XP Media player WMA ripper ROCKS!!!

[TallBill]

media player actually reaches out and picks up my cds.. puts them in the cd drive.. rips them.. AND makes me breakfast

 

[Ludacris]

MP3 is the standard. OGG-VORBIS, WMA, MONKEY aren't going to replace MP3s ever so get over it. As for EAC, LAME and everything else being better than WM8, maybe they are. The average joe doesn't hear the difference and the interface for EAC isn't on par with Media Player period. If you feel more TECHNICAL because you use EAC with the r3mix settings more power to you. I'd rather spend my time making great sounding MP3s with a click of the button then sitting there trying to figure out what option is the best and what is what in EAC just to come out with an MP3 that may sound slightly better.

As for being able to Enable MP3 Encoding in WinXP I doubt you can, but even so, $10 is equivalent to a penny to me.

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: bob970
media player actually reaches out and picks up my cds.. puts them in the cd drive.. rips them.. AND makes me breakfast

media player found me my first girlfriend

 

[Ludacris]

in fact, I wrote a check and made the bank bounce.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Cdex.

 

[Skawttey]

Originally posted by: Ludacris
MP3 is the standard. OGG-VORBIS, WMA, MONKEY aren't going to replace MP3s ever so get over it. As for EAC, LAME and everything else being better than WM8, maybe they are. The average joe doesn't hear the difference and the interface for EAC isn't on par with Media Player period. If you feel more TECHNICAL because you use EAC with the r3mix settings more power to you. I'd rather spend my time making great sounding MP3s with a click of the button then sitting there trying to figure out what option is the best and what is what in EAC just to come out with an MP3 that may sound slightly better.

As for being able to Enable MP3 Encoding in WinXP I doubt you can, but even so, $10 is equivalent to a penny to me.

To me, trying to get the best sound possible is time well spent.. It is a minimal investment and my ears thank me every time i listen to an MP3.

 

[GigaCluster]

Originally posted by: Ludacris
MP3 is the standard. OGG-VORBIS, WMA, MONKEY aren't going to replace MP3s ever so get over it.

That dangerously resembles what a patent office employee [may have] said in the nineteenth century that forevermore, all useful inventions have been already invented.

 

[Vic]

Just for kicks and giggles (and because I want to settle this argument for myself once and for all), I ripped a track to test the differences between mp3 and WMA. I wanted a track with clear moments, good highs, some bass, clear drums, and the occasional heavy guitar riff, that always represents present mainstream music, so I chose Creed's "Wash Away Those Years." Just for the record, I actually own the CD, Human Clay :Q First, I ripped the track with WMP8 on my GF's XP machine at 192kbps, and then transferred those files to my machine. Then I ripped the same track on my 2k machine using Easy CD-DA Extractor with LAME 3.92 at 192Kbps CBR. Audio-wise, the test setup has a TB Santa Cruz sound card with Sony MDR-V700DJ headphones. I compared against the original CD.
The result? mp3 is better and sounds more like the original CD, by far, 'nuff said.

 

[pulse8]

Originally posted by: PSYWVic
Just for kicks and giggles (and because I want to settle this argument for myself once and for all), I ripped a track to test the differences between mp3 and WMA. I wanted a track with clear moments, good highs, some bass, clear drums, and the occasional heavy guitar riff, that always represents present mainstream music, so I chose Creed's "Wash Away Those Years." Just for the record, I actually own the CD, Human Clay :Q First, I ripped the track with WMP8 on my GF's XP machine at 192kbps, and then transferred those files to my machine. Then I ripped the same track on my 2k machine using Easy CD-DA Extractor with LAME 3.92 at 192Kbps CBR. Audio-wise, the test setup has a TB Santa Cruz sound card with Sony MDR-V700DJ headphones. I compared against the original CD.
The result? mp3 is better and sounds more like the original CD, by far, 'nuff said.

Well, since you say it's so...

 

[TallBill]

you think mp3 will be around forevor? hehe... ok

what happens with terrabyte hds cost a hundred bucks? why compress at all?

 

[TNTrulez]

Originally posted by: pulse8

Originally posted by: PSYWVic
Just for kicks and giggles (and because I want to settle this argument for myself once and for all), I ripped a track to test the differences between mp3 and WMA. I wanted a track with clear moments, good highs, some bass, clear drums, and the occasional heavy guitar riff, that always represents present mainstream music, so I chose Creed's "Wash Away Those Years." Just for the record, I actually own the CD, Human Clay :Q First, I ripped the track with WMP8 on my GF's XP machine at 192kbps, and then transferred those files to my machine. Then I ripped the same track on my 2k machine using Easy CD-DA Extractor with LAME 3.92 at 192Kbps CBR. Audio-wise, the test setup has a TB Santa Cruz sound card with Sony MDR-V700DJ headphones. I compared against the original CD.
The result? mp3 is better and sounds more like the original CD, by far, 'nuff said.

Well, since you say it's so...

Mp3 owns you.

Don't you know that first, they offer you WMA. Then they start doing that digital rights management crap, and pretty soon you don't even have control of your own file. Down with WMA and all DRM support.

 

[Stark]

EAC + lame owns you.

Yes, but that takes effort. Lazy people deserve lower quality... and have to pay for the "plus pack."

 

[SludgeFactory]

Why is there this perception that EAC and LAME are so hard to use?

Kazaa (and Napster before it) were flawed to me, because of all the morons distributing 128kbps Xing-encoded CRAP.

 

[joohang]

I use it all the time. I rip my CDs to 96 Kbps WMA and use WMP to transfer them all to my iPAQ. Bloated as hell but works beautifully.

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: joohang
I use it all the time. I rip my CDs to 96 Kbps WMA and use WMP to transfer them all to my iPAQ. Bloated as hell but works beautifully.

Ditto, but swap iPAQ with Nomad II MP3 player.

Hunch: Most if not all anti-WMA voices in this thread are the anti-MS-by-any-means type. WMA @ 160Kbps > MP3 @ 160Kbps to my ears by a large margin. I suppose it's all about what sounds better to you.

 

[ElFenix]

because its so hard to follow a simple faq on EAC. and then press the one button that says "MP3"

i tried using WMP to rip and encode audio files. they sounded better than the xing crap but they're not as good as LAME presets. that and it didn't support the naming convention that i use.

Originally posted by: Fritzo

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: XZeroII

Originally posted by: ElFenix
and then you have to wonder why MS spends the development money to put this "feature" into their OS (they're technically tying another program to it, but apparently MS can't be tried for that).

I guess you have to wonder why they put solitaire on there as well, hu? You are one cynical person...

if i was a company rolling out windows to my workstations i sure as hell wouldn't want it in there. but they don't even give you that option.

Huh? Yes they do. You have to install the Plus! pack to get this feature.

so you have to buy another piece of software to get rid of the software that you don't need? god i wish i had that business model.

 

[randomlinh]

For users of this board, EAC is not hard to use. You enter the common world... man oh man.... I would recommend ppl to EAC and they would be flustered. They just don't ever look through any settings. And I get bombarded w/ questions. So i stopped suggesting it to ppl.. only my friends who i knew were competent enough to use it. CDex was the alternative.

Anyway, as much as anyone hates to admit it, mp3 and wma will be up there in the masses.. ogg will probably hit a few manufac's, but not enough for ppl to change over. mp3 has such a large user base.. wma just has MS shoving their money behind it...

Nero doesn't have an ogg plugin do they?

Linh

 

[neomits]

I loved the feature tha Media Player included of having the cover art. The I discovered LAME and EAC so I've switched over to that. I just download the cover art from www.windowsmedia.com and put it in the folder of the CD. Its a little more work but I get 192 with LAME instead of WMA which I didn't want

 

[Ludacris]

Originally posted by: neomits
I loved the feature tha Media Player included of having the cover art. The I discovered LAME and EAC so I've switched over to that. I just download the cover art from www.windowsmedia.com and put it in the folder of the CD. Its a little more work but I get 192 with LAME instead of WMA which I didn't want

You can buy the $10 add-on and be able to do MP3s up to 320 Bitrate and not do all that extra work. Go to the options in Windows Media Player and click on the MP3 information.

q]Originally posted by: Stark

EAC + lame owns you.

Yes, but that takes effort. Lazy people deserve lower quality... and have to pay for the "plus pack." [/quote]

I bet you are one of those guys that overclocks their video card to gain 2 extra FPS and then goes to work/school and brags about his score in 3D Mark. You probably have a lot of women chasing you too.

If you enjoy looking for the optimal settings in EAC and grabbing the latest beta of LAME every so many months, I'm happy for you. As for me, I'll stick to my click one button MP3 option and spend more time with my loved ones and having fun. Besides, if I put my MP3 collection up against yours, the average Joe couldn't tell the difference.

EAC isn't a complicated program, in fact, I used to use it. Windows Media Player just does everything I want it to do in one click. As a consumer I have a choice and I'm happy, as it meets all my needs. Isn't that really what it's all about?

 

[joohang]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: joohang
I use it all the time. I rip my CDs to 96 Kbps WMA and use WMP to transfer them all to my iPAQ. Bloated as hell but works beautifully.

Ditto, but swap iPAQ with Nomad II MP3 player.

Hunch: Most if not all anti-WMA voices in this thread are the anti-MS-by-any-means type. WMA @ 160Kbps > MP3 @ 160Kbps to my ears by a large margin. I suppose it's all about what sounds better to you.

I also hook it up to Nomad IIc sometimes. It's my sister's MP3 player.

As far as WMA vs. MP3 goes, I personally prefer 192 Kbps MP3 on my desktop, but I am fine with 128 Kbps WMA 8.0 also. BTW, isn't WMA 8.0 limited to only up to 128 Kbps?

 

[Ludacris]

No, WM8 can do up to 192. I prefer 192 Bitrate myself when it comes to MP3s or WMA.

 

[Adrian Tung]

Here's something that I found regarding the registry editing:


Enabling MP3 Encoding for Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player supports MP3 encoding. To enable the Windows Media Player to encode MP3 files, you will need to license an MP3 encoder, install the encoder, and then change registry settings.

To set Windows Media Player for MP3 Encoding

1. On the destination computer, open the registry with Registry Editor or another registry editing tool.
2. Open the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Settings\MP3Encoding
3. Set the following values:

DWORD LowRate
Value <datarate>
DWORD LowRateSample
Value <Sample>
DWORD MediumRate
Value <datarate>
DWORD MediumRateSample
Value <Sample>
DWORD MediumHighRate
Value <datarate>
DWORD MediumHighRateSample
Value <Sample>
DWORD HighRate
Value <datarate>
DWORD HighRateSample
Value <Sample>
String PreferredCodec
Value <codec name>
For example, to set the LowRate to 56 kbps, you would set the following keys:
HKLM,"%KEY_WMP%\Settings\MP3Encoding","LowRate",0x00010001,56000

HKLM,"%KEY_WMP%\Settings\MP3Encoding","LowRateSample",0x00010001,24000

HKLM,"%KEY_WMP%\Settings\MP3Encoding","PreferredCodecName",,"MPEG Layer-3"

HKLM,"%KEY_WMP%\Settings\MP3Encoding","PreferredCodecPath",,"D:\WINDOWS\system32\l3codeca.acm"




Special Notes:

· The value for PreferredCodec is limited to 255 characters.
· Additional policy based settings for the Media Player are available in WMPLAYER.ADM



I haven't tried this particular source yet, because earlier I found another source at www.winguides.com that only mentioned the LowRate, MediumRate, MediumHighRate and HighRate keys (minus the ???RateSample and PreferredCodec??? keys) and they sort of worked except that Media Player was displaying the MP3 bitrates wrong. I'll try with these new settings and see how valid they are....


atwl


UPDATE: Okay, doesn't work, Media Player reports that it couldn't find the proper codec despite the fact that I do have the codec installed. Perhaps my current codec is only a decoder, not encoder. I remember LAME does come with an ACM file too, I'll try read up on that and post my updates.

UPDATE 2: Aaargh, almost got it to work. Got the codec installed, got WMP to rip the CD, but when it's almost done with the first track it crashes and the resultant MP3 file was invalid. Gotta research more on this..... :frown:

 

[BD231]

Lets not forget Creatives Play Center software.

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

bah, EAC is just as easy to use as anything else after the initial configuration. just pop in a cd, choose the drive, hit the CDDB button for track names, select what tracks you want and hit rip > compressed.

 

[Pabster]

WMA sucks. And so does Spyware Player.

LAME is great, though I still prefer the reference FhG codec for archival quality.