So, I just copied all my CDs onto the computer's hard drive.

[ZenLefty]

This freaking rawks!! Every scrap of music I ever collected on CD is now readily accessible at my fingertips. I can play then all back in whatever order I want, or shuffle through the entirety of my music at random, all 5500 songs. It's kind of fun to hear a Beastie Boys tune followed by Chopin.

Christmas was great, since I've got a ton of holiday tunes ranging from BB King to Punk Rock Xmas. That was a fun mix.

What I really love about it is that there are dozens of little single CDs I've bought that I never listened to any more. Just didn't want to trouble myself listening to a disc with 3 songs on it. But now it's readily available. It's like good music that I completely forgot I had.

That, and the memory. I stuffed about 400 CDs onto the spare hard drive which I bought for this specific purpose. It's now 13% full. I don't think I'll ever fill it completely.

I've got it pumped out to the stereo, and the sound is... okay... I guess. I really need to buy a better sound card, one with digital output, or at least 5 channel output. I think if I can do that I'll be set with a pretty decent sound system.

:D

[noshenanigans]

1. That's awesome

Especially if something happens to one of the cds- it gets stolen, scratched beyond repair, broken, that kind of thing. You can just *zip!* get another one.

Ain't technology grand?

[ZenLefty]

4. I feel like I'm really behind the times on this

The technology's been there for years, and I'm just now starting to take advantage of it. I had an old Sisters of Mercy CD that was getting really scratched up, and I was starting to worry about how much longer it would last. Duh, Zen, just burn a copy! :dunce:

[48pan]

2. Now, convert them to MP3 and...

Burn them onto one DVD.

[ZenLefty]

5. Now how is *that* done?

They're currently .wma files. What's the advantage to convert them to mp3?

I'm easily amazed by this stuff.

[48pan]

7. Isn't WMA a Microsoft Product?

I like the mp3 files because they aren't copyright protected, they are small, and the new CD players will play them. A whole bunch of DVD players (the ones that plug into your TV) will play mp3 files off of DVD disks.

I'm going to replace my CD player and old DVD player with a single DVD recorder/player that plays and records all formats, music and video.

I can also put about 190 songs on a CD/R and play them on my portable CD player and the one in my car. It's way cheaper than an IPOD and is way better in the car.

[ZenLefty]

13. How much smaller?

When you convert .wma to .mp3, how much smaller is the file? Do you lose any sound quality when you crunch it that small?

[mark11727]

3. What did you do, just copied them over to the hard drive,

or did you "rip" them (I still have to figure that out).

I have a LOAD of classical, which I would love to load onto a digital (mp3?) player... no more fumbling around my desk at work for CDs.

[ZenLefty]

6. I just inserted the disk and copied them onto the drive.

There's probably a way of doing it that's much better, faster, and more efficient, but I'm really new at this. I insert the CD, and the software comes up (Windows Media Player - it seemed perfect for the job, apologies to the Microsoft haters out there). The player looks up the album info on the internet, and it was correct most of the time. I hit the copy button, and it copied the whole disc to the hard drive.

Classical CDs are difficult, because they're not like rock CDs. It was difficult for the software to find the correct titles and such for each piece, and I had to manually enter a lot of them. When it was all said and done, it made me cognizant of just how many versions of Ride of the Valkyries I have (ten, and I hate them all!).

[48pan]

8. You need a piece of software like MusicMatch

When you rip them from the CD, they are automatically converted to MP3 files, which are playable on the computer, your IPod, most DVD players and many portable CD players and car CD players.

MusicMatch comes free with Dell computers and with lots of different computer CD drives.

I'm sure there are a whole bunch of free CD ripping programs that make MP3 files. I'll take a look on ZDnet.com and tuxows.com

[48pan]

10. Try this link.

I found 14 free programs at ZDnet.com. Try a couple. Once you have ripped the CDs to MP3s you can create data CDs that many CD and DVD players will read. 640 megabytes is somewhere between 150 and 200 songs per disk.

http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/3120-2001-0-1-0.html?qt=rip%2Bcd%2Bmp3&author=&titlename=&desc=&dlcount=&daysback=&swlink=&gfiletype=&os=128&li=49&dlsize=&ca=

[Ramsey]

9. I'm planning to do that

In fact, we've been talking about getting this device that makes digital copies onto your hard drive, then allows you to hook up to your stereo, make play lists and other neat things!

Did it take long? We have hundreds of CDs.

[hfojvt]

11. I am not sure about the device

As he mentioned, Windows XP comes with Media Player which will copy CD's and you can play them on your computer. It takes a little bit of time, say, at least a week for 100 CDs. It takes alot of hard-drive space too, about .8 gig per CD. My Compaq seems to have come with the program Musicmatch, which may do the same thing. I need to look into converting them to MP3 if that is necessary. Musicmatch just gave me a bunch of crap about needing updates, so I put that off for now.

[ZenLefty]

12. It took about a week for 400+ CDs

It helps to do other things (read, post on DU, etc) while the CDs are copying, because you have to be there to change the CD out when it ejects. You can set it up to automatically eject once it's done copying.

[liontamer]

14. awesome

I need to do that soon