Korean Job Discussion Forums

[J.B. Clamence]

OK, I'm not a complete moron when it comes to technology, but I've see a lot of cool digital things happening in the world these days, and I'd like to get in on it. I'm sick of hauling my Sony Discman with a bunch of CDs around when I want to listen to music, and I'd like to be able to take pictures and put them on the computer rather than just using my camera and film. The problem is I'm not really sure how it works.

I have a Sony VAIO laptop with good specs (512MB, Intel Pent. 4 2.8GHz, 60 GB harddrive, Windows XP), but I don't know how to save my music onto it in MP3 format. Do I need to download special software to do this? Is it free? What should I get? I've got tons of hard-drive space, that's not a problem. I'd like to save my CDs onto the computer in MP3 so I can buy one of those cool little MP3 players. It would make my life so much easier. Also, do I need additional software to save my MP3 files from my computer onto the MP3 player, or will it do it automatically?

I'd like to buy a digital camera, too. Do I need software for that as well? Do I just plug the camera into a USB port and automatically be able to see the pics?

I figure I must be pretty out of it seeing how many digital cameras and MP3 players I see out there, but no one I know has them, so I would appreciate any suggestions about how to get the software I need, if any.

[Swiss James]

It's no more difficult than using floppy disks.

The way I move files to my MP3 player is by connecting it to the USB port of my PC (the USB port is letter box shaped hole in the back of your laptop which should have a symbol like this on it )
When I turn the MP3 player on, I can then see my MP3 player as though it's another hard drive- F:\ or something instead of the C:\ you have all your files on.

Select the files (or folders) you want to move, copy and paste like you would anything else. Done.

This is for an iRiver player, iPods need to use software called iTunes which is apparently very easy to use- although I've no experience with it.

To make the MP3s in the first place, you need to "Rip" the tracks off it- which is just converting them into the MP3 file format.
I use a program called CDEx [url="http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/cdexos/cdex_151.exe?download"]free to download from here[/url], it will connect to a database on the internet, download all of the track, band and album names, then make the MP3 files with the appropriate name.
Lots of other software does the same thing, you might find that when you put a music CD in the drive, you've already got a program which will do this for you.

I think iTunes does this job for iPod players too.

For cameras- I can plug a cable into the Canon camera, then connect that to the USB port, but that requires special software and is a lot less convenient than the other method (you have to transfer one pic at a time for example).
If you buy a 'card reader' (cheap, maybe 10,000 won) you can remove the memory card from the camera, and then just plug that into the USB port- Windows will again recognise it as another drive (the same way it would if you put a floppy disk in the slot) and you can copy and paste to your heart's content.

[J.B. Clamence]

Wow, that sounds pretty easy. Thanks so much for the tips, Swiss James. I've heard that iRivers are good ones, so I think I'll get one of those. In the meantime, I guess I'd better get to work on ripping my CDs. I've tried it before with a couple CDs, but it saves them onto my Windows Media player, and I can't figure out if that's MP3 or not. Regardless, I'll download that program off the website you kindly provided and try it that way.

Thanks again, SJ.

21st century here I come..

[peppermint]

MP3 players are great, but SJ is talking about one of the hard drive types. You might want to ask around if the Flash memory ones are as easy- I think they are though.

Most digital cameras come with whatever software they'll need for your computer, so don't worry about that. When I connect my camera ( a panasonic) to the computer, the software shows thumbnails of all of the pics, and I just have to click the ones I want to move onto the computer. Once they're selected, one click sends them all over, and another will delete the ones that I didn't like so much.

[Swiss James]

I hate the software that came with my camera, it's so clunky for what it's supposed to do.

Anyway I am talking about the hard disk types, but surely the flash ones will be the same idea? The Windows Media player is probably saving them as .WMA files, which the iriver will play just like an MP3 (although iPod's won't)

[kprrok]

I'm in the process of rippping my very large CD collection and am looking for an MP3 player as well. I'm using Windows Media Player v. 10.0. When you download it for free (just search for it), you can open the options and choose what format (WMA or MP3) and what sound quality (bitrate) as well as where on your computer to rip to. The program will either automatically get the tracks, or you can search for them manually if it won't read it for some reason. Then you're done. I don't know how to transfer the files ot a player yet as I'm not there, but it can't be too hard.

KPRROK

[Swiss James]

one thing about the iRiver (hate to bang on about it, but it's the only one I've got) is that if you play an album, it'll go through the tracks in alphabetical order.

Now this isn't a problem if you've set the ripping to have filenames like:

01- 100%.mp3
02- Swimsuit Issue.mp3
03- Drunken Butterfly.mp3

But miss the numbers off at the start, or have then go
1- 100%.mp3
2- Swimsuit...
3
etc.
and the order will be wrong. And you will swear.

[Bunnymonster]

Google for 'the godfather' its a batch mp3 renaming program, which will be really good if you have messed up the names of your tracks/tags when ripping them.

[Sage Monkey]

[J.B. Clamence]

Thanks for the tips everyone. It's all been very helpful. So now I'm in the process of ripping my CDs. Thanks to kprrok, I figured out how to change my Windows Media Player to MP3 format. I also set the bitrate to the highest setting, 320 kbps, which takes 144MB per album, but I don't think I'll save every track, and I've got a 60GB hard-drive that I don't really use for much else, so figured I might as well go for maximum quality. I also set the player to save two-digit track numbers as well as artist and song names into the file, which should make things easier.

I guess I need a player now, though. I suppose I'll go for one of the memory-based ones so I don't have to update it too often. Oooh, shopping!

[Swiss James]

it's personal choice and all, but i personally can't tell the difference between 192 and 320kbps, and if I had stuff set at the latter would've filled my 40g drive by now.

[Bulsajo]

[J.B. Clamence]

Oh, I didn't realize that. What about with a pair of decent speakers? I figure if I'm gonna have all my music on my computer, I figure I might as well play my music on my computer from now on. If I got some decent desktop speakers, would I be able to tell the difference between 192 and 320?

[J.B. Clamence]

OK, I switched to 192 kbps, but I've still hit a snag here. My 60GB hard drive is divided into two drives, labelled "C" and "D", which are 20GB and 40GB respectively. Drive C is now full, and I assumed that when that happened, things would automatically get saved on drive D, which is completely empty. But that's not happening. The computer keeps telling me I'm runing low on space and I should clean up my drive. How do I tell the computer to start saving stuff on drive D?

[Bulsajo]

You need to move some of the already saved stuff over to D:.
Create new file on D: called 'saved music' or whatever...