Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

[Spoon]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Try using CD Ripper and see what its speed is.

[mjbraun]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Try using CD Ripper and see what its speed is.

Test CD -
Artist: 12 Rounds
Album: Pleasant Smell
Tracks: 8
Time: 38:31

Drive -
Manufacturer: MATSHITA
CD Drive: DVD-RAM SW-9585S
Firmware: PZ1M
Serial: 09/21/050000A
Maximum Speed: 7056 KB/sec (x40)
Current Speed: 7056 KB/sec (x40)
Spin-down After: 8 minutes
Buffer Size: 2 MB
Accurate Stream: Yes
C2 Error Pointers: Yes
Reads ISRC: Yes
Reads UPC: Yes

Host System -
OS: Windows Server 2003
Make: Compaq Proliant
Model: DL360
Drive(s): 2x 18G.2b SCSI (RAID 1)
Processor(s): 2x 800Mhz Intel PIII
RAM: 768 MB

MP3 Settings -
Target: CBR
Constant Bit Rate: 192kbps

CD Ripper -
Rip to: Wave
Rip Time: 5:33
Rip to: MP3
Rip Time: 6:10
Rip to: Encode Local (MP3)
Rip Time: 7:48


While the server isn't exactly the most high-performance box, given that the Wave rip vs. MP3 encoding times aren't wildly different, I wonder what I could be missing. Also, nothing else is on the Firewire bus other than the PowerFile. Are there any utilities that I can run to test the throughput of the DVD drive and Firewire controller just to make sure it's not bottlenecking?

[Spoon]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

5 minutes for a disc are not unreasonable, even though your disc was relatively short.

[mjbraun]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

5 minutes for a disc are not unreasonable, even though your disc was relatively short.

Spoon,

As before, and as always, thank you very much for creating such a wonderful product and for your prompt responses.

If 5 minutes isn't too bad for the short disc, that's fair. I was basing my judgment of the relative performance on the "dBpoweramp: CD Ripping Speed Trials" page where the CD being ripped was approximately 1 hour, 50 minutes long and yet was ripped to Wave in under 4 minutes, so I assumed my 38-minute CD would rip much faster (even though the drive is slightly slower).

Still, I'm not sure why Batch Ripper would be taking 15 minutes for the same CD using the same profile as used in the single-cd. I did notice under Process Explorer two copies of CD Grab executing under the Batch Ripper process tree, each running two copies of CoreConverter, if that's useful information.

Also, I finally managed to find a tool (Opti Drive Control) to report on my drive performance and, using the same CD as in my previous test, I ran a transfer rate test. Strangely, I received an average read speed of 3.97x which makes me think something is acting as a bottleneck...

[Spoon]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

It is difficult to say, x4 speed might be the drive, or something else.

[mjbraun]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

It is difficult to say, x4 speed might be the drive, or something else.

Well, I tested one of the drives while bypassing the FireWire bus and I got a similar performance result, so I guess the drives just perform at that speed. Oh well.

That being said, I can't get the system to complete a batch rip. It will load, lookup, and start ripping two discs and then never finish either of them. We're talking over 58 minutes and only get past 3 tracks. If I hit "End Batch" the program won't halt (it just stays on "Ending Batch Rip").

Also, I've installed a second FireWire drive, so I can save locally rather than over the network (and I've changed the encoder to MP3 versus the Local Encoder).

I'm connected to the host via Remote Desktop as Administrator, but I don't think that would cause any permission problems.

[Spoon]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

You would have to try on a different system.

[mjbraun]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

You would have to try on a different system.

Alas, I'm at my wits' end: I rebuilt my host from scratch today, as I don't have access to another functioning Windows machine that I can test the system on, and yet the problem with the unending rips continues, both in BatchRipper and just CD Grab talking to a single drive. The external FireWire hard drive performs just fine, so that partially rules out the FireWire bus as being the root cause.

One thing that gives me pause is that the software doesn't want to quit, even when I abort the rip, and killing the process tree via Process Explorer seems to leave the system in an unstable state (CD Grab refuses to start up afterward, necessitating a reboot). It's as if some lock is being acquired but not released or checked and freed on startup.

Also, I tried test encoding using burst (versus secure) and received the same error.

Finally, and most strangely, I installed iTunes on the system and was able to successfully rip a CD. While iTunes was only able to rip at a paltry ~2.5x speed, it was able to make progress, leading me to believe that there is something afoot in the CD Grab software rather than in the system configuration.

Are there some debugging/profiling strategies I should try to help isolate the problem?

[mjbraun]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Huzzah! I finally got it working by downgrading from Server 2008 to XP. I think part of the problem is that with 2008, Windows didn't think it needed to use the drivers from PowerFile, though with XP it does. If I had forced it to use the PowerFile drivers anyway, it might have worked (just for anyone else out there with the same obscure problem).

Thanks for all the assistance!

[mjbraun]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Crud. I guess I spoke too soon, as rips are not completing. Strangely, I was able to run one full batch (200) of discs with only seven rejects using both drives, yet when I try a second batch, neither drive will rip anymore. The program won't cleanly exit, and when I kill it with Process Explorer, the system hangs.

What I've noticed, however, using Process Monitor is a massive amount of messages that read:

Process Name: CDGrab.exe
Operation: DeviceIoControl
Result: FAST IO DISALLOWED or SUCCESS (they alternate)
Detail: Control: IOCTL_SCSI_PASS_THROUGH_DIRECT

We're talking hundreds of thousands of these events. I changed from SPT to the limited account communications, but the problem persists. I can't find any setting for PIO vs. DMA mode for the FireWire controller (unlike for the IDE bus), so that doesn't seem to be the issue.

Thoughts?

[Spoon]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

It suggests your firewire connection is not as good as it should be, but saying that firewire has such bad support on Windows.

[mjbraun]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

It suggests your firewire connection is not as good as it should be, but saying that firewire has such bad support on Windows.

Well, I've swapped out most everything (except the changer itself); cables, OS's, hardware, Firewire cards, drivers, configurations, etc, yet I'm still having ripping troubles. It seems that the actual rip software is hanging (and by hang, I mean hours-long rips that make no progress). So I decided to get under the hood, and I've started poking around with Microsoft's Application Verifier to identify where a possible deadlock condition is manifesting (I'm speculating it's within CDGrab.exe).

Thanks!
Would it be possible to get the symbols file for BatchRipper, CoreConverter, and CDGrab.exe so that I can report back on my findings? I'm getting a number of unhandled exception errors from the start and I'd like to help you improve the program if at all possible

[Spoon]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

I do not think it would relate to anything, for example you would find the deadlock is in a DeviceIO command which is the actual SCSI command.

One thing you can try is to change CD Ripper >> Options >> communication to Windows Built-in.

[patman0815]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Hello Spoon,

i bought the dBpoweramp Reference R14 and i am really impressed!
Now i call a Xystec 1112 my own (i think its simmilar to Aleratec / Dexpreso 1000 ...). Is there a driver for the batch ripper provided by illustrate? ... or can i buy it from you?

thx
Patrick

[Spoon]

Re: Discussion of Automated CD Loaders

Sorry there is not.