[slinkelist] Automated ripping and MP3 encoding of entire jukebox

[Thomas W. Humphrey]

I have done some experimentation and concluded it is difficult to
automatically get the best possible MP3's from even a digital input sound
card receiving digital from a CD player.  There are several reasons for this
(1) the sound quality is not perfect since there are imperfections in the
digital stream, which will be recorded forever; (2) it is very difficult to
identify the exact start and end of tracks so as to make an MP3 with no dead
space at the beginning and end.  On the other hand, there are several
commercial programs that process the CD through a CD-ROM drive and don't
suffer these drawbacks.  For example, Exact Audio Copy is a program that
will ensure a perfect copy of a CD by reading every track at least twice to
make sure the samples have been read correct, and it will detect when the
time counter reaches zero so you can start the MP3 at the exact beginning of
the track.

I see nothing lost in having to pass the CD's one by one through the CD-ROM
drive since, after you have MP3's for every song and have the MP3's logged
into the CDJ library, there is really no point in having the changer any
more.  As I see it, after all of the CD's are in MP3 format, I would remove
all of the CD's from the changer and put them back in their boxes, and sell
off the changer.  If you buy into this theory, then you will be removing
every one of the CD's from the changer anyway, so you might as well pass
them through the CD-ROM player as part of this process.

What I think is needed, therefore, is a program to scan a directory full of
MP3's, and put those not already in the CDJ library into the library, via an
automated process.  Presumably, every CD is already in the CDJ library, in
many cases with ratings, notes, lyrics, images, etc.  So all that would be
needed to change over the MP3's would be a C++ program that would match ID3
information from the MP3 to the entries in the library and then change the
CD library entry into an entry for the MP3 with all of the information
previously collected for the CD.  After moving, say, 10 discs out of the
changer, through the CD-ROM drive, and then into its box, you would then run
the C++ program to add the created MP3's to the library.

I have a list of contacts that I have assembled of people interested in this
sort of thing.  I will try to assemble it and post it to the slinkelist and
to each member.

Tom Humphrey