Okay, I'm weakening.
I had heretofore steadfastly refused the urge to spend every waking hour ripping my CD collection to some other format.
Two developments have me thinking more. And you know, that can't be good. I mean seriously, when your spouse walks into the room and you say "honey, I was thinking..." what good ever comes from it?
Anyway, my daughter got an iPod nano for her 12th birthday, so I am having to become conversant with iTunes and AAC and all that other stuff I never had to care about before. I WILL have to get competent at iTunes.
Secondly, I got a slimserver and softsqueeze clients up and running. Cool.
So, I've got maybe 100 (of 700) CD's ripped at 128-192k bitrates. Not good enough for hifi. I was young and foolish. It happened over time. My dog ate my homework. I was drunk (during part of the time, certainly).
In the context of trying to figure out a ripping and flexible distribution strategy, I became confused. Alcohol was not involved.
I want Quality in exchange for my time. I have about 200GB at my disposal at the moment. I will certainly not rip the entire collection. I need to rip to a format that can be consumed by the iPod and by Slimserver, and am also considering the notion of other clients. Let's assume I'd like to get SOME compression, because my parents were children of the depression and it seems wasteful to not do so.
Now, I KNOW we've discussed MP3 bitrates before and that there is some debate over 320 v. VBR etc. Let's just assume for the moment that if MP3 ends up being my format, I will use either 320 or VBR and that it will be optimal either way. Can we do that? Can we all just get along?
1. iTunes v. Windows Media player v. EAC as a ripper?
2. FLAC v. MP3 v. something else as a format?
3. iTunes v. Windows Media player v. something else as a client?
I don't use Media player except when it presents itself now.
I may want to gravitate towards using "something" as a DVD player, too (currently I use a standalone box). I don't - at this time - care whether it is MP or something else.
So, what do you say to somebody starting from scratch with these criteria?
