ultimate format to store ripped CD audio?

[rlu]

Hello,

my CD collection now comprises about 700 CDs. About 10 years ago I went through the collection and ripped to OGG (individual tracks). During the process I discovered two pressed CDs that had failed, presumably because of oxidation of the aluminum layer. One was replaced by the publisher (Deutsche Grammophon - yay), the other was no longer available.

Obviously, I cannot produce a perfect replacement for any CDs that should fail, and this bothers me.

Thus I would like to re-rip my collection and store in a format that satisfies the following requirements:
1) can be used to produce a perfect replacement for a failed CD (i.e., lossless)
2) individual tracks can be encoded to OGG/MP3/whatever using the rip-data

There are two approaches (it seems):
1) rip a CD monolithically and have some method to extract the data for any particular track that is to be encoded
2) rip tracks individually along with *all* the addition information (lead in, etc) needed to produce a perfect copy of the original CD

I would be grateful for any hints on how to achieve this goal. By the way, I'm a pure-linux user, and am pretty-much only interested in solutions involving open-source software.

cheers,
RLU

[qyot27]

I store my own CD archives as a single file (ripped as standard PCM Wave, then converted to FLAC) with a cuesheet, and then split and encode the individual tracks to AAC (and at least with the latest one, also Opus; I used Vorbis once for a 5.1 channel rip from a DVD Audio disc, though). About 80% of the process is FOSS, because the ripping, splitting, and tagging programs are merely gratis (and for Windows, as I generally don't deal with actual media work that much under Ubuntu), not libre.

But for this purpose, I think that cdda2wav (cdrtools or cdrkit, depending on your philosophical bent) and shntool are the appropriate stand-ins for the non-FOSS stuff I use. cdda2wav does have the ability to rip as WAV/CUE, shntool can split it into individual tracks, and then you can construct a for loop with your audio encoder of choice, and then either tag later or use the encoder's own metadata options to do it at the same time.


After all the ripping/encoding is done, I pack the FLAC and AAC encodes into a RAR archive (you could use 7z, or .tar.xz; the only reason I don't is because those don't store crtime), and burn them off to a DVD-R. If you want to be ultra-paranoid, you could use M-DISC media for that part.

[Ghitulescu]

Those two requirements are not 100% parallel , so you have to define your priorities first.

For storage ISO+CUE or BIN+CUE or WAV+CUE is probably the best, if you intend to reproduce the disc. Individual tracks in uncompressed or lossless form can be used to reconstruct only the music.

On the other hand, most players in the past refused to play almost anything but MP3. The situation improved a lot nowadays, the portables being able to play also FLAC, WAV and others, yet some optical disc-based standalone are still very picky. The computer plays all, provided the codecs exist (and they do).

So you may end with two formats, one for playback, the other one for storage (and further reconstruction).

[detmek]

Not realy. Single FLAC + CUE will do the trick. It is lossless, it saves the space, it is possible to extract single songs from it and it is possible to reconstruct original CD from it. Everything can be done with EAC as it can rip to FLAC, verify the ripped track and burn those track to Audio CD with correct offset.

P.S. foobar2000 and dbPoweramp can be used for ripping discs as both support AccurateRip and Secure Rip, too. CUETools shoud be an option but I never used it, so I don't know exactly its capabilities.

[Brazil2]

Originally Posted by detmek

Single FLAC + CUE will do the trick. It is lossless, it saves the space, it is possible to extract single songs form it and it is possible to reconstruct original CD form it.

Agreed, because CD images are almost all proprietary formats (ISO won't work for Audio CDs) and who knows which ones you will still be able to use in 20 years time while I bet there will still be some FLAC decoders available.

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by detmek

Not realy. Single FLAC + CUE will do the trick.

As I said, for track by track. However, should a CD be gap-less (like most electronic music and live concerts) there is a good chance that a short (and nasty) gap would appear at track boundaries. If one wants FLAC, nothing prevents him from compressing the whole CD as one file.

[detmek]

AFAIK, all lossless formats are gapless.
About reconstruction, if Audio CD is ripped correctly it shoud be easy to reconstruct it even from multiple tracks, without CUE. But, I didn't try that.

[juhok]

I've ripped the same CD to A) single file + cue B) multiple files + cue. It has been possible to reconstruct A from B and B from A and they are bit identical.

[qyot27]

Originally Posted by detmek

P.S. foobar2000 and dbPoweramp can be used for ripping discs as both support AccurateRip and Secure Rip, too. CUETools shoud be an option but I never used it, so I don't know exactly its capabilities.

The important part from the OP:

By the way, I'm a pure-linux user, and am pretty-much only interested in solutions involving open-source software.

So EAC, foobar2000, and dBpoweramp are out of the question. 'Pure Linux' implies 'no Wine', and regardless of that, none of those are open source.

[detmek]

I am not Linux user but - cdparanoia, maybe?
Although, I don't see a problem in using wine.

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by detmek

But, I didn't try that.

That is exactly the point

[A0]

Using EAC to produce flac tracks + cue is the best solution I know of. For linux, I heard about Grip and Rubyripper. You can always take iso image of the CDs as well.

[detmek]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

That is exactly the point

Just because I didn't try doesn't mean it wont work.

Originally Posted by A0

Using EAC to produce flac tracks + cue is the best solution I know of. For linux, I heard about Grip and Rubyripper. You can always take iso image of the CDs as well.

No, you can not make ISO image of Audio CD as ISO format does not support Audio CD raw data.
Also, creating similar image does not guarantees that CD will be red correctly. Reading errors are posible. The only way to be sure that Audio CD is ripped correctly is to compare result with some online database like AccurateRip.

[Sparktank]

I believe HydrogenAudio would have more detailed info with actual feedback for DAE on Linux systems.

You should check out there for some solutions.
A custom google search shows a few threads dating back quite a few years.

site:hydrogenaudio.org/forums/ accurate dae linux

You'll have to sift through quite a bit of reading.

[A0]

Originally Posted by detmek

No, you can not make ISO image of Audio CD as ISO format does not support Audio CD raw data.
Also, creating similar image does not guarantees that CD will be red correctly. Reading errors are posible. The only way to be sure that Audio CD is ripped correctly is to compare result with some online database like AccurateRip.

Yeah I just read that, and found also another tool that could run on linux. Thanks for heads up. I read though that is possible to get iso/bin + cue and build your audio cd again whenever you want as Ghitulescu pointed. Don't know what app could do that on linux tho.

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by detmek

Just because I didn't try doesn't mean it wont work.

Can't figure out why I said it won't always work for gapless albums?
Because I tried and there is also a nice *technical* explanation why it won't work, except in particular cases.

[hello_hello]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

Can't figure out why I said it won't always work for gapless albums?
Because I tried and there is also a nice *technical* explanation why it won't work, except in particular cases.

If you rip an entire CD as a single flac file + cue, why shouldn't it be gapless?
What's the technical explanation as to why it won't work, if there is one, because it certainly works for me.

I've got a gapless album here (Dark Side of the Moon) ripped as a single flac file, no cue (the flac file itself is tagged as a multitrack file), and it plays back gaplessly. I can even convert that single flac file to individual tracks and they still play gaplessly using foobar2000. I just tried it.
I tried a second gapless album ripped as a single flac file. It also plays back gaplessly.

If the entire album is ripped as a single file I'm not sure how you can go wrong. If it's ripped as individual tracks as long as the correct "gapless metadata" is written to each (probably just applies to lossy encoding) and you're using a player which supports gapless playback, it should work as advertised.
Are you sure you tested using a player which supports gapless playback, because you must have done something wrong.

According to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapless_playback#Format_support
"Since lossless data compression excludes the possibility of the introduction of padding, all lossless audio file formats are inherently gapless."

[filler56789]

Originally Posted by hello_hello

According to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapless_playback#Format_support
"Since lossless data compression excludes the possibility of the introduction of padding, all lossless audio file formats are inherently gapless."

That's not entirely true. Even the lossless audio compression may add null samples at the beginning or/and at the end of the encodes, in order to fit the defined frame sizes,
so, if/when the decoder doesn't discard the padding samples, then the playback cannot be gapless anymore;

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=168133

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

However, should a CD be gap-less (like most electronic music and live concerts) there is a good chance that a short (and nasty) gap would appear at track boundaries. If one wants FLAC, nothing prevents him from compressing the whole CD as one file.

Originally Posted by hello_hello

If you rip an entire CD as a single flac file + cue, why shouldn't it be gapless?
What's the technical explanation as to why it won't work, if there is one, because it certainly works for me.

For those caring to read what I said before ....

[hello_hello]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

For those caring to read what I said before ....

I did.
For those caring to avoid answering questions:

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

Can't figure out why I said it won't always work for gapless albums?
Because I tried and there is also a nice *technical* explanation why it won't work, except in particular cases.

Quoting yourself didn't seem to provide an explanation very technical in nature. I've ripped gapless albums as individual flac files which play back gaplessly and I've ripped them as single flac files which play back gaplessly, so when you've decided which won't work, except in particular cases, maybe you could offer the technical explanation as to why?