several questions, need advise!!!

[RetroDude83]

Hi there, well I don't really know how to start I've got several questions...

okay, I'm planning to convert all my audio bootlegs to FLAC and burn them onto DVDR's. I'm only thinkning of my Red Hot Chili Peppers shows at this point so far, it's totally 600+ CDs(i might be wrong and it's even more). I've been told CD-R media doesn't last very long and DVDs have a longer life time, now I'm concerned about my bootlegs as I invested lots of time and money into trading and of course it would be a pain in the ass having 50% of my CDs not working anymore in the next couple of years.

1. does anyone know if this is true and how long cd-r/dvdr media is supposed to last? of course i know it certainly depends on the brand but just as every other trader I do have lots of different brands in my collection(sony, tdk, verbatim, etc.)

2. can anyone recommend me a very good and reliable brand for DVDrs? I'm new into this, just got a DVD burner recently and haven't burned any yet.

3. also I'm new into bittorrents and FLAC, I used to trade the old school way so far. just getting started with bittorrents and having no problems with this at all, i just have a simple question. is there any prog. that can tag FLACs? I mean just as iTunes is tagging mp3s and stuff there must be something else able to tag FLACs!? or not? I'm speaking of naming the tracks and putting info-text on the FLAC files, i guess you know what I mean.

4. how common is Apple Lossless? I know besides of SHN and FLAC apple is having it's own lossless format. of course ituens can tag this. but my question is, does anyone have experience with this format? does any1 know if there is any other software that converts wav into apple lossless besides of itunes? is apple lossless shit or sweet? please let me know

5. what software do you use to convert into Flac? is use dppoweramp. what compress level is recommended, does it matter or not? when converting WAVs I'd like to use the highest comp-level just to let you know. good or no good?

6. did anyone of you do something like this as well, i mean backing up CD-rs on DVDs, not only to prevent losing the data but also to save some room. I do have heaps of CDs and just don't know where to put them anymore.
I know this could take lots of time, months maybe even years to finish backing up as I'll get more and more stuff as well... my plan is to get rid of the cd-rs by doing b&ps or giving them away to friends or something.

@all: any advise would be helpful and is highly appreciated, some of this questions might sound stupid for some of you but please post only if you are willing to help out and not to make jokes out of this

@mods: fell free to move this topic in the correct thread if this is the wrong one

@traders: www.rhcp-trading.de.vu , my page for trading, haven't updated it in more than a year i reckon.

thanks for reading hope to hearing from you

[AAR.oner]

don't have much time before work, but i'll try to answer as much as possible...


1. data life depends on quality of medi, environmentla condition they're stored in, etc etc...some might last a few years, some might last 50 yrs...the better the brand of media, the longer it should "live"

2. without a doubt, Taiyo Yuden are the best brand of both DVDR & CDR...these will give you the most reliable quality and data life...period

3. if yer on a Mac, use xACT http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21952
on a PC. use TLH http://thor.prohosting.com/roh0205/

4. not very common...there has been some discussion in various circles as to how "lossless" it truly is...i've never run across a show in ALAC yet, though i'm sure here are a few out theres

5. same answer as #5, xACT [Mac] or TLH [PC]

6. i'm in the midst of rearchiving my collection from CDR to DVDRs, and its taken 6 months to get part way...well worth it in the long run tho...and once i've backed up the CDRs to my harddrive, i usually just offer em up as Freebies to friends, or you can set up a B&P, etc


hope that helps if you have any more ?s, let us know or PM me

cheers!

[ffooky]

Very early release versions of Apple Lossless had issues with missing bytes after decompression but these were ironed out quickly and it now does what it says on the tin.

That said, it absolutely, positively should not be used for trading as it is not compatible with Windows before W2K and I'm not sure all Linux systems can cope either.

[brimstone]

Are you using windows or mac? I use windows so if you are on a mac my answers may not be very useful.

3. Tagging flac files is not a problem. I use foobar2000 but there is a lot of other software that does it as well.

4. Apple lossless is not very common. I see no reason to use it instead of flac.

5. When i rip i use flac as an external encoder in EAC so that the files are encoded automatically as soon as they are ripped.

6. My collection is quite small so i keep it on my HD until i need space and then i burn some on DVDR.

[RetroDude83]

Wow, thanks for the quick replies guys, I use win xp to answer one question of you and yep, now I'm positive I gonna back them up in FLAC and definitely not in alac, which I was thinkning of 'cos of the easy tagging with itunes. anyways this will help me out at this point, if anyone should have anything to conclude, go for it. also, if I should have further inquiries I'll put a post in here later on.

thanks again guys

[Five]

I agree with the advice given above... just also wanted to mention that when you extract with EAC (PC) you should do it in secure mode and with the offsets correct for your specific drives. You should also extract to something like C:\__________(show folder name) initially then save the .log file in there as well. instructions for this are linked below in my signature ("EAC Config").

you also might want to consider removable HD as another storage option. they are supposed to last at least 10 years and can attatch via usb.

[RetroDude83]

thanks guys, this helps me alot, I just dl the latest EAC and TLH and I'm ready to test this soon.

I was wondering about one more thing. I usually used to listen to my bootlegs on my stereo, now that I want them in FLAC this won't be possible anymore so I have to listen on PC, any handy player's recommended that support FLAC. I don't wanna use winamp(if it plays FLAC) or something similar shitty, just need an easy player that dosen't pop up 5 windows, just click and play. sorry for all this questions but I just recently got all this new pc stuff with heaps of hd space and DSL and I feel like stepping from the stone-age into 21st century

[Five]

the best player for you is foobar2k:
http://foobar2000.org/

it is also great for tagging and is generally a swiss army knife. you'll probably want to grab the optional components to play shn and maybe even ape.

hook your stereo up to your computer so that you can have the best of both worlds!

[RetroDude83]

Just tested EAC, haven't used it in ages and here is the info of the log file, does the paek level ahve to be at about 100% as well? I remeber when doing it on my old PC years back it used to be like that. here's the log info of 2 tracks i saved

EAC extraction logfile from 3. August 2006, 22:54 for CD
Unbekannter Künstler / Unbekannter Titel

Used drive : SONY DVD RW DW-G120A Adapter: 3 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure with C2, accurate stream, disable cache
Combined read/write offset correction : 0
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo

Other options :
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000


Track 1
Filename C:\Test\Track01.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 79.2 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 60115974
Copy OK

Track 2
Filename C:\Test\Track02.wav

Peak level 68.5 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Copy CRC 7575F1E0
Copy OK

No errors occured


End of status report
---

are these settings okay? another thing I realized and completely forgot about is the pre-gap, usually 2 sec on the first track of the disc, is EAC able to remove it somehow if yes where can i enable it. it's important for the 2CD shows as I will always have to remove the 2sec gap of the frist track of cd#2 to get proper track transitions finally. it would be a pain in the butt to to do it manually but if i've got no other choise...

[RetroDude83]

cool, just checked TLH and footbar2000, great stuff to work with.

cheers

[RetroDude83]

@Five, sorry for the inconvenience about EAC, just read thru the FAQ. and thanks for your hints and advises guys



cheers

[brimstone]

Originally Posted by sikamikanico83

are these settings okay? another thing I realized and completely forgot about is the pre-gap, usually 2 sec on the first track of the disc, is EAC able to remove it somehow if yes where can i enable it. it's important for the 2CD shows as I will always have to remove the 2sec gap of the frist track of cd#2 to get proper track transitions finally. it would be a pain in the butt to to do it manually but if i've got no other choise...

The first track on a cd always has a two second (or longer) pregap, it's called standard lead-in or something and there is no reason to mess with it. You do not have to worry about peak levels, they've got nothing to do with the extraction. You should also consider disabling C2 error correction and correcting the read offset. Some people also say that it is better to install an external aspi interface than to use the native windows interface.

[Five]

^what he said

hopefully you will take the time to set the offsets correctly, all the instructions are at the coaster factory. also take a look at "the truth about offsets section" for some info about why this is important. if you're not ready to dive in and get it right then just leave it with no offset correction. If you spend some time at it, it is possible to make an absolutely exact copy of an audio cd using EAC which is verifiable via checksums.