Rip or Burn your CD and DVD Collection?

Rip or Burn your CD and DVD Collection

Format-Shift all your CDs and DVDs

The online music revolution is now unstoppable. Legitimised by giant online stores like Apple’s iTunes and emusic.co.uk (and a raft of retailers in between), music consumers are pretty much comfortable with the realities of buying and using music from the Web.

But there’s a disconnect here, and consumers are starting to realise it.

People have been buying music CDs for years, and most of us have a collection that now spans years, even decades, of our favourite tunes.

Here’s the problem. We need different players to handle online music and physical CDs. Other than a PC there’s no gadget that plays both seamlessly, and a PC is an expensive and clumsy solution to what is really a simple problem.

There has to be a better way, right?

Sure is. There’s actually two better ways.

Rip, Rip, Rip

The first (and it’s an obvious one) is to turn your CD collection into computer files so you can load them onto your iPod or MP3 player. In other words, shift your music format from CD to MP3 files. Fortunately this is 100% legal in most countries so you can ‘rip’ (as the process is known) with a completely clear conscience.

There are plenty of software packages that will happily rip most CDs into MP3 files, and they’ll even connect to vast online databases to automatically add information like artist, track title, album name, year, genre and so on.

Burn, Burn, Burn

The second alternative is to turn your online-sourced music files into physical CDs. Again format shifting in this way is completely legal, and you do this by using ‘CD burning’ software on your PC to firstly convert your MP3 files into audio CD data, then writing that data to a blank CD-R disc. You can then use that CD just like a retail one – on your stereo, in your car, in your Walkman, wherever.

The great thing is that burning software is almost certainly already installed on your PC. It normally comes free when a CD/DVD burner is installed in your PC. Not there? No problem, there’s plenty of freeware applications to choose from, and Google will help you find one to suit.

When Things Go Wrong

Wouldn’t life be great if it was just that simple? Rip and burn, burn and rip, listen whenever and wherever you want.

Unfortunately it’s not that simple, and there are a few things that can bring you unstuck. Let’s start with CD ripping.

It’s difficult to get a truly accurate rip using the standard CD/DVD drives that come with most modern PCs. Little-known characteristics like ‘read offset’, ‘read lead-in’ and ‘read lead-out’ all impact the quality of your rip. These may not make any audible difference – but sometimes they do.
Audio CDs are not as error resistant as data CDs. All drives make erroneous reads of CD information and a good part of the data on the CD itself is dedicated to error correction. However errors still sometimes slip through, and this more the case with audio CDs than for data CDs.
Some CD manufacturers purposely introduce errors into the audio CD format to trick ripping software into thinking the disc is damaged and therefore unreadable. This is a clumsy way to implement copy protection, but it does happen and can be difficult to bypass.

The end result? New CDs are most likely to give you the very best results, with MP3 files that cannot be distinguished, quality-wise, from the original. Older CDs cleaned correctly before ripping will also give great, even perfect, results. On the other hand, the results may disappoint you with stray clicks and pops from read errors that the drive could not identify and fix.

Now let’s turn our attention to CD burning.

A great deal of music purchased online is affected by ‘digital rights management’ schemes, which serve to limit your ability to copy it between PCs and MP3 players, and to burn it onto CD media. You need to check with your music store about what’s allowed and not allowed before you purchase – it is not fun to have to sit in front of your PC to listen to music you paid good money for and can’t transport anywhere else!
Online music comes in different formats. The most popular are Windows Media Format (wma), Apple Lossless (aac) and MP3. On rare occasions, burning software can’t convert these into audio CD data and so CDs aren’t possible.
Standard CD/DVD burners vary widely in their ability to burn CDs readable in stereos and car players. The blank media used can make a bug difference as well.

The end result is simply that some of your online music won’t ever make it onto CD. Of course there are ways to circumvent any anti-copying scheme, but you need to know what your doing, research well, and live with the consequences if you get caught.

Your Choice, My Choice

Whether you rip or burn is your choice. Ripping is best for people who are on the move and want the portability of a small, lightweight MP3 player. On the other hand, if you simply want to listen to your music collection in your car or in different rooms, it’s best to burn CDs to play anywhere.

My personal choice is to rip first, burn second. I like it having a second copy locked away safe on my PC, and I also like being able to burn copies to play in my car rather than risk damaging the original.

There’s one other big advantage to having all your music stored on your PC. Music managers like Windows media Player and Apple iTunes do an outstanding job of grouping your entire collection in many different ways – genre, artist, year, mood, and so on. It is so easy to mix up a playlist exactly the way you want it - and you don’t have to shuffle CDs all night!

A Final Note – Legality

Most countries allow purchasers of music to format shift. They do here in Australia, as long as it’s only done to one other alternative format. As always it’s best to Google on the topic, read any commentary and check the government web sites for accurate information.