She's so small, tiny and crushed up

[venta]

I'm working at home today, and am therefore finally getting round to putting software back on my PC after the Great Evesham Wiping Incident.

So, I want some mp3-ing software. I've always used CDCopy, and that seems to work pretty well. I'm just curious, would anyone recommend anything in particular. Any recommendations should do the following:

• Run on Windows (XP)


• Be free to download ("I'll give you a pirate copy" doesn't count :)


• Be easy to install (I don't really want to faff around looking for codecs, etc)


• Be friendly to use

Thanks for any help.
And kneeshooter, once I've sorted this out I'll chuck that track at you :)

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

Er, no.

iTunes has pissed me off irrevocably. zandev tells me that if you want to use it as an all-in-one music solution it's quite nice, but if you want to use it alongside (say) Winamp, it's one of the most antisocial applications I have ever met.

It doesn't respect other applications' rights to associate file extensions, and immediately hogs them all itself every time you start it up, regardless of what options you set (believe me, I've tried). While I could, in theory, stop using Winamp and switch over to iTunes for everything I'm now morally opposed to it.

It's big, it's fat, it's slow to load, I found it difficult to use, and I think its sales policy (for the online music store) is unreasonable.

I don't like iTunes very much.

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

I haven't used iTunes, but I won't let Quicktime anywhere near my machine for the reasons already cited: it completely trashes your machine.

As you know I also use CDCopy; it works well and is easy to use. As you're already familiar with it I'd say stick with it (although I guess you have Nagging Doubts about it, or you probably wouldn't be asking the question!)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Am I right in thinking CDCopy doesn't do variable bitrate ? I'm just curious.

I'm not sure about the whys wherefores of variable bitrate, anyone is invited to tell my why I would/wouldn't want to do it.

[timeplease.livejournal.com]

Some applications (essentially broadcast) require that the MP3 stream be at a constant bitrate: a fixed number of bits of MP3 data correspond to a fixed period of time. This makes some things easy: playback devices don't need large amounts of buffer space and can recover the audio clock from the incoming MP3 bitstream. On the other hand it's inefficient: some sections of audio that would otherwise compress very well have to be padded out, and others that might be able to make use of a few more bits have to suffer a reduction in quality instead.

Variable bitrate relaxes the constant bitrate restriction and allows the encoder to use fewer bits in the MP3 stream for simple sections of audio and more bits for more complex sections.

While I'm at it, can I plug Ogg and suggest that storing your music in ogg format instead of mp3 format would be good for your soul?

[venta.livejournal.com]

You're welcome to plug Ogg, though I may ignore what you say :)

Go on: why would it improve the health of my soul ?

[timeplease.livejournal.com]

I know it's a bit of a feeble response on my part, but I think the "About Xiph" page explains it reasonably well.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Good grief, man, you'll never make an evangelist :)

[timeplease.livejournal.com]

:-)

I'm better in person, but even then I tend to use rational argument...

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

I believe cdcopy ships with the blade encoder only. You can point it at a bunch of other encoders (including Lame) if you want, though.

Blade doesn't, as far as I know, support VBR. CD Copy, in its "using Blade" mode, has no aparrent way to select VBR (as you'd expect); I'm not sure whether that would change if you switched to Lame.

Despite CD Copy's general ease of use, I have to say it does not appear to be straightforward if you want anything other than Blade. So if you want Lame (and that's generally considered to be the best encoder) you're probably better of selecting something else.