audio disc images and iTunes

[ThreeBKK]

Quote: Originally Posted by NaOH Did you re-import the songs (it's not clear if you did)? If not, iTunes is still referencing songs on a disk image.

Tried it a couple of times with different tracks. Doesn't seem to make a difference either way. It doesn't want to get the track names when "importing" a song using the drag-and-drop method unless, I think, the track is dragged off of an actual CD.

[fracai]

Why exactly do you care about creating an audio CD image?

I know you mentioned not having to rip from the CD again, but if you import as lossless you wouldn't need to. You can easily convert between AIFF, AppleLossless, FLAC, AAC, MP3, whatever (though it's not a good idea to go from lossy to anything else as you'll loose quality each time; stick to lossless to anything else). Plus, if you pick a compressed lossless format you'll save quite a bit of space over using uncompressed AIFF. And the lossless files can then already have the tags as well.

What does the mountable image get you?

Also, one way around the issue of not being able to look up the tags for those dragged files is to tag them with MusicBrainz Picard. It'll look up album data by analyzing the audio fingerprint and comparing with the MusicBrainz database.

[ThreeBKK]

Quote: Originally Posted by fracai Why exactly do you care about creating an audio CD image?

Let's just call it assurance against unforeseen future circumstances. As I've discovered during the course of this thread, there's a lot that I didn't know about music formats, and there's probably much more that I still don't know. I also think that it's safe to assume there will be further changes to the technology in the coming years. For example: What would happen if Apple released a revised version of their lossless format, but I no longer had the CDs on hand to re-rip them? Maybe I could use the AIFF files, but then what if…

Nobody can predict what might happen in the future.

[benwiggy]

Quote: Originally Posted by ThreeBKK For example: What would happen if Apple released a revised version of their lossless format, but I no longer had the CDs on hand to re-rip them?

One would presume that iTunes v28 would still PLAY "original" Apple Lossless files, as well as Lossless2™.

If it didn't, Apple have open sourced the Lossless format, so there would certainly be a market and means for anyone to write a conversion utility.

[fracai]

Right, based on the goal of ensuring that you have access to your music even if Apple changes formats or drops support, you should be fine with just storing Apple Lossless files (for iTunes compatibility) or (if iTunes isn't critical) use another open source format like FLAC.

Bottom line, there isn't any reason that you should need to store a mountable image. You'll almost double your storage requirements (lossless compression is typically around 50-60%) for no benefit and increased management efforts.

I don't think the image is worth it.