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General discussion

Purchase and transfer questions - IPod or other?

by darlacoleman Apr 24, 2008 1:36PM PDT

I've got over 150 music CD's in my collection, and I've decided I want to get all the music put on an MP3 player. I'm having a rummage sale in about 2 weeks, so I'm working on ripping all the CD's onto my Windows Media Player in MP3 format. I like how it's all organized by the albums and there is a little icon with the actual album cover on each one as well.

which MP3 player would be the best for me - I'm interested in one with lots of storage for ALL my music. I'm not much into the video. The other thing is that I plan on selling my CDs at my rummage sale and can't buy a new MP3 player until after the sale. Is the above mentioned transfering of music from CD to Windows Media Player good enough to later transfer to an IPod or whatever? Will it maintain the CD cover icons, and organization that I have now?

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2 Posts
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What does the rummage sale have to do with the CDs?
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Apr 24, 2008 11:57PM PDT

Gasp, I hope you are not thinking of selling those CDs as this would not be fair use.

As to WMP, I've found it to not be a great program at this. It's been known to have a brain seizure then lose the collection. Microsoft's answer is for you to restore from your backup. Since it appears you might be parting with the CDs maybe this will be how all will be set right about having the CD content but not the CD?

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need to determine capacity needs first
by ktreb Apr 25, 2008 1:13AM PDT

And how much you might need for the future. Hard drive or flash? You might be okay with an 8GB flash player with an SD or microSD expansion slot. That rules out iPod Nanos. You might want to look into the Creative Zen. Value-wise, you still get more bang for your buck with hard drive players. And most of these and even the flash ones, will have video capability. However, there are not too many players in the hard drive category: Microsoft Zune 80GB, Apple iPod 80GB/160GB, Archos 605/705, and I think Cowan makes a couple.

Legally, you should keep the original CDs, but I don't think anyone is going to hunt you down and sue you if you did. That said, you should keep several backups of your music, perhaps on an external hard drive and data cds/dvds. The mp3 player you ultimately get could serve as backup as well. I have 1000+ ripped cds (and many more unripped) and besides keeping the original cds (the ultimate full-quality backup), I have them on 2 external drives, my spare laptop, and my desktop, and my primary laptop. Since I have the original cds, I'm not bothering to put burn them on dvd (but I am thinking about it). You don't necessarily need that much backup, but considering what you're planning to do with the originals, it wouldn't hurt to have a couple in place.

As far as organization, you might be better off with a player that works with Windows Media Player. iTunes, while fairly easy to use, is a resource hog, and can change your organization. Almost all players, except for iPods and Zunes, work with WMP.

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