Best Way to Rip a Disc

Software & Operating Systems Windows
1

Just wondering what the best way to rip a disc would be. I'm using Windows Media Player and using audio quality set to the highest available, but I'm not sure what format to use. Should I use MP3, WMA? This is new to me. >.>

Also, is Windows Media Player the best solution for ripping or are there other better options available?

2

lossy or lossless? what's your aim?
mp3 is lossy. I don't remember WMA, but wav is lossless

3

I don't know what those are. >.> I just want the highest quality I can get from it.

4

the highest quality usually lies (or is it lays--I'm not native) in the lossless category of encoding, but it also takes up more space than a lossy format. In a HDD this may not seem like a big deal, but in, say, a phone, it kinda is--not only for the storage but also for the decoding

5

I'd rather have the best quality than cut back on space. I appreciate that type of information though. So... which lossless encoding do I go with?

6

flac is very well-known, but windows media player I think only does wav. It's been a long time since I touched a physical music cd. I would have to ask what windows are u using

7

The Windows version I have can affect the audio? I'm using 8.1 Pro 64-bit

Would Windows Media Player still be able to play the FLAC files?

8

I don't know. I have windows 10 and I try not to use their apps/metro-ish programs. Usually any player will play flac. You can use vlc or MusicBee or winamp, but I don't know much about the latter. Anyway, I think you could try to make WMP play flac by downloading some codec-pack. K-lite codec pack is a name that comes to mind but I don't know if it'll work with wmp. And some tinkering will be a part of making it work.

9

if this is an audio CD, the highest-quality format you can get is .wav, but that takes up an enormous amount of space, because it's uncompressed.
.mp3 is lossy, but if you up the bitrate it is less terrible (192kbps is an okay balance)
.flac is good if you have enough space for it.

Don't use Windows Media Player to do this, use something like VLC, because if you want flacs and it so happens that WMP won't rip to .flac, it's just a pain.

4 Likes
10

When you say not to use Windows Media Player, do you mean for just playing the files or ripping or both?

11

if one's to go with mp3, the LAME encoder would be good, I think, at V0 or V1. There are also a ton of free software for ripping CDs. And he/she/they can always rip it to wav and then encode it to flac

12

personal preference, both. And you won't be able to rip it to flac with only WMP

3 Likes
13

Both. WMP is very much geared towards people who won't venture outside the software options Microsoft puts on their OS in the first place.

14

Okay, what alternative would you recommend over WMP then?

15

VLC
WinAMP
Foobar

I use VLC because I like open-source stuff.

1 Like
16

I've heard of those before, aren't one of those better than the others or something?

17

Neither of them are better than the others. It boils down to preference. Try them out and see which you like.

18

VLC isn't the smoothest, but it will play almost anything including video and has a ton of extra features. It's free and open-source. If you ever have a media issue, go to VLC. It even does goofy stuff like time shifting so you can watch a 3 hour movie in 2.5 if you want to...

1 Like
19

How do I rip in VLC? This is my first time doing something like this >.>

20

You could always just google it...