@neutron_bob wrote:
That will work just fine. Remember, by ripping the CDs to FLAC, you are saving a reference copy of the CD to your hard drive. As long as you have the space for it, a digital backup of the CDs is a great thing.
With Media Monkey, the MP3 ripping codec is the LAME encoder, a good engine. The free version lasts for 30 days, then there’s a fee for the full version (though the LAME encoder is also available online separately). The full version of Media Monkey also has some other features, if I recall correctly, which is why most folks opt for the small fee.
You can rip to windows media audio simply by using Windows Media Player if desired, by doing a direct-from-CD rip, and selecting wma at the desired bit rate. Windows Media Player will pull the track data and album art automatically as long as you have an internet connection live during the rip (or you can add this information later if you’re not online).
I have a plugin installed in WiMP that allows playback of FLAC files; ripping from FLAC to a compressed format can be done using Media Monkey, I believe (just rechecked, I haven’t installed MM on this PC, but it will do so). You can encode in many formats, including ogg and wma as well. My daughter was on the “experiments” terminal, and likes the monkey logos.
The Gold version of MM is pretty cool indeed. As a media manager, the program is replete with plenty of cool buttons, more intuitive than Windows Media Player once you get used to it.
Bob
The Gold version of MM is great, but most people can get by with the free one and replacing that time-limited LAME encoder. I did that for a long time before finally upgrading to the Gold.
I don’t use WMP12 for anything but watching my videos and DVD’s…Mediamonkey blows WMP away for use with DAP’s, IMNSHO.
