CD to USB

Rayblewit

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New cars these days don't have cd players. They have a jack for a USB memory stick. My new car is one of those (Hyundia SUV)
So now I have to scrap my CD's for a new generation format of which I cannot quite understand yet.
I love playing my cd's on a road trip. But now I can't! :eek: Shock horror!
So I had to go out and buy a memory stick. Now I have to load all of my treasured cd's into my PC hard drive. They call it "ripping". Then I have to plug in the memory stick thingy into my PC and copy what I just ripped.
What a pain!o_O. I have dozens of favourite cd's. This process is slow and tedious.
Is there a quicker, easier way?
Also another question . . I have some fantastic live performances on music dvd's. Can I load these tunes (sound only) onto a stick and play in my car?
Sorry if the questions are dumb but I am so far adrift from computer technology and there are no 10 year olds I can ask:D Therfore I am appealing to the intelligent ones here on this forum for some off topic advice.
Thanks . . Ray
 
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Ray.

Where do I start?

I have my entire music collection digitally ripped, it was a long slow process.

That said it is not without potential problems, especially with older CDs where the encoded data that supports the music can be a bit off.

I wrote a long explanation of what to do on a car forum and I have included the text following, hope it helps, I can elaborate further if needed.

Whilst it is primarily written for the make and model of car I drive the spec is lifted from the cars manual and it may or may not be relative to your car, my own car uses SD cards but a memory device is a memory device. My car (Porsche Macan Turbo) has Apple Carplay connectivity as well for streaming audio in addition to two memory card slots.
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Preparing your music for in car listening

This depends upon your listening preferences:-

Music can be placed on a USB memory stick or SD cards (2slots currently available)

Music can be transferred into the inbuilt 10Gb Jukebox

Music can be streamed from mobile telephone

iPod or similar will connect up directly to the PCM

If your music is already digital then it is simply a case of copying the music albums/tracks onto the memory device and inserting the device into the car.

If your music is on CD then you can rip the discs to folders on your PC or Mac.

iTunes is a free download and you can use this to rip your CDs to a specific folder, do change the standard encoding format and data rate to MP3 and 320kBps for the highest quality. Once you have ripped the CDs copy the whole Music folder which contains all the ripped albums to the memory device and you are good to go.

If your digital music is oldish rips them you may wish to download MP3TAG and use this freeware to check the data that there is on each album and that it is consistent between the tracks, t may well be that it needs editing and this software will do that. Generally if album art is not being displayed in car then the PCM will use the Data SIM to go online to Gracenote and it will download the artwork. The software will also enable you to download album art (800x800 max) that Gracenote does not find and place the jpg file in the album folder and link each track to the jpg file. Once you have checked the albums copy all the music onto the memory device.

If you use Playlists or would like to within iTunes you can create your own Playlists. Once you have created one you can export it as an M3U file into the root of your Music folder as a belt and braces situation as the iTunes Playlist will be in the iTunes sub-folder within your Music folder and also within this sub-folder iTunes will have placed copies of the album artwork that it has found. iTunes also has a Genius mode, enable it in Preferences, select a specific favourite track and select Create Genius Playlist, it uses your selected track to add other similar style tracks, or at least that is the theory.

Do note that other CD ripping software is available and many do a better job than iTunes, I only suggest this as its free easy and certainly compatible with the PCM.

CD audio is sampled at 44.1kHz/s 16 bit stereo therefore if considering re-encoding it to a Lossless file if you try to increase the sampling rate it will not produce the quality of file you expect, you would be better advised downloading a new FLAC file at the sampling rate that you desire.

Upscaling MP3 audio files will not upscale the audio quality.

Cataloging your music if you have not already done so will help. I have a Music folder and within this folder there is a folder for each artist and then within each artists folder there is a folder per album. Now do note that ripping software may not do as expected and sometimes the ripped music may well be in a different folder entirely, this is down to the data that is written with the album and music file. MP3Tag will be needed to correct the data. The ripping software will also look for album art in a location like Gracenote, do a search youself for missing artwork and download a 800x800 max image of said artwork and place it it the album folder, then use MP3Tag to like all tracks to it. Now that you all your music in the correct format create the Playlists you want as previously described and finally copy your music collection onto an SD card or USB stick. I prefer to use SD cards myself as that keeps the only USB port in the car free for a wired connection to my mobile phone which again I prefer as I can then place the phone in the central armrest within the signal booster holder.

Playing your Music in Car

Insert the memory device in the appropriate slot, select media source and you are good to go. Once you have your music playing spend some time adjusting the balance, fade, base, trebble etc to get the quality of audio that suits your taste. With a Bose system do also check the Surround mode or uncheck it to see which is best for you.

You also have the option of transferring the music to the Jukebox, but remember it is only 10Gb and can take quite a few attempts to get the music all transferred. I would only initiate the transfer once all the album art has been correctly assigned and that the PCM is accurately displaying the albums/artists, do not that compilation albums may cause issues if you have not checked and corrected the data with MP3TAG.

Porsche Communication Management (PCM)

Technical data: Audio and video files from MY17 manual


Supported media


SD cards up to 128 GB


DVD drive Audio CDs up to 80 min., CD ROMs up to 700 MB, DVD±R/RW, Standard Video DVD, Video DVD compatible DVD Audio


Portable players MTP Player, USB 2.0 devices of “USB Device Subclass 1 and 6” such as, for example, USB sticks, USB MP3 players without special driver software, external USB Flash memory and hard drives


DVD changers Audio CDs up to 80 min., standard video DVDs, video DVD-compatible DVD Audio


File system


SD/SDHC/SDXC/MMC memory cards


USB mass storage exFAT, FAT or FAT32, NTFS file systems with a maximum of 4 partitions


DVD drive ISO9660, Joliet, UDF


Format


MPEG 1/2 Layer 3; Windows Media Audio 9 and 10; MPEG 2/4; FLAC, MPEG 1/2; ISO-MPEG4; DivX 3, 4 and 5; Xvid; ISO-MPEG4 H.264 (MPEG4 AVC); Windows Media Video 9


File extension


.mp3 (does not apply to DVD changer); .wma; .asf; .m4a; .m4b; .aac; .flac; .mpg; .mpeg; .avi; .mp4; .m4v; .mov; .wmv


Playlists


.M3U; .PLS; .WPL; .M3U8; .ASX


Characteristics


max. 320 kbit/s and 48 kHz sampling frequency; max. 2,000 kbit/s and 720x576 px. at max. 25 fps


Number of files


DVD drive max. 1,000 files DVD


Jukebox (max. 10 GB storage space) max. 3,000 files can be copied


USB mass storage and memory cards max. 10,000 files per medium


Metadata


Album covers up to 800 x 800 pixels; GIF, JPG and PNG formats or via Gracenote database


Video DVD region codes


Code 1: USA, Canada and US Colonies


Code 2: Europe, Greenland, South Africa, Egypt and the Middle East, Japan


Code 3: Southeast Asia, South Korea, Hong Kong


Audio Comparison Test

I took one of my FLAC audio files and put it into one of my Audio editing programmes (Adobe Audition for those interested) and converted it into mp3 files with various encoding bitrates, and as a matter of interest I encoded the FLAC as AIFF and WAV to see what file size they produced


Source as a FLAC of file size 85,444kB


MP3 encoding data rate ----- File size in kB

96 ---- 2,264

160 --- 5,435

320 ---- 10,863


As a matter of interest I encoded the source into a WAV file and it was 208,394


Also being fully lossless the AIFF encoding gave a file size 208,394


With another forum member we sat in my Bose equipped Macan and listened to the FLAC and mp3 files.


FLAC was a clear winner with rich tones and a clarity of the brass instruments that the mp3's failed to come near.


MP3 at 320 gave a perfectly listenable file for most music but even at the high data rate there was a lack of clarity in the tonal quality and a slight edge to the brass.


As the MP3 data rate was lowered the audio quality got worst as expected, with the 96 file listenable but not something you would want to do regularly on a £800 Macan extra, you would certainly want the higher quality media files.


Whist it was certainly not to lab standard of testing it was an interesting exercise to actually be able to hear the difference and for me and my old ears I was pleasantly surprised that I could discern as much difference as I did.


FINALLY a tip on FLAC format audio. Do a search online for free FLAC music files, one such source is the hdtracks site (I have no affiliations too then but have bought FLAC albums and songs off their site) where a sampler compilation is available. You can download this and use he files check out the quality of this format within your car or within a car at your dealers. Useful to compare Standard audio v Bose v Burmeister if you are considering upgrading
 
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OK so that is the CDs rips sorted.

Now for the music DVDs.

This depends upon what the disc contains by way of files, within a DVD a file is one or more VOB, now the easiest way is to copy the VOB file to your PC. Then change the name to what you want but the important bit is to change the extension from .VOB to .MPG you will get an error message but ignore them.

Download and install the free audio software Audacity, load the newly renamed file and then export it as an MP3 file, do check on the data rate and choose as high a rate as your car can handle. Put the resulting file on a memory stick and try it in the car before you repeat the whole process on orther DVDs.

Sometimes the recording is spread over more than one VOB, if this is the case then load them sequentially in Audacity, it may well be that you have to do the MP3 export of each VOB and then use these sequentially in Audacity to produce a single MP3 that includes all the files.

Another way is dependent on their being gaps of silence between the songs, doing the following process will produce individual songs. The software you want is on the Wondershare site, and it is their streaming audio recorder.

If you do produce individual songs then you will need to use MP3tag to edit the metadata on each song.

I use this software myself to record some radio shows (60s, Swing, Folk and Blues) and it gives my six hours of music to listen to per week.

Being a streaming recording software is will also record the audio off the DVDs if you so desire.

Again, I hope this makes sense to you.
 

happyrat1

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Or you could just build a time machine, go back 20 years and do what I did.

Download about 7000 songs from Napster when it was still legal :D

BTW, since then, I've purchased most of the CDs I've downloaded.

Truth be told though, if you're like myself with a collection of over a thousand CDs, you're going to burn out a dozen CDROM drives ripping all of those tunes.

Not to mention you'll go insane ripping and tagging over 70,000 minutes of music.

What you need is a dedicated hardware solution like the Acrova Nimbie.

https://positive-feedback.com/reviews/hardware-reviews/acronova-nimbie-usb-plus/

Or one of these other dedicated CD Rippers.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=cd ripper

https://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html?_odk...A0.H0.XCD+Ripper.TRS0&_nkw=CD+Ripper&_sacat=0

Be advised though that they cost a bundle.

Personally I'll consider one only as a last resort.

Or if it's legal in your country you might want to enlist the aid of a professional digitizing service.

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-copy-and-rip-cds-2438418

They don't seem to be legal in Canada so buying a hardware ripper might be my only solution if I ever want to bear down and rip legitimate copies of my library.

Anyway, nothing about this is easy

the RIAA's solution is simple. PAY for iTunes and buy all of your music again :p

Gary ;)
 
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Interesting kit Gary quotes.

To give you an idea of what time is involved, I have 350 CDs and about the same again purely digital.

The 350 CDs took two weeks to RIP, check the data, modify it as required, find and download the album art. The ripping was not full time it was just undertaken as I was doing other things at home.

Be warned thought that on new CDs the data can easily be wrong, and even the wrong album art can be chosen by Gracenote so even if one of Garys quoted machines is used you still cannot guarantee that the data is right as Gracenote is only as good as the encoded data on the CD.

Gracenote is the site which iTunes uses so in theory all you need is iTunes, an internet connection and time. Again the data would need to be checked on each rip.

The CDs that gave me the most work to get the data right were those over 20 years old an also compilations of various artists which were the worst by far. Quite a lot just had numbers for the tracks hence no song name.

All my CDs were ripped on my 6 year old laptop whose drive is still functioning well, my main PCs Bluray drive is 10 years old and has been used thousands of time so I would not worry about a drive burning out in any case they are only about $50.

So as Gary seems to elude it can be a huge task so I would agree maybe best to join Amazon Prime and get buying music via download.

BTW do check your car as many new ones include for an inbuilt DATA card that can stream a music service.
 

happyrat1

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"elude" I think you meant "allude" ;)

As for burning out drives? Depending on the size of your collection I'd advise investing in a cheap USB drive enclosure or an External USB DVD drive to do the actual ripping.

Those can typically be picked up for $20 to $30.

That way if it does kill the drive the option is easily and simply disposed of and replaced.

Also Linux MP3 Rippers do not use Gracenote for the Tag Metainfo. Instead they use an open source CDDB online.

Gary ;)
 

happyrat1

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BTW, on Linux I use an open source ripper called Sound Juicer. It's simple, straightforward and automatically detects the CD and offers album name alternatives depending on which CD you are currently ripping. This can matter a lot when you are ripping a compilation CD from multiple artists.

Here are some Windows alternatives to this software you could use.

https://alternativeto.net/software/sound-juicer/?platform=windows

On average it takes me about 10 minutes per CD to rip the average disc with an external USB DVD Drive.

Gary ;)
 

Rayblewit

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Geeesh!:eek:
Short answer "no" there is no easier way.
Thanks guys. Your advice is overwhelming and certainly informative. I have learn't heaps. Great suggestions . .
The first thing Col alluded me to (not elluded :D) is the fact that there are two slots . .one for SD and one for USB That being said I need to copy onto a SD to keep the USB free for my phone. I also have Android/ Apple play. Another alternative but uses up ISP data.

Anyway that is an important aspect of which "elluded" :D me.
This is where I wil start.

Thanks heaps.

Cheers ray
 

happyrat1

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This thread has inspired me to update my MP3 collection by doing fresh rips of all my CDs.

In the past 3 hours I've managed to rip about 14 CDs.

It's a bit like watching paint dry but at this rate doing about 20 CDs per day I should be done with my entire collection by sometime mid June.

I've already hit one CD that my computer refuses to read though.

Doldinger Jubilee '75 by Klaus Doldinger of Passport Fame.

I've also been listening to a few tunes I haven't dragged out in years.

I've taken my own advice however about using an external Samsung DVD Writer I had lying around so I don't fry up my new Acer Desktop's crappy laptop drive which they all ship with these days.

Anyway, it's a lazy Good Friday, I ate chicken like a barbarian and now I'm just chilling to good music for the rest of the evening. :D

Gary ;)
 

Rayblewit

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Good Friday is dun and dosted lol.
I ate fish 'cause my wife cooked it. She is respectful of christian tradition. I am happy eirher way. Could have eaten a big mac. Lol!
Holly Saturday now . . Will start ripping some CD's. Where to start. . .
All 40 odd Jethro Tull ones . . Sheesh!
Ray
 

happyrat1

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BTW Ray, once you do have your entire collection finally ripped it's a good idea to create multiple backups of the entire lot. That means keeping multiple backups on SD cards, USB Thumb and Removable hard drives and on your desktop and laptop systems.

Once you do have the entire collection saved on thumb and SD drives you'll find all sorts of modern players that can use them and you can take your collection with you wherever you go.

I bought myself a new Onkyo receiver last fall to replace my aging 20 year old Kenwood and now it can not only play MP3s off a thumb drive but can also access free and pay netradio stations using built in internet connectivity.

We truly do live in an age of wonders my friends :)

Gary ;)
 
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Ray
Last bit of unsolicitated advice from me.

1 Download mo3 tag

2 Watch some Youtube tutorials on how to use it

3 Rip a few CDs, do check what the default data rate is and set it as high as your car can handle

4 Do not rip them all at once, rip a few then check the data using mp3tag

5 Test them in the car.

6 Look at your cars manual and see what types of file it will play.

7 If all is OK rip off

The cars capability of playing file types can make a big difference in sound quality, MP3 is fine but WAV, AIFF and FLAC sound so much better.

If your car can play FLAC hunt out the sales sits as many have freebies you can download, I have about 15Gb of FLAC music in my car, mainly classical and opera which sounds stunning
 

happyrat1

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One more piece of advice.

I'm finding that about one in every twenty CDs which I've bought over the past 20 years has deliberate CRC errors probably in a misguided effort at copy protection.

My ripper program simply hangs on these "trash" CDs.

Copyright law categorically states that the purchaser of a song has the right to transfer it to any medium he so chooses.

My workaround is to use a good CD burning program to make a good copy stripping off the copy protection and then ripping from the good copy.

It's a major pain in the ass but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let a bunch of hosebag RIAA execs decide which of my songs I can listen to on what machine.

The only real problem is that it adds about a half an hour to forty five minutes to the rip procedure for that particular disc. :p

Gary ;)
 

Rayblewit

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Replace the radio in your car with a one that has a CD player.
We did that in the 90's.
These days the radio is an integral part of the car dashboard. The radio is not a unit by itself. It has a screen and is a component of the whole car computer system. You can't just rip it out and replace it.
Ray
 
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New cars these days don't have cd players. They have a jack for a USB memory stick. My new car is one of those (Hyundia SUV).............:D

Therefore I am appealing to the intelligent ones here on this forum for some off topic advice.


Thanks . . Ray

Ray

Sorry, I have just re-read your post and noticed the last sentance,

Us...... intelligent ...... !!!!

:)
 
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Ray

I am now on my 3rd Ford product that has Ford's "Sync" voice controlled audio/media system, and ALL of them have still been equipped with a CD slot above the thouch screen. The 2018 Hyundai Tuscon SE has a CD slot above the touch* screen, while the other Tuscon models have it below the touch* screen. I have just checked a half dozen dash shots of various Santa Fe models, and they appear to follow suit. Before you spend hours burning Flash Drives, you might want to re-check your system. You wont see a bunch of discrete physical controls for it, as they are all menu controlled. It will be just a simple single slot with an eject button, with an up arrow on it, on the left side. If your system still has one, at least it gives you a place to play your CD's until you get them ripped to Flash Drives, and provides you with a permanent place to play those that will not rip.

* or display screen, if it is not a "touch" screen,
 
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Rayblewit

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Mine is the 2017 Hyundai Tucson and there is absolutely no CD slot. .Ted.

I have a touch screen.

I just checked yesterday as well before I began my ripping and burning process . . I do NOT have a SD slot. I do have a USB slot and an AUX hole ( for a round pin)
Luckily I did not waste time burning onto SD. I have started my library now on USB . A Toshiba 16 gb. (Cheap @ $5)
But I have encountered some problems.
I have copied onto my USB stick about 6 whole CD's different artists.
When I play back there is no catalogue of the Artist. I just have a list of the songs in numerical or alphabetical order.
In the numerical order I have 6 no 1's and 6 no. 2's etc. .
If I keep going at this rate I will have a hundred no 1's and a hundred no. 2's etc.

What is going wrong?

Do I need to format and program somehow? Shall I delete all and start again?

btw . I am using Windows Media Player for my ripping.

Thanks ray
 
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SeaGtGruff

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One thing to consider when ripping CDs is the resulting audio quality. I like to rip to a lossless format so I don't lose any of the original quality. There are several lossless formats-- WAV, FLAC, etc.-- but you should check your car's manual to see which audio file formats it can play so you'll know what your choices are.
 

happyrat1

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Look in the settings and configuration pages of your ripping program Ray..

Somewhere in there is an option to access a CDDB and place the files into individual folders classified by album and artist.

If not then find a better ripping program.

The way I figure it by the time I'm done I may have over 200 GB worth of MP3 files at 224 Mbps.

I have about 1,100 CDs in my collection and conservatively estimating about 10 songs per album that's over 10,000 songs at about 20 Mb apiece.

Lossless formats offer even better quality but I simply can't afford to store any more than that amount of data on a thumb drive unless the prices drop dramatically.

And Ray >>> Be sure to rip and backup to a hard drive if not several backup drives. Seriously you'd lose weeks worth of work if you lost even 16 GB of rips and tweaks and in the Australian summertime sun I'd be willing to bet that the lifetime of a flash drive is not the greatest.

Also, you could just as easily use an SD card and access it on your vehicle's USB slot with an adapter plug.

Gary ;)
 

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