Thursday, May 24, 2007
Squeezebox update: iTunes support redux
Well, the vbrfix program didn't work quite as advertised, and borked the mp3s I ran it on. Fortunately, they had all been converted from FLAC, so restoring was simply a matter of re-running the flac-to-mp3 script (which does take a while to chew on 300G of music.) But the "Fix MP3 Header" option in "foobar2000" does the trick, and now iTunes is happy with my MP3s. But since fb2k is a Windows app, it means that the incremental conversion process when new FLAC files are added has a manual step, rather than one I can script.
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Perhaps you can script fb2k if you can get it running in Wine. Or you could try using lame to encode your files (http://lame.sourceforge.net/index.php).
ReplyDeleteActually, LAME is part of the problem. In the flac-to-mp3 conversion (using the script published by Robin Bowes), it uses LAME by default to do the encoding, and I'm using the latest LAME encoder. And, apparently, iTunes does not recognize some of the VBR MP3 headers generated by LAME, hence the need to "fix" the headers. My understanding is that iTunes is the real problem, but try telling Apple that.
ReplyDeleteHi Brian! Macintosh and Squeezebox, eh? Cool, I have that setup too. I'm not quite so particular about encoders, though, so I just use the iTunes built-in MP3 encoder. (No doubt I'll get flamed for this.) It's just too damned convenient. For the few tracks I've purchased from the iTunes Music Store, I use the burn-and-rip method to "convert" them to MP3 and then I ignore the protected AAC files. (Yes, yes, yes, I know there are ways of stripping out the DRM. But I don't care. I'm lazy.)
ReplyDeleteIt's not that I care so much about the encoding quality; I just don't ever want to have to re-rip. And, if you rip to something other than a perfect lossless format, at some point you'll be tempted to re-rip. Also, the iTunes ripper (as do most) doesn't do anything with the error correction on the CD, meaning that for scratched CDs, you get bit errors that follow your recording around forver. EAC gives you a perfect rip, if it can -- even if it has to chew for hours. And by ripping to lossless, you can make copies of the CD without having gone PCM->MP3->PCM, with all the attendent loss. The burn-and-rip approach is pretty lossy; the original conversion to MP3 was lossy, then you convert to WAV (not that lossy), and then convert back to MP3 (lossy). Like making a copy of a copy on a copier with a dirty glass.
ReplyDeleteWe love this setup, as it gets the CDs out of the living room, and everyone can make playlists using the web interface, so its a hit with the family. The downside is that you really need a reliable computer, which eliminates most desktop systems. Having the stereo cut out because someone had to reboot will be viewed as a serious QoS downgrade by non-techies. MacOS is more reliable than Windows, but you still have to occasionally reboot. I've got a Linux server in the basement with a RAID array for this and other infrastructure purposes. (Cheaper NAS boxes are starting to appear on the market, which is an easier and cheaper alterantive for some situations.)
I'll check out EAC, it sounds kewl. I have noticed differences in sound quality of ripped tracks from one drive to the next. Unfortunately, I don't have the capital budget to support redundant, 24x7 availability for all my music, encoded losslessly. :-)
ReplyDelete