Whether someone is about to buy a digital audio player or already owns one, the odds are they'd like to get their music converted from CD format to something the player can read and play. While some people opt to purchase songs online to boost their music collection, others plan to use their existing physical collection of music. As most people know, a two step process is required to achieve this task. Before undertaking it, here are a few things to consider:

1. Are the files being ripped in the format supported by the digital audio player that has been purchased or will be purchased? There's no sense in wasting time ripping CDs to Windows Media format if the player won't support WMA files. While most players do, and display this by showing the "Plays for Sure" logo, some don't and checking first can save a good deal of disappointment later.

2. Is the information about the music files on the CDs showing up automatically when they are ripped from the CD to the computer? Modern compact discs contain codes that can be used by audio software to find the relevant details about the music being ripping by accessing databases on the Internet. This is important, since it makes it possible to find songs on the digital audio player easily. It's much easier to find the song when it displays as the Bee Gees "Staying Alive" rather than "Track 05", isn't it?

3. Don't waste time organizing music into separate genres as the ripping program converts it from CD format. This is almost certainly a waste of precious time to organize songs into genres manually. Chances are the digital audio player will do all this automatically, making it unimportant to spend time doing it ahead of time.

4. Unless it's acceptable for all the music to play in the same mix, with Elton John coming right after Pantera, then it may be necessary to organize music onto different play lists. Most people prefer their music organized so that vastly contrasting styles are not interspersed through their listening experience.

5. There is no step five! This is everything needed to convert a CD music library to a format accessible by digital media player. Wasn't that easy?