Hi guys, I just recently bought a PC built from scratch and meant as a gaming PC for my son (and me
). It has the Asus P4 2.4Ghz motherboard, 512mb RAM, ATI Radeon 128 video card, Soundblaster Audigy sound card, 80G HDD and a LiteOn DVD+-R writer. The monitor is a Samsung LCD 15" panel.
I am not as interested as you guys in making it an HTPC. But as an audio freak, apart from games, I am quite interested to use the PC as a ripping station for CDs, HDCDs, DVD-As, DADs, DTS-CDs and SACDs so I can compile my favourite tracks in 5.1 or stereo into the hard drive and burn a DVD+R on the fly. I only have experience ripping CDs and burning CD-R. I have some questions like:
(1) Is it true there's no ripping software available for multi=channel audio? Otherwise, what is the best and preferrably FREE software to rip HDCD, DVD-A, DAD, DTS-CD and SACD in terms of capturing identical tracks without introducing noise or jitter. In CD, there is this Exact Audio Copy (EAC) freeware that I use to rip CDs. And I use NERO 6 to burn CD-Rs. Is there a counterpart or similar software for HDCD, DVD-A, DAD, DTS-CD and SACD?
(2) I've been reading some articles on the net that say decoding in AC3 or DD format on the hard disk will take hours for an entire DVD+R. Is this true, even with a P4 and 512 RAM? How about ripping DTS tracks?
(3) Connected to a coax digital terminal in my Denon AVD2020 pre/pro, the Soundblaster Audigy doesn't seem to output in 5.1 digitally (I don't use the 5.1 analog outs), only stereo. Is this really the case or do I have some settings done wrong? What audio card do the gurus recommend?
(4) I have partitioned the 80gb HDD into 20G for system OS/utilities and programs, 20G for pictures and games and 40G for datafiles that include ripped WAV files. Should I get another 80G for ripped DVDs (audio tracks only) ?
These are top in my head at the moment, more to come. Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.