If you have a large CD collection that you wish to rip to your home server, your options are currently limited. Most OEM home servers currently available are not provided with CD Drives, as software installation is performed over the internet - and from a software perspective, there is no dedicated CD ripping software for Windows Home Server…. at least, until now!
Illustrate, developers of the popular dBpoweramp CD ripping and audio conversion application for Windows have this week released a dedicated CD Ripping tool for Windows Home Server, entitled RipNAS Essentials and have also announced a dedicated, small footprint Windows Home Server system which will be provided with integrated CD Ripping facilities - the RipNAS.
RipNAS Essentials simply and easily adds powerful CD ripping facilities to any Windows Home Server machine fitted with a CD drive (you can also purchase a bundle with a USB CD Drive included). Once installed, all you need to do is insert a CD and wait a short while whilst RipNAS Essentials rips the music from the CD and saves it to the home server in a format and quality of your choosing.
Features are as follows:
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Track Titles and Album art are automatically downloaded from the Internet using PerfectMeta™ (AMG, GD3, MusicBrainz & freedb)
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CD tracks ripped to a lossless audio format (configurable) using dBpoweramp CD Ripping Engine
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Ripped tracks automatically saved to Music shared folder along with embedded album art (also Folder.jpg),
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Secure Model verifies ripped tracks for errors using AccurateRip and c2 pointers,
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Only four minutes to rip an entire CD, after which it is ejected.
Tracks can be ripped to FLAC or WMA Lossless format, the latter of which is compatible with Windows Home Server’s in built Windows Media Connect serving software, so you can be sure your music can be distributed to a wide range of receivers around the home.
RipNAS Application RipNAS Settings Dialog
The RipNAS application fully integrates inside the Windows Home Server Console providing a full history of which CDs you have ripped. Application settings are controlled via a Tab in WHS’ Settings dialog.
I’m delighted to see media software such as this starting to emerge for Windows Home Server - there’s a great future for WHS as a media management device, and really useful utilities such as RipNAS Essentials build upon the great backup and remote access facilities of base WHS systems with new ways to make the most from your digital media.
RipNAS Essentials is available to buy now - the software itself is priced at $80 and $165 when bundled with a TEAC USB Slot loading drive. We’ll have a full review of the software in the coming weeks.
A dedicated Windows Home Server device with integrated CD Ripping facilities is also slated for release in the coming weeks, called the RipNAS. At this point, not a lot of detailed information is available on the system, other than it appears to be a small footprint home server, available in a range of colours.
The RipNAS provides the following:
- dBpoweramp CD Ripper: securest of the secure
- Case: winner of Intel’s SFF design contest
- PerfectMeta™: using 4 metadata providers: AMG, GD3, MusicBrainz and freedb simultaneously
- Laptop 2.5″ hard drive(s): 3.5″ drives are too noisy for the living room!
- Windows Home Server
- Streamable to uPnP, DAAP (iTunes) and SqueezeCenter (Slim Devices)
The RipNAS is slated to be available in the next 6 weeks, in 320GB, 640GB and 1TB models. Pricing is expected to start at $999. We’ll keep you posted as we here more.
More Info: Illustrate
October 4th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Dang you! You just gave me an excuse to rerip all my CD’s in a better format
Well, there went my weekend.
Seems to be a doing a nice quick job. Hopefully, I will be able to get them all within the 21 day period. Or… I might just have to buy this program. 
October 5th, 2008 at 9:13 am
@Jim Clark -
Jim,
Did you find a demo version then? I can’t find it and before buying software I’d really want to try it out.
Did I overlook some info on their website maybe?
Nic
October 5th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
@cyberke - Actually, I am using the dBpoweramp trial. There does not seem to be a WHS trial version. $80 or nothing, it appears. Give it few months and a trial version may appear.
I have dBpoweramp loaded on both my workstation and WHS re-ripping everything to a WMA lossless 5.1 format. I almost chose FLAC, but decided I wanted to encode to the 5.1 format, so WMA it was.
I’ve been wanting to “upgrade” my mp3 rips for some time. This gave me the excuse to do so. Of course, lossless/5.1 also means LOTS of HD space needed
The downside to all this type of SW/HW is that, IMO, CD’s are going the way of vynil. A few more years and everything will be downloadable mp3’s. Which sucks because mp3’s are a huge step down in quality.