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Topic: an alternative to EAC? (Read 34273 times) previous topic - next topic
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an alternative to EAC?

hi.

just simple question: is there any other good ripper around here besides EAC? may be even almost-as-good, but more user friendly.

thnx.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #1 –
CDex.

http://cdex.n3.net

It has a good error correction scheme (CD Paranoia) and is very user-friendly.

(You can expect some bias from me because I'm a CDex project admin)

Regards;

Roberto.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #2 –
thnx. i'll give it a try.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #3 –
Quote
an alternative to EAC?

just simple question: is there any other good ripper around here besides EAC? may be even almost-as-good, but more user friendly.


there is no _alternative_ to eac.  eac uses a unique extraction technique which no other program can match in regards to quality.  however, this improvement is only made on scratched cds.  a new cd will be extracted identically by eac and cdex.

the second-best extraction program is cdex [cdparanoia for linux].

if you are ripping mainly new cds then i wouldn't even use eac...cause eac has been known to cause drive failure due to the high strain it demands on equipment [and in some cases, even with new cds...don't ask me why]

...but those are isolated cases.

"newbie-ness" shouldn't matter though, as you have to set both programs up to fit your drive's specs, and eac now has a newbie friendly gui.

later
mike

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #4 –
in fact new EAC isn't so friendly as... let's say CD-DA.
i asked for an alternative, because of my younger brother (13), who's really not interesetd in having 'identical', bit-by-bit rips. if it sounds good, then it's OK for him (from a certain point of view it's a good rule i think). but he's fed up with typing different naming schemes again and again and so on...
i just don't want to suggest him some crap.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #5 –
I have found audiograbber to be very easy to use, and it does a good job of ripping.  add lame as the encoder and you have a nice all in one solution.
 

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #6 –
First of all I don't see why EAC should be that hard to set up.
It's only hard if you aim for perfection.

Second: Audiograbber does not have secure ripping (as far as I know - there were talk about it getting it some time).
If you don't wanna use EAC use CDex.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #7 –
Quote
Originally posted by Jansemanden
First of all I don't see why EAC should be that hard to set up.
It's only hard if you aim for perfection.


I agree. (me being biased again)

From my experience, the CD must be pretty badly scratched for EAC to noticeably outperform CDex.

And, well, the new main GUI might be "newbie friendly" (and sucks resources as hell), but the various configurations you must set up to get a secure copy are really frightening.

In CDex, to get a secure copy: Settings -> CD rom, Ripping Method: Paranoia, Full. Easy.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #8 –
Quote
Originally posted by rjamorim

From my experience, the CD must be pretty badly scratched for EAC to noticeably outperform CDex.

In CDex, to get a secure copy: Settings -> CD rom, Ripping Method: Paranoia, Full. Easy.

I can only recommend EAC as secure ripping program. CDex can't rip securely when drive caches audio data.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #9 –
Quote
Originally posted by rjamorim

And, well, the new main GUI might be "newbie friendly" (and sucks resources as hell), but the various configurations you must set up to get a secure copy are really frightening.

In CDex, to get a secure copy: Settings -> CD rom, Ripping Method: Paranoia, Full. Easy.

Agreed about the new GUI in EAC (I'm back to Prebeta11), but what's so frightening about the parameters?  It takes maybe 15 minutes to learn what you need to learn, set it up... then you can forget it.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #10 –
Agreed,I find EAC much better to use than CDex,and I may be wrong but I haven't noticed anyway with CDex where you can implement switches,i.e --alt-preset-??  Of course I could be wrong (and usually I am)

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #11 –
Quote
Originally posted by Tinribs
Agreed,I find EAC much better to use than CDex,and I may be wrong but I haven't noticed anyway with CDex where you can implement switches,i.e --alt-preset-??  Of course I could be wrong (and usually I am)


Encoder -> External encoder.

Select the encoder and put whatever you want in the parameter string.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #12 –
Quote
Originally posted by rjamorim
And, well, the new main GUI might be "newbie friendly" (and sucks resources as hell)


It doesn't "suck resources as hell". This must be a misconception coming from the bugs in beta1,  that caused system crashes after having killed all GDI resources.
Beta 2 still had the bug, but only with Windows9x, and Me. It was solved for NT, 2k, and XP.

Quote
Originally posted by xmixahlx
if you are ripping mainly new cds then i wouldn't even use eac...cause eac has been known to cause drive failure due to the high strain it demands on equipment [and in some cases, even with new cds...don't ask me why]


In two years, I only heard one, maybe two stories about people having let EAC trying to read a completely unreadable CD all night long, and the day after, the drive was damaged.
Where did you hear that it had happened with clean CD ? Was it more than two years ago ? Maybe with the obsolete "paranoid" mode that Andre warns us against.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #13 –
Quote
Originally posted by Pio2001
It doesn't "suck resources as hell". This must be a misconception coming from the bugs in beta1,  that caused system crashes after having killed all GDI resources.
Beta 2 still had the bug, but only with Windows9x, and Me. It was solved for NT, 2k, and XP.


Well, I use Win98SE, and it still sucks so much resources that Opera refuses to open new windows when EAC is running. (I even got a blue screen once saying that "The system is dangerously low on resources. You should save your work and restart the computer" or some shit like that.)

That never happened to me using CDex.

Regards;

Roberto.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #14 –
Quote
Originally posted by rjamorim


Well, I use Win98SE, and it still sucks so much resources that Opera refuses to open new windows when EAC is running. (I even got a blue screen once saying that "The system is dangerously low on resources. You should save your work and restart the computer" or some shit like that.)

That never happened to me using CDex.



Well, I'm riping right now in secure mode and it uses 17mb and 40% cpu...
I'm on a p2 333 128mb using the lastest eac beta and WindowsXP®© :cool2:
This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time!

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #15 –
on my machine with Win98SE, EAC and CDex both use about the same CPU, as judged by Process Explorer.  Both in the teens usually, with EAC on secure and CDex on full paranoia.  EAC is more likely to all of a sudden lock my computer, though.  Moreover, it sometimes has problems with my drive (a cheapie); cdParanoia used by CDex does better with cheap drives I think.  Moreover, the cdParanoia scheme is easier on the drive than EAC's, as judged by how often the speed changes and the laser head moves around when using EAC on a scratched cd.

As for the scratched cd's, EAC will give more consistent rips (bit-for-bit more similar when ripping a scratched disc multiple times for comparison; CDex will give similar-sounding reads but the error correction it makes varies a bit more with each read).  That said, I have scratched discs, that I keep for testing purposes, that CDex gets better-sounding reads from than does EAC.  Though on the whole, EAC does better here.  It's also nice to have a progress window; in CDex the only way you know that cdParanoia is having trouble reading is when the % progress indicator gets stuck on a certain value for awhile.

In my experience CDex is a bit easier to set up but has fewer options and isn't quite as cusomizeable.  EAC's wav editor feature is very nice.  I use it frequently.  Just finished going through a cd by Tourniquet, a heavy-metal band that is melodic and amazingly technically proficient but has an annoying screaming/growling vocalist... I clipped out all the vocal portions and merged the leftover sections in rhythm so that the "seams" aren't noticeable.  Time-consuming, but what's a man to do in a year off?
God kills a kitten every time you encode with CBR 320

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #16 –
@ Roberto (and perhaps John33),

It would be cool, if you're managing CDex, if there could be some sort of ripping dialogue box developed.  More than just the % of current track and jitter errors thing that it has right now.  Would be cool if it got closer to matching EAC in this department.  I've mentioned this before, and don't know how feasible it is... I have no programming skill myself.
God kills a kitten every time you encode with CBR 320

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #17 –
Quote
Originally posted by rjamorim
I even got a blue screen once saying that "The system is dangerously low on resources. You should save your work and restart the computer" or some shit like that.)


Then you're using beta 1 or 2.
Get beta 3 for ripping, or prebeta 11 for ripping + burning with cuesheet.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #18 –
I had more problems with Beta 3 locking up my computer and/or forcing me to restart my machine in order to use EAC... currently I use Beta 2 and Prebeta 11
God kills a kitten every time you encode with CBR 320

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #19 –
Quote
Originally posted by seaeye
hi.

just simple question: is there any other good ripper around here besides EAC? may be even almost-as-good, but more user friendly.

thnx.
what about Feurio?? (Ive never used it, but I read somewhere that its a very good ripper and could be an alternative to those who cant/dont wanna use EAC )

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #20 –
X-Tractor 022:

http://xtractor.sourceforge.net/

Very simple and ease to use.
Clean interface no frills.
Freeware, uses Lame.dll.
I used it many times, and did
fine rips.
Has error correction and seems
to perform a extraction in a very similar
way of CDex.(uses Akrip routines).


LIF




http://xtractor.sourceforge.net/
"Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life" (Art Blakey)

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #21 –
But do Feurio or xtractor detect scratches ?

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #22 –
Quote
Originally posted by Pio2001


It doesn't "suck resources as hell". This must be a misconception coming from the bugs in beta1,  that caused system crashes after having killed all GDI resources.
Beta 2 still had the bug, but only with Windows9x, and Me. It was solved for NT, 2k, and XP.


I may be wrong but I think that the actual issue here is not EAC but whether the CDrom is using DMA or not. Also, if the CDrom is on the same IDE cable as the hard drive you can get really slow reads. I had the same issue and had to play around with DMA settings to get things right.

Ideally the CDrom would be on it's own IDE cable with DMA enabled - if it supports it. Not sure how you do this in Windows but on Linux it would be 'hdparm -c1 -d1 /dev/hdc' There must be Windows software that can turn on DMA too.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #23 –
That can't be right. How come, it is the same CD-rom, at the same IDE place. EAC suck the resources, and CDex doesn't.

I don't agree the problem is in the hardware, or CDex would have the same problems.

an alternative to EAC?

Reply #24 –
Look, I use EAC and CDEX.


THe two leapfrog each other.

When I first used CDEX (1.2) , it sucked, even EAC was better.

When CDex 130betas came around, i tried it again, good stuff against EAC which created spurious errors.


I will try eac again, but I find a clean CD being ripped at .1 again, and no option to reduce CD speed (thanks AL, CDEX does this).

And by the way, I will not accept a viewpoimt(!) that EAX is better at ripping until I have a study that can ABX it