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Quality versus quantity
Selecting the format and choosing the bit rate are the most important decisions you'll make in the ripping process. Most rippers support the MP3 format, as do most players--one reason MP3 is so popular. With other software, like MusicMatch Jukebox and Windows Media Player, you can encode in WMA or MP3 (however, the Windows XP version of Windows Media player supports only WMA); RealJukebox uses its own format.
Here's the question to ask before you select a format: What will you do with the file after it's been encoded? If you want to listen to it only on your computer, you can pick any format as long as you have a software player that can read the file. If you have a portable player or a listening device other than your PC that you want to use, check which formats the player supports. Almost all players can play MP3 files, but some can play songs in other formats. Depending on the bit rate, there are sound-quality differences among the formats: We found that WMA, RealAudio, and Dolby's AAC all produced better sound than MP3 at lower bit rates; see the sidebar "Compressed Audio."
After you pick a format, you'll need to decide what bit rate you want to use with it. The higher the bit rate, the better the quality--and the larger the file. Unfortunately, you must trade one for the other. Most MP3 encoders use 128 kbps as the default; a 3-minute song at 128 kbps will take about 3MB of storage space.
Once you've set your file format and bit rate, you select the tracks you want and instruct the software to rip and encode the tracks. (See "Rockin' in the Free World: All About MP3s" for more on how to encode files.)
But why stop at CDs when you're converting your music collection into digital files? If you have a sound card, you can use an RCA connector cord to hook your stereo receiver or preamplifier to your PC and then make digital versions of your LPs or cassettes. First connect the receiver or preamp's line-out jack to the line-in jack on your sound card; then use software such as MusicMatch Jukebox or RealJukebox to record the tracks from the albums and use a program that has a sound editor, such as Roxio's Easy CD Creator, to clean up some of the pops and clicks. (See "Transfer Music From LPs to CDs and MP3s" for more tips on this process.)
Once you've made a few hundred digital files of your favorite songs, you'll want to organize them. Fortunately, this is easy: Using your ripping application, you can create an ID3 tag--essentially an ID card--for the file. Many of the programs that rip music from CDs can embed within this tag the artist or group name, the song title, the album title, and the music genre simply by accessing an online database service such as Gracenote or Freedb.org. Your player can display the information, making it a breeze to identify and organize your music.
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