Help - advice on file format for converting CDs

[danr]

Hi,

 

Please bear with me as I try to explain what I’d like to do (its probably been asked many times before) and being new to different music formats I’m scratching my head on it and would appreciate any advice.

 

Like a lot of people over the years I’ve collected a reasonable number of CDs and I’d like to be able to take a back-up of them on a hard disk, then get rid of quite a few of them but keep my favourites, as you do.

Herein lies my first question…

What is the best (compatibility and sound-wise) format to convert/copy tracks to?

I’ve heard of wav files and the fact that they can be compressed or un-compressed but, the most important thing to me is choosing a file format that doesn’t require a specific piece of software to listen to the tracks, ie not one that could become defunct in the near future.

Can wav files be played using something like Windows Media Player?

I’d prefer to copy them to an un-compressed format and should one of my CDs become unplayable in the future then the format must also be able to be copied back to CD for playback through a Hi-Fi. Hard disk space isn’t an issue now that they are so cheap.

 

I’m not an audiophile but I do like to hear as much of the music as I can without going to a lot of hassle to edit sound settings etc so there may be a “better” format than wav that meets my requirements. I just don’t want to go to all the effort of copying the tracks to a format that is about to be rendered redundant due to a new improved format coming out and I know wav has been around for years and just hope that it isn’t on its way out?

 

Does Switch allow you to create a library of your wav files?

 

And if I were to use Switch to convert tracks off CDs then how do you do it?

 

I’ve not downloaded it yet but, I know from looking at the tracks of a CD using Windows Explorer all I get is “Audio CD Track” with a size of 44 bytes which is clearly not their real size.

 

And to add to the equation…I’ve just registered on the forum and have read the thread on music formats and FLAC may be what I’m looking for but the questions with regard to requiring a specific piece of software to compress/uncompress and listen to, and how to do it in Switch still apply.

 

All these decisions...its enough to give you a headache!

 

Many Thanks

[musikone]

Hi,

 

Please bear with me as I try to explain what I’d like to do (its probably been asked many times before) and being new to different music formats I’m scratching my head on it and would appreciate any advice.

 

Like a lot of people over the years I’ve collected a reasonable number of CDs and I’d like to be able to take a back-up of them on a hard disk, then get rid of quite a few of them but keep my favourites, as you do.

Herein lies my first question…

What is the best (compatibility and sound-wise) format to convert/copy tracks to?

I’ve heard of wav files and the fact that they can be compressed or un-compressed but, the most important thing to me is choosing a file format that doesn’t require a specific piece of software to listen to the tracks, ie not one that could become defunct in the near future.

Can wav files be played using something like Windows Media Player?

I’d prefer to copy them to an un-compressed format and should one of my CDs become unplayable in the future then the format must also be able to be copied back to CD for playback through a Hi-Fi. Hard disk space isn’t an issue now that they are so cheap.

 

I’m not an audiophile but I do like to hear as much of the music as I can without going to a lot of hassle to edit sound settings etc so there may be a “better” format than wav that meets my requirements. I just don’t want to go to all the effort of copying the tracks to a format that is about to be rendered redundant due to a new improved format coming out and I know wav has been around for years and just hope that it isn’t on its way out?

 

Does Switch allow you to create a library of your wav files?

 

And if I were to use Switch to convert tracks off CDs then how do you do it?

 

I’ve not downloaded it yet but, I know from looking at the tracks of a CD using Windows Explorer all I get is “Audio CD Track” with a size of 44 bytes which is clearly not their real size.

 

And to add to the equation…I’ve just registered on the forum and have read the thread on music formats and FLAC may be what I’m looking for but the questions with regard to requiring a specific piece of software to compress/uncompress and listen to, and how to do it in Switch still apply.

 

All these decisions...its enough to give you a headache!

 

Many Thanks

====================================

The best file format to use for everything, _if storage space is no problem_ is wav. Its major drawback is that it requires a large amount of space to store a file--just over one megabyte per minute of sound. So figure it out. A one-hour CD is going to take over 600 megabytes. Ten hours of .wav will be over six gigabytes, etc.

 

However, the files coming from a CD, when converted to soundfiles (they are stored on the CD in digital form, which is why you don't get a sensible size reading :-) ), have not lost anything and therefore are of the highest quality (.wav files).

 

Switch has nothing to do with building a music library. It is a program for converting from one type of sound format to another. If you are going to stick with wave files, after converting your CD files, then you will have no need for Switch.

 

Swift Sound has a fast CD burner called Express Burn that you may wish to investigate, and perhaps download a trial version just to play around with and experiment with getting files off CD's and back again onto other CD's. This is a simple program for taking those .wav files (or mp3 files) and burning them onto CDs.

 

After you learn what a .wav file is and how good it is (apart from its huge size!), then you can learn how to make the file size much, much smaller, while losing a bit of the music in the process :-( Following the law that "the sum of all problems is a constant", you will find that the smaller you make a file, the more of the music that you lose. It would truly be revolutionary if this were not the case.

 

Now dig in and try not to get buried.

 

 

Musikone