LiveDigitally Tests Out dmp3 CD Ripping Service

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.livedigitally.com/dmp31.html' target='_blank'>http://www.livedigitally.com/dmp31.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Ron owns an iPod, has a couple of laptops, is a big iTunes and Rhapsody fan. He's a digital media fan. That said, in two years, he'd ripped a grand total of 20 CDs. Ron says his biggest deterrents to ripping his own CDs are that it takes a long time and maintenance, especially including the problem that he typically has to fix up the metadata (artist name, album title, etc) after he's done. In fact, when asked how long he thinks it would take him to rip his favorite 200 CDs of his collection, Ron said, "At present rates, I'm ripping about 10 CDs a year. If you calculate that out, my 200 CDs would take 20 years!" So we called in dmp3 to help out."</i><br /><br />This isn't a service I'd use myself, but I have to admit that after reading the article and seeing the detail the dmp3 puts into the process, I'm quite impressed. :way to go:

[mcsouth]

Okay, on one hand, I can see the value of this to someone who has a large CD collection, and is just now looking at going to a MCE PC - trying to convert an entire music collection all at once could easily be an overwhelming task.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that I understand the issue with ripping CD's - Ron kind of sounds like a bit of a weeny, or at least a technophobe. When I buy a new CD, I drop it into my PC, open WMP, clip on RIP, and listen to the CD while surfing the web, or doing some other task - WMP takes care of ripping and tagging in the background. Is this considered to be so difficult that one would only attempt to do this 10 times a year? Considering that you don't need to babysit the ripping process, I'm not sure it's fair to count the rip time as your labour - it's not like you're using a flashlight and magnifying glass to read the bits and key them into your PC! And 20 minutes to rip a CD? I'm not sure I've ever timed it, but I ripped several songs off a CD last night to WMA lossless format, and the process was done before the first song finished playing

It just goes to prove the whole point about the service industry - pick out a task that people don't want to do, and charge to do it for them - instant business.

[Neil Enns]

On the other hand, I'm not sure that I understand the issue with ripping CD's

Think about all the people out there who have hundreds of CDs they've purchased over the years, and are just now getting their first MCE or iPod or whatever. Sitting and ripping all those CDs sucks. These services are squarely targeted at the people who have boxes and boxes of CDs to rip.

Heck, I'm planning on re-ripping all my CDs to WMAs since my electronic collection is all goofed up mp3s, and I'm looking forward to it about as much as a root canal. 8O Depending on how many CDs I wind up with, I might even go with something like this just to get my life back.

Neil