How do you guys archive your music?

[Tone2TheBone]

I am finally ready to make the jump to lightspeed and archive my Audio CDs.

I'm tired of lugging around CD cases and fearing skipped songs as I drive around town. I plan to archive all my music on the DVD burner and then import them into an MP3 player of some kind. My question is...do you guys do the same thing? Do you have a better way? Do you archive your music on external hard drives? Also what MP3 players are you guys using? If you are using MP3 players in your cars...how are you getting the signal to your deck? Cassette adaptor or FM transmitter?

[Robert****]

Get a 30 gig Creative Zen Vision - See http://reviews.cnet.com/Creative_Zen....html?tag=coco

Or the 40gig iPod.

My Creative Zen Micro is great, but I already filled up its 6 gigs....

[Tone2TheBone]

Well we got my daughter the 30 gig iPod. It's awesome. But I'm going to need 2 units, one for myself and one for my wife, so saving "some" money in that area would be good. Have you backed up any of your music to hard drive space on your computer or to high capacity DVD disks? I suppose burning them to DVD is redundant now that I'm thinking about it. Then again I'd still like to burn them to DVD especially since I'm listening to the disks now. At least until I get the units. I just hate the idea of scratching any disks that I am still listening to in my car CD player.

Robert - for the price of the 30G Zen I may as well get the iPod. It's not cheaper.

[marnold***]

I've got a Kenwood in-dash MP3 player. At a reasonable bitrate I can get 12 albums on a CD. I use a program called amaroK on my Linux box to keep track of my music collection. If I need something portable, I dump a number of albums to my Palm TX's 1G SD card.

I would love to have an in-dash MP3 player that can play DVD-Rs. I could almost put all of my rock MP3s on a single DVD and play forever!

[Tone2TheBone]

You know what Marnold, that would be awsome. A DVD disk holds what...almost 5 gigs? I still like the idea of a portable MP3 player though because I don't want to bother at all with any disks. Some of my CDs are showing wear and I try REALLY hard to take care of them. Some skip and I hate even using the CD player. At least if I had them in digital form on a portable unit that would be slick. I'm wondering how it would compare in sound quality though compared to the way you're doing it? I would think digital information would still come out the same even if I use the MP3 player accesory to get it to my car stereo?

[marnold***]

The sound quality difference would depend on how you are connecting the portable to your in-dash radio. An FM modulator would decrease the quality. A number of receivers have built-in iPod's connectors. Personally, I think that the driving noise (unless you have an ueber-expensive car) would likely offset any quality loss. I love my in-dash MP3 player. It's one of the few purchases I've made and NEVER regretted even in the least.

[SuperSwede]

I backup all my music on a external harddrive. But I am planning on burning some DVD´s as well.

[Spudman***]

Tone

1. I put the music into my computer.
2. Turn it into an MP3 file (unless it came into the computer that way).
3. Burn several albums to a CD in MP3 format (approx 8) each disc.
4. Play them back in my portable CD player that also plays MP3 discs.
5. Enjoy hours and hours of uninterrupted music.
6. Went to the thrift store and got a cassette adapter to use to play the MP3's in my cars cassette deck from my portable player (approx $1).
7. That much music...priceless.


PS. The adapter works also if you have a tiny portable MP3 player. It's a win -win situation.

PSS. A portable SD card reader/MP3 player is around $20-$40 and the Portable CD/MP3 players are around $30

[Tim]

Tone – I just bought a 100 GB external drive at Staples for $79.00. I just transferred all my CDS from the main hard drive to the new external drive. Here in Florida you can buy a 160 GB Seagate hard drive at Wally World for $113.88 (if you can find them).

My kids are pitching in and buying me the XM portable (walkman style) receiver that also plays MP3 for my birthday. It can be used in the home, in the car and as a clip-on for walking and other things. Hanging form the belt you need a headset. It comes ready with home, car and belt accessories all in one box for $148.00 + (I believe).

I also have a MPIO MP3 player that holds 12 albums on a 1 GN stick, which I play in the car through the cassette player adapter. My next car will be capable to play MP3s.

Spudman - Did I read right? You can turn CDs into an MP3 file and burn several albums to a CD in MP3 format (approx 8) each disc? This is awesome information. Where have I been ? I am burning extra CDs to carry around to save the store bought one from damage. I'm waisting presious CDs by duplicating them only.

[Spudman***]

Tim
You read correctly.
Get http://www.download.com/CDex/3000-2140-10226370.html and you can freely transform your CD's (wav) into Mp3's and back again.
Depending on the size of the initial album in megabytes and the sample rate (usually 192 for good quality) you can fit 8 to 12 CD's on on CDR in MP3 format. You can do even more albums if you use a lower sample rate or Windows Compressed Media. I can't remember what that is called. Anyone?

[Tone2TheBone]

Guys,

All excellent tips and info...thank you.

Marnold - the stock Toyota 6 speaker stereo system in my truck has tremendous OUTPUT (really loud and really deeeeep bass the way I like it, it has a really good output amp), I'm pretty sure the MP3 files will sound good once I get the signal there. Yeah I'm thinking that the FM transmitter would be a good choice. It sounds like your MP3 indash unit ROCKS. Thanks for your comments.

Spud - wow I didn't know you could do that with CDs. (MP3 conversion you posted) AWESOME thank you.

Tim - man you're already light years ahead of me! Sounds like you're on course in the right direction, you got some sweet setups there.

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions!

[Tone2TheBone]

Ok I picked up a Belkin FM transmitter for an iPod. Using my daughter's iPod I connected it up and well...it works! So that part is taken care of. I'm thinking that I'm going to go with another iPod because I like how it works and imports songs on the unit with the a plug of the USB chord. I'm already used to iTunes. I should archive my CDs to DVD as regular wma files or whatever native file format they are in anyway for future reference and use.

[SuperSwede]

AAC (.aac) works best imho (also known as .m4a)

[Tone2TheBone]

SS is that the file extension on iPods?

[SuperSwede]

The iPod can handle MP3 and AAC, but AAC is Apples own preferred codec (and it has the best audio quality)
In iTunes you can change the preferred codec in the settings menu. Then just right-click on a non-aac song and choose "convert to AAC".
Sync your iPod and you are ready to go.

[Tone2TheBone]

I'm a PC geek buddy but I do like the Apple stuff A LOT. I Like how their applications work. Thanks for the information. I'm gettin' another iPod!

[SuperSwede]

I'm gettin' another iPod!

...and perhaps a Mac as well?
You would love recording on one of those !

[Tone2TheBone]

Oh I bet. Hey you never know! Do they make a really good Mac notebook computer?

[SuperSwede]

Best screen you ever seen!

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/