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Topic: Help! Looking for the best media manager (Read 1515 times) previous topic - next topic
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Help! Looking for the best media manager

I'm still new to the world of serious digital audio extraction and encoding.  Recently I was lucky enough to find this site (via Radified --> Dibrom's homepage --> here) and have been using EAC, LAME, FLAC and some of the other extracting/encoding tools and formats.  In just a short time, I'm 10x happier with the results, though I'm still trying to settle on a primary (non-portable) encoding format...FLAC or 320kbps CBR MP3.  Leaning towards FLAC...for me, 60 albums that sound perfect beats 200 albums that sound very good.

My old method of digital audio handling (past nine months or so) was extraction and encoding with Windows Media Player 9 to 192 kbps MP3 format.  Decent, but doesn't compare to these better tools I've found.    What WMP DOES do very well is media library and playlist management.  It uses AMG for tagging, which I have liked more than CDDB.  (I used Sony Soundstage with Gracenote CDDB capability once and it mangled my whole media library...renamed all of my albums and songs to those of the inserted CD...AAAARRRGG!!!  It looked like 57 copies of Zenyatta Mondatta...  Thankfully, I opened WMP9, AMG took one look and fixed everything at once...WHEW!)

So, now that there are all of these better options available to me, there are still a few things I'd like to have that I haven't found yet...

--- (1) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd like to find a media management tool to replace WMP9, something with the file library and playlist management capabilities of Windows Media Player, but something that I can also tie in any other tool for other tasks (like EAC for extraction, FLAC for lossless compression, LAME for MP3 encoding, WaveGain, etc.).  I know Winamp and foobar2000 can do those things, but I don't see the media library capabilities I need (foobar2K is REEAALLLY complicated, and I can't figure out Winamp very well).  It would also need to have the obvious enhancements, automatic tagging from an internet database, etc.

As for things I could do without...skins and visualizations.  I'm not using these tools because they're pretty, but because they do the best job.  When they're working, they're in the background or minimized most often anyway.  And when I'm enjoying the fruits of my efforts, I'm either looking at the inside of my car or a trail I'm jogging on...not the digital encoding software.

I'd love it if PhatNoise Music Manager could do all of this, since I need to use it anyway to talk to the 20 GB DMS from my car.  But, alas, it is very poor at media library management...you can't copy a song from one directory to another, renaming is boogery at times, database updating is spotty (manual directory searches are needed most often).  Plus, it doesn't support plug-ins.  On the upside, it does do auto-tagging, and it can speak WAV, FLAC, MP3, Ogg, and WMA (respectable for a tool that doesn't like plug-ins).  But, like WMP, it's not expandable.  If PhatNoise MM could just use EAC for WAV extraction, run a WaveGain analysis and adjustment, use a plug-in version of FLAC (it does FLAC natively, but I have no control over it's adjustments), use LAME for MP3 encoding, AND have nice media library and playlist management capabilities, I'd look no further.

As for EAC, it meets many of my needs...I like it's interface, it provides secure extractions (though I don't know how to extract to 24-bit with it yet), interfaces very nicely with LAME, FLAC, APE, and any other format I would ever need, ID3 tagging with freedb, handy waveform analysis, etc...BUT no media/playlist manager and no built-in or plug-in WaveGain support.  I could live with manual WaveGaining, but I really need the media library and playlist managment.  I don't want to forever be jumping back and forth from EAC to extract and tag; WaveGain to normalize; EAC to call the LAME encoding command for MP3; THEN to Windows Media Player to organize things, add to dynamic playlists and write to Memory Sticks for my portables; THEN to PhatNoise Music Manager to copy albums and playlists to the Phatbox DMS.

I know it sounds like I'm looking for a "silver bullet", but I just thought I'd ask.   

--- (2) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not considering the be-all-end-all of digital media managers for a moment...

Is there simply a tool that will let me encode straight from FLAC to MP3 using a LAME command?  If I decide once and for all to go lossless as my primary format for home and car, then I won't be keeping a bunch of giant WAV files around to encode to other formats (only 20 GB on PC and in car), and I don't want to have to re-extract from CD since I'll already have a lossless format to work with (i.e., I know the taboo of transcoding lossy-to-lossy...none for me thanks!).  Preferably, such a tool would be available from a product meeting the needs of item (1), or at least as a plug-in.

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So, to summarize, here's a list of everything I'm looking for in one product (or by using as few products as possible):

- WAV extraction with EAC
- Normalization with WaveGain
- Lossless compression with FLAC (plus the option of using several other "standard" lossless codecs such as APE and WavPack)
- MP3 encoding with LAME commands from my choice of WAV or FLAC...I'll need to be able to do both
- ID3 (and perhaps APE) tagging from freedb, or another internet tagging service
- Lossy encoding with other "standard" codecs: MPC, AAC, Ogg
- Media Library Management (basically something like Windows Explorer for the "D:\My Music" directory tree, except within the tool)
- M3U playlist managment

I'll accept the fact that no product other than PhatNoise is going to talk to the DMS, but that PhatNoise will never have all of these other features, so management of my car's digital media will forever be seperate from the rest of my digital media stuff...not a big deal.

As for the rest of it...I know I'm asking a lot, but if anyone could tell me where I could find a tool with at least good media library management and plug-in support for extractors and encoders, then I'd be happy.  Or maybe explain foobar2000 or Winamp to me.  Yes, I've searched the support pages for foobar2K, but I haven't posted any questions there yet...I will shortly.  And I've studied the documentation for both products, so far to no avail.

I DID just download dBpowerAmp, so maybe that'll have some of these capabilities...

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THE DREAM...If life was fair, I could set up one product with all of my preferences, then insert a CD and click one button to get WAV extraction with EAC, ID3 tagging with freedb, WaveGain modifications and FLAC encoding in one motion (well, a string of events anyway...EAC can do this part just fine).  Another button would automatically encode a FLAC file (or a directory full of them) to MP3 format with LAME, per other preferences (haven't found this capability yet).  When all of this was complete, I could view my updated media library and pick and choose songs from the new album to add to M3U playlists, write to Memory Sticks, and call up my DMS and send everything there as well.  All from one tool...

But life's not fair, is it?