Whatr format to Rip to iTunes?

[atchudy]

My computer has plenty of storage, so what is best format for quality?

[kmcheng]

Apple Lossless

[Tommy]

I second Apple Lossless.

[RebelMan]

Uncompressed - AIFF
Compressed - Apple Lossless

Advantage AIFF - Multi-platform compatibility.
Advantage Apple Lossless - 50% Less storage consumption.

Common to Both - Metadata support for embedded album art, etcetera.

[PewterTA]

What?? No love given to FLAC? :P

I recommend FLAC.

[littlesaint]

What?? No love given to FLAC? :P

I recommend FLAC.

iTunes doesn't natively support FLAC. I believe it can be added through plug-ins, and possibly to the iPod as well, but if ripping to iTunes, I'd go with Apple Lossless. BTW, Apple Lossless decoding has been in libavcodec for some time now, so VLC player and MPlayer should both be able to play it as well.

[catacon]

I personally use Foobar2000 as my media player because it has better sound quality and it is not iTunes. It has the ability to rip/play a lot of formats (FLAC, MP3, OGG, etc.). I usually rip in FLAC even though it takes up a lot of space, it's nice not loosing quality.

[mjb]

If you are using iTunes, have plenty of disk space, and are after maximum quality, then Apple Lossless is the only choice. It will reduce a CD by about 50%, and it's totally lossless. I guess thats why they called it so.

[alexcd]

I wish it were easier to use FLAC in iTunes but it's not so I would go with Apple Lossless in hindsight of ripping my entire collection to FLAC then buying an iPOD

[littlesaint]

Do you have a Mac or PC?

On a Mac there are tools like Audacity that can convert FLAC to ALAC. I'm sure there are some for the PC as well. Saves you from having to rip everything again.

[Chris D]

But if you use other players, like Windows Media, should you use AIFF then, instead of Apple Lossless?

[impala454]

If you are using iTunes, have plenty of disk space, and are after maximum quality, then Apple Lossless is the only choice. It will reduce a CD by about 50%, and it's totally lossless. I guess thats why they called it so.

Just curious, how is it lossless and reduces a CD by 50%?

[littlesaint]

Just curious, how is it lossless and reduces a CD by 50%?

50% is a little optimistic. I usually get around 60 to 70% compression. Just like a ZIP file, lossless audio codecs take the data, and using an algorithm compress it down in such a way that it can be decompressed back to its original state.

[impala454]

Weird

[mjb]

Chuck, it works the same as say ZIP, non-destructive file compression that can be expanded back to the original with no data loss.

[joetama]

I've been playing around with that Foobar2000, pretty cool program.


The only time I don't listen to CD or Vinyl is when I have my iPod. I have tooo much stuff to use lossless on it (can it even play lossless?) But I use Exact Audio Copy with the Lame VBR program.