Best way to back up/rip audio cds

[kevzik]

If you haven't noticed (similar dvd thread in progress), I am in the process of creating the ultimate media center pc!( well imo)

Now how should I go about storing music on the hd? I know I can rip high quality, huge sized mp3s, but mp3 is never going to be lossless or perfect. I have heard of flac and ogg vorbis, but arent these somewhat limited (can they play in vista's media center?" I am pretty much looking for a way to have music files that match the quality on the audio cd. Is there a format out there? Can it handle tags such as cover art and track names? Will it work in media center?

I am not too worried about huge files, I just want great quality.

I am really tempted to just go through the whole wmp ripping process. Rip at 320kbps mp3s and just have wmp do the organization and tagging. Cags, please let me know if you have any suggestions!

Thanks once again!

[kevzik]

You gotta love google. I think with the links below, I will be fine. Heres some great info for others that might be doing the same as me!

http://www.high-quality.ch.vu/

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=51871

[Vinny]

You could just rip them to direct wave files... roughly 10mb per minute. I think they're lossless though I'm not sure.

[mikeohara]

I personally like the .flac format if you're really wanting to do the lossless formats, otherwise .mp3 or .ogg work just fine for me :)

[HeadRusch]

What I want is an automatic way to normalize the volume in all my MP3's, some way to queue them up and let the thing run so I dont have ones that are blaringly loud compared to other rips.