CD Ripping To FLAC - Windows Media Player

[Basinguy]

Hello,

not sure if this is in the correct section but I thought streaming would be the best place.

Just went to rip a CD to MP3 (erm ... or did I? is that illegal again now? ... oh who cares!)

traditionally I used EAC to rip my CDs to flac and iTunes to rip them as MP3 (for playing in the car and stuff) but since I ditched apple I wondered in WMP would do MP3, and turns out it does, and also there is an option for FLAC ... who knew??? i'm not sure if this is a new feature or I am just years behind but I was so happy I thought I had to tell someone

 

[Monster900]

I must admit, I didn't know, I've been using FreeRIP for ages.

I wonder which is better?

 

[Basinguy]

WMP is certainly easier IMO

 

[GW43]

I can't find the FLAC option in WMP v12 - are you sure?

It does WAV, but I can't see FLAC.

I rip into WMA Lossless, then convert to FLAC using a converter I bought years ago. Bit of a faff, but it works ok.

 

[Basinguy]

Do you have the FLAC codec installed?

 

[DIBSTER]

Is it something to do with Windows 10?

.

 

[Basinguy]

Good point ...

It would appear it is a windows 10 thing

You can rip CDs to FLAC using Windows 10’s Media Player

 

[GW43]

That probably explains it - I'm still on Windows 7.

 

[andy1249]

I did not know that ripping to flac was an option in windows 10 , and ive been running it for a while.
Going to rip a few titles now and compare them to EAC.

 

[andy1249]

Couple of strange things going on here.

At the lowest compression, most space required, the files are 5 to 6 MB larger than EAC, also the files show with thumbnail artwork, even though retrieve information is turned off.
The folder shows album artwork but there is no picture within the folder, and mp3tag shows no artwork embedded in the files.
There are no hidden files within the folder.

So it seems to be flac, but with embedded W10 metadata not readable elsewhere or visible in other programs other than WMP.
Files are different, data is different, so no way to check accuracy against a known good rip.

It does the job way too quickly, less than a minute for Muse Black holes and revelations, so does not fill me with confidence of an accurate rip.

 

[Basinguy]

Would be interesting to use audacity to compare a wmp and eac rip of the same track, sound like a job for this afternoon

 

[TheAmnesiacKid]

Any further updates in terms of quality of wmp FLAC rips? I'm in the middle of converting some albums now but I was wondering if anyone managed to do a comparison in Audacity?

 

[Basinguy]

I found no difference between wmp and eac flac rips, although now I've moved from windows to Linux there is another program I use which is by far the most user friendly ... But I don't remember what its called

 

[Streamer16]

I use Foobar2000 for this and for everything to do with audio, apart from editing.

 

[Member 784165]

DBPowerAmp CD Ripper is perfect for audio quality and very simple to setup and use. Exact Audio Copy is as good for audio quality but quite complex to configure. DBPA will rip to just about any format and also comes with a batch format converter - very useful. It's around £35 - money well spent.

 

[drdocmatt]

The only time I've found differences between rips was when a disc was heavily scratched. At all other times every rip is identical.

I use abcde on Linux via cron job.. put cd in drive, wait, it gets ripped and added to my music library then pops out again.

 

[INXS]

DBPowerAmp, is there a trial version to compare with other services / formats?

 

[RBZ5416]

Yes, 21 days.

dBpoweramp