Rip/Burn CDs - Newbie

[Guest]

Hi. I want to start ripping/burning my 200 CD collection. (Yeah, I know I'm
late coming to the game.) I've done some reading, but still need some
advice. I don't want to make a mistake and rip all my CD's in the wrong
format (i.e., one that is less flexible or low quality). So what is the
highest quality encoding format (bit-rate?) that is compatible with both iPOD
and non-iPOD players, and what is the best (most flexible and reliable)
program to use to rip to that format? Is MP3 still the most flexible format?
Does Windows Media Player rip to a high-quality iPOD-compatible format? I'm
not too concerned with getting the highest compression rate. Thanks for
getting me started.

 

[theplectrum]

Hi. I want to start ripping/burning my 200 CD collection. (Yeah, I know
I'm
late coming to the game.) I've done some reading, but still need some
advice. I don't want to make a mistake and rip all my CD's in the wrong
format (i.e., one that is less flexible or low quality). So what is the
highest quality encoding format (bit-rate?) that is compatible with both
iPOD
and non-iPOD players, and what is the best (most flexible and reliable)
program to use to rip to that format? Is MP3 still the most flexible
format?
Does Windows Media Player rip to a high-quality iPOD-compatible format?
I'm
not too concerned with getting the highest compression rate. Thanks for
getting me started.

Its a matter of opion and personal preference.

I use mp3 format on my iPod, works well and sounds good.

I use both :

http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/download.html (don't forget to also
download the Lame codec - further down the download page).

and sometimes :

http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/?q=download

You can programme the bit rate you want to use. Both programmes are
free-ware.

Cheers,
Jerry