ripperX FAQ
sbsams@digitallabyrinth.com
Last updated: 12/29/1999


Q. I keep getting "Error Code 14"

A. This is usually because cdparanoia is not configured properly. If you are 
not running ripperX as root, you will need to either give your userid read
access to your cdrom device, or make cdparanoia setuid root.

A. cdparanoia may have trouble with your cdrom drive. Try running 

cdparanoia -vQ

and you should see a table of contents appear. If you do not see this, check
the cdparanoia troubleshooting page and FAQ at:

http://www.xiph.org/paranoia/index.html


Q. Sometimes I get "Error Code 22: CD not in database"

A. This is because ripperX uses freedb.org, which sometimes is not as up to 
date as cddb.com, especially for new titles. (And vice versa can be true!) I
believe freedb.org is the "Right Thing To Do", and that is why freedb is the 
default CDDB server. If you keep getting Error 22, there are 2 things you can
do: 1) open gtcd or similar program and with the CDDB server set to freedb.org,
fill in the information and submit it. 2) Change the CDDB server in ripperX to
us.cddb.com (port 888) or us.cddb.com/~cddb/cddb.cgi (port 80 for HTTP).


Q. How do I change the name of my files to have the track number, album name,
etc?

A. In the Files tab of the configuration window, you will see a File format
string text box. You can name your files anything you want and the special 
% variables will be replaced with CDDB information.

%s = Song Title
%a = Artist Name
%# = Track Number
%v = Album Name

for example, the default string is:

%a - %s

which will produce mp3s like so:

Artist Name - Song Title.mp3


Q. How do I make a directory structure like 

Artist Name/Album Name/01 - Song Name.mp3?

A. Make sure the "Create album subdirectory for each CD" option is checked. 
For the Directory format string, use:

%a/%v

and for the File format string, use:

%# - %s


Q. How can I rip the whole CD first, then encode everything later?

A. Select all the tracks, and select the "Rip wav" 
option. All the tracks will be ripped. You can then quit ripperX and come back
later. As long as the "Make mp3 from existing wav file" option under the 
General tab is checked, you will be able to encode the files later without 
having to rip them again. This works as long as the file names in the text boxes
are exactly the same as they were when they were ripped.


Q. How do I keep the wav files after encoding them?

A. Check the "Keep wav files" option in the General tab.


Q. What about SMP support?

A. There are no plans for ripperX to support SMP directly. However, if you use 
one of the SMP enabled encoders, such as gogo and (I think) lame, SMP support
will be totally transparent to ripperX. If quality is a major concern, perhaps
enough people can petition some of the commercial encoder companies to make an
SMP version of their encoder.


Caveats:

1. The stop button may not stop the CD playing. This is because the 
"cdplay" program that is shipped with RedHat 6.0 is broken and cannot stop 
playing a CD.

2. Sometimes the freedb.org CDDB server will not have a CD in it. Try changing
the URL to us.cddb.com/~cddb/cddb.cgi