Need alternative to EAC

[Aquila76]

EAC is having some issues running properly in 64bit OS. There are several threads (EAC , AVS Forum , Google) showing that it cannot rip to WMA Lossless without going through some very kludgey steps, and even then you must close each compressor window. Are there other free secure rippers recommended for Windows 7 64 that can properly convert to WMA Lossless? dBPowerAmp seems to do this, but is nearly $40 for functionality similar to EAC.

 

[MrChad]

It sounds like the issue is with Windows Media Encoder, not EAC.

 

[Manticorps]

I'm using EAC on Windows 7 64 with no issues, though I don't use WMA lossless. Have you considered using a different lossless format such as flac?

 

[MrChad]

I would recommend using the user-defined encoder option to run the WME VBScript file, rather than the pre-defined option for WMA Lossless. You should be able to download and install the 64-bit edition of WME and check out the command line options from the command prompt. You can have EAC pass in the parameter values.

cscript.exe "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\wmcmd.vbs" /?

 

[Ayah]

EAC is the best of the best IMO. (Plus, it's free) As they said, try another format that's a variet of WMA.

 

[Aquila76]

Thing is, I need WMA lossless to stream to my living room (and eventual Zune). TV doesn't understand FLAC, OGG, etc. MP3 works OK in EAC, but I prefer the lossless stream.
When I try the user defined option, like MrChad suggests, I get a bunch of leftover DOS boxes floating around and have to manually close each one. I'm this close to making a separate Windows XP partition (or USB stick) just for EAC.

 

[MrChad]

What parameters are you using in the user-defined option?

 

[Aquila76]

What parameters are you using in the user-defined option?

I am using the parameters defined from the EAC support forum here. Basically I am pointing to cmd.exe as the user-defined decoder with the command line options

/C ""C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Components\Encoder\WMCmd.cmd" //NoLogo -input %s -output %d -a_codec WMA9LSL -a_mode 2"

The WMCmd.cmd file is as follows:

@ECHO OFF
"C:\Windows\System32\cscript.exe" "%~dpn0.vbs" %1 %2 "%~f3" %4 "%~f5" %6 %7 %8 %9
EXIT
::

It seems to encode OK, but the compression window never closes. When I exit the CMD window, EAC gives a 'external compressor returned errors' message.

EDIT: I'll be honest; I'm not sure what all the variables are for. I'm assuming they have to do with the album, artist, track etc. info, filename, and compression quality. If there's a better 'one shot' deal I could use in the command line switches, I'd gladly try it out.

 

[MrChad]

I think the issue is your use of cscript.exe in System32. Since EAC is a 32-bit app, you'll want to use cscript in SysWow64 (I realize this makes no sense; SysWow64 contains 32-bit binaries and system32 contains 64-bit binaries).

Try these settings. Make sure you have the 32-bit Windows Media Encoder installed as well as this hotfix.

Compression program

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\cscript.exe

Additional command line options

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Components\Encoder\WMCmd.vbs" -input %s -output %d -a_codec WMA9LSL -a_mode 2

This doesn't seem to set ID3 tags (does WMA use ID3?), but there are other options in the VBS file that may allow you to do that.

 

[MrChad]

The VBS file included with EAC is more up-to-date then the default WME9 one and it allows you to add tags.

Additional command line options

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\WMCmd.vbs" -input %s -output %d -a_codec WMA9LSL -a_mode 2 -title "%t" -author "%a" -album "%g" -genre "%m" -year %y -trackno %n

 

[Aquila76]

Awesome! That gets it to correctly encode to WMA now.

WMA can use ID3 thru EAC, but I use MP3Tag for that once the file is encoded. MP3Tag embeds the album art and typically has better results than the FreeDB servers EAC uses.

Thanks a lot! I will credit and post your comments to the other forums also.

 

[Merk66]

Thanks to your posts I am ripping lossless wmas with EAC. I almost gave up, even after reading these posts. My biggest hangup was running the hotfix mentioned above. I ran it a few times, but it didn't work correctly. Only after reading the hotfix page at microsoft.com did I try running it "As Administrator". That was the key to my success. As always it feels great to get something like this to work after trying for an entire evening. Hopefully my post will save someone an hour or two.

THANKS!!!!

PS - I registered here just to say thanks, and in the future I will post here if I need some advice. You guys rule!

 

[proxy]

Hi,

I need an EAC alternative to accurately rip CDs.

Everytime I download EAC the file contains trojans! Does anyone know where a safe version of the file is?

Category: Trojan Notifier

Description: This program connects to the Internet in the background.

Recommendation: Remove this software immediately.

Microsoft Security Essentials detected programs that may compromise your privacy or damage your computer. You can still access the files that these programs use without removing them (not recommended). To access these files, select the 'Allow' action and click 'Apply actions'. If this option is not available, log on as administrator or ask the local administrator for help.

Items:
containerfile:E:\Applications\eac-0.99pb5.exe
file:E:\Applications\eac-0.99pb5.exe->(nsis-3-icon1026.exe)
filelocalcopy:C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\LocalCopy\{11F0145E-299B-4AF6-835B-9A339327ADE5}-eac-0.99pb5.exe
webfile:C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\LocalCopy\{11F0145E-299B-4AF6-835B-9A339327ADE5}-eac-0.99pb5.exe|http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/eac-0.99pb5.exe
webfile:E:\Applications\eac-0.99pb5.exe|http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/eac-0.99pb5.exe