eac vs windows...artwork help etc...


i have a few thoughts...

i started using windows to rip my cd's which is a very simple process...put in the disc, hit rip in windows media player and scan with squeezecenter (i use squeezecneter/transporter). bam...i have my album in losless format and all tags/artwork in squeexecenter...done. well i read all the time how eac and flac will provide an audible benefit and is simply a better way to create audiophile level material...so i give it a go...eac was fairly simple to set up and operate i suppose, i did this a while back for a short time so i remembered some. it downloaded the flac program automatically too. i was able to get data but i could not get artwork. i started some threads on slimdevices, and here and still could not do it. the consensus seemed to be drag a jpeg into the album folder and name it cover.jpg and do a full scan but this did not work. so on to the next program...mp3tag. i downloaded it and think i have it sort of figured out. i can get art attached to a song but if i want the whole album to have art i have to attach it to each song.

this is pretty complicated and i would guess between all the programs there are some settings i may have wrong (or processes) too. is there really a benefit to all this mess vs windows one step process? does flac really sound better? isn't lossless lossless, whether it is named flac or wma lossless? does eac really rip better? these questions have been bouncing around my head for a bit so i thought i would ask you guys.

any tips on getting artwork into squeezecenter are welcome as well!!
richard_stacy
as i suggested in your last thread, tag&rename is a much better program (imho). i downloaded mp3tag and it appears to just list every file in your directory, but not allow you control over individual albums. with tag&rename, you can select the individual albums and then click "add folder.jpg to file tags" for the album you're looking at and it will batch add the .jpg files to each song without you having to manually do it for every track. very easy, very quick (compared to mp3tag). maybe you can do this with mp3tag, but i haven't seen a way yet.

eac supposedly rips better and i use it primarily because it will check the data you ripped against the disc to ensure that it's bit perfect. i'm not sure if wmp does this.

if you can't hear a difference between wma lossless and flac, then just continue to use wma lossless as it appears to be more user friendly for you.
before going any further, have you checked your squeezecenter settings? specifically, the advanced->formatting section. go there and see what's entered under the "artwork" and "artwork folder" heading and repost here what's entered there.
kgturner..thanks for jumping in again! i will take a look at tag&rename too. both of those settings are blank which i believe is the default.
richard:

change the "artwork" section to from blank to "folder.jpg" or "cover.jpg", whichever one you have named your image files then do a rescan and see if that doesn't help.