Questions about the "Rip CD" dialog box

[HippieMonkey]

I am trying to rip my first (of many) CDs into MMW4. I have read on-line documentation about CD ripping to the point of starting to develop a headache. Finally, I knew it was time to stop reading and start "getting my feet wet". When the "Rip CD" dialog box appeared, I came up with questions about "Rip Format", "Rip Type", and the "Level Track Volume" box.

During my extensive reading, I found the table about MM supported formats. I saw CDA listed. I was surprised when I didn't see CDA as a selection under "Rip Format". Am I missing something?

Under "Rip Type", I saw "Standard Read", "Jitter Corrected Read", and "Secure Read". I didn't see a write-up describing these ( perhaps trees/forest syndrome?). I saw that "Secure Read" takes longer. I am retired, so, as the Rolling Stones said, "time is on my side". I am more interested in the best uncompressed rip possible. Of these 3 "Rip Type Options" what would y'all recommend?

As far as the "Level Track Volume" box, I think I remember reading (either in the on-line documentation or on this forum) that it is better to not check this box, and deal with volume normalization during playback? What do y'all recommend for this?

I think that it would be great if each dialog box would have spot in the on-line documentation which would give a brief description of the dialog box options. It is painful to continually bounce between the dialog box and the on-line documentation...which has embedded links within each section. This may be a very large documentation effort, but I think that it would be very useful to a newbie like me.

Once I start successfully ripping my rather large CD collection, my forum question rate will probably go down because I will enter into the "semi-mindless CD rip state".

[rivorson]

Format:
This is the format that is saved to your computer. WAV is equivalent to CDA since it stores the original audio without compression but it has very poor metadata support. I see you were asking about saving without compression in another thread but I suggest saving as FLAC which uses lossless compression to reduce the file size by about half while retaining all of the original audio.
With FLAC selected you can then set the compression level. Higher compression levels result in a smaller file but it is always lossless.

Rip type:
This is just from memory so the details are a bit sparse.
Standard read is the most straight forward rip. It will It will attempt to read the audio and save the result.
Jitter corrected read does the same but attempts to correct for a hardware error. Jitter is where the CD drive reads from an incorrect sector.
Secure read tries to get the most accurate rip by reading the CD multiple times to select the values that are most likely correct. The multiple read attempts even when there is no error is the reason for it taking extra time.

Level track volume will modify the ripped audio so that the peak volume is standardised. If you have a CD that smoothly transitions from one track to the next this could cause an abrupt change in volume between tracks as the two tracks could be levelled by a different amount. It is much better to leave the audio unlevelled in the ripped file. As you say MM can analyse the volumes to normalise during playback.

Verify ripped tracks connects to an online service and compares your rip against the rips created by others for the same disc. A high number of people with matching rips suggests that you have an accurate rip.

On the fly encoding writes to your selected output format directly while ripping. If not selected them MM will rip to a WAV file first then encode to your selected format when the track has finished ripping. Audio encoding is trivial for any computer made in the last ten years so it's probably best to have this selected unless you encounter problems.

[Lowlander]

CDA is listed as supported as MediaMonkey can play Audio CDs. It is an Audio CD only format, thus you can't rip/Convert files to CDA.

[HippieMonkey]

Thanks rivorson for taking the time to write a detailed response.

After reading your response, and looking back at the nice format table found at http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... ncepts/4.0, I am going to use FLAC format for ripping.

As far as "Rip type", it would seem that "Secure read" would, in most cases, also repair jitter issues. If that is true, then I would be inclined to select "Secure read", but not select "Jitter corrected". Does this sound logical to you?

Thanks for the bonus "On the fly encoding" explanation.

A write-up similar to yours describing the "Rip CD" dialog box would be a great thing to have in the MM documentation. Something like this would be good particularly for all frequently used dialog boxes.

[rivorson]

"Secure read" would, in most cases, also repair jitter issues.

I believe that secure read includes the same jitter correction as jitter corrected read. The three options are really just a balance between accuracy and speed.

Personally I would use secure read as long as you can live with the slower speed. Alternatively you could use jitter corrected read to rip most discs faster and just use secure read for discs that are scratched.

Either way if you have verify ripped tracks enabled it will showing how many people matched your rip. If there are no matching rips then you can try again with secure read.

[MMFrLife]

Either way if you have verify ripped tracks enabled it will showing how many people matched your rip. If there are no matching rips then you can try again with secure read.

That's what I would use as a guide. Most rips will be just fine, unless you have a lot of scratched up/old discs. But, even then, you'd would likely only need
to re-rip on occasion.

CDA can be read from/played on a computer but it is not true format. It's just an identifier/label for the PCM coding on physical/CD discs.
When extracting, it is translated to the "computer understood" WAV format. Although, other formats have been developed as well.
FLAC is an excellent choice.
I use it!

[HippieMonkey]

Thanks for the replies rivorson & MMFrLife. I have now successfully ripped Beck, Bogert, and Appice Live, disks 1 & 2 to MM. I have also burned same to CD. So, I'm a MM expert now!

My next assignment (should I accept...ala Mission Impossible) will be to include the artwork for the 1973 (originally) Japanese import of BB&A Live, which was never released in the US.

I have also gotten better at searching for past forum discussions, as well as reading the MM on-line documentation. I still think the MM on-line documentation should include write-ups specific to frequently used dialog boxes. Heck, a good start on the material has been written in the forums!

[Salvemundum]

I started ripping to MP3, but not long ago tried FLAC because of the no loss properties. But I was amazed to find out that when listening to FLAC the sound quality was actually worse than MP3 during playback on highend HIFI equipment! And the quality varied depending on which media player used during playback!
Do only explanation I can find for this is that the sound quality depends on the hardware and the media player.
So now I am ripping to WAV, this results on superb sound quality during playback on my lowspec laptop connected to high end HIFI equipment.
I replaced the hardddrive to get storage for the bigger WAV-files, that was easier than trying to solve the decompressing and playback FLAC issue.