What file format for digial ripping ?

[The Vinyl Adventure]

What does that do, is that for the HDcd thing? I only just found out it did that today... You fancy writing down what you told me about hdcd chris?

[Stratmangler]

Thanks both Hamish and Dimitri - I've now got my dbPoweramp set up exactly as I want.
It was close before, but now I've managed to get it spot on for me.

Chris

[Themis]

It converts HDCD CDs (and only HDCD CDs) to 24/44.1 FLACs.
Because HDCD is recorded and pressed in 20/44.1 format, not 16/44.1

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Where are the relevent boxes for selecting such things?

[Themis]

When you choose the format (FLAC), on the window that opens, you have (below) a space to add DSP effects.

[Stratmangler]

The thing that made me buy dbPoweramp was the HDCD ripping capabilities.
By that I mean it is able to decode and extract the additional data found on HDCD discs that gets ignored when a non HDCD capable player/program reads it.
It is found in the DSP files, and simply needs to be added in the DSP box and left - if you put an ordinary CD there is no HDCD information, so the HDCD DSP cannot be applied.

The files are output as 24/44.1 files for HDCD.
Standard CD files are 16/44.1 .

Chris

I see you beat me to it Dimitri

[dave2010]

I have wondered about similar problems myself. By my reckoning with 3000 CDs, in the unlikely event that each could be processed in 1 minute, that'd take 50 hours. Is it worth it? It is of course likely to take rather longer.

I also thought that maybe a practical solution, other than giving up the attempt, would be to use one of those Brennan JB7 devices. I've no idea how good or bad they are, but they may be good enough for at least casual listening, and my understanding is that they can rip a CD to an external drive. One limitation may be the format though as they have a limited range of target formats. However I think they can rip to WAV, from which presumably it would be possible to convert to FLAC. Maybe to make that work one would have to use Linux or a similar system which could work with script files to reformat the generated files in offline mode later on.

If that is a viable way to do this, then I might even consider it myself, even though the asking price of the JB7s is over £300. Comments?

[Stratmangler]

You could contact Ripcaster and get them to give you a quote for the job.
I'm not sure whether they would expect you to load the bulk disc carriers yourself, although this might be included in the quote cost.

Chris

[steveinspain]

Brilliant Hamish - many thanks !
I'd not heard about the Brennan or Ripcaster, and as my experiences of ripping show it can take a HUGE amount longer than a minute (some taking 30 minutes or so) it may be worth looking into.

[twelvebears]

Brilliant Hamish - many thanks !
I'd not heard about the Brennan or Ripcaster, and as my experiences of ripping show it can take a HUGE amount longer than a minute (some taking 30 minutes or so) it may be worth looking into.

Which exactly why it's important to make the right choice of format AND ensure it's properly backed up!

As long as you go with a lossless format you're good. Just remember that any ditched data ain't never coming back without a re-rip.

Ripping services are great because you will get the whole job done for you and all the files correctly tagged BUT it really doesn't come cheap. The best I've seen is around 50p per CD, which is a lot of cash for a 3000 disc collection....