Organising your music library.And album art.

[Dj4nrv]

Recently I've been trying rip all my discs and to categorise my music into genres, although I feel like I've nearly clued it .... I'm not quite there yet.
Ripping 500+ CDs takes time, so I don't want to have to re-rip discs.
I'm hoping to make the process reasonably user friendly, so other members of the family can add to the 'family' library in future, while also maintaining a decent audio quality.
So far I've decided to use a combination of Videobox for music playback, iTunes for ripping discs and then Mediamonkey to re-organise my iTunes library once discs have been ripped.
Why iTunes?
I use iTunes to rip my discs to .Wav format because we have a number of 'iDevices' in the house now and most family members are familiar with using it ,so it makes sense.
Why .Wav?
I chose wav because it's pretty much universal, as almost everything plays it, and it retains the higher quality that is lost when ripping to mp3.
I then use the auto organise setting in Mediamonkey to copy and organise my albums into
JBP/Genre/AlbumArtist/Artist-TrackTitle.wav
For compilation albums I simply change the auto organise setting to
JBP/Genre/Artist/Artist-TrackTitle.wav
Which is then followed by google searching for artwork ,which isn't ideal, but I'm yet to find anything else that works anywhere near as good as manually adding your artwork.Any ideas?

There are obviously some steps I've missed out but it's pretty much how I do things currently.
My questions are:
1. Does anyone have any easier or a full proof way of getting the same kinda result?
2. Are there any plans to include imbedded artwork in videobox in future updates?

[jukejohn]

use cd da extractor months trial worth keeping also tag and rename excellent for album covers

as for wave thats pants lossy mp3 at 320kbs thanks to alot of manufactures its the worlds
most universal format going even now above cd format so i dont know were you
get your infoe from dj must be poor research dude

if you want full cd quality lossless then its flac if you have a 500gb drive then 500
cds is no problem should leave 100gb free what with some albums double

and beleive me ive done it every way over the years rip a test track the same cd same track to  wave and mp3 via media
player but go to settings birate change to 320kbs also a good source like a cd do a test with flac and
mp3 @320kbs and even to your young ears i doubt you can hear the difference

however itune might be your preference[such a shame] but itunes will also convert aac to mp3 well
i know it use to if not cd extractor will

take this advise from a wiser older dude who as tried every way

rock on dude

[Dj4nrv]

I fail to see how a 16 bit linear PCM wav form ,which is a raw format, can be compared to any mp3 file for quality.
It comes down to how your playing back your music for me and as I said it had to be a format that would work with iTunes video box and Idevices , which flac doesn't.
If your playing back through an off the shelf Sony system of something then yes mp3 would fit the bill.
Whereas I currently planning on playing back my files through an onkyo amp and two mission speakers which shows up every fault in the mp3 format.
So I dont know where you get your info from John must be poor research, 

[jukejohn]

ok look at it this way mp3 played through a dam good amp and speakers wich is what you
have also with the aid of some software audio enhancement like srs or dfx better still breakaway
audio enhancer
take it from a old audio engineer who as spent many years compiling these results and yes dj
i see you are going with tech infoe but the best tools are attached to your head dude your ears
please do me one favour dj download breakaway trial and play some music via vjb and give me
your honest opinion i bet you cant tell the difference between formats unless you got mega
supersonic ears also dj this is ideal for any digital dj rig
i recomend that others give this  breakaway software a go and let me know what they think also
you will be amazed

[Dj4nrv]

All I no is that wiv my ears I get a slight hissing sound and hardly any punch to my bass when at volume level 20 on my amp when playing mp3s encoded with dbpoweramp through my system.
I get no hissing even at full volume which is 60 and plenty more base with my .wav files encoded at 16 bit 44,100khz stereo with iTunes. Storage space really is not a problem for me either.
All files are stored on a Nas linked to all the computers in the house, two of which are macs.
So again iTunes is the only route really , and as I said , all family members are already familiar with it which is key in my setup. And iTunes ability to rip the cd and pop it out again is another plus. After researching I found that iTunes ripping capabilities were really only stretched When dealing with heavy conversions and scratched CDs and seeing as most of mine were in pretty good nick and the fact that there is not much conversion needed from cd to .wav it seems that I shouldn't have any troubles, and haven't done so far.

The main point was the album art process. Obviously you can't add tag info to.wav files so it has to be done away from iTunes. I was wondering what steps others take and if there's anything I could do to simplify the process a little when it comes to album art saved as folder.jpeg, other than doing it manually.

Il have a look at tag and rename tho cheers john.

[Dj4nrv]

just thought i'd add, if you are using itunes theres a neat little bit of software that can help you export your album art from itunes into your album folders as folder.jpg.

as previously said i rip all my cds in itunes. i then ammend the album artist and the genre aswell as any other info that is out of place.
let itunes find the artwork for me then run itsfv with the correct settings and it will export the album artwork to the artist folders for you.

Link for itsfv http://code.google.com/p/itsfv/