asked to quote for mother of all CD imports into itunes

[unregbaron]

In December I imported 60 CDs onto someone's ipod and charged $160:

12 mins for each CD on my pismo G3 = 12 hours total

Now someone else wants me to import 2000 CDs (not tracks: CDs!) onto several ipods - I worked out would be 400 hours non-stop. A dream job perhaps but I am wondering about itunes import speeds - I guess this job could mean I can upgrade from a G3....

What can I do to increase the import speed? most I seem to get is 4x - is this normal?

thanks

[unregbaron]

- while I'm here, are there such machines that can hold loads of CDs at a time and import them automatically?

[SilentPanda]

I really hope you have the option checked to auto-import on CD insert... that should save you some time.

[edesignuk]

I don't get it, why would someone pay you to do this in the first place? They have iPods but no computers to use them with?

[virividox]

sweet, but who ever is paying you sure is wasting money they can do this themself...and what is with all this free time you have hahah

[evoluzione]

you need to upgrade!

i always average around 9-10x on my G4 iMac (800Mhz i think)

and i've heard the G5s are way faster still

[Phatpat]

I can understand paying for it. It's a service. 2000 cd's would take quite awhile to import. Many people wouldn't want to spend that time. Though I would be glad to get such a job :)

[jeremy.king]

So let me get this straight.

It takes approx 12 mins to rip a CD in your current setup, but you only really have to be at your computer to finish the previous rip, eject disc, insert disc, and start new rip. That process takes what? a minute?

So you really only had to be at your computer for 60mins, while the computer handled the other 11 hours.

So your actual labor cost is $160/hr. That INGENIOUS! Add in another side job, say web development, progamming, or stuffing envelopes (something you could do while your Mac is ripping), and you could be earning upwards of $250 an hour!

I must admit that this is much better than those who want $90 or more to convert your VHS movie into a DVD.

Not sure if its feasible but I would invest in a CD Tower, write a few apple scripts, and reap the rewards!

Ive been toying with the idea of ripping my 400 CDs and would actually consider paying someone to do it.

Your on to something there. Honestly.

[jeremy.king]

Originally posted by virividox
sweet, but who ever is paying you sure is wasting money they can do this themself...and what is with all this free time you have hahah

FYI, People can change their own oil, rotate their own tires, or even wash their own car...But they elect to pay someone?! Whats the difference?

[hesitaliandad]

there is a company that does this. call for help on tech tv is going to show the service today (1/21/04) at 3pm eastern if want to take a look.

ripdigital (http://www.ripdigital.com/)
call for help (http://techtv.com/callforhelp)

[vitrector]

There are several services that do this, one was mentioned above, namely "ripdigital", there is also "get digital." Maybe more/others.
Ripdigital does 224kbs MP3, get digital lets you specify what format (MP3, AAC, WMA) and what bitrate you want.
Both services cost about $1.00 per CD in large quantaties, with minimum prices, and up to $2.00 per CD in lower quantities.

[Lanbrown]

Originally posted by kingjr3
FYI, People can change their own oil, rotate their own tires, or even wash their own car...But they elect to pay someone?! Whats the difference?

Because you need to dispose of the oil and jack the car up. So people would need to buy the tools to do the task. To rotate the tires, you need to jack the car up. If all you had was a small jack, you could drive to the shop and have it done quicker then if you did it. As for washing, well, they are just lazy.

[slipper]

Originally posted by kingjr3

It takes approx 12 mins to rip a CD

you only really have to be at your computer to finish the previous rip, eject disc, insert disc, and start new rip.

That process takes what? a minute?

So your actual labor cost is $160/hr. lol sure.

[sonofslim]

it's not uncommon for my 1.25ghz G4 to rip at somewhere between 16x and 20x speed. even then, 2000 cds would be roughly 120 hours of ripping.

at any speed, you're talking about spending a couple hundred hours within arm's reach of your mac, swapping disks. even spending your nights at home after work and all day saturday and sunday, that's a serious time commitment. i wouldn't do it for less than $1000 -- and that's assuming a computer that can maintain a pretty high average rip speed.

[MontanaMacster]

If you have plenty of hard disk space, you can select the audio files in the disc image and just drag them on to your desktop(works somewhat faster). Do about 20 discs like this and then import the whole bunch at once. Delete the originals on the desktop and start again with more.

[neut]

Originally posted by unregbaron
Now someone else wants me to import 2000 CDs (not tracks: CDs!) onto several ipods - I worked out would be 400 hours non-stop.

does this include adding the CD track names?


peace

[evolu]

yeah - I consistently get 18-22x on my dual 1.42...

When i batch digitize, which is quite often, I load one CD into my internal drive. While it is importing, I load the next CD into my external writer. That way iTunes can lookup the track names on the CD in my external as it imports the one from my internal. As soon as the first one is finished and ejected, the next one is ready to import.

I should get a cut... ;)

[SilentPanda]

If you don't feel like doing it you can have http://www.ripdigital.com do it for you and just charge him more than they are charging you... :)

[rueyeet]

Originally posted by kingjr3
I must admit that this is much better than those who want $90 or more to convert your VHS movie into a DVD.

There are people who do that? Where? I've got a couple tapes--not enough to warrant getting the DV bridge and a DVD burner myself--that I'd like transferred to DVD. I'd seriously consider having someone else do it for me.

For the record, I get at least 7x-9x when ripping CDs on my TiBook (667 MHz and only 256 MB of memory), but only if I'm not doing anything else on it at the time. Then it drops to 4x or 5x. So you might want to dedicate the machine to ripping only for the length of the project.

Hmm. I haven't tried ripping on the 366 MHz iBook, so I can't offer a comparison figure there. Goodness knows if I get a miniPod I might seriously consider re-ripping my collection to AAC. At least I wouldn't have to type all the track info in again (I don't entirely trust the online CDDB to do it right).

Drat. rambling again. mmmph.

[jeremy.king]

Originally posted by rueyeet
There are people who do that? Where? I've got a couple tapes--not enough to warrant getting the DV bridge and a DVD burner myself--that I'd like transferred to DVD. I'd seriously consider having someone else do it for me.

Theyre all over the place. Check with videographers that do weddings and such and Im sure you'll find someone to do it.

I saw this. $30, not bad. Granted Ive never had anyone do this.

http://www.4everondvd.com/

[rueyeet]

They won't transfer copyrighted stuff though. So I'll have to admit to the fact that the tapes I want transferred are my carefully hoarded recordings of the brief-lived Nickelodeon cartoon Invader ZIM, which they stubbornly refuse to release DVD's of. The only way to get DVD's of it are to make your own, or buy them illegally from someone who has.

I'll bet any legitimate outfits have the same restriction. Oh well.

[jxyama]

i ripped over 100 CDs of my own, twice, in fact, so i can understand that there's market for this...

however, if you will be ripping 2000 CDs, i'd also consider the wear and tear on your optical drive. that's a lot of spinning...

btw, i get 4 to 5x on my 12" PB 867 when unplugged, about 7 to 8x when plugged in...

[rendezvouscp]

I would consider a G5 if you could use it for other things too (or even get a pro card, use the G5, and then return it). I have a stock dual 2, on automatic power, converting off the hard drive (say you copy the cd's to a hard drive, then convert the songs all at once), I got 50x at AIFF, and 30x+ at 192 AAC. On a regular CD, I get about 10-15x import using the SuperDrive. Good luck to you though!
–Chase

[rdas7]

Here's how you do it:

After all, it's pretty straightforward: get yourself a massive hard drive (you can find cheap deals on dealmac.com or techbargains.com) - I'm talking 80-200GB. Possibly even an external cd reader (or two). These should be pretty cheap (you can probably get both the hard drive and an external reader for around $150 if you look hard enough).

Set the Mac to auto copy the contents of cd's when you insert them to the reader onto your new hard drive. Then set a folder action to auto-convert the contents of that drive via QT (or iTunes, same thing). You can be importing tracks off cd's to the hard drive WHILE QT/iTunes is converting in the background... essentially all you'd need to do is feed cd's into the drive. When you get tired of doing this, you can take a break while the computer works through the backlog of imports. In other words, you can spend an hour feeding disc after disc into the machine, then leave for a couple of hours while it rips the tracks.

Hell man, let me in on the action: I'll write you some apple scripts so all you need to do is insert the disc in the drive! ;)

[unregbaron]

God bless macrumors - just got in to work this morning to find all your replies...
Might get back to some of you later today with poss. opportunities.

Yes had been thinking about it all overnight esp external hard drive. Client is saying she has several ipods but I worked out that:

If they have 2000 CDs and each disc has 15 tracks (+ each Gb holds 250 songs) then:

= 2000x15 > 30,000 tracks

= 30,000/250 > 120

= They need 120 Gb in storage ?

Thinking better for her maybe for me to put it all onto an external HD 'music brain' from which she can play music/update ipod etc...

[virividox]

i wish i had allt hat time to rip haha i barely hav time to rip my own collection much less someone elses