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Topic: Need help comparing ripping software (Read 13691 times) previous topic - next topic
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Need help comparing ripping software

I do have a similar mission, and I did trial and error a lot of software. I guess I did spent about over 100 hours until now and I have not yet defined a passable workflow.

My mission;
preTagging the CD-Info (artist, tracks, cover and ...)
(secure)Rip and convert it into FLAC
reTagging and cleaning the tags in the FLAC-files
Convert the FLAC-files into lame mp3 with all the tags bequeath
Archive the FLAC-files and load the mp3's into iTunes (Mac)
Catalogue the library into an offline database

Because I'm primary using a macintosh I started to download all mac-software I could find for my workflow. The result thereof was sorrowful. The most lack was solid tagging software and converter (FLAC->lame mp3). So went to looking for Windowz software, with somewhat more luck. There are tons of windows tagging software out there, but not many that support FLAC and some fields I want to edit (used in iTunes).
--> can somebody recommend a good tagging software for FLAC-files, maybe I did overlooked something?
Until now I have two favorites; Mp3tag v2.41 (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/) and MediaMonkey.

Right now I test some ripping software and that is the reason I respond to that thread, because I did test all here mentioned applications. My prospects; it should keep up with the mac masterpiece Max 0.8.1 (http://sbooth.org/Max/), which I was satisfied with.

On the agenda;
EAC, dBpa, Easy CD-DA Extractor, Accord CD Ripper (and lot of other, but not installed yet)

my temporary results;
EAC was the best, followed by Easy CD-DA Extractor and worst was dBpa (trial version).
I could not really test Accord CD Ripper (Demo) because it let me only rip the first 6 tracks and I have a CD, where track 14 and 15 are problematic (scratched), but the settings announce good features.

EAC has powerful (but not perfect) settings for ripping, but lacks with tagging into FLAC (some fields are not present in the output files), and lacks of no covers can be loaded.
@greynol; I will take a look at REACT, where can I find more info?

dBpa did rip the tracks 14+15 with hearable errors but without any hint about the error in logs nor as message. That is a knockout for me. The good side of dBpa is, it loads the tags from 4 internet databases and you can pick any fields of your choice to use them into the tags and dBpa did fill the most fields into the FLAC-files.

Easy CD-DA Extractor is between EAC and dBpa;
it loads the tags from 2 databases, it can load covers, has not that powerfully settings about secure ripping but it has ripped these two tracks very fast without any hearable errors and it screened some read errors in the progress window.

EAC was not able to rip these two tracks in secure mode, but in the burst mode the output was without any hearable errors but unfortunately no log entries about possible errors.

My intention is to rip all my CDs as fast as possible, if an error occur then the track should be skipped and some entries about that error should be written in the log. I did not test all combinations of settings of EAC, so I don't know, if it is possible to rip generally in burst mode and switch over to secure or paranoia mode or better the track should be skipped (with log entries) when error occurs. As I understood, in the burst mode no error detection at all takes place, so all errors could be hearable in the result without any hint. The secure mode is to slow, in my case at least.


Two questions,
Should I take a look at other rip software, which are in the same league as mentioned applications?
What about FairStars, ACDR or CDex ...?

Can somebody recommend some good CD/DVD drive for dae, which are still available?
Just refer some models; I will look up them by my self.
I did read some threads here about dae-drives, but many recommended are not available anymore and I did not read that much because I do spent actually much time with testing different applications.


Thanks,...

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #1 –
Quote
dBpa did rip the tracks 14+15 with hearable errors but without any hint about the error in logs nor as message.


CD Ripper >> Options  and enable secure ripping. Also secure rippers require a certain amount of configuration to get their best, you should let AccurateRip configure this will help both EAC and dBpoweramp, and test for c2 error pointer support (in dBpoweramp) will help.

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #2 –
It's also critical to use the same drive(s) to compare ripping programs as well as have a way of distinguishing a rip that is accurate from one that is not.

I'm sure that Max has above average ripping capabilities, but based on what I've read about it I have a trouble accepting geigervibe's ordainment of "masterpiece".  There is still a some doubt centered around its ability to rip securely and I would guess that is has to do with drives that cache audio data.

The conclusion drawn about dBpoweramp is highly suspect since there should be little to no difference between a track that is presented as having no errors or warnings and one performed in EAC using burst mode when ripped with the same drive, provided AR wasn't able to verify the track(*).

Also, when testing EAC, I would not bother with its paranoid mode.

For information about REACT, search the forum and check the wiki.

(*) My point is that dBpa performs burst passes.  If re-reads weren't performed (because nothing triggered them or secure mode wasn't chosen), then it's essentially the same thing as ripping in burst mode in EAC.

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #3 –
@spoon
thanx.
Already when I was testing all macintosh software I did installing and using dBpa. I used it to convert FLAC into mp3 to test what meta-tags would be migrated. I loved the app for that. In the phase of testing Win-Tagger, I did use dBpa again for analyzing in what form the FLAC-meta tags must be, so that dBpa migrates the tags into mp3, which are readable by iTunes. And yes, I did found a way and it worked. No other combination I tested until then worked out for me with my requirements. Not even Max was able to write the tags as iTunes would expect them. But when I was testing the ripping quality I got disappointed, because mentioned reasons.
Most of my last tests I did middle in the night, when I was tired, and this Option-Dialog I did oversee. I did configure Illustrate\dBpoweramp\dBConfig.exe and I did activate the down-arrow alongside to the Option-Button. So I believed, there were no more settings! Sorry, now I found them:)
Right now I took a look at this settings and I got happy to have something to play with. What I saw was what I’m looking for, much promising!

You as developer could answer me the following question, where are the pictures for the ArtCovers coming from? dBpa did find covers, which Amazon-tools did not. And is it possible to find pictures greater then 250x250? I ask because I often found amazon pictures, which was about 500x500 where dBpa only found them about 250x250.


@greynol
Thanx for your recommendations.

I used dBpa with the default ripping settings, because I did not find the real Option-Dialog. But it is true;

EAC, burst;
ripped fast, non hearable defect in the output and no error log entry.
EAC, high secure, none paranoia;
rip exited on error and there was an error log entry.
E CDDA E, highest secure settings;
fast rip, non hearable defect in the output, error at the process window.
dBpa, default;
ripped fast, hearable defect in the output (1 second gap) and no error log/message.

One and the same CD and drive. The CD was not in the accurate-DB and the drive does not support c2.


I did wrote ‘mac masterpiece Max 0.8.1’ and it is still by far the best for the macintosh platform. No skepticism about that. You would not believe what mess other tools did. And I did spent much time with these tools, much more then with dBpa. But now my times escapes and I getting tired on testing and testing. In the hurriedness and desperation I did oversee the real option dialog of dBpa,…
Max is by far not perfect, but is still a reference for me to comparing with the master tools for windows...

With Max I got the best results with the paranoia enabled. In the case of EAC you would really not recommend this method?


Thank you for your time,…



I’m still interested of some recommendations about dae-drives, as I would need them soon. I did google to find some site with comparisons in table form, but I did not find any.
Can somebody point me to a site?
The site http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/DriveComparisons/Home.aspx offers something like that, but I had no luck to use it, because it was not function for me,...

Update; I'm reading right now this thread;
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=64848
All my questions about dae-drives are answered there. So there is no need to answer my here. Sorry, first read then ask, ...
sorry again, ...

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #4 –
If GD3 has the album art, it can be upto 500x500, if not then AMG album art is used which is 250x250.

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #5 –
So,...
Yesterday night I did repeat some tests with dBpoweramp, to verify my earlier results.
I must commit that it was unjustifiable to post my temporary results without to double-check them. Normal I do double-check or better triple-check my results before I count on them, but not this time.
Sorry for the misleading results and thanks for the clarification.

My still temporary results from yesterday about dBpoweramp in short;
In burst (default) mode I could rip this time these mentioned tracks twice without any hearable defects. In secure mode it took more then one hour to rip these tracks. So, the result was similar to EACs result and therefore I'm upgrading my rating of dBpoweramp a lot.

I will do more tests with dBpoweramp and EAC to compare them and find the right settings for them on the weekend. I will do that on a real PC, until now I did all tests on my MacBook with Parallels.


Maybe somebody can help me with some suggestion of settings, which I can start with. As novice I would be very happy for any input.

My intention is to rip all my CDs as fast as possible, using multiple drives. I have at least two categories of CDs. One category with important CDs (cat1), which should be ripped as accurate as possible (were rip time no matters that much) and another category (cat2), were the output quality of these are not unimportant but no 100% accurate output is needed, these should be ripped as fast as possible.

I don't know if it possible with ether EAC or dBpoweramp to rip all CDs with one setting, which should be as fast as possible, when an error occur then the application should skip this track instantly and write that error into the log. Then can I later troubleshooting and re-rip these aborted tracks with other settings on maybe other drives. How much time I spent and what settings I'm using then depends on the category to which the CD belongs.

I would guess that 'Error recovery quality: low' (to detect errors) and 'skip track extraction on read or sync errors' would be a passable generally setting for EAC to achieve fast ripping with error handling. Is this a good idea, or would somebody recommend another setting to achieve that target?
I have no idea yet what setting would be good for dBpoweramp to get the same effect. I will take a closer look at dBpoweramp to find applicable settings, but until then all help and advises are welcome.

Or alternative I use two different settings, one for cat1 CDs (medium secure) and one for cat2 CDs (burst). But as I understood, in the burst mode no error handling at all takes place, so I must listen to the songs and verify, if the output has no hearable defects. Can somebody confirm that?


Thank you for any help,...




@spoon
Thank you for your answer. I have an additional question;
Are there plans to support amazon to get album art in the future?

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #6 –
Quote from: geigervibe on
With Max I got the best results with the paranoia enabled. In the case of EAC you would really not recommend this method?
Other than having a similar name, EAC's Paranoid mode has nothing to do with cdparanoia.

Quote from: geigervibe on
I would guess that 'Error recovery quality: low' (to detect errors) and 'skip track extraction on read or sync errors' would be a passable generally setting for EAC to achieve fast ripping with error handling. Is this a good idea, or would somebody recommend another setting to achieve that target?
Does your drive cache audio data?  If so I would recommend burst mode and check for accurate rip results and then perform a test pass for the tracks that can't be verified and compare the read and test CRCs to see if they match.

Setting error recovery to low is a very good idea if you're interested in making EAC as sensitive to errors as possible when ripping in secure mode.

Quote from: geigervibe on
I have no idea yet what setting would be good for dBpoweramp to get the same effect. I will take a closer look at dBpoweramp to find applicable settings, but until then all help and advises are welcome.
You mentioned earlier that your drive does not provide C2 pointers so I would recommend Secure mode without  Ultra Secure Ripping and max re-reads set to 20.

Quote from: geigervibe on
But as I understood, in the burst mode no error handling at all takes place, so I must listen to the songs and verify, if the output has no hearable defects. Can somebody confirm that?
This is why you use AccurateRip or a test CRC for verification.  A test CRC is not as robust as AccurateRip since it's more likely for errors to be consistent when ripping the same disc with the same drive, though it shouldn't happen very often.

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #7 –
Quote
Are there plans to support amazon to get album art in the future?


No, we will not base something on leaching, one day it works, the next it does not.

Quote
when an error occur then the application should skip this track instantly


CD Ripper >> Options >> Secure Settings    and set  Secure Rip Abort: After Unrecoverable Frames:  1 frame

You can also set to not even try to rip if say 400 frames (a sure sign of a damaged cd)

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #8 –
So, yesterday I did not much testing, I was too tired, but I took a closer look at some features of dBpoweramp for few minutes.

Thank you for all your advises, it helps me to save some time, even though I will continue my real tests not until the weekend. To night I will read a little hydrogenaudio's wiki to learn more basics.

But I have still some questions and suggestions.


@greynol

Thank you for all the hints, I will incorporate them into my tests,...

I can't really tell if my drive is caching or not. As I remember EAC told me that my drive is caching. But it should not be that important now, because it is not clear yet, if I will use the current used drive (Pioneer DVR-106D) later for ripping. I had that drive at my fingertips ready to use (build into an USB enclosure). I guess it is not the best drive for dae. Unfortunately Parallels do not support firewire, so that I could not integrate firewire drives into the virtual Windows. Therefore I will set up a real PC that weekend for better compatibly. I have also a big carton full with older drives, which I will verify at the weekend, which drive is best qualified for dae. Can you or somebody else recommend some site, which I can look up my drives at and read some reviews or tests in addition to this forum?
Unfortunately http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/DriveComparisons/Home.aspx did not work for me.


@spoon

Thank you for your respond.
I can understand to avoid something uncertain. But right now amazon has many high-res covers, which I found with other amazon based tools. I did only test about 5 CDs, which 4 of them were found with near 500x500 and dBpoweramp did find 5 of them with only around 250x250.

In that case I must look up for high-res covers after the ripping, which is ok, because with EAC it is also required to do so (or use REACT, but I did not yet take a look at it).


Last days I discovered something strange, which happened not always but sometimes. I did put in a CD, obtain data via PerfectMeta, edited some fields, ejected the CD, quitted dBpoweramp, reopen dBpoweramp, putted the CD in again and everything was as I left it. The day after all my changes was lost. I did try to ‘Retrieve From: dBpoweramp Cache’, but no luck. I did not refresh via PerfectMeta.

That behavior has happened circa two of about 10 times. I’m little worried about that, because if I would re-rip some few tracks of a CD and the meta-data is not as I ripped in the first place, then I have some unequal meta-data within a ripped CD. It would be much more save, if there would be a save-option, so that I can save the CD-Info controlled at a certain time. Maybe there is a function like that and I have overlooked it again.


I do have one more question;
Is there some similar routine like EAC’s ’Test&Copy’ inside of dBpoweramp?



@all

I’m still looking for a mass tagger for FLAC-files and some tool to query multiple sources to find album cover art to embed them into the FLAC-files. It should list the result in some table form and display the resolution as well.
The mass tagger should have some filter or search routines, which allow me to find certain criteria and fill certain fields with certain information. It should support as many fields as possible. The more powerfully the merrier.
I did search and test lot of taggers but I did not test all taggers out there. Right now I favorite Mp3tag v2.41 (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/).

Can somebody recommend some tools?


Thank you all,…

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #9 –
You can switch on the CRC column and that is pretty much the same (you could have 1 profile that uses the Test Conversion encoder).

The cache is only about 10-20 discs.

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #10 –
Quote from: geigervibe on
Is there some similar routine like EAC’s ’Test&Copy’ inside of dBpoweramp?

I don't have R13, but assume it's still the same.

If you rip a track once the CRC will show up in black.  If you rip the track again and get the same CRC it will turn green.  If it is different it will turn red.  Simply tell dBpa to rip to "Test Conversion" and it will not write a file.

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #11 –
Quote from: spoon on
The cache is only about 10-20 discs.


That was bad news. I did hope I'm blind again. My plan was to rip all wholesome CDs at once and skip all balefully tracks to re-rip them at a later session. If the meta-data differs from the initial rip, that is not good. Is there a workaround which I can do, besides from taking screenshots or read the tags of the already ripped tracks? Are there plans to integrate a save-function in the future? It is a very common function, and it would be nice to see that in dBpoweramp too. Because dBpoweramp getting more and more my favorit ripper, even I did not test it copious yet, it fills up my most requirements.
Thanks again,...

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #12 –
You could enable the CDPlayer.ini storage option, but that cannot store composer.

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #13 –
Now after I been busy with testing EAC vs. dBpA and evaluate 20 drives to find the best, besides couple of other things to do, I’m back here with some questions.

I would prefer to use dBpA against eac because of its better Meta data handling, but I did found some others oddities instead.

Because I want to use 6 drives to rip my CDs, I would aspire to batch rip with them parallel. Therefore I did a look at dBpA’s batch ripper. Unfortunately this app has much less settings than the main app. It was not possible to use a different setting for each drive, with which the drive works best. The batch ripper used always the „default“ profile of the main app. Also the Batch ripper forgot CDs Meta data as soon it has ejected, it needed to connect to the online databases again and it was therefore necessary to edit certain fields again.

Along other reasons I switched back to the main app in the hope it ‚supports’ simultaneous instances. Unfortunately not really. As soon as I opened a new instance and switched to another drive it was NOT unnoticed by the other already opened instances. Even these instances already ripped some tracks and the drive pull down was locked, these switched sometimes to the last chosen one of the new instance. The result was very confusing.

Is there a possibility to batch rip with the dBpA with different settings for each drive without any oddities?


I think the idea to chain VST and DX plugins into the process is a really good one. I would use it with the converter, as I want to keep the lossless Flacs untouched and process the mp3 instead. Unfortunately dBpA did only load a minority of my VST/DX plugs. I could not find out why. The most important plugs did not load!  What characteristic must a plug have to been loaded with the dBpA? What can I do to load them successfully?


Thanks for any advises,…

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #14 –
1. Yeah, the application only allows one current set of drive settings for secure rips.  Hopefully spoon will allow drive profiles in the future.

2. You should be trying the R13.1 release candidate from the dbpa beta forum (see sticky in the forum).  It has some fixes that might help, perhaps fixing the multiple application window drive confusion.

3. The batch ripper has a new flag for locally storing metadata for up to one day...not sure if it is remembering the *final* edited metadata or the downloaded metadata.  See the past couple weeks of the batch ripper thread.

-brendan

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #15 –
I am sure this drive setting is about one bunch of drives being modern and supporting MMC, the other drives requireing the D12 ripping command mode?

Profiles are set from batch ripper, on the tool bar (not in cd ripper).
 

Need help comparing ripping software

Reply #16 –
Quote from: bhoar on
1. Yeah, the application only allows one current set of drive settings for secure rips.  Hopefully spoon will allow drive profiles in the future.

2. You should be trying the R13.1 release candidate from the dbpa beta forum (see sticky in the forum).  It has some fixes that might help, perhaps fixing the multiple application window drive confusion.

3. The batch ripper has a new flag for locally storing metadata for up to one day...not sure if it is remembering the *final* edited metadata or the downloaded metadata.  See the past couple weeks of the batch ripper thread.

-brendan

After some mess on my computer I did reinstall Win and at the same time I did install the beta of dBpA 13R1. With this version I do still having some confusion with multiple drive setup and multiple instances. In one case I did rip with 5 drives at the same time, 4 of them did success while the other one was canceled by another instance when it ejected the wrong disk.

I will repeat some tests with multiple drives without the option to eject any disk, …

I did not look much at the batch ripper again, but until now I did not see this flag to store locally, I will take later a closer look at it.


Quote from: spoon on
I am sure this drive setting is about one bunch of drives being modern and supporting MMC, the other drives requireing the D12 ripping command mode?

Profiles are set from batch ripper, on the tool bar (not in cd ripper).

MMC, D12? How can I check if my drives support it?
Yes most of the drives are “modern” but not all. Should I take these outdated drives out of the chain and test again? What can I expect?

Yes I saw the profile pull down in the batch ripper, but you can only chose one profile for all drives and you must stop the batch ripping to change the profile.



@all
I think I will use the batch ripper for zero defect CDs with one common profile and the normal ripper for the more defective CDs. In this context I have some questions;

Is there a ‘best practice’ setting for very defective CDs for the best ‘repair’ result?
With certain CDs it is not possible anymore to rip secure, I would be happy if none hearable click or pop are in the result.
I did test some combination of settings but I’m not sure if I already found the best one.
In one case I was able to rip a CD with max on the Mac without some clicks and with the same drive and CD I was not able to do that with dBpA yet.
It’s hard to test different combinations of settings because one defective CD can take hours to rip. Maybe someone can recommend some settings for this case? Thanks.



Thanks a lot!