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Originally posted by Denis O:
I guess the next step is to get the correct software.
I like
EAC for this.
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According to the Becker manual it recommends the Fraunhofer MP3 encoder and suggests a bit rate of at least 160. It supports MPEG1 and MPEG2 Layer 3 formats.
I believe that "Layer 3" means MP3. EAC can use Fraunhoffer to create MP3s, although LAME is reckoned to achieve the best compression (specificarly v3.90.3).
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The unit uses Type 1 or Type 2 CF cards up to 4gb.
In case you're not aware, most microdrives are CF type two (a little fatter than the standard size for an electronic [ie Flash] card).
Microdrives are available up to 6GB capacity, and Hitachi have announced that 8GB will be available soon.
Electronic CF cards (ie type 1) are available up to 8 GB, but mucho expensive.
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Ideally I would like to convert my CD's to MP3's directly from CD to Card without going via the hard drive as logically this will save time although I've no doubt there will be a downside!!!
No downside. Your card reader will appear as a drive letter on your PC. EAC splits the audio extraction and compression into two separate processes. The audio extraction (WAV) will always be to the HD, but the compression thread is quite capable of writing direct to the card reader. The wav files are deleted as soon as they've been processed by the compression thread.
BTW, I've done the same with my MP3 player's HD, also connected via USB.
If EAC does the extract the standard way, then it stores all the WAV files from the CD briefly on your HD, then creates the MP3s (ie on the player) from that & deletes the WAVs. Although your HD is briefly involved in the process, you end up with quality MP3s on your card, and the files deleted from HD. I presume this is not a problem.
EAC can also run in a mode where the extract & the MP3 compression run at the same time. This depends to some extent on the power of the CPU & the reliability of the CD at audio extraction, but it does make the process faster when you're processing hundreds of CDs.
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I would also like something that is easy to use. I currently use "Sonic Record Now" to copy CD's and that seems very easy. My PC has 2 CD drives so I can bypass the hard disk for the copying operation.
I'm running Windows XP Pro if that helps. You will probably have sussed by now that I am no expert at this mp3 thing so any help would be much appreciated.
You're copying direct from CD to CF card. Copying from CD to CD is completely irrelevent for this.
EAC is very easy to use once setup, although it does need some setup to get it working really smoothly.
As with most (? all ?) such apps, it will go to a website to lookup the name & tracklist of your CDs (so that the directories and/or files are automatically named. It can be configured to arrange your files into directories & sub-directories of artists & CD title, or name the files with artist & CD & track title, or whatever you want (or need, depending on the limitations of your MP3 player).
Perhaps most importantly, it has a reputation for being very reliable at extracting good audio from CDs (ie before the files are compressed). That might not sound like much, but it's really not an easy thing for a PC to achieve.
A 0.5 GB card isn't huge for audio files. It will give you nearly 7 hours of audio at 160kbps. The is a Constant BitRate file (abbreviated CBR).
LAME is good at creating "VBR" (Variable BitRate) files. These will sometimes reduce the bitrate, but might increase the bitrate at the next moment, depending on the demands of the audio from second to second. The use of VBR vs CBR depends on what you want to achieve from your MP3 (or OGG, etc) files.
There are three basic ways that you can encode your files - low bitrate CBR, VBR or high bitrate CBR.
1) Low bitrate CBR is the lowest performing strategy. Simple music will sound OK (esp, in a moving car), but complex passages will sound nasty.
2) High bitrate CBR is the highest performing strategy. Everything will sound pretty good, but simple passages will take up more disk/card space than necessary.
3) VBR is a compromomise between these two extremes. Difficult/complex passages will be encoded using the same high bitrate (just like CBR), to ensure they are handled well. Simple passages will be encoded using a lower bitrate, saving some disk/card space. The Codec will choose the appropriate rate from moment to moment, giving the best possible audio quality for a certain rate of disc usage.
With VBR, you can either think of it that the software will sometimes use less than 160kbs to encode the file (ie equal to 160kbps quality in less space), or that it will average 160kbps space whilst achieving better sound quality on the difficult bits, and lower bitrates on the easy bits.
BTW, I mention 160kbps throughout my examples because of your questions. 320 CBR (eg LAME alt preset insane) is the best possible quality from MP3s. LAME alt present extreme is a VBR format - it is supposed to give 320kbps quality on the hard bits, and achieve equivalent SQ on the easy bits using a lower bitrate (whilst maintaining the sound quality).
I have to assume that you'll be playing these files on the move in your car. Unless the car is incredibly quiet, I'm not sure that the improvements from going above 160kbps (or especially it's VBR equivalent) will be difficult to hear.
cheers, Martin