Horrible Thought
Posted on | October 31, 2007 at 5:56 am | 7 Comments
While ripping some more of my CDs to MP3s the other day, I had a scary thought. My plan, which I’ve detailed before, is to store my entire 4000+ CD collection on my computer. In my zeal, I sort of forgot that technology marches on. MP3 won’t always be the standard. What if some new format comes along that gives you better sound quality (closer to the actual CD) at a much smaller file size? It’s going to happen eventually. At that point, am I going to rip my entire collection again? Does this cycle ever stop?
And it’s taking me so long to rip the collection that the new format(s) will probably be revealed before I’ve even finished…
I’m glad I decided to rip at 256KBS, so I think I’m fairly safe on the sound quality front. And hard disk space is cheap enough these days so that storage of the collection isn’t an issue. But still, my perfectionist attitude will probably necessitate that I upgrade my collection to whatever great new compression scheme comes along. I guess I’ll just have to throw away my CDs after I get done ripping them, to prevent temptation. But then I suppose I’d have to scan in all the artwork as well, not just the covers.
Damn this OCD!
Pet Peeve Of The Day: Halloween. Leftover candy. Calories.
Latre.
Comments
7 Responses to “Horrible Thought”
October 31st, 2007 @ 11:39 am
You need a big enough drive to rip your discs to uncompressed wavs, then re-encode as desired. A couple terrabytes won’t set you back that much these days. And a new server just for batch processing massive amounts of files when you want to do a whole bunch at once. Then you might as well integrate that server into your home theater system…. I’ll stop now.
October 31st, 2007 @ 1:01 pm
Damn you, Dave, for putting that thought in my head. Aaaarghhh!
October 31st, 2007 @ 4:34 pm
Actually, I’d worry more about hard drive corruption or a power surge destroying the data… let’s see, 4,000 CDs at 1:1 compression is under 3 gigs of data, so with RAID-1 you’ll need at least 6 drive bays – lucky for you, the 1-terabyte drives have just hit $300, so with some elbow grease you could pull off the whole server for $2500 or so.
But I have no good ideas on how to set up an offsite backup in any cost-effective way – maybe a bank of vinyl-etching recorder machines, connected by hollow tubes…?
Or, just store a dozen CD ISOs per dual-layer DVD and back up the whole thing on 333 discs. Then, when you have to rip them next time, it’ll at least be quicker…
October 31st, 2007 @ 9:57 pm
Well, why do you want to store your entire collection on your computer? Is it so you can shuffle through them, d/l them to your iPod whenever you want, what? I definitely wouldn’t get rid of the CDs unless you rip them at full quality, or nearly so (like .flacs or something) – otherwise, you’re in fact downgrading your collection. The other thing is: at what quality can you start hearing the difference between the CD and the rip? Anything higher-quality than that is a waste of space. Depressing thought: whatever you can hear now, it’ll probably only get worse – so at least you don’t have to worry that (as you might if you were 20) more and intense listening might improve your discernment of sound quality.
October 31st, 2007 @ 10:08 pm
Well, why do you want to store your entire collection on your computer?
Partially for easy access and listening everywhere, partially for iPod downloads, partially for backups, partially for obsessive compulsiveness. I can’t really hear the difference between 265KBS MP3s and the CDs, so that’s why I’m ripping them at that level. And yeah, you’re right about the hearing going. I can already tell that I can’t hear some frequencies as well as I used to.
November 1st, 2007 @ 12:14 am
Never mind what I wrote before, you can keep everything on just 7 Ultrium LTO3 backup tapes – $40 each plus $3k for the drive. Beats using a hundred Blu-Ray discs any day!
November 4th, 2007 @ 12:14 pm
I rip at 192kps which was high quality when I started. Since I’m close to filling up my 60gb iPod, I’m not going raise the quality since that is plenty clear for my listening equipment.