In the compression options dialog in EAC (shortcut: F11) all options can be found regarding the compression of music files. Here EAC's behavior when clicking on the MP3 Button in the main window or items in the Action menu (and then starting a compressed action) are specified.
Note that many options are dependent on the codec or external compressor (encoder). So often no clear recommendation can be given. It is just important that you understand what these settings do and how they possibly change the behavior of EAC and/or the codec/external compressor.
WAVEFORM TAB:
This tab offers settings to select a codec installed on your system and the appropriate options to compress WAV files. When you want to use an external compressor, then these options are rather unimportant (see the tab External Compression).
Note that all options are greyed out here if "Use external program for compression" in the External Compression tab is ticked.
Wave format
In this drop down box all codecs installed on your system are listed. When new codecs are installed which can compress WAV files, they should show up in this list. The codec to choose depends on what should be achieved with the compression (sample format, compression ratio, etc.).
Sample format
With this option a sample format (sample rate, resolution, mono/stereo) can be chosen. Which options are available here depends on the codec selected at the Wave format option (e.g. some codecs only support 4 bit resolution). To keep the same sample format as a CD, 44,100 kHz; 16 Bit has to be selected.
Add ID3 tag
(Default: disabled, Recommended: enabled)
Some formats (e.g. MP3) support ID3 tags. When this option is enabled, EAC will add these tags to the compressed files (only if the file format supports ID3 tags).
Do not write WAV header to file
(Default: disabled)
For playback of some file formats (e.g. MP3), Windows can use a codec designated for WAV playback. In this case, the file should have a WAV header according to the WAV specification file format structure). This way, it may be possible to play file formats with a program that normally can only read WAV files.
On the other hand, files which are not WAV files should usually not contain a WAV file header. So for other (non-WAV) files, this option should be enabled. Therefore a file extension for headerless files also has to be specified (see option below).
File extension for header files
(Default: .raw)
When the Do not write WAV header to file option is enabled, a file extension of the compressed files can be specified here (e.g. .mp3 for MP3 files). If the above option is disabled, this setting gets greyed out automatically.
Quality setting
(Default: High quality (slow), Recommended: High quality (slow)
Some codecs support a quality setting to choose between a higher quality of the output files or faster encoding speed. If quality is the only matter, leave this option at the default, which is High quality (slow).
EXTERNAL COMPRESSION TAB:
In this tab, all options for external compressors can be configured. As all settings are highly dependent on the particular compressor, most settings are only described here because often no clear recommendations can be given.
General recommendation: To avoid unwanted side effects and to be able to configure the encoding process in every detail, User Defined Encoder should be used as Parameter passing scheme and all options should be specified via the Additional command-line options only.
"Side effects" basically means that it is a little complex what options have which effect when another Parameter passing scheme is specified (e.g. some settings are ignored completely). These side effects are explained in the following parameters, but specifying User Defined Encoder and using the command-line options only is a lot more convenient.
Use external program for compression
(Default: disabled, Recommended: enabled)
To use an external compressor, this setting has to be enabled. Otherwise all the options in this tab are greyed out.
Parameter passing scheme
EAC comes with a few presets concerning external compressors and the required parameter passing scheme which can be selected with this option (e.g. the Bit rate box will show all available options after a particular compressor was chosen here). But in general, the capabilities of EAC in passing parameters to external compressors are limited. In order to overcome some of these limitations you can use the Additional command-line options for additional parameter passing. The usual approach is setting the Parameter passing scheme to User Defined Encoder and using the Additional command-line options to specify all the encoding options.
Use file extension
When chosen the entry User Defined Encoder on the setting Parameter passing scheme, a file extension has to be specified here. This should be the extension of the encoded file type (e.g. ".flac" when using a FLAC encoder).
Program, including path, used for compression
The absolute path to the program used for compression. This may be an .exe or a .dll file (e.g. "C:\Program Files\LAME\lame.exe"). By clicking on the Browse... button, this path can be chosen by a file dialog.
Additional command-line options
Here additional parameters for the external compressor can be specified.To configure the additional command-line options. You can find the placeholders at the EAC FAQ.
SEE THIS POST FOR COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
Bit rate
What is shown in this drop-down box depends on the Parameter passing scheme selected and specifies the bit rate/quality settings of the external compressor. This setting is also used to calculate the approximate size of the compressed tracks shown in EAC's main window.
In the case that User Defined Encoder is selected as the Parameter passing scheme this setting does not have an effect unless the %r parameter is specified in the Additional command-line options.
Quality setting
(Default: High quality, Recommended: High quality)
Many encoders offer the choice between better quality or faster encoding speed. This option is designated to choose between these two settings, but the precise behavior depends on what is selected on the Parameter passing scheme:
If User Defined Encoder is chosen, this option does not have an effect unless the %h...%h and %l...%l parameters are used in the Additional command-line options (see below). When any other Parameter passing scheme is used, this setting is reflected on the particular encoder. When using LAME for instance, High quality corresponds to the -h switch, whereas Low quality uses the -f switch (in this case, these switches specify the "Noise shaping and psycho acoustic algorithms", means choice between quality and encoding speed). So when you opt for the best possible quality when using another Parameter passing scheme then User Defined Encoder, make sure High quality is selected.
As already mentioned above, with this setting it is also possible to configure the Additional command-line option even further: With the placeholders %h...%h and %l...%l you can specify two different settings for the external compressor which can be controlled by this option. The following example (simplified) shows how to use this feature (again with LAME):
%h-V0%h%l-V5%l --vbr-new %s %d
In this case, if the High quality option is chosen, then then LAME will encode with -V 0, otherwise with -V 5 when Low quality is selected.
OFFSET TAB:
This tab offers options regarding offset correction during encoding/decoding and the ID3 tag comment field.
Note: The offset mentioned here has nothing to do with a drive offset and therefore should not be mistaken.
Use Offset Correction for encoding and decoding
(Default: disabled, Recommended: disabled)
Some encoders will have an offset when encoding. This means that at the beginning of a track they often add some silence, whereas a few samples could be missing at the end. When decoding again, this could result in some unwanted gaps. This options offers now the opportunity to correct this encoding/decoding offset so that the original file can be reconstructed (at least concerning correct beginning/end of a track; with lossy formats the original file can not be reconstructed completely). The point behind this option is that is possible that there is such an offset between the codec which is used for encoding (the actual codec) and the other one used for decoding (default installed codec). An example would be using LAME for MP3 encoding and the Fraunhofer codec for decoding. In this case, this option would be useful.
So when you decode your encoded files and experience some unwanted gaps in the decoded files, then you should try to enable this option and configure it accordingly (see below). In all other cases, leave this option disabled (especially when you encode and decode with the same encoder anyway).
Sample offset
(Default: 0)
When enabling the option Use Offset Correction for encoding and decoding, a sample offset has to be entered here. With a click on the button Detect Offset... the correct offset can be recognized automatically.
Use LAME command-line encoder/decoder for decoding MP3 files
(Default: disabled)
This option is usually greyed out. To make it available, a LAME executable (lame.exe) has to be placed in the EAC directory. This has to be done manually.
If this option is enabled then, LAME is used automatically to decode MP3 files (Tools -> Decompress...). This overrides EAC's behavior which uses the Fraunhofer codec for MP3 decoding by default.
Construction of the ID3 tag comment field on extraction
When the option Add ID3 tag in the External Compression tab is enabled, this setting specifies what information should be stored in the comment field. When EAC is not used to tag compressed files and tagging is completely done via command-line parameters, this setting specifies the contents of the "%e" placeholder which can be used in the command-line then. The following options are available:
Write "Track
Write CRC checksums into ID3 tag comment field: CRC checksums are written into the comment fields.
Write freedb ID into ID3 tag comment field: freedb IDs are written into the comment fields.
Write following text into ID3 tag comment field: A user defined text is written into the comment fields.
ID3 TAB:
This tab offers some options regarding the ID3 tagging capabilities of EAC. Note that the option Add ID3 tag in the External Compression tab has to be enabled for all these settings to have an effect.
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