1 - I want to rip Audio books to mp3 and Win 7 does not have a bit rate below 128.
2 - DVD to mp3. I have a DVD concert and I want the audio off it.
3 - eventually I’ll want to work directly with sound files and would like a sound editor to be able to control volume and fade-out.
When ripping stuff to mp3 I’m looking for the ability to quickly edit the file information. As an example, I number all the chapters in a book CD so they are linear all the way through. When I rip a music CD I want to be able to edit title, author etc… so that it is easier to read on my car display. I don’t want “the Greatest Hits 1965-1990 blah blah blah” to show up. I want the band and song to show up.
I really don’t know what I’m looking for and discussion sites are usually knee-deep in technical jargon. Is there software that does all of this?
I’m not hugely interested in downloading a bunch of freeware that buggers up my computer because I missed a checkoff that suggests I change my homepage or adds a toolbar.
You’ll need to get the LAME encoder separately, and for best results I recommend adding these “additional command line options” to the compression settings:
It definitely fits requirements 1 and 3, I’ve used it for both CDs and .wav files. It might be able to do DVD sound as well but haven’t attempted that.
This surprised me, so I fired up Windows Media Player (on my Vista computer) to see for myself. It turns out you’re right. But if you’re satisfied with ripping to WMA format instead of MP3, it’ll go as low as 48 Kbps, FWIW.
Actually I played with this a bit and found a way to change the bit rate.
You have to go into your regedit to do this.
Warning: Always make a system restore point before changing anything in your regedit or always back up your regedit prior to changing values.
You can mess things up easily
Anyway here’s how to do it
Go to Start -> type Regedit
Then go to
HKey_Local_Machine -> Software -> Microsoft - Media Player -> Settings -> Mp3encoding
Find Low Rate
Right Click -> Modify
On the right hand side it says Base
Click Decimal
Enter the bit rate here.
For books either 16000 or 32000 is usually good enough
Then hit OK.
You then restart Windows Media Player and it will now have the new bit rate.
Note: I tried just adding a new DWORD but that didn’t work. Perhaps someone who knows more than I can explain if you can add a new DWORD and establish an additonal rate for WMP
how does one make a restore point? I wish I’d done that before I tried an older version of a ripping program that did not work. My computer acted funny for the next 2 reboots after I removed it.
And EAC doesn’t show Windows 7 compatibility. My old program (cakewalk something or other) allowed me to rename everything and I don’t think I can do that with the Windows media program. I’ve been able to rename the title of the chapter and that works for the books but not the other stuff.
FYI, if your MP3 player supports WMA, I can get the same quality from a 16kbps WMA as a 32kbps MP3, and both are perfectly understandable (obviously this is only good for audiobooks, not music) . I get the same quality from an 8kbps Audible file, but their format isn’t available for encoding AFAIK.
Saving space matters when you’re still using a 4.5GB-max Rio Forge for an audiobook player, since there’s still no decent replacement for it as far as audiobooks go.
To make a restore point, go to the System control panel (hit Windows-Pauseto get there fast), then go to “System protection”, choose your hard drive from the list under “Protection Settings”, and click on “Create”. Then just name it and click OK.
cool, thanks. it wasn’t evident when I looked at the control panel. I did see a restore function so if I still have problems I’ll go down that path. I’m not sure why but the media player would sometimes lock up after a CD was ripped and ejected. It wouldn’t do it every time so I was worried that removing the other ripping software took something useful with it.
Update. I went with WMA at the slower speed. Worked out well except my renumbering confused the stereo. It read 01 then 10 then 100. I tried renaming them 01A, 02A, etcc…
It seemed to confuse it more. Then I tried 1001, 1002, 1003… and it worked. Not sure why but I chose that naming strategy because the higher numbers were 3 digit and I took a shot that 4 digits would work.
Thanks all for your help. I’m going file the various instructions listed above for future use.