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Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.
Thanks Nod. You kinda lost me abit with all that format talk, but oh well.
I struggle to keep up too. These are the ones I'm can name but it is far from a complete list. Hopefully someone will correct any mistakes.
Lossy compression discards information to save space. You pick your compression rate 128kbps, 192, 225... and amount of loss.
-MP3 is one of the first compression formats that took hold and I don't think is proprietary but I could be wrong. (If not that would mean that any legal software that uses MP3 would have to pay a licensing fee to included it).
-AAC is Apples proprietary version of MP3. It's a different algorathim that only iTunes uses.
-WMF is Windows version of MP3. Again different and proprietary.
Lossless compression - no information is discarded. I think they all generally compress about the same degree. It's more a matter of whose algorithm does the compression and decompression faster.
-ALE is Apples Lossless encoder (haven't used)
-FLAC is an open source lossless compressor. Free! Getting popular.
Non-compressed - for all practical purposes an exact copy of the CD. Pretty much just copying a file to your harddrive from the CD
-AIFF is Apples non-compressed format.
-WAV is the PC non-compressed format.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ericl
One of the fixes was configuring all devices on my network to run at the 802.11B speed, and all on the same channel. I seem to recall doing a couple other little tweaks to my network, but now I can't recall what they are.
AH, one thing I now do is keep the source computer tethered to it's internet connection with an ethernet cable, instead of doing it wirelessly. Many wifi router also have switches in them, meaning you can bypass the wireless and just connect to the internet the old way, with an ethernet cable. THe computer is still on the wireless network though, because it's connected to the wireless router.
This has the effect of reducing wireless traffic. Instead of slinging data across the wireless network twice (computer wireless ~~> router ~~>APX) it does it just once (computer ethernet -> router ~~> APX). Wireless traffic is halved, and your chances of dropouts are too. If you stream radio to your APX as i do, this is crucial, because then the path(i believe) goes like this: (router~~>computer~~>router~~>APX) that's three trips across the network!
Hope this makes a little sense. I need to diagram it.
....brain....straining.... I think I get it. Network is not something I understand. I thought the APX was also a router? I have a wireless router (Airport) fed from my cable modem and all wireless laptops. If I added an APX would there be a problem? Maybe the APX needs to be closest to the computer? Maybe the problem is when your computer is closest to the router, then it takes over the data and forwards it to the APX? In my current setup, if I added an APX it would be about 5 feet from the Airport hub.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by noddin0ff
I struggle to keep up too. These are the ones I'm can name but it is far from a complete list. Hopefully someone will correct any mistakes.
Lossy compression discards information to save space. You pick your compression rate 128kbps, 192, 225... and amount of loss.
-MP3 is one of the first compression formats that took hold and I don't think is proprietary but I could be wrong. (If not that would mean that any legal software that uses MP3 would have to pay a licensing fee to included it).
-AAC is Apples proprietary version of MP3. It's a different algorathim that only iTunes uses.
-WMF is Windows version of MP3. Again different and proprietary.
Lossless compression - no information is discarded. I think they all generally compress about the same degree. It's more a matter of whose algorithm does the compression and decompression faster.
-ALE is Apples Lossless encoder (haven't used)
-FLAC is an open source lossless compressor. Free! Getting popular.
Non-compressed - for all practical purposes an exact copy of the CD. Pretty much just copying a file to your harddrive from the CD
-AIFF is Apples non-compressed format.
-WAV is the PC non-compressed format.
So once this info is lost, is it gone for good? I ask because there is software that can convert lets say a MP3 file into WAV. Is this having any effect on the sound?
Wave takes up alot of space so I guess thats not a good idea unless you have a huge HD.
The FLAC, can this be compared to WAV as far as taking up huge amounts of space?
Can MP3 be converted into any of these formats, but with improved sound? Or maybe I should say, will converting an MP3 to one of these formats improve the sound?
Hope these ? makes sense. I kinda asked the same thing in 10 different way.
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You generally get roughly 2-to-1 compression going from WAV to FLAC.
If you're doing MP3's, you should be using the latest beta of LAME -- I think it's 3.97b2 -- which allows for "variable bit encoding". This algorithm figures out what parts of the song require more bits, and is hence more efficient at getting good quality for a given amount of space. You can get very good encoding for a little over 200kbps, on average.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.
Can MP3 be converted into any of these formats, but with improved sound? Or maybe I should say, will converting an MP3 to one of these formats improve the sound?
Not that I'm aware of. I think once you compress with loss of information, you can never get it back.
On the other hand, if you start with lossless compression (e.g. FLAC), you can always convert to MP3 and compress further.
I ripped my entire CD collection in FLAC, for home listening. I then used a Perl scrip (flac2mp3)t to make a mirror directory in MP3, for my iPod.
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Is all this software free?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ericl
I have an airport express, and I think it's great. Check out the review:
http://audioreview.com/Airportcrx.aspx
I mentioned some kinks with audio dropouts, but I have since ironed those out. I should update the review. For good quality, you MUST use the digital output instead of the analog.
I got a squeezebox for review last week. It's analog output is awesome, it has way more features including a remote, but it's not as easy to use as the APX. It's got loads of potential, but it also has some bugs to work out (I used to be a software tester so I am pretty harsh on software defects and find them intolerable). Expect a review in the next month or two.
How did you work out your kinks? My original fix was to prevent the double bounce (i.e. desktop->laptop->airport express) using a remote program called tuneconnect. As I find using the itunes w/ the share so convenient many times I didn't really like that fix.The next fix that really did the trick was to glue my network on just (g) rather than b/g. That actually fixed all the drop out issues. Finally, w/ the 1/3/06 firmware update everything now just works everything is set to b/g.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.
Is all this software free?
LAME and FLAC are free.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.
So once this info is lost, is it gone for good? I ask because there is software that can convert lets say a MP3 file into WAV. Is this having any effect on the sound?
Yep, gone, daddy, gone. the love is gone. You can convert to WAV but it wouldn't be the same as ripping from CD to WAV.
Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.
Wave takes up alot of space so I guess thats not a good idea unless you have a huge HD.
Yes. An audio CD holds about 700MB (WAV or AIFF) which is something like 74 minutes of music. 1GB = ~100 minutes in WAV format.
Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.
The FLAC, can this be compared to WAV as far as taking up huge amounts of space?
kind of. There is still compression but no data is lost. It's kind of like running Stuffit or WinZip on a file. You typically can compress about 3-4 fold without losing data. So that 74 minute CD could squeeze down to 300Mb with no loss in quality. You could also back-convert the file and reproduce the CD exactly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.
Can MP3 be converted into any of these formats, but with improved sound? Or maybe I should say, will converting an MP3 to one of these formats improve the sound?
No. Loss is one way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.
Hope these ? makes sense. I kinda asked the same thing in 10 different way.
Perfect sense!
edit: oops walked away before posting. I see Mike had some solid answers for you!
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So I should rip my CD collection to my HD in the FLAC format, right? It's better than mp3 because there is no loss, and does not take as much space as WAV since it's compressed.
And what exactly does the LAME software do?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.
So I should rip my CD collection to my HD in the FLAC format, right? It's better than mp3 because there is no loss, and does not take as much space as WAV since it's compressed.
Yes, FLAC or some other lossless compression. FLAC is nice because it's open source. Apple lossless and Windows lossless are proprietary.
Quote:
And what exactly does the LAME software do?
It's one (of many) ways to compress to MP3.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Anderson
It's one (of many) ways to compress to MP3.
Ok so I would use a lossless format such as WAV or FLAC and then use the LAME to compress it to MP3 without loss, for less space on my HD :confused:
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Nope. Any conversion to a lossy format (MP3) results in loss regardless of how it got there. LAME is one of several applications that will make MP3 files.
What Mike does is use lossless FLAC compression to create big (but still smaller than WAVE files) perfect quality files of his tunes on a hard drive where he has lots of space... But then he creates a second, redundant library in MP3 format that he puts on his iPod (or whatever) where there is less space and quality is less important.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bloosqr
How did you work out your kinks? My original fix was to prevent the double bounce (i.e. desktop->laptop->airport express) using a remote program called tuneconnect. As I find using the itunes w/ the share so convenient many times I didn't really like that fix.The next fix that really did the trick was to glue my network on just (g) rather than b/g. That actually fixed all the drop out issues. Finally, w/ the 1/3/06 firmware update everything now just works everything is set to b/g.
check out post #25 in this thread, i talk about the same things you mention
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Gotcha!
Thanks Guys! For taking the time to break it down for me. I learn so much here.
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One more ? guys. Can music be downloaded in a lossless or non compressed format?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.
One more ? guys. Can music be downloaded in a lossless or non compressed format?
Rarely. For example, the iTunes store doesn't do it.
However, the Internet Music Archive has lots of lossless compressed music - and it's free! Check it out:
http://www.archive.org/details/audio
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I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but a good thing to consider if you're thinking about storing several hundred albums worth of music is a RAID array.
RAID as defined by webopedia
(rād) Short for Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks, a category of disk drives that employ two or more drives in combination for fault tolerance and performance. RAID disk drives are used frequently on servers but aren't generally necessary for personal computers.
Basically you use more than one drive to get more performance or data security. Many of today's motherboards support this technology, but a RAID add on card (controller) can be bought for less than $100.
RAID requires equally sized hard drives (preferrably the same model). Actually it's not required, but the array is based on the smallest size drive in the array.
The obvious disadvantage to RAID is that you generally have to buy multiple drives to get the same amount of storage. The advantage (depending on the mode used) is greater performance or more importantly in this case is data protection if a hard drive fails.
The basic RAID modes that would be ideal for music storage would be
RAID 1 (mirroring) - This mode uses two drives. One is simply a mirror of the other. The amount of storage in the array is equal to that of the smallest drive, there is no performance gain or hit. If one drive fails, it can be replaced while the other still holds the data.
RAID 0+1 (striping + mirroring) - This mode requires four drives, and adds a mirroring array to a two striping arrays for a slight performance increase with mirroring. Storage space is equal to 2 X the smallest drive in the array. (RAID 10 is basically the same thing as this, it adds a striping array to two mirroring arrays)
RAID 5 - (striping with fault tolerance) - This mode is similar to 0+1, but it uses three drives. Storage space is equal to 2X the smallest drive in the array.
It really isn't much harder to set up a RAID array than it is to simply install a single hard drive. There is plenty of info on the net about how exactly to do this. I would recommend RAID 1. You can use a controller card to create multiple RAID arrays.
Avoid RAID 0 (striping), which doubles your risk of HDD failure (uses two drives as one and has a 1:1 storage ratio), but adds a slight performance increase.
Just something to look into for those planning to store massive libraries!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bacchanal
I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but a good thing to consider if you're thinking about storing several hundred albums worth of music is a RAID array.
*snip*
Basically you use more than one drive to get more performance or data security. Many of today's motherboards support this technology, but a RAID add on card (controller) can be bought for less than $100.
I was wondering about this. We have only laptops at our home so there's no room for internal drives. Its there a cheap firewire/IEEE 1394 solution? It didn't escape me that 2x250G drives are cheaper than 1x500G!
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I've just been backing everything up on Taiyo Yuden DVD's.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by noddin0ff
I was wondering about this. We have only laptops at our home so there's no room for internal drives. Its there a cheap firewire/IEEE 1394 solution? It didn't escape me that 2x250G drives are cheaper than 1x500G!
As far as I know RAID is pretty much limited to workstations. It is more of a server type technology, so there probably isn't much RIAD support in the mobile world. There are multiple drive enclosures, but cheap isn't the word. This is the type of thing you'd be considering if you'd be willing to spend a bit more to get more data security. Especially if you're building an HTPC or a dedicated music server.
I can see why you think storage is expensive if you're using external drives. If you're serious about storing your library, I would consider building a server sometime in the future.
As far as using DVDs to backup music, recordable disks have a finite lifetime just like HDDs. It is much easier to keep redundant copies of one or two large HDDs, than keeping up with the health status of your DVD backup library. However, inexpensive and convenient DVDs are.
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I did a little searching and found an external2-drive RAID enclosure It's not so much more expensive than a normal enclosure, certainly less than 2 enclosures. That's probably the way I'll go when drives drop a little bit more in price. I didn't realize you could configure them to maintain backups. That's a plus.
I started to go the DVD backup route and on the forth DVD' (Chucho Valdez -> Dixie Chicks) I figured that it was too much hassle and stopped.
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I know people talk about how CDs etc have a finite life span, but I've never actually had one go bad, and I have some I burned years and years ago.
The Taiyo Yuden DVDs are supposed to be archival quality, and once I burn them I don't touch them, I just store them in a cool dry place.
The other thing is that I live in earthquake country. I like to give my DVD backups to a friend to store, on the logic that it's less likely both our houses will be utterly destroyed. Even a RAID setup won't do much good if your house goes down.
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Trying to download and install FLAC. I gotta message saying I need to download Winamp 2 or 5 to play Flac files. Do I need to go with this or can I use a player I already have installed(Real, iTunes or WMP). Thanks
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iTunes won't play FLAC. Not sure about RealPlayer or WMP, but I doubt it.
Use Winamp or foobar2000. If you use Winamp, you'll have to download the FLAC plug-in too, I think.
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