Hi, its good to be back here again and I have a 'Q' or two about using FLAC. I am using dbPowerAmp 13 and have all the available codecs however, when I rip CD's using the FLAC utility I find that when the rip is burned to CD using any burning software, the created CD does not play in a standalone CD player. The discs will play from computer CD/DVD player. Secondly,and most annoyingly, I'm finding that some of the audio CD's when ripped to FLAC are too large to be burned back to a CD: they are 800MB+.....confusing that one is unless commercial y made CD's can contain more than 700MB. Am I supposed to use a special burning software to get the rips to play on standalone players and am I meant to fuirst encode the FLAC files to someother format? Silly question really, why rip to FLAC if FLAC can't be burned to CD? I haven't tried the dbPowerAmp burner, yet......will that make a difference? Cheers gbroman
I've never used dbPowerAmp. In general I try to keep thing as simple as possible. I use EAC (Exact Audio Copy) for ripping CDs and FLAC FrontEnd for any conversion to/from FLAC. It is Windows software. I don't know what OS you use. I admit it ... EAC can be a pain to configure. Can dbPowerAmp rip to WAV? You might want to try that as a first step. Burn a set of WAVs that you got from dbPowerAmp to audio CD and see what kind of results you get. You can use the FLAC tool I mention below to convert the WAVs to FLACs for storage ... if you want to store this stuff. Before I burn to CD I convert all FLACs to WAVs in a TEMP dir. I then listen to the WAVs just a little bit ... first / mid / last 5 - 10 seconds of the tracks. I then burn with Nero 6 (later versions are too bloated for me). You are using good CDs, right? Not Ritek, etc. Something in the vein of Taiyo Yuden (FujiFilm CDs "made in Japan" are TYs), Verbatim (Moser Baer makes for Verb in India) or some such. Good/Bad CDs probably aren't the problem here, but ... Try converting your FLACs to WAVs and closely examine the result. What were the track lengths before you ripped the CD and what are the lengths of the WAV tracks? It is remotely possible, but super unlikely that a "commercialy made [CD] can contain more than 700MB." Try using some other tool for your FLAC needs. I'm not saying that you can't/shouldn't use dbPowerAmp ... just try something else to see if it works ... compare results. Starting here I'm assuming here that you are on Windows. Surf to the URL below. It is on SourceForge, pretty much the home of the Open Source movement. http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html Left click on the "FLAC for Windows with installer" link. It points to the URL below. The website seems to not like (right click/save as). http://downloads.sourceforge.net/flac/flac-1.2.1b.exe Take that for a test drive. Use dbPowerAmp to rip to WAV. You can configure it to do that, right? Convert the FLACs that you previously got from dbPowerAmp to WAVs using FLAC FrontEnd. Compare the new WAVs with the old WAVs. Be imaginative with the testing.
Another solution is to install Imgburn. Install the FLAC directshow decoder from the OGG / xiph package: http://xiph.org/dshow/ Then right click the cue file and select "burn with Imgburn"
Cheers davexnet and mrpete. I am running Win7 X64 Ultimate. Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2, 4GB PC6400 800MHz DDR2, AMD Athlon 11 X4 630, 650W CoolerMaster Silent PSU, Pioneer DVD RW DVR112D, 1x160GB Seagate Sata2 Master Hdd, 3x1TB Seagate Sata2 Slave HDD, 2x1TB Seagate USB2 External Expansion HDD, Gigabyte Nividia GeForce 7300 GV-NX73128D (RH)128MB Graphics card, Onboard sound using Realtek High Definition Audio and a modest 25W USB powered Edifier Desk top speakers.Sound system is Sony Home Theatre. I do have EAC but not used it for yonks. I don't usually do a lot of CD rips/backups but occasionally I'll do a backup for someone or rescue a scratched disc using Nero 8 Ultra or other recovery tools. I have the latest ImageBurn and do use that to burn to disc. I don't use TY blanks as they're not available here in New Zealand. I usually use TDK Gold CD-R and have used Verbatim CD-r Here is a snip of the dbPowerAmp codecs I have installed:-can't add it here, I'll put it into photobucket. http://s563.photobucket.com/albums/ss77/gbroman/?action=view¤t=Capturedbpowerampcodecs.png I also have the FFD Direct show and another codec pack I can t remember now, and its not installed to computer. I think in future that I will backup to WAV as I know that CD's created in that format will play on standalone players...or LPCM. Seems silly to rip to FLAC and then have to convert to WAV or any other format to get a playable CD. Just one more process into which an error can happen. DTS is another format that isn't any good on standalone CD players, unless its a Home Theatre that supports DTS. I'm a 2nd year student doing a Degree in Digital Media and its all good. Thanks for your input and advice and I will check the links that you posted Ta gbroman
Besides the mentioned Imgburn, you could use burrn or BurnAware, CdBurnerXP etc to burn an Audio CD from your flac files or some with Cue file..No need to convert them back to wav first, since it'll be done on-the-fly.. I rip all/most of my CD's to flac format for archiving and for later burning them or converting to other lossless or lossy formats..Both EAC and dBpoweramp are good for the tasks(s)... When burning a standard Audio CD onto a 700mb CD disc, you'll be able to fit ~74min of audio..The flac file size is irrelevant..
Cheers k00ka, I will look into your suggestions on burrn and Burnaware and CdBurnerXP. For some reason the burner in dbPowerAmp that I have does not want to oblige. I will have to check that out and maybe reinstall it. I have just reinstalled EAC 0.99pb3 to my computer and will try that today. Yes , it seems strange that a CD backed up to FLAC format was to big to be written back to blank CD optical media. Not by much but it was over 700MB, from memory about 76MB. I dunno why. Also, I think that I tried using ImgBurn in Build/Write mode to duild an image from the folder and then write it to CD. Or I tried just burning the folder to CD as it was, using Ashampoo Studio 8, I think it was. I no longer use Ashampoo. Thanks for your advice, I am interested in the part about the "No need to convert back as it will be done on the fly"..........seems sensible to me. And this: quote- When burning a standard Audio CD onto a 700mb CD disc, you'll be able to fit ~74min of audio..The flac file size is irrelevant..[/quote] Ta gbroman
In order for you to burn an Audio CD with Imgburn you need the CUE file..You can create one with Imgburn.. http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=5555 IMO, it's much easier to use burrrn (drag& drop) the flacs and burn them.. I think you missed the point regarding the flac size being irrelevant when burning a standard Audio CD.. If you were burning a DATA CD then yes the file size needs to be considered, since the 700MB disc capacity cannot/should not be exceeded.. Standard Audio CD is 2-ch 16/44.1 PCM wav..The running time of the combined files cannot exceed ~74-80 minutes of playing time... So bottom line, when burning an AUDIO CD, it is the running time that matters, not the file size...I hope that was clear enough.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Book_(audio_Compact_Disc_standard)
