Which of these drives should I use? & other burning questions...

[trtlrock]

Hi. Forgive me if these are dumb questions, but I'm completely new at this. FYI I have downloaded the trial reference version of dB CD Ripper.

I have a Dell Intel Core 2 computer, 6600@2.40 GHz, 2046 MB RAM, 32-bit OS Vista:

It has 2 drives (tech info below retrieved from dMC):

Manufacturer: TSSTcorp
CD Drive: DVD-ROM TS-H352C
Firmware: DE02
Serial:
Maximum Speed: 8467 KB/sec (x47)
Current Speed: 8467 KB/sec (x47)
Spin-down After: 4 minutes
Buffer Size: 256 KB
Accurate Stream: Yes
C2 Error Pointers: Yes
Reads ISRC: Yes
Reads UPC: Yes

...AND...

this one:

Manufacturer: PHILIPS
CD Drive: DVD+-RW DVD8801
Firmware: AD21
Serial:
Maximum Speed: 8467 KB/sec (x47)
Current Speed: 8467 KB/sec (x47)
Spin-down After: 4 minutes
Buffer Size: 2 MB
Accurate Stream: Yes
C2 Error Pointers: No
Reads ISRC: Yes
Reads UPC: Yes

My questions are:

1) Despite my Core 2 design, ripping in 2 concurrently running copies of dBCDR seems to buy me nothing at all. The combined time greatly exceeds what it would be if I simply ripped the 2 CDs one at a time, using only one of the 2 drives. ** Does this seem correct? ** If so, which drive would be a better ripping choice, given the info listed above?

2) It seems as if dBCDR freezes up A LOT. The most recent attempt to rip simultaneously as described in #1 above produced two successful rips, but each copy of dBCDR then froze & the program had to be CTL-ALT-DEL'd. ** Is this a Vista thing, or a known dBCDR+Vista thing?

3) I followed the configuration of dBCDR very carefully as described on the web site, but a few things seem odd or wrong...

a) Neither of my drives appear to cache (acc. to the dBCDR Detect function). Yet buffers are referred to in the tech info above. ** Do the listed buffer capabilities have anything to do with caching? ** Does it seem correct that neither of these drives would cache?

b) dBCDR says (acc. to Detect C2 support) that neither of my drives has C2 support. Yet the TSST drive specifically lists C2 Error Pointers in the tech info listed above & derived from dBCDR. ** Which is correct?

4) Lastly (for this posting, anyway ) , dBCDR seems to consistently cause the Philips drive to DISAPPEAR from my system. For instance, I will rip a CD in the Philips drive. Then (as a test), do the same CD from the TSST drive. Then dBCDR will no longer "see" the Philips drive. Go into Vista Control Panel, Device Mgr, DVD/CD-ROM drives, and the Philips is NO LONGER LISTED! Have to restart computer to make this drive reappear. Same exact scenario happens after every simultaneous rip as described in #1 above. ** Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks for the support, and, aside from these concerns, as well as some others I will put in a separate post...I've got to say that the program is pretty cool & seems very easy to use. Perfect for a computer-idiot like myself.

Thanks, John

[LtData]

Re: Which of these drives should I use? & other burning questions...

1) It is recommended to only run one instance of the CD Ripper at a time and, if you have dual-core CPUs, to use Reference so that you can rip one track while encoding the other. The DVD-ROM seems to be the better choice, due to C2 support.
2) Does the ripper seem to freeze up when you are running only one iteration?
3) a) This has been discussed before, cache and buffers are two different things. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache#T...ers_and_caches
b) Did you insert a scratched CD to test for C2, as instructed in the pop-up?
4) Another user has mentioned this happening to him. However, I'm not sure if the reason for this behavior was found. Try opening up the options window, scrolling down to the bottom, and change the Communication setting to "Windows Internal" and see if that helps.

[trtlrock]

Re: Which of these drives should I use? & other burning questions...

The DVD-ROM seems to be the better choice, due to C2 support...Did you insert a scratched CD to test for C2, as instructed in the pop-up?

Yes, I had a sacrificial CD that I really carved up, just to be sure. So badly carved that it would read in both drives, but wouldn't rip in dBCDR from either drive. Is it possible that this CD is too deeply scratched to serve as the C2 test? If not, can you hypothesize a bit more on what I could/should do next to clarify the C2 capabilities, since it seems important to the perfect rip process. Also, other than the theoretical C2 capabilities, are there any other pros/cons as to which drive I should use (since I'll just be using one drive at a time anyway)?

Does the ripper seem to freeze up when you are running only one iteration?

No -- good point; I guess this is one reason not to run multiple iterations. :smile2:

Try opening up the options window, scrolling down to the bottom, and change the Communication setting to "Windows Internal" and see if that helps.

OK -- I'll give that a try. What am I losing by doing that, since the on-line guide says SCSI is the way to go. What's the reference to "limited accounts" mean?

Thanks for the quick response. I do have other questions coming -- please have patience as I scale this learning curve...

[LtData]

Re: Which of these drives should I use? & other burning questions...

Its possible you CD was too scratched, yes. I think the damage to the CD just needs to be where it is playable with skipping in a normal CD player, but I may be mistaken as I have never actually done this test on my computers.

"Limited Accounts" means a non-Administrator account in Windows.
I believe the only feature you lose is the FUA clearing and C2 error support. However, since this does not happen when you only run one iteration of the ripper, just leave it as the SCSI Pass Through.

[Spoon]

Re: Which of these drives should I use? & other burning questions...

RE disappearing cd drive, make sure you do not have the option to disable auto play checked.

[trtlrock]

Re: Which of these drives should I use? & other burning questions...

Hi Spoon...

I did disable that feature, based on the embedded Sony horror story. I will re-enable if you think it's safe & is the likely cause of the disappearing drive.

Any additional thoughts on the C2 testing situation? I've got 1800 CDs to sift through looking for just the right amount of scratches

[bhoar]

Re: Which of these drives should I use? & other burning questions...

RE disappearing cd drive, make sure you do not have the option to disable auto play checked.

Do you mean to say make sure "Prevent auto-run on all drives" is unchecked?

4) Lastly (for this posting, anyway ) , dBCDR seems to consistently cause the Philips drive to DISAPPEAR from my system. For instance, I will rip a CD in the Philips drive. Then (as a test), do the same CD from the TSST drive. Then dBCDR will no longer "see" the Philips drive. Go into Vista Control Panel, Device Mgr, DVD/CD-ROM drives, and the Philips is NO LONGER LISTED! Have to restart computer to make this drive reappear. Same exact scenario happens after every simultaneous rip as described in #1 above. ** Can anyone shed any light on this?

How are these drives connected? IDE/ATA/PATA, SCSI, SATA, USB 2.0, Firewire, other?

-brendan

[trtlrock]

Re: Which of these drives should I use? & other burning questions...

How are these drives connected? IDE/ATA/PATA, SCSI, SATA, USB 2.0, Firewire, other?

Vista refers to them as "ATA" devices in the Device Mgr description. Internally installed by Dell in a 1-month old purchase directly from Dell.

[Spoon]

Re: Which of these drives should I use? & other burning questions...

>Do you mean to say make sure "Prevent auto-run on all drives" is unchecked?

Yes, off the top of my head this is the only scsi call which might cause problems with certain drives as it is low level and unusual. The rest, even c2 are very standard calls.

Many drives say they support c2, but in reality they do not.