Dave72

Thanks for the tips Paul! Will give that a go.

Thanks again. Though to be honest I've had a few Macs with iTunes over the years (my last version of OSX was 10.4.7!) i'm not sure of the process to do what i want to do now. Basically I want to have two separate libraries, one on the external at full quality, and another on the MacBook at AAC quality. How do I first create the external library with the MacBook and then (if possible) re-encode this back to the MacBook without messing around with library info files? I'd like to be able to use the external library at home to stream to a music system and the internal for portability (parties, D.J. etc.). I'd rather avoid having two versions of everything, ALAC and AAC, on the MacBook if you understand. Is this possible with iTunes? Can iTunes encode two separate file types to two separate locations at the same time? Thanks again.

Thanks Paul, though I was thinking to have them as smaller files on the MacBook for transfer to iPod. Is there any software out there that would manage this all for me? The re encoding of ALAC library to MacBook? I think, as I would be using the MacBook for the initial ripping to an external I may have problems with library hierarchies etc. when I want to re-encode foe the internal drive.

Hi all, new here! I have a question or two for you and would like some advice. I have recently bought a new MacBookPro with a 750gb internal HD. I own about 1000 CDs and I want to rip them all at the best possible quality to an external HD, so I was thinking Apple Lossless. Here's where it gets tricky... with this quality back up of all my music on external HD I then want to transfer this to my MacBook's internal HD at a reasonably good quality bitrate, I was thinking 320 AAC, for portability and space. Is there an easy way to go about this, maybe a bit of software that would manage this for me? What are your thoughts on this, is iTunes a good enough ripper or are there better? The sample rates I quoted OK? I just want a good quality main library on an external and as good as I can have library on my MacBook. BTW I am not sure how much HD space all of my music would take up but I would be willing to sacrifice at least half of the 750gb to it if I could get away with at least 320 AAC. How much disk space does each type and size of file from the average 10 track CD take up? Thoughts?