So who has their CD's on a Hard Drive?

avelanchefan

So I am looking to give up my 400 Disk CD changer. And place the CD's that are in it on a External Hard Drive. I rarely listen to it any more, and when I do it seems to be the same CD's. Not a bad thing, but the CD player is a monstrousity and it takes up a lot of room.

I just recently purchased an XBox360, and you can stream MP3's from your Hard Drive of your computer to the 360. You just use a little proggry called "Windows Media Connect". So I figured WTF, I take the CD's I listen to the most, rip em to the hard drive and use the 360 to play them when I want. Saves me a ton of space.

Anyone else do this?

VR3

I got about 3,000 songs on my HD - all from actual CDs, no downloads - all full, store bought CDs...

Although thats about as far as they get...

Demiurge

I rip most of my CDs to my hard drive, currently about 17,000 songs.

polkatese

avelanchefan wrote:

I just recently purchased an XBox360, and you can stream MP3's from your Hard Drive of your computer to the 360. You just use a little proggry called "Windows Media Connect". So I figured WTF, I take the CD's I listen to the most, rip em to the hard drive and use the 360 to play them when I want. Saves me a ton of space.

Anyone else do this?

Yes, the beautiful part of xbox 360 other than the game itself. I am loving it.

Shizelbs

I have all my CDs on my hard drive. Not sure why, but I do.

dudeinaroom

You can stream with a ps2 if you have the newer one, or the older one with the network adapter, but you have to get a program that will let you do it, you can also stream movies with it, but I'm asuming that they would have to be mpeg, or mpeg 2

heiney9

I have approx 800 songs ripped as FLAC files. Mp3's really are not audiophile quality, but they sure seem popular here, to each their own. And then to stream thru an X-BOX. I guess I just don't get it. I swear the MP3 is quickly becoming the achilles heal of high quality audio. I really don't get it.


DIE MP3....DIE :rolleyes: .

H9

danger boy

i have probably 1500 songs ripped from my CD's on the hard drive... mostly stuff i know i'll listen to a lot. and about 100 downloaded ones. even with the 2 channel system i have hooked up to my computer. i still prefer to listen to a CD in a CD player while surfing the net. The music quality of songs on my HD has detieroated over time.

bobman1235

4,000 songs for me, all on my HD. About 95% ripped, the rest downloaded. CDs are so damned fragile, especially if you bring them in the car, it's nice to just be able to pump out new ones if one gets scratched. Just sucks that you have to compress them. Plus it makes for quite the eclectic mix when playing on random through the HTPC (which is how they get played, 99% of the time).


How the hell do you have 17,000 songs??

avelanchefan

heiney9 wrote:

I have approx 800 songs ripped as FLAC files. Mp3's really are not audiophile quality, but they sure seem popular here, to each their own. And then to stream thru an X-BOX. I guess I just don't get it. I swear the MP3 is quickly becoming the achilles heal of high quality audio. I really don't get it.


DIE MP3....DIE :rolleyes: .

H9

I understand what you are saying Heiney, just looking at a different route. I may look at encoding using WMA, and see if I hear the difference. Not looking for total audiophile quality, just want to start saving some space, still keep my disks, but have a different route of playing them.

Thanks for all the responses fellas.

heiney9

Yeah, MP3's have their (small) place. Great for portables, traveling, working out, being on the move. Even for use on a computer for background music. I just get tired of people (not you nec.) trying to convince us that know better that MP3's are just as good as conventional cd's. They're NOT and NEVER will be. And replacing your entire cd collection for MP3's is a very bad move.

Not sure if you'll have much luck with WMA as I think the quality is less than a properly encoded MP3.

Good luck

H9

Demiurge

Without starting a war with this comment...there are programs that let you choose at what rate to rip your CD, and you would have a hard time telling the difference between it and the CD. That's just me.

Demiurge

Oops....lol

heiney9

Demiurge wrote:

Without starting a war with this comment...there are programs that let you choose at what rate to rip your CD, and you would have a hard time telling the difference between it and the CD. That's just me.

Them's fighting words.....LOL . As you move up the audio chain with equipment it becomes much more apparent how lousy even high bit-rate Mp3's sound. At 320 kbps they are marginally acceptable, but still leave a bit (no pun intended ) to be desired. I'll take the 1411 kbps of a reg. redbook cd file over a 320 kbps MP3 anyday of the week.

As long as the phrases audiophile quality and sounds as good as a reg. cd don't get added in the same discussion as Mp3, I have no problem. .

H9

Demiurge

I was just saying that you can rip a CD at high quality that's beyond what the human ear can decypher, no matter how good your equipment is -- 320kpbs isn't the limit on these programs. To the point where the only true imperfections are what were on the original disc to begin with. In fact, most CDs are created using computers in the end and this is what gets transfered to the CDs you buy in the store. I know most people don't go through the trouble to do this, but with the size of hard drives that are available to the consumer these days the space that is used in ripping all of your CDs at ultra high quality isn't going to be an unreasonable thing.

The point is that the majority of MP3s that you download, get from friends, etc, were ripped in poor quality to begin with. The better the quality -- the larger the file, that's why quality is usually sacraficed because people using crappy equipment don't think it's a big deal.

heiney9

Yes, I understand that....but the higher quality Mp3's gradually get larger and larger (file size) so what's the point. So you've managed to reduce the original wave 20-25% (with a high bit rate Mp3). It' still a lossy compression even at high bit rates. Why not use a lossless compression that will still acheive the same 20-25% reduction in file size and not be lossy and sound as good as the original?

Mp3's main feature is to reduce the original file size by more than 60-80% and still maintain some small sort of marginal fidelity, which seems to be acceptable to most people now days. If you are just going to encode an Mp3 at high bit rates and still keep the file size close to the original there are much better options which give no loss of fidelity. Encoding Mp3's much beyond 320 kbps is a waste as there are other lossless alternatives that give largely better results.

H9

Demiurge

Well, I agree, but I was saying that space is becoming a non-issue these days with advertisements of Terabyte hard drives.

TheReaper

I agree, with the size of hard drives there is no need to rip cds as mp3s. I rip mine as wma lossless, and play them through the digital out to my receiver.