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Music Windows Software

New Windows Media Player App Travels Back in Time, Gains the Ability To Rip CDs (arstechnica.com) 65

Posted by msmash from the blast-from-the-past dept.
In March, Microsoft enabled audio CD playback in the new version of Media Player, something that the old version had supported for pretty much as long as it had existed. And now, Microsoft is rolling out support for CD ripping in the new version of Media Player, presumably so that we can all convert our old Weezer and Matchbox 20 CDs into files we can copy over to our iPods and Zunes. From a report: By default, CDs can be ripped to AAC files at constant bitrates ranging between 96 and 320kbps. The WMA, FLAC, and ALAC formats are also supported. MP3 support and variable bitrate support, two features that are still included in the "Media Player Legacy" app, are notably absent.
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New Windows Media Player App Travels Back in Time, Gains the Ability To Rip CDs More

New Windows Media Player App Travels Back in Time, Gains the Ability To Rip CDs

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  • Microsoft... (Score:3)

    by e432776 ( 4495975 ) on Thursday July 14, 2022 @04:05PM (#62703192)
    Truly the king of backward comparability and feature retention. I actually appreciate this, for all their issues.
    • Will Clippy ask, "Are you sure?" every time a new CD is inserted for ripping purposes?

    • I don't get it. I ripped a CD from Windows Media player a couple months ago in Windows 10. So unclear when they removed it unless it was for Windows 11 only.

      And of course it's necessary. People have music CDs, and they want to play them in their autos, music players, etc. Were we supposed to throw them away and buy the music all over again from Apple?

      • Apple has a feature where you insert the CD into the computer and, rather than ripping it, they just verify that you own the CD and add it to your iTunes library for free. Why should you rip it when digital copies already exist?

        • Ripping just means copying the file off of the CD into a digital format, so it's the same thing. ITunes did do this, so it was still "ripping" the CD for you just with a different program. I'm not using Itunes much anymore so I used the media player.

          • I'm not talking about iTunes actually ripping the CD. iTunes did have that feature as well. But if you were an iTunes match customer, no ripping was done. Apple simple added their AAC version to your library. Why do the same calculation multiple times. Basically they just had a giant cache of tracks already ripped and as soon as you inserted the CD the AACs were in your library to download. If your CD had a scratch or even DRM it didn't matter because there was no actual ripping from *your* CD. There

            • But that's a download. Not worth the hassle. I have the CDs precisely as an archive, and that's what I want them to be rather than relying on someone else's cloud.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
            no digitising needed, the ripping application just reads the audio saples from the cd as they are already digital, and runs the trygh watever audio codec you want (erll actually witchever audeo encoder you want) and stuffs the resulting bitstream in a file.

        • Re:Microsoft... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by bjwest ( 14070 ) on Thursday July 14, 2022 @05:11PM (#62703364)

          Why should you rip it when digital copies already exist?

          Because those digital copies are stored on someone else's hardware, and can be removed at their whim. If I pay for music (not including what's included with a music streaming service), I make sure I have a physical copy on my hardware, and at least one backup.

          • Because those digital copies are stored on someone else's hardware, and can be removed at their whim.

            Haven't used iTunes for a while but that isn't the way it works or worked. Itunes downloads a copy to your machine and you can store and copy it at will. No DRM.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by bjwest ( 14070 )
              Great, for those of you who use Apple devices, but not everyone does. And I don't want to hear about your "it's downloaded with no DRM" crap, music is not even on the list as to why I choose Android over Apple's locked in and locked up environment.
              • You didn't need an Apple Device. I used iTunes for Windows. And you could even burn the tracks to CDs. The whole system was anti-DRM. At that time, some CDs had DRM systems that spoiled tracks when you ripped them. Didn't matter if you used iTunes since the "ripping" was just downloading a DRM-free track. So it had the effect of *removing* DRM. I'm not sure what you are so upset about here. Apple pioneered DRM-free music and even removed existing DRM for their users from not just media sold by apple

            • That is not music. It has been compressed to shit.

              • No.

                You can download in ALAC, compressed but lossless, and the quality is as good or better than what you get off a CD. So just as shitty as what is accessible to most of the listening world.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I don't get it. I ripped a CD from Windows Media player a couple months ago in Windows 10. So unclear when they removed it unless it was for Windows 11 only.

        And of course it's necessary. People have music CDs, and they want to play them in their autos, music players, etc. Were we supposed to throw them away and buy the music all over again from Apple?

        Well you could use free CD rippers like Exact Audio Copy that are able to rip an exact copy of the CD. Paid options of same include dbPowerAmp, and Linux has c

  • Meh (Score:5, Funny)

    by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Thursday July 14, 2022 @04:10PM (#62703208)
    It doesn't whip the Llama's ass.

    • To be fair, neither does WinAmp any longer.

      My preference for open source WinAmp clones is Audacious. Well written piece of software, runs like a champ, small footprint, iirc runs natively in Linux as well.

  • Ripping isn't obsolete (Score:5, Interesting)

    by steveha ( 103154 ) on Thursday July 14, 2022 @04:12PM (#62703214) Homepage

    These "new" features or back-in-time features or whatever are things I want and use.

    Of course, I'm running Linux Mint and I have already had these features since forever, so I'm not that excited by this news. I don't have a Windows 11 computer and thanks to Valve I don't even need Windows for gaming anymore.

    But are these features really that funny? I have a lot of CDs, and I just rip them to FLAC and then put away the CDs. I have some CDs made before the loudness wars got stupid, and I never want to lose access to those mixes (because the new CDs and the digital versions are mixed way too "hot"). I have some CDs from music labels that no longer exist and the songs are simply unavailable on the Internet. Ripping isn't obsolete.

  • I still like to buy optical media and rip them onto my media server, and WMP is pretty fast so I've always just used that for audio CDs. I didn't even notice there was a new Media Player along for the ride in Win11 since it still has WMP on there, too. I knew this had become an outlier activity when there weren't even many external cages for 5 1/4 optical drive to choose from despite cases not have internal bays for them anymore. I suppose with all the ways they try to lock down video discs there isn't a

  • Yawn....M$ reinvents the wheel once again. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Indy1 ( 99447 ) on Thursday July 14, 2022 @04:28PM (#62703262)

    EAC has been out for YEARS, and does a wonderful job ripping audio CD's.

  • Very few new computers come with optical drives. It's still nice that they've included this feature, and you can always get a USB optical drive to easily copy CDs to your computer, but I still think it's very interesting that they would have brought back functionality that such a large number of people couldn't use.

  • But will it help you watch Weezer's wonderful music videos [youtu.be] of a simpler time? (It's more fun if you watch it full-screen).

  • Windows Media Player isn't the tool to do it anymore.

    If you're doing a whole shelf or binder of CDs, dbPowerAmp [dbpoweramp.com] is the jam. $40 for a single user license, and it automates the entire ripping process, even from multiple drives. You can specify encoding parameters and file names, and it queries the different CDDB databases and tags the files automatically. I ripped nearly 300 CDs in about 2 hours with this application and half a dozen optical drives.

    If you've got a smaller collection, fre:ac [freac.org] is your ticket. T

    • Wow! I never heard of this app before and that really does look nice. I already went through a process of ripping my entire CD collection, years back. (Did the whole thing using iTunes.) I would have much preferred this method, even if it did cost me the $40 up front.

      The part I like is its ability to compare other existing rips of the same tracks to confirm yours isn't corrupt, and ability to grab and embed the correct album art and tags.

      I found iTunes frustrating because they kept alternating back and fo

    • wimp is crap at tagging but is otherwise still pretty nice if what you want is either an mp3 or something you can plug into windows, which is after all most things. I find it does a great job of recognizing albums from a pile of TrackNN.mp3s, too, or at least it still did last I tried it. For all I know the servers have moved out from underneath it. And since it will optionally rip on insert, you can do the same multi-drive trick.

      I'd still rather use something based on paranoia or similar, though, because C

    • Isn't dbPowerAmp the crowdsourced one, where it generates a hash of your rip and compares it against its database to ensure your rip was correct? Maybe not so great for rare CDs. EAC was the other popular one, that would read each sector multiple times to ensure it was read correctly. Of course that could cause your CD drive to fail prematurely. Any other popular rippers nowadays?

  • I still buy CDs and rip them (Score:5, Insightful)

    by plazman30 ( 531348 ) on Thursday July 14, 2022 @05:49PM (#62703452) Homepage
    I see no point in renting my music.

    • And everyone like you has had 20 years to find a suitable program to do this task. It's quite absurd to add it to media player now in 2022.

  • >"And now, Microsoft is rolling out support for CD ripping in the new version of Media Player, presumably so that we can all convert our old Weezer and Matchbox 20 CDs into files we can copy over to our iPods and Zunes."

    Sorry, I still buy CD's on occasion. I get the music on a permanent media at full quality, then rip it for use on my devices at a level I want with the codec and settings and metadata I want. I use Linux and Grip for that, however. Then store it for possible future use or re-encoding.

    T

  • When Amazon offers physical CDs for less than the price of a digital download, often with "autorip" included, I feel compelled to waste some plastic to not have to depend on the future business priorities of "the cloud" to preserve my music collection.

     

  • ...ripping your Dire Straights & Chris Rea CDs. Just make sure you don't get them mixed up or you'll end up with Dire Rea. Ah, those were the days when they make proper music, like Shakin' Stevens, Celine Dione, Brian Adams, Billy Idol, & Kylie & Jason.

  • when all music is on Youtube?
    Owning a CD collection is so millenial.

    • We recently got an old car with a cd box in the trunk. My millennial was entertained/interested in going through the parental collection and installing them in the vintage 6 disc expensive option at the time trunk player. He even learned to load them in the little sleeves and gently put them into the cartridge....and noticed it takes a while to change discs once playing....

    • I have an urge to punch everyone who thinks "Youtube" is music. I can take someone saying Spotify, but seriously, a video streaming site well known for rubbish audio encoding being "music" deserves mocking at every opportunity.

      Unless that is your kids subscribe to Youtube Music, but I doubt that's what you're talking about.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        well that kind of depends what application the music is used for. If it's just background on a cheap headset or heap earbuds quality does not really matter that much . If on the other hand you want to enjoy your favorite modern. or classic masterpiece on good equipment in good listening conditions, the input quality ofc matters and YouTube music might not be for you, which is fine.

        • No it does. You're streaming an entire video only to get the most basic audio. It's stupid in the face of actual services that only stream audio. Unless you have a TV and are watching music videos then using Youtube for music is just purely wasteful and stupid.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
            Ok we are in agreement on that oart if it, i whish the yt apps let you play the audio stream only, or mayby they do hmm

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ph0tik ( 669210 )

        It's music because it has every song, ever. Literally everything. More than Spotify, more than iTunes, and you're one google result away from being able to rip the song to mp3 and choose your output quality.

        It's pretty hard to pass up on a collection of "all the music". I am sure you can find some examples that aren't on youtube but... you'd be hard pressed.

    • https://www.amazon.com/Fear-In... [amazon.com]
      YT will never be as cool as that CD case.
  • CDs have long gone the way of the Floppy.
  • When we finally have a patent free audio codec (opus) which beats every other standard in terms of bitrate vs quality in standard double blind tests, with low latency (essential for voip), a flexible container that supports utf properly (ogg), and has an integer decoder (important for reproducibility, cross platform and power) Microsoft supports ... AAC. Wow.

    • Opus is not patent free. It's royalty free. The difference is the patent holders aren't coming after anyone for money.

      Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc, they have all paid AAC royalties. It makes perfect sense that they would support the codec.

      Consumers care about one thing: Does it play. In that regard AAC is a solid choice. My car radio doesn't support Opus, so I rip everything in AAC too.

      • Firstly good point - quite a lot of patents, very nicely summarized with their licenses: https://opus-codec.org/license... [opus-codec.org]

        Secondly, while they do pay license fees, the normal model is to pay them per install/user or on an ongoing basis. I don't think its a no-brainer for them to continue to support AAC. See DVD support in Windows for example - it now costs money to add it.

        I agree on the consumer part. However your argument seems to be similar to "Only support PCM/.WAV, as not everything has MP3" support

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