MediaMonkey forum

Yes, MediaMonkey can auto-convert on-the-fly while syncing to a format the device is capable of playing.

I got MM to compress my entire collection to MP3 in a parallel directory (actually on a portable HDD), using LAME. It took about a week, but I didn't have to do anything other than tell it where to put it.

Then I created a portable MM installation and library on that HDD, which I use only for syncing to a portable media player.

I can take the portable HDD, plug it in to any PC, and play my music. Admittedly, in less than CD quality...

Thanks, that's good news.

I followed the (half german/ half english) instructions on the EAC website and extracted Lame into a given directory. Can anyone tell me how to 'link' that with MM?

Also I have started to rip a few CD's to FLAC using EAC. It seems to be excellent but I can't see where the set/change the FLAC compression?
Also following the instructions I am using Action - Test and Save - uncompressed to start the ripping process. This sees it take a bit over an hour per CD! Does that seem right! Is there a different option I should be using to make this quicker? I want FLAC, but maybe I am choosing the wrong options somewhere...

Thanks.

edit: OK so.. I did 4 CDs already BUT I was using 'uncompressed' ( I was confusing this with 'lossless'). I assume that is why I have ended up with WAV files? Is there a way to tell EAC to covert/compress these to FLAC format now?

Once you Rip files to your PC with some other application you only need to scan the files in MediaMonkey (File > Add/Rescan Files) to include them in your Library.

I don't think EAC can convert WAV > FLAC, but MediaMonkey can.

> Is there a way to tell EAC to covert/compress these to FLAC format now?

Yes, there is. from the menu, use Tools/Compress WAVs. Easy...

You set the compression options via the menu EAC/Compression Options.

To rip and compress, hit the second icon on the left-hand sidebar menu, with the 'CMP' tag.

> I don't think EAC can convert WAV > FLAC, but MediaMonkey can.

Of course EAC can. It can also use LAME to compress to MP3 without any dubious 30-day 'trial period' for allowing use of free software (LAME). The fact that MM does this as an inducement to get people to buy MM is questionable practice, IMHO.

This 30-day limit can be overcome once the 30 days are up by dropping a new copy of lame-enc.dll into MM's install directory. There used to be an FAQ on this topic, but it seemed to be removed some years ago.

MP3 is a complicated licensing mess with multiple owners to the licenses. It's easy to include a unlimited version, but the legality of that can be questioned. Some developers may not worry about this or don't care.

To add to lowlanders reply above and give you example how things are complicated, ALAC was licensed few years back and we needed to pay to make it available to users now MMW free contain Free ALAC codec. Same is for MP3s We can't supply free encoder but MMW can support some free MP3 encoders manually installed by user.

OK I have succeeded in compressing the WAV's to flac. Cheers. One thing though....

captain paranoia wrote:> Is there a way to tell EAC to covert/compress these to FLAC format now?

snip

You set the compression options via the menu EAC/Compression Options.

Perhaps you could clarify - how do you choose how compressed to make it? (I've heard of compression 1-8 available ?
Currently it is set for High Quality / 1024 kBit/sec bit rate.

> Same is for MP3s We can't supply free encoder but MMW can support some free MP3 encoders manually installed by user.

But you do supply an MP3 encoder with the standard install kit; you supply lame_enc.dll. Which you then disable after 30 days, to encourage upgrade to Gold.

Does this mean that a Gold licence includes a contribution towards an MP3 licence from the Fraunhofer Institute?

> Perhaps you could clarify - how do you choose how compressed to make it? (I've heard of compression 1-8 available ?

There was some discussion on the ripping thread about the FLAC compression level. I use -8 to get maximum compression, but there is an argument that is a bit OTT. I don't find any processing problem with compression or decompression on any platform with my -8 compressed files.

For the mechanism of setting the compression option strings in EAC, I'd refer to the EAC documentation. Or this:

http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/EAC/index.html

For FLAC itself:

https://xiph.org/flac/faq.html

captain paranoia wrote:>Does this mean that a Gold licence includes a contribution towards an MP3 licence from the Fraunhofer Institute?

yes, we pay fees.

> yes, we pay fees.

You may want to see if you still need to. Their patent has recently expired, and they don't intend to renew it.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/1 ... y_noticed/

Thanks captain - I was looking for some separate 'box' or setting.
I note the default compression setting is 6.
I changed it to 8 because, well, why not!

Do a test and Rip using level 5 or 6 and 8. You'll likely find there is minimal gain in file size reduction.