Storing CDs etc on a home server

[Nick]

Sounds like a plan!

I don't use VB for video, so can't answer that one first hand...

See the post I referenced before about using max2play on a Raspberry Pi with an IQaudIO DAC or DigiAMP+ hat (other RPi DAC/amp 'hats' are available, but I really like the IQaudIO ones). Any Squeezebox client app on a smartphone or tablet will control this - as you know, I pump music & radio through commercial pantry transmitters...

[ppppenguin]

I've been told there are problems with metadata for classical CDs. It's a more complex problem than for pop/rock/jazz/fol/world etc. This article explains:
http://blog.naxos.com/2012/04/04/lets-ta...-metadata/

More problems with classical:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...ic/399788/

Yet more on the subject:
https://carstenknoch.com/2012/12/managin...cal-music/

A discussion:
https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread....-practices

A wiki from Logitech:
http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Be..._Classical

It's pretty obvious that there isn't a good or universal solution. To some extent I'm putting all this here as an aide memoire for myself though any comments and help is appreciated.

[Nick]

One other problem is that not all metadata tags are in English - obvious when you think about it. There also seems to be no completely agreed standard on what music has what tags - it can feel random sometimes.

No question that editing the tagging to make the dataset consistent is vital.

[ppppenguin]

Plus having a good tool to search the tags, something that can give decent results from slightly grubby data.

[Brunel]

Do not forget the less complicated route.

AUDIOGRABBER and the online database, all free.

http://www.audiograbber.org/

Download:  http://filehippo.com/download_audiograbber/

[Nick]

Audiograbber is ancient but seems to still work - it's free, but so are all the other options. It's just a ripper (MP3-centric but will apparently do FLAC), running on Windows, which looks up in one of the online DBs for track info... but so do all the others - actually, most of the other look up a range of databases. It also has all the same problems as the others in that the disc metadata can be unreliable and will need editing. Whilst it'll rip CDs, it needs human intervention and does not provide a means to serve the ripped data to audio systems.

VB is trivial to use and setup and includes a multi-db FLAC ripper by default, but has the added bonus that you can run it on something trivial like a tiny intel box (under 100 euros) and have it serve all that music out to the rest of your house using standard components. Plus it runs/provides Spotify, Youtube, Internet radio and loads of other plugins... Oh, and is controllable from any smartphone or tablet. All free.

The big advantage of VB is that its ripping is automatic - no human intervention other than putting a CD in the tray and closing the drawer - VB then does all the rest automatically - ripping, various DB lookups, processing the metatdata, before spitting the CD out again - the VB box is "headless", i.e. no keyboard, mouse or screen - just a tiny box with a CD drive and connectivity to the internet.

There are, of course, other options...