Author Topic: Audio format (batch) convert/transcode (Read 20105 times)

f0dder · « **on:** January 30, 2008, 06:41 AM »

I finally got myself a new MP3 player (my Creative MuVo^2 4gig died several years ago), a Sandisk Sansa E280 player with 8gig of flash memory. Much <3, especially since it simply pops up as a disk drive and doesn't require stupid drivers.

I have all my own CDs ripped to one .cue file and .wav file per album (those .wav's are going to be .flac some day, but haven't gotten around to that yet

), which is just fine for foobar and other decent software players - but obviously my MP3 player wants mp3 files

I've tried using foobar's convert tool, which does work - but it dumps all files in one folder, instead of splitting per album.

So, does anybody know a decent (preferably free) transcoder/converter that supports cue files?

f0dder · « **Reply #1 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:17 AM »

Note: I've already tried MediaCoder, but it isn't able to YEAR and ALBUM from .cue sheets, it's config system suuuuucks, etc.

I have a feeling that foobar can probably do what I want, but that it's just me that doesn't know how to fix it (it's config system suuuuucks, etc.)

lanux128 · « **Reply #2 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:21 AM »

what about dBPowerAmp or BeSweet?

PhilB66 · « **Reply #3 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:39 AM »

GermaniX Transcoder

f0dder · « **Reply #4 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:41 AM »

what about dBPowerAmp or BeSweet?
-lanux128 (January 30, 2008, 07:21 AM)

Hm, didn't even think about dbPoweramp, I do own a license but I only use it for ripping

. If it can handle cue/wav input, I should take a look at it, though. But iirc it uses fraunhofer and not LAME for MP3 codec, ho humm.

I think I got foobar2000 to do what I want, though - I set single tracks formatting specifier to this: [%album artist%]\[%album artist% - ][{%date%}] %album%\[%tracknumber%] - [%title%] ... I would prefer straight brackets around %date%, but I dunno how to escape them

f0dder · « **Reply #5 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:44 AM »

GermaniX Transcoder
-PhilB66 (January 30, 2008, 07:39 AM)

Does that one support cue sheets? Doesn't seem like it from the website, which is half English and half German

PhilB66 · « **Reply #6 on:** January 30, 2008, 08:25 AM »

You are right, the transcoder has a Cue-Cutter but I don't think it does what you want.

Dirhael · « **Reply #7 on:** January 30, 2008, 08:40 AM »

what about dBPowerAmp or BeSweet?
-lanux128 (January 30, 2008, 07:21 AM)
Hm, didn't even think about dbPoweramp, I do own a license but I only use it for ripping . If it can handle cue/wav input, I should take a look at it, though. But iirc it uses fraunhofer and not LAME for MP3 codec, ho humm.

I think I got foobar2000 to do what I want, though - I set single tracks formatting specifier to this: [%album artist%]\[%album artist% - ][{%date%}] %album%\[%tracknumber%] - [%title%] ... I would prefer straight brackets around %date%, but I dunno how to escape them
-f0dder (January 30, 2008, 07:41 AM)

You can escape it like this

[Select]

['['%date%']']

Lashiec · « **Reply #8 on:** January 30, 2008, 08:44 AM »

Straight brackets? These ones: [] ? You enclose them in quotes '[' ']', like this. Some more information. Em, bummer, Dirhael beat me to it

BTW, the Reference version of dBpoweramp supports commandline encoders

OMG, still using WAV? Hundreds of megabytes wasted, no metadata...

f0dder · « **Reply #9 on:** January 30, 2008, 08:47 AM »

Ah, escaping them in singlequotes. I tried \, old C habits die hard

. And thanks for the link, Lashiec, couldn't find it with "I'm in a hurry" google and on-site searches, and the context-sensitive help in foobar doesn't work.

Commandline encoders would do the trick fine, as long as dbPoweramp supports cue/wav combo. I'll look into that later, since I do own the reference version. Silly me for not checking

Yes, still using wav. Not hundreds of gigabytes wasted though, FLAC doesn't compress that well. As for metadata, it's stored in the .cue files.

Lashiec · « **Reply #10 on:** January 30, 2008, 01:04 PM »

Who said gigabytes?

Yeah, Peter should include a help file like God intended, or at least provide some more documents on advanced configuration with the package. I think the quotes trick was mentioned somewhere with foobar 0.8.3, though.

TheQwerty · « **Reply #11 on:** January 30, 2008, 03:16 PM »

Yeah, Peter should include a help file like God intended, or at least provide some more documents on advanced configuration with the package. I think the quotes trick was mentioned somewhere with foobar 0.8.3, though.
-Lashiec (January 30, 2008, 01:04 PM)

You just have to know where to look:
http://wiki.hydrogen...php?title=Foobar2000
or more specifically:
http://wiki.hydrogen...eformat_Introduction

That said, I agree there really needs to be some better documentation within the program (in the very least a link to the HA wiki from the Help menu).

f0dder, the good news is now that you've set up the converter to do MP3 it's relatively simple for you to go to FLAC and join modern civilization in using lossless compression.

f0dder · « **Reply #12 on:** January 31, 2008, 04:29 AM »

TheQwerty: I keep my "archives" in .wav format (planned to go .flac all the time, just didn't get to it yet - more focused on getting my CDs ripped, as I can always batch compress later). As I've mentioned before, each CD I rip gets a single .wav file and a .cue sheet with all the necessary meta information.

My use for MP3s, and one-file-per-track, is specifically for my new MP3 player (did you read the first post in this thread?

), which obviously doesn't support flac or cue sheets. Thanks for the Titleformat_Introduction link - it had a link at the bottom that has the really useful information.

TheQwerty · « **Reply #13 on:** January 31, 2008, 05:49 AM »

TheQwerty: I keep my "archives" in .wav format (planned to go .flac all the time, just didn't get to it yet - more focused on getting my CDs ripped, as I can always batch compress later). As I've mentioned before, each CD I rip gets a single .wav file and a .cue sheet with all the necessary meta information.

My use for MP3s, and one-file-per-track, is specifically for my new MP3 player (did you read the first post in this thread? ), which obviously doesn't support flac or cue sheets. Thanks for the Titleformat_Introduction link - it had a link at the bottom that has the really useful information.
-f0dder (January 31, 2008, 04:29 AM)

Of course I read it, and after re-reading it, it doesn't change what I said. (But it does make me wonder if you read my post.

)

Now that you have set up and (presumably) used Foobar2000 to create the MP3 files for your DAP, it is relatively easy to go back into Foobar2000 and do the WAV to FLAC conversion for storage.

f0dder · « **Reply #14 on:** January 31, 2008, 06:08 AM »

Yes, except that I will drag the .wav files and not the .cue files into foobar (I want single-file-per-album mode), and afterwards I'll have to fix all the .cue sheets to reference .flac instead of .wav files.

I've been pondering writing a tool of my own to handle this kind of stuff for quite some time.

TheQwerty · « **Reply #15 on:** January 31, 2008, 07:02 AM »

Yes, except that I will drag the .wav files and not the .cue files into foobar (I want single-file-per-album mode), and afterwards I'll have to fix all the .cue sheets to reference .flac instead of .wav files.
-f0dder (January 31, 2008, 06:08 AM)

Foobar2000 is not limited to converting to track files, it can produce image files.

Though I'm not sure if it is capable of creating an external cuesheet; it might force you to embed the cue in the FLAC's metadata (which I prefer for the few image files I have, so I never tried to change it).

* TheQwerty shrugs.

To each their own.

f0dder · « **Reply #16 on:** January 31, 2008, 07:30 AM »

I'll just use whatever program for compressing the single-file .wav to a single-file .flac, no magic involved. Then edit the .cue sheet to say ".flac" instead of ".wav". This does work in foobar already.

vegas · « **Reply #17 on:** February 01, 2008, 08:33 AM »

Another reason to switch to FLAC or Wavpack, is for integrity checking of the file, which is built in and it will report errors within, or you can use an external utility to scan a drive (which could always go bad) for corrupted sound files. I believe both formats have such a utility available for mass checking.

f0dder · « **Reply #18 on:** February 01, 2008, 09:50 AM »

Another reason to switch to FLAC or Wavpack, is for integrity checking of the file, which is built in and it will report errors within, or you can use an external utility to scan a drive (which could always go bad) for corrupted sound files. I believe both formats have such a utility available for mass checking.
-vegas (February 01, 2008, 08:33 AM)

Good point

Lashiec · « **Reply #19 on:** February 01, 2008, 01:07 PM »

foobar also has a plugin to verify sound files, so you can use it for now with WAV. Don't expect a very thorough analyzer, Peter says it reports only decoding errors that could stop the playback process. Well, and with MP3 it also shows inaccuracies in reported lengths and such (side effects of buggy encoders and an overly abused format).