Help with file type/size and programme

[Actingskint]

Hi to all,

Well after a lot of debate I took the plunge and purchased my first Mp3 player, a Cowon m3 40gb model.

Its on its way to me as I type,ok its second hand but Im pretty excited because Im catching up with the new age of music,I like to kid myself anyway.
Ive heard lots on the subject of mp3 or flac or losless.Ive read so much that my brains swimming with figures now.But some of its stuck. Im of the opinion that I dont want to stick to the standard rate of I think 128.I mean Ive got 40gb to play with so why not use it.

But what type of file do people reckon is a decent file to use without going mad or compromising on the quality of the music? Id like a file size that can be heard throgh a decent set of headphones or set of speakers.

And what programmes do people use to rip their music to these files.Ive got a stack of music on CDs
sitting next to my laptop just waiting to be ripped.

Ive got a Vista powered PC which seems to limit the file type I can use.So is there an idiot proof programme I can upload which will enable me to start creating my playlist without overloading my ltd tech brain.Ive had a few suggestions from people from the site,some of which I have checked out,but I figure Id like to give myself the option before I sit for hours ripping tracks.
I thank you all in advance of any usefull info you supply me with.

Cheers Dave L

[GSV]

I'd rip your CDs to either flac or Q=7 (or better) .ogg on the PC, and then I'd put them on the player in something more reasonable like Q=3 .ogg. Mediamonkey or DBpoweramp can do the ripping and conversions easily.

[GSV]

Theoretically you will get more errors. In practice you are throwing away all the errors when you convert to Q=3, as well as some of the original data (that is a big step down from Q=7). Try it and see.

Actually .ogg was designed so you could simply 'strip' high quality and get a lower quality out, but nobody has implemented that yet AFAIK. It is also designed so you can concatenate .ogg files to get one longer (and gapless) file.

Yes,. flac is fine as an archive format, if you have space. HighQ .ogg is 4-8x more space efficient though.