Flac - Sep 2004 - Archiving CDs w/ Flac on Linux (and subsequent re-encoding)

On Mon, 13 Sep 2004, Eric Sandeen wrote:
> Tested this on a live album (Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison) and
> there is no lost audio; tracks segue seamlessly as on the original
> disc.
Did you check that a) the cue points are the same, and b) you're getting
back CD-Text as well?
> ...it occurred to me that I should just flac the
> whole CD and add a cue sheet, and then back up to DVDs.  That way -next-
> time I need to re-encode to any format, I can handle ~1/20th the discs,
> compared to my whole cd collection.  :)
Well, probably more like 1/15 to 1/16, if my stats are anything to go by:

      Count: 831 flac files
      Total: 229 GB
    Average: 282 MB/file

Looking at that, and realizing that I've got probably another hundred
CDs not yet ripped, it hardly seems worthwhile to spend the time and
money burning more than 60 DVDs.

Maybe once we get blu-ray, and I can reduce it to 15 or so....

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson  <cjs@cynic.net>   +81 90 7737 2974   http://www.NetBSD.org
     Make up enjoying your city life...produced by BIC CAMERA

Curt Sampson wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Sep 2004, Eric Sandeen wrote:
> 
> 
>>Tested this on a live album (Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison) and
>>there is no lost audio; tracks segue seamlessly as on the original
>>disc.
> 
> 
> Did you check that a) the cue points are the same, and b) you're
getting
> back CD-Text as well?
Well given that I fed cdrdao the toc file that it originally extracted, 
they should be, right?  Do you mean check that the cue points fall at 
the exact same spot in the performace, I guess?  As far as I can tell, 
they do, although not sure how to check that exactly...

regarding cd-text, none of my cds had it in the first place, so I can't 
say for sure.  :)
>>...it occurred to me that I should just flac the
>>whole CD and add a cue sheet, and then back up to DVDs.  That way -next-
>>time I need to re-encode to any format, I can handle ~1/20th the discs,
>>compared to my whole cd collection.  :)
> 
> 
> Well, probably more like 1/15 to 1/16, if my stats are anything to go by:
Yes, it does look more like that.  GB vs. GiB strikes again...

Still, 93% fewer disks to handle.  Also, for me, DVDs feel safer than 
magnetic media; of course time will tell, but I've had enough hard 
drives go bad that I'm looking for another solution.  (and buying 100G 
of storage for $15 isn't bad, either).

-Eric

On Mon, 13 Sep 2004, Eric Sandeen wrote:
> Well given that I fed cdrdao the toc file that it originally extracted,
> they should be, right?  Do you mean check that the cue points fall at
> the exact same spot in the performace, I guess?
Yes.
> As far as I can tell, they do, although not sure how to check that
> exactly...
Just listen, and watch the counter on the CD-player. It may help to
count beats and bars, otherwise you can just look for a significant
audio event very near the change-over point (to negative time or at
0:00). I suspect it would be, with any significant lead-ins, a good two
or three seconds out if it was wrong, so it ought not be too hard to
check.
> regarding cd-text, none of my cds had it in the first place, so I can't
> say for sure.  :)
Hmm. That would be my bigger worry. I wonder if you just read the TOC
with cdrdao if you even get CD-Text in the generated TOC file, since
that information is actually in the subcode.

It would also be interesting to look at copy-protected CDs where the
subcode timing/track information is different from the TOC.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson  <cjs@cynic.net>   +81 90 7737 2974   http://www.NetBSD.org
     Make up enjoying your city life...produced by BIC CAMERA

> Still, 93% fewer disks to handle.  Also, for me, DVDs feel safer than
> magnetic media; of course time will tell, but I've had enough hard
> drives go bad that I'm looking for another solution.  (and buying 100G
> of storage for $15 isn't bad, either).
Watch out for cheap media! That, and always verify your writes. :) I do the 
same thing with many different things. I keep a RAID array and back it up to 
DVD-R. I have a 200 disc binder to hold the backup libraries in.

TJ