do the job for you. I've not tried it on OS X, but in theory it will work. It's a shell script wrapper for several CD-related programs. I've used it on a Debian box to rip hundreds of disks.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Sawtooth was the first 'real' G4 Powermac, the Yikes model came out first but it's motherboard was more like a modified Powermac G3(I think that's where the Yikes moniker originated). Sawtooth G4's can use all sorts of G4 CPU upgrades, the Yikes models can not.
you have to open the .prefs for itunes and turn off the locking of the itunes db. then again, if you do this, itunes might explode your computer. or your 'sawtooth' whatever the frig that is.
You can rip from 2 drives at once with iTunes. You can click "import" for one, but while that is going, you can't click "import" for the other. You can, however, select the songs by clicking on them (or any combination of shift/control clicking) and drag them to your library. That willl get iTunes to rip the songs from the other CD.
Isn't replying to your own post a sign of derangement, or something? Anyway....
Something else you might want to check into is a feature that is built-into iTunes. Go to Preferences -> General, and change "On CD Insert" to "Import Songs and Eject." This is a technique that I have used (with multiple optical drives, no less) and can vouch for.
I confirm the "multiple" apps solution; it's really the simplest way to launch 3 times the same tool with different jobs to do. That's for the ripping
Concerning the multiple burning, same solution but I would recommend using the Missing Media Burner (I use 0.6.2 and I'm satisfied). It's not the cleanest apps in the Mac world, but it's free and efficient in burn and overburn, which is quite useful when volume is involved.
Toast is certainly good and is quite a clean app, but it's way too expensive for lightly extending OS functions.
By the way, Missing Media Burner also does the VCD/SVCD/raw thing quite well
Of course you can forget to buy it and use a cracked key, but it's not the good way, not good for the karma as Jobs says, especially when their are cool people working on free alternatives.
ClaudeBBG
what does iTunes do if you tell it to automatically RIP and eject CD's and you put CD's in multiple drives?
I did this with a couple Sony Firewire CD-R drives when I was ripping my 1,000+ CD collection. iTunes will dutifully lookup and rip one CD after the other after the other, and all you need to do is keep all the drives full. All having three drives means is that you have to babysit the process 1/3 of the time you would with one drive. This is the way to go, I think.
~jeff
Dragon Burn has allowed me to burn 3 disks at one time G4 dual 1.25GHz 1.) Internal ComboDrive (Phillips 32X CD-R/RW) 2.) Internal SuperDrive (Pioneer 2X DVD-R/RW) 3.) External Firewire enclosure (Samsung 52X CD-RW) All burn at one time, with no issues, except for making it easy to bleed down my blank media inventory.
Depending on your interests, and your time-/cash-flow, you may decide to pay somebody to rip your CDs for you.
This company...
http://www.ripdigital.com/
Never used 'em.
Wanna see how fast the encoder really is? Copy the AIFF from the CD to the hard drive, then put the AIFF into your iTunes library. Finally, convert the AIFF to AAC or MP3 with iTunes.
:-)
On my dual G5 1.8 at home: about 40X going from AIFF-to-MP3. Going to AAC, I get about 28X.
(The AAC encoder isn't multithreaded; it runs on only one CPU at a time.)
Converting from MP3 or AAC to AIFF is the fun part, of course: 150X.
iTunes uses the processor(s) quite well while ripping, and on a single 500 you definitely aren't going to hit the limit of the drive speed before hitting the processor limit. That is, ripping simultaneously from two drives won't help your speed at all. Just do this:
Setup iTunes to automatically connect to the internet, and to import and eject each disk automatically. Then feed disks into all three drives. iTunes will rip from each disk in turn and eject it. You can go on about your business and check back every so-often to insert a new CD or 2 or 3 and then go on about your business again...
Ah, you want to know my authority for saying it sounds worse? Listening tests I conducted myself. I'm no stereo freak, but the files iTunes encoded were more artifacty and less clear-sounding (less like the original) than those that LAME came up with.
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
The "Rip CD's in a Row" script is perfect. I've used it on up to six optical drives at a time without an error.
And yes, I sent him 10 bucks by Paypal.
I've done this with my whole ~300 CD collection (twice even; once MP3 and then later to AAC):
Using iTunes:
1. iTunes, Preferences, General:
--Set "On CD Insert:" to "Import Songs and Eject"
--Check on, "Connect to Internet when needed"
2. iTunes, Preferences, Importing:
--Choose your Import Settings (MP3, AAC, etc) and bit rate. --Check off, "Play songs while importing"
--Check on, "Create file names with track number"
--Check on, "Use error correction when reading Audio CDs" (this will take longer, but if you're importing your whole library you'll want accurate encodes)
3. iTunes, Preferences, Advanced:
--Ensure you have selected your iTunes Music folder location.
--Check on, "Keep iTunes Music folder organized"
--Check on, "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library"
4. Insert a disc in your fastest spinning CD drive and close the drawer. iTunes will grab the track names online, rip the disc, then spit it back out when finished.
5. Just keep an eye on your machine's CD drawer and when it's open, swap the disc. Using multiple simultanious drives probably won't help speed the process since the major bottle-neck is the processor. But if you're going to drop in a disc(s) and walk away, this should be a great way of mass-ripping your catalog.