Posted by news on 12/08/05 17:41

NRen2k5 said the following on 08/12/2005 02:06 am:
> news wrote:
>
>> CES said the following on 07/12/2005 09:25 pm:
>>
>>> All,
>>> I'm in the process of re-ripping all of my CD's and I have a few
>>> Questions before I start... I have always stayed away from AAC and
>>> WMA because of copy protection and their for I have encoded at 328kb
>>> in an MP3 format...
>>>
>>> If you encode using AAC is the file tied to the computer (ie: is copy
>>> protection added)? If so is their a way of getting around that??
>>
>>
>>
>> If you rip them to .aiff that is a format used by pro apps, and is
>> supported by most things you would come across. It's lossless, but so
>> is apple lossless and windows lossless. The main thing is that with
>> either you may lose some compatibility.
>
>
> Same goes with .aiff. .aiff is an Apple format. Anf FYI, it isn't
> lossless compressed. It's *not compressed*.

Not the same by a long chalk. It was developed by Apple and Electronic
Arts, the documentation and source is released free. There is another
file format called AIFF-compressed. I wasn't talking about that. I
didn't say AIFF is compressed.

>>> If you use one of the programs available to remove AAC copy
>>> protection do you lose sound quality?
>>>
>>> If I encode using the AAC Lossless Encoder is their a way of
>>> reconstituting the file back into the wav format without losing sound
>>> quality?
>>
>>
>>
>> CDs use .cda format.
>
>
> No they don't. The format doesn't use files at all. It's just a stream
> of digital audio with a table of contents.

nitpicking, .cda is a pointer.

>> The only easy way to keep them in this format would be to rip the
>> entire Cd to a .DMG in finder. So long as the format is lossless it
>> doesn't really matter, except that wma and aac both narrow down the
>> compatibility field a bit. AIFF is fine.
>
>
> AIFF is not fine. Unless you're on a Mac (blech) or using some very
> specific studio software, you're better off with WAV.

This person uses a mac, and could easily convert to wav in the few
occasions he wants to give a file to someone with a PC that has no
programs on it that can read .wav, which would be extremely rare. Wav is
not an open, format AIFF is. Interesting though, windows media player
tells me the aiff format is invalid! Arrogant bastards!

>> If you want lossless but to save some disk space (about 50%), the free
>> and open source flac would be a good choice,
>
>
> I agree!
>
>> just convert back if you want to give them to someone else.
>
>
> What, why? If someone has the know-how to play around with digital
> audio, they will be just fine with FLAC. If they don't, then probably
> all they need is MP3.


>> There is a flac plugin for iTunes, but I doubt iPods would support it.
>
>
> The OP didn't make any mention of iTunes or iPod. Sure, they're popular,
> but don't just go out and assume that the OP would want to use such
> garbage if he could just as easily avoid it.

I didn't assume anything. The OP didn't say what he was using. Without
any other info, on a mac it's mostly iTunes, and particularly with
mentioning aac (where else would he get these legally?) I thought it
would be as well to mention the flac plugin, and then thought I might as
well say I don't know about iPods. just in case.
> - NRen2k5

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