CDGRAB(1)

NAME
cdgrab - Grab an entire CD and compress it to MP3 format.

SYNOPSIS
cdgrab [devicename]

DESCRIPTION
Ordinarily, the process of grabbing the data off a CD and encoding it, then tagging it with ID3 information, is a very involved process. cdgrab is designed to automate this. It will take an entire CD and convert it into a compressed MPEG Audio Layer III format. With one command, it will:

*   Do a CDDB query over the Internet to look up your CD

*   Grab a track from your CD

*   Compress it to MP3 format

*   ID3 tag it

*   Delete the intermediate WAV file

*   Repeat until finished

OPTIONS

[devicename]
    CD-ROM block device that contains music to be grabbed.

OUTPUT
Each track is placed in a separate file in a subdirectory under the current directory named after the artist. Each filename is based on the track title name, and is given an extension of '.mp3'.

CONFIGURATION
cdgrab sources two configuration files on startup - /etc/cdgrab.conf and $HOME/.cdgrab.conf, in that order. Here is a list of options cdgrab will use:

CDDBURL
    Specifies a server to use for CDDB lookups.

ENCODER
    Specifies the encoder to use. Any encoder that accepts input and output filenames on the commandline will work. This includes BladeEnc as well as l3enc.

CDDISCID
    Specifies the pathname to the cd-discid utility.

HELLOINFO
    Specifies the Hello information to send to the CDDB server. The CDDB protocol requires you to send a valid username and hostname each time you connect.

TAGGER
    Specifies the pathname to the id3 tagging utility.

OUTPUTDIR
    Specifies the directory to place completed mp3's in.

BACKEND TOOLS
cdgrab requires the following backend tools to work:

*   An MP3 Encoder (lamer, bladeenc, l3enc)

*   CD Paranoia, an audio CD reading utility

*   cd-discid, a CDDB DiscID reading program. Included with cdgrab.

*   libcdaudio, an audio CD player library.

*   wget, an HTTP retrieval program.

*   id3, an id3 tagging program.

AUTHOR
Robert Woodcock <rcw@debian.org>