Patmobile Posted October 13, 2005 Share Posted October 13, 2005 I want to transfer my music collection, on CD and minidisc, to Mp3 files on CD. I plan to use my Hitachi combination CD/MD player playing through the line-in socket on my PC. Can anyone recommend some simple software to achieve this. I was going to get some in PC World on a trip to London the other day, but the software on offer was far more complicated than I needed (and costly), and the small print on the box revealed that you could only encode 30 music tracks before having to fork out more money to upgrade.Any suggestions?Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikew Posted October 13, 2005 Share Posted October 13, 2005 Windows media player 10 will rip CDs for free, otherwise use google, there are plenty of freeware/shareware programs out there! Use your computer cd player to rip your CDs, MDs you may have to transfer to hard disk before encoding.Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted October 13, 2005 Share Posted October 13, 2005 Use iTunes - if you record from CD you have unlimited burns (restricted if you buy from the iTunes store). Very easy to use and stores music very well. It's free for Mac or PChttp://www.apple.com/uk/itunes/overview/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eslier Posted October 13, 2005 Share Posted October 13, 2005 Musicmatch will do everything you want, including convertion of file types, very efficiently and probably a lot more too.Find out about it here:http://www.musicmatch.com/home.htmand then download it for free here:http://www.download-it-free.com/musicmatch/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patmobile Posted October 13, 2005 Author Share Posted October 13, 2005 Thanks for the very fast responses - impressive, or is it just that we're all sitting around without enough real stuff to do?I've just downloaded the upgrade to Windws Media Player 10 and it probably does most of what I want, but how do you record the analogue input from the minidisc player via the line-in to the hard drive?Will iTunes or Musicmatch do this?Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted October 13, 2005 Share Posted October 13, 2005 I've just recorded a load of analogue (old cassettes) using a Mac program called SoundStudio (http://www.freeverse.com/soundstudio/) which is Mac, but I'm sure the same exists for PC. I simply used a male-to-male jack cable, connecting the output of the player to the input on the Mac - I used a laptop, but that was purely because the input socket is easier to get to. I was very pleasantly surprised by the results. I then just drag-and-dropped them into iTunes. The lead was quite expensive (gold-plated etc. - it's sold for connecting iPods to things), but there was a good quality to the recordings, considering the source. Easy to edit, too, once you get the hang of it.And yes, I'm sitting around without enough to do, but now you've just reminded me of something I CAN do with a viral infection and a hacking cough! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deimos Posted October 13, 2005 Share Posted October 13, 2005 Different people prefer different bits of software. Whilst I am no great fan of Microsoft, I have found that iTunes is much weaker. I think some of the problems with Apple/iTunes is their phobia of Microsoft in that none of their software supports WMA format (which is actually pretty good (smaller than MP3, pretty widely supported – but not by Apple, etc.). UI on WMP is a lot more flexible than iTunes and you don’t get forces to install QuickTime and other things Apple like you to have.Also, WMP supports a very wide range on MP3 players where as iTunes is (not surprisingly) limited.ITunes is great if you love iPods and things Apple, but I’m afraid that MS (and others) have on this occasion risen above the Apple challenge.The only way I know (these days) of Minidisc to PC is via one of Sony’s (or others) more expensive Minidisc players that include a USB interface. I’m actually a bit annoyed as I have a really good minidisk portable (play only) and a HiFi Minidisc player/recorder and the record part of the HiFi unit has now gone wrong !!!Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted October 13, 2005 Share Posted October 13, 2005 Deimos - WMP stronger than iTunes - you really are orbiting around another planet! It can't even keep time! Have you used iTunes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deimos Posted October 14, 2005 Share Posted October 14, 2005 I used iTunes for several months and got very frustrated by its limitations which caused me to start looking at alternatives. I used RealPlayer for a bit which left iTunes standing but still had limitations (e.g. burn speed in the free version poor video/sound sync on some videos - don't know how good iTunes is at playing videos as all the versions I had did not even support playing any video formats). I then, despite my natural dislike for all things Bill Gates tried WMP and it was surprisingly much better than the others. For example, iTunes has no support whatsoever for WMA format. This is actually a particularly good audio format which most portable players support (as well as MP3). There are other annoying limitations in the UI which is probably due to the Apple way of doing things (which is normally better but not so with iTunes).Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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