Batch CD encoding

[shatfield1529]

Due to circumstances agonizingly out of my control, I have to re-encode my collection of CDs that is about 130 CDs large.

I know that I could just sit in front of my computer and pop in a CD, wait for it to encode, and then replace it with another one, etc. Does anyone know of any scripts, apps, or such which would make this process more efficient? For instance, I read of a script called cdslayer which would encode a CD into WAV form quickly, and encode the resulting WAV files into MP3 as the next CD was encoding.

However, it won't work with OS X.

All in all, I just want to minimize the amount of time spent twiddling my thumbs. Any suggestions? Expensive gadgets *aren't* out of the question, so I'd like to hear about those too.

[FaRuvius]

If you have some serious $$$, check out the Tunboks digital music server from Kivor.

It rips your cd's, and will store them uncompressed or compress them with variable bit rate mp3 encoding. Default setup has 2 x 76GB hard drives, which can store up to 250 hours of uncompressed audio. The system can be expanded to almost 1380 hours of uncompressed music (check your math, thats 11 76GB hard drives)

It goes hand in hand with several other components from Kivor to create an all digital home stereo system that can pump out 16 different tracks at once, all to 16 different users.

Link:Tunboks data information page

This was reviewed in the December issue of Stereophile magazine. Can't find the review online, tho.

FaRuvius

[scruffy]

Well, the audio data on a CD is (I'm pretty sure) AIFF format. So iTunes 'AIFF import' is really just a direct copy from one disk to another.

You could perhaps just copy directly the CD's contents you HD, then start encoding to mp3 the files on the disk, while you copy the next lot of songs off the next CD. If you have two HDs in your computer, you might try using both of them, to reduce the thrashing from the two jobs - copy tunes onto one HD, start encoding, copy the next batch onto the other HD, etc... Just a thought.

[shatfield1529]

FaRuvius:
The Tunboks Kivor looks really cool; however, I couldn't find out the amount of serious moneys needed to buy one on the website.

Scruffy:
That seems to be a better idea; I've been looking at buying an 80GB external Firewire drive anyway. Now I have a new, better reason.

[FaRuvius]

I recall from the Stereophile that the minimal Tunboks setup started at roughly $20,000 US. Give or take a couple dollars.

FaRuvius

[shatfield1529]

FaRuvius: