Using Media Player 10 to Rip CDs

[irmo123]

I am trying to figure out how to rip CDs using Media Player 10, without having to listen to the whole CD while it is ripped to my computer. I am transferring my collection to a computer and there are a lot of CDs.

I have XP with SP2 and media playyer 10. I notice with Musicmatch (free version) I can jsut rip the CD without playing it and it takes only a few minutes to rip each one. I am just not very thrilled by Musicmatches other features. With MediaPlayer, I can't find the option to just rip the CD and not play each track. Obviously listening to the CD through adds tone of time.

What did I miss? Thanks in advance.

JB

[Stryker]

I have never had to listen to the CD while ripping (WMP10). Are you selecting the "RIP" tab at the top of WMP10 when in the standard view?

Here's a little instructional thingy from a page I found on Google...


1. Insert the music CD into your computer’s CD drive. If a window titled “Audio CD” pops up, select “Take No Action” and click Ok.

2. Start Windows Media Player from the Start Menu.

3. With the “Now Playing” tabbed menu on the screen, select “Rip”. You’ll notice a list of your CD tracks appear, with the title, length, artist and other information either filled in or showing as unknown. If you have an Internet connection, click “Find Album Info” to have it downloaded and filled in automatically. Alternatively, you can click on items like artist once and manually type in the information.

4. Select Tools from under the top menu and choose Options. Choose the Rip Music tab. Check to see that the “Rip Music to this location” option is to your liking. If not, click Change. Under File Name, you can also choose what options (i.e. artist, song title) to include in the name.

5. Under Rip settings, select the Format you wish to save your music to. The Three Windows Media Audio formats can provide slightly better audio results then MP3, especially at lower bit rates (known as audio quality in Windows Media Player – see next step), but are not as widely supported on digital audio players as MP3s.
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6. Audio quality selection is next. The slider, by moving it to the right, will increase the bit rate by which the music is recorded to. The higher the bit rate (i.e. displayed in the box as 192 Kbps), the better sounding quality the music will be. It also will increase the size of the individual music files, which may ultimately limit how many you can store on a portable device.

7. After confirming your selections, click Ok to return to the Rip CD screen.

8. Looking at the screen, you will see checkmarks next to each of the tracks to be copied. If you wish to not copy some of them, uncheck those marks.

9. Click Rip Music. A progress bar will appear next to each song title as it is copied onto your hard drive. You can stop the rip at anytime by clicking Stop Rip.

10. When all of the songs have been ripped, you can eject the CD and put it away.

11. Congratulations – you’ve ripped a CD using Windows Media Player 10!

[irmo123]

Hey Stryker:
Thanks for responding. Yes, I'm selecting the Rip tab, and I've been all through the options settings trying to figure out why the tracks insist on playing instead of just ripping.

As a matter of fact I googled and found the same instructions you provided in your post. Followed them to the letter and the tracks just start playing every time. They rip, but I have to listen to them. Weird.

I just though of something, I selected MP3 as the format to rip to and slid the quality slider all the way to the right, do you think that putting the quality all the way up forces the CD to play?


JB

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by irmo123 I just though of something, I selected MP3 as the format to rip to and slid the quality slider all the way to the right, do you think that putting the quality all the way up forces the CD to play?

I don't think so... I've ripped at several different bitrates and never had it happen.

Are you sure it's not simply playing while you rip the songs (let me explain )? Does the music start playing BECAUSE you are ripping, or are you ripping while the music is playing. In other words, if you stop the music playing, does it also stop the ripping process?

[irmo123]

Actually, I can only stop the music if I stop the ripping process. The music begins to play when I start the rip. The player "controls" at the bottom left of the screen have the stop button grayed out.

Is my machine possessed?

[Stryker]

I would say use some holy water, but you might short somthing out!

There are a few things in the WMP10 help file that talk about "Digital Mode" and "Analog Mode". Don't know if you have seen this, but it specifically references "Specifies that digital mode is used when ripping CDs. Click this option to listen to a CD while you are ripping tracks to your computer, or if you have digital speakers.. Perhaps if you switch to analog mode, it won't happen anymore.

Tools -> Options -> Devices -> Click the CD drive and click the Properties button. There is a warning about analog mode though. Apparently it will pick up mic noise and stuff too, but it may be worth a shot.

Hope this helps!
Stryker

[irmo123]

Thanks Stryker, that is something I missed. I'll give it a try when I get home. Will selecting analog mode degrade the quality of the music files?

JB

[Stryker]

No problem... let me know how it goes.
I don't think there will be a noticable difference in quality. I think it's more of the method in which the music is delivered to the player, not the quality of the music. You should still be ripping in the bitrate you specifiy. I have never tried analog mode though, so I could be wrong (I have been wrong once or twice before ).

[irmo123]

Problem Solved! Thanks Stryker, here is what I found, When I checked my device settings I was set to analog under both rip and play. When I switched it to digital, and checked the error correction box; I now have the option to listen or not. The recorder control buttons (play and stop) function now. The instructions could be more explicit. If you are set to analog, you must listen. If digital you can choose to.

Thanks for the help!

JB