Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

[bhoar]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

No, still waiting for mine to arrive. I ended up having to pay $200 shipping, instead of the $50 on the original invoice (annoying because it only put me over my "limit" after I'd paid the initial auction payment).

So, I guess they're still working out the freight details? It's been over a week since we worked it all out, I should give them a call.

As per the other thread, the composer max arrived and the driver is now in a working state. Please see the Batch Ripper initial post if you wish to acquire the driver for the composer max.

-brendan

[bhoar]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

So now that batch has gone final I am seriously considering buying a small auto loader to re-rip ~4000 cds to FLAC. Does anyone have any recommendations or thoughts. I am currently thinking about either the Baxter or the MicroOrbit. The MicroOrbit looks nice because of the fewer moving parts and and the higher capacity (50 vs 25). I am fairly ignorant about auto loaders, am certainly open to any other suggestions. Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

For batch ripper used, I'd recommend unit in the following order if used in good working condition or new (recommendation weighs disc capacity and multiple drives heavily, otherwise I'd push the 100-disc composer units down a bit in the list):

1. Primera Composer Pro: 100 discs, two drives. Mechanism isn't fast as others (and can be a bit finicky), but having two drives is a definite bonus. Preferably a firewire, not SCSI model, as the latter requires you building in firewire/USB interfaces yourself and is also likely to be pretty ancient (older = more chance the unit has had a long hard life). Includes input, output and reject locations. Primera Composer family units (applies to similar units below) often show up in untrustworthy condition on ebay so only spring for it if it is guaranteed in good working order.

2. Primera Composer XL. 100 discs, but only one drive. Otherwise just like Composer Pro.

3. Discmakers Elite Micro, Discmakers Micro Ultra, Amtren Flexwriter 1 (I?), Ripstation 7601X. All the same unit hardware-wise. Depending on generation, this may be a 60-disc or more rarely a 75-disc unit, with one drive. Includes input, output and reject locations. Some used units may need the controller-to-arm cable replaced if there are transient open connections causing disc drops (relatively easy to do, it's heavy duty telephone cable). With that said, mechanism is less finicky than Composer family units. Input bin spikes can be moved on some units to accommodate a stack of mini-cds. A true classic.

4. Kodak Kiosk or Microboards MicroOrbit. These are also built like a tank (e.g. the Kodak Kiosk unit is perfect for retail use, unlike any other robots mentioned). Some reports of extra-thick discs (e.g. non-standard dual sided disc with DVD on one side and CD on the other) causing the units to get stuck.

4a. Kodak Kiosk unit based on Microboards MicroOrbit design.
A 50-disc unit. Only one output pile option, so Rejects and Unloads both go into the same pile. Comes wired with a USB to serial and USB to IDE bridge so no hardware tweaking necessary. Hard to come by (these are always retail operation surplus units), I can ask around to my sources if you are interested.

4b. Microboards MicroOrbit. As above, but instead of being wired for use as a computer peripheral it comes as an integrated duplicator without any IO intefaces, you would need to open it up, gut it a bit and/or bypass the duplication controller and install your own USB to IDE bridge (and potentially a USB to serial converter). If you're not interested in wiring your own serial cable and breaking the duplicator functionality, then look for the Kodak unit above instead.

5. Primera Composer. 50 discs, one drive. Otherwise just like Composer Pro.

6. MF-Digital Baxter aka Datatronics Minicubis (the OEM for all of them) aka Mediatechnics Fusion X aka Acronova DupliQ aka Discmakers Pico aka Ripstation 7601, etc. A bit limited: only 25 discs per load, unit is a bit fragile and due to driver limitations, only one connected to a computer at a time. On the plus side, it does have a separate output space for Rejects, but unfortunately it drops them "over the back shoulder" which isn't nice for precious CDs. Only unit that can handle both mini-cds and business-card cds out of the box.

---

There are some newer units out there that I might investigate if they start appearing at drastically cut prices on ebay (discmakers forte or aleratec roboracer), but I cannot recommend them now because a) I don't know if they are "serial controlled" which my driver set requires and b) if they are, a driver script would need to be written.

-brendan

PS - keep in mind that as it stands right now, R13 does not support C2 over firewire and many of the above come configured for firewire. Hopefully R13.1 may resolve this, spoon says he's working on the issue.

[stevek1006]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

So now that batch has gone final I am seriously considering buying a small auto loader to re-rip ~4000 cds to FLAC. Does anyone have any recommendations or thoughts. I am currently thinking about either the Baxter or the MicroOrbit. The MicroOrbit looks nice because of the fewer moving parts and and the higher capacity (50 vs 25). I am fairly ignorant about auto loaders, am certainly open to any other suggestions. Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
-Steve

[bhoar]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Brendan, did you ever get your composermax? I am waiting for a new serial cable. Primera talked me into trying a new cable before buying a new board, though I will be shocked if the cable is actually the problem. I figure since the robotics all seem to work fine and respond correctly the the front panel buttons, and the disc drives all work the only thing left is the main board.

No, still waiting for mine to arrive. I ended up having to pay $200 shipping, instead of the $50 on the original invoice (annoying because it only put me over my "limit" after I'd paid the initial auction payment).

So, I guess they're still working out the freight details? It's been over a week since we worked it all out, I should give them a call.

-brendan

[bhoar]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Just a check-in... Any plans for Plasmon D120 support?

I'd love to get rid of this PointSoft stuff and go with a "one software" package rip->encode setup. :D

I doubt spoon has plans to write device-specific drivers for industrial medium changers.

On the off-chance, it might be worth trying to see if the Sony XL1B driver works? The sony and the plasmon are both medium changer devices and the whole idea of this device class was to abstract all the IO calls to make them all work almost the same. Of course, Powerfile and Sony deviated a bit from the standard (as do most medium changer manufacturers) so sometimes one set of code works for your equipment, sometimes some tweaks are required.

-brendan

[EliC]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Brendan, did you ever get your composermax? I am waiting for a new serial cable. Primera talked me into trying a new cable before buying a new board, though I will be shocked if the cable is actually the problem. I figure since the robotics all seem to work fine and respond correctly the the front panel buttons, and the disc drives all work the only thing left is the main board.

[PlanetMongo]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Just a check-in... Any plans for Plasmon D120 support?

I'd love to get rid of this PointSoft stuff and go with a "one software" package rip->encode setup. :D

[bhoar]

Re: Will dbpoweramp work for me?

IIRC, supposedly the Sony XL1B changer driver should work with at least one drive of Powerfile C200 units.

Download the trial, the beta of the batch ripper and the sony changer driver (the latter two from this subform's stickies) and find out...

-brendan

[dasgeek]

Will dbpoweramp work for me?

I am considering purchasing dbpoweramp. I have been researching this for over a year. I am planning on ripping my entire CD collection of 3500 discs to FLAC format. I got a PowerFile last year an came across this program last fall. I have been waiting to see if the batch ripper will work. I have read most of the forum postings. I know some have had issues with PowerFiles.

I have a PowerFile C200-RAM unit (black with aluminum face). When I turn the unit on it displays version 4.0.2 (I assume the firmware version).

Do you think this unit will work. I want to rip my discs to individual FLAC files.

Thanks for your help.

[Spoon]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

PerfectMeta can currently only be used when Ripping, not after.

[malcolm_reynold]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Brendan-
Thanks for the advice. I had mistakenly assumed those servers would reveal the drives to the host OS... So I'll put a collection of drives together along the lines of one of your suggestions and if that proves to be more work than its worth, I'll invest in an autoloader and go from there.

Spoon-
Thanks for the clarification. Could you further clarify whether it's possible to use perfectmeta after the fact? It's the best tool I've seen (by far) for tagging, but I still tend to fix a tag or two on about 6 out of 10 disks. For me, accuraterip/secure rip results are the most important, but good tags are a close second. I'm ripping to FLAC and will batch convert later for my portables, so I'd like to have the ripping/tagging part done so I don't have to think about it ever again. (I spent about 6 weeks googling, lurking here and at HA, and experimenting with EAC, CDparanoia, iTunes, etc, before settling on dbpa. I feel like I'm on the cusp of being ready to rip nearly a thousand disks before I pile them into boxes and throw them in the attic).

In a perfect world, I'd use an autoloader to batch rip my whole collection and have it only notify me of accuraterip and/or secure errors, then I'd leisurely make my way through the metatag quagmire. In terms of workflow separating an insecure rip into a reject pile to deal with later is easy, but incorrect metatags generally take a little bit of brain time so I've found it's difficult to do something else productively while ripping.

Thanks again for taking the time to get back to me. The vitality of this forum was a part of my decision to use dbpa (though now that I've ripped 100 or so disks, I have to admit I'd be using it even if this forum didn't exist).

[Spoon]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Everything you mention can be done in batch ripper, infact for ease of ripping (if it is secure results you want to watch out for), in CD Ripper >> Options >> Secure Settings >> switch on the option to mark the track as error if insecure. Then any insecure discs will make its way to the reject column in batch ripper.

[bhoar]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Malcolm,

[I'll skip commenting on the process (steps 1 - 5) and comment only on hardware.]

I'd avoid buying a pre-made tower, as almost all of those are set up for either automated duplication or for CD/DVD sharing over a network (such as the unit you pointed to) in which case the drives only talk directly to an on-board purpose-built controller board. Neither genre of optical tower are set up to connect multiple drives directly to a host computer, which is what the batch ripper, like most rippers, expects to see.

If you still want to use multiple manually loaded drives, my recommendation would be one of three scenarios:

1. Assemble a purpose built computer with six or more externally-facing half-heigh 5.25" drive bays filled with optical drives, which you could then connect directly to the motherboard (ATA or SATA) or additional PCI cards (ATA or SATA). Finding the right case, in the right price range, can be troublesome.

2. Obtain a relatively cheap four to eight-bay external drive enclosure, fill it with optical drives and add the appropriate number of USB or firewire bridge boards, then connect that to your existing computer. Again, finding the right enclosure, in the right price range, can be troublesome.

3. Attach several external optical drives (via firewire or USB) in single drive enclosures to your current computer.

[And finally: both firewire and USB generally work. To take advantage of some of the rip-quality enhancing features of dbpoweramp, you'd want to enable C2 if your drive supports it. At the moment, that only works via ATA/SATA and some USB bridge chipsets. I suspect within a couple of months it will work with firewire as well, but there's no official timeline for that.]

-brendan

[malcolm_reynold]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Hi all. I've been using the reference release for a few weeks now and am quite impressed. I've ripped a hundred or so CD's and am about to embark on the rest of my collection of 800. I'm thinking that it's probably not worth buying an auto-loader, but it'd be great to have a collection of drives such as a CD server tower.

Does anyone have any experience with these towers or recommendations for models? I was considering an HP Surestore Tower such as:

http://shopper.cnet.com/network-storage/hp-surestore-cd-rom/4014-3382_9-32540738.html

Also, in regard to towers and the batch ripper, I'm hoping that I can use this workflow:
1) load a group of disks
2) confirm the meta information for each one with perfectmeta
3) rip the disks while i do something else
4) come back and confirm accuraterip and secure rip results
5) rinse & repeat

Does anyone know if that's possible and, if not, is there a way to use perfectmeta after the fact to correct bad tags?

Thanks in advance.

[EliC]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

I am building a new PC (because of problems w/ my current PC) and need to get a new serial cable. If that does not solve the problem I need to see if they will sell me a new motherboard. I cannot afford to have them work on the unit.