dBpoweramp Batch Ripper: Discussions

[daxb]

Re: dBpoweramp Batch Ripper: Discussions

Experiencing a new problem. I just migrated to a new PC running Vista Business edition. Downloaded all the latest from this site including the 13.1 release (installed over my registered version of 13) and batch ripper.

Started two batch rips and both ended in the same manner. For some reason, when it changes CDs, it says "same as last" and just loops from there. It did it on the 9th CD the first time and the tenth CD the second time. Any ideas what might be causing this?

-Dax

[daxb]

Re: dBpoweramp Batch Ripper: Discussions

Forgot to mention, I am using a Sony Mediachanger. I did not install any of the Sony software, just using the drivers supplied by Vista. Besides, this PC does not have media center on it anyhow.

[bhoar]

Re: dBpoweramp Batch Ripper: Discussions

It's possible one of the following is occuring:

1. The mechanism is out of alignment, meaning drive->slot and slot->drive actions are failing to occur correctly. Might occur more often after the unit is moved.

2. The vista-default media changer driver might not be handling the start/stop request the same way (which controls disc spindown/spinup and insert/eject), leading to similar problems.

3. The 9th/10th disc might be warped or otherwise not to specifications.

Can you connect it to the system it used to run on to see if the problem only occurs on the new system?

-brendan

[daxb]

Re: dBpoweramp Batch Ripper: Discussions

It's possible one of the following is occuring:

1. The mechanism is out of alignment, meaning drive->slot and slot->drive actions are failing to occur correctly. Might occur more often after the unit is moved.

-brendan

I am guessing you are right on option 1. Slots 8 and 16 failed to dismount on the first and second runs respectively. Any suggestions on how to fix the issue? It is mounted in a stable location so movement should not be an issue.

[bhoar]

Re: dBpoweramp Batch Ripper: Discussions

I am guessing you are right on option 1. Slots 8 and 16 failed to dismount on the first and second runs respectively. Any suggestions on how to fix the issue? It is mounted in a stable location so movement should not be an issue.

I would read pages 40 through 44 of the XL1B thread on AVSforum.com just to get in on the current state of community awareness of hardware and firmware issues of the xl1b family and powerfile family. Consume and digest the postings on the adjusting and locking in the alignment and decide whether you wish to embark upon the task. Note that the first post with instructions (a long one) isn't the only way ... one or two smaller posts of instructions came with reports of positive results as well using only some of the steps.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=692413&page=40

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=692413&page=41

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=692413&page=42

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=692413&page=43

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=692413&page=44

If you aren't already a member of the forums, it is work registering so you can see the photos.

In addition, a recently started wiki has formed, which links directly to some of the alignment fix posts, here:

http://www.xl1bwiki.com/MainPage.ashx

Use that link if you're in a hurry.

-brendan

PS - if you do perform an alignment, let us know how it goes here (and I'm sure they'd appreciate feedback in the avsforum thread as well).

[bhoar]

Re: dBpoweramp Batch Ripper: Discussions

Okay, hi everyone. My company just got it's hands on a licence of dbpoweramp and I'm actually testing the batch ripper.

There are a few "glitches" in it.

First, there is no scrollbars on the right side of the CD-ROM list when you rip.
So I have a machine here with 9 Plextors with the batch ripper running and I can't see all of the 9 drives at the same time. Could there be scroll bars in future batch ripper release ?
(Reducing batch ripper's windows size doesn't either solve that problem... There aren't no scrollbars appearing)

Sorry for my bad english guys, I'm a frenchy.

Spoon, I just wanted to reiterate that this scrollbar request is a very good idea. A right-side scrollbar should be added to the main drives/currenly ripping window in the batch-ripper for those of us with a large number of drives and/or a small screen. In addition, it might be worth considering shrinking each drive's "section" vertically a bit (smaller art display, smaller fonts, smaller progress bar) as well.

I am now doing a lot of my robot-as-a-peripheral device testing with my panasonic toughbook CF-30, which has a standard XGA 1024x768 screen, which can get tight past four drives.

In addition, some of the robots out there with "PC Inside" (whether Win2K Pro, Win XP or Win XP Embedded) come with a very limited graphics adapter, so it's not just me and my laptop that are suffering.

I know the relative sizes of the top and bottom sections can be proportionally adjusted by click-dragging the horizontal spacer between them, but still a scrollbar would be quite useful.

-brendan

[Spoon]

Re: dBpoweramp Batch Ripper: Discussions

Looked at the code and it was not easy to add the scroll bar.

[bhoar]

Re: dBpoweramp Batch Ripper: Discussions

Looked at the code and it was not easy to add the scroll bar.

Ok...fall back plan? Squish the per-drive vertical space a bit?

-brendan

[sredmyer]

Re: dBpoweramp Batch Ripper: Discussions

I see that the final release of the Batch Ripper is out...does this mean that I need to download a new "registered" version (to get the latest features/fixes) or do I just keep the Beta version? I see also that there will soon be help files. Where do I go to get those?

Thanks

[Spoon]

Re: dBpoweramp Batch Ripper: Discussions

The most recent release is in the beta forum, help files will be shorly avaliable.

[bhoar]

Two Batch Ripper requests

Spoon,

1. General purpose helpful request...

Can the disc-recognition wait time or disc/drive status request behavior for the "Post-Load Waiting for CD" be loosened a bit (or made user adjustable)?

I've just started experimenting with a certified wireless USB hub for my kodak robots and it seems that I am getting "No CD After Load" very often (50% of the time) when connected via this method. If that error doesn't happen, I get a valid, if somewhat slower ripping experience.

If I cancel the rip and insert the disc manually into the robot drive, it always shows up in explorer as an audio disc, so it's not a disc issue.

Note that the issue is not only limited to the not-yet-market-ready technology of CW USB. One of my robot-support contacts (Jason) said that using some connection methods with some drives, he was much more likely to see discs rejected due to the "No CD After Load" error that using other connection methods. We're not sure why, but I suspect it's a timing issue. My point being, fixing this may help other people as well, not just geek freaks who like to play with cutting edge wireless connectivity.

2. More of a "help brendan with his robot script maintenance" type of request...

Would it be possible to modify the code that parses the DefaultCmdLine.txt file such that lines that end with either "\" be concatenated with the next line when processing, perhaps always separated with a " " character if there wasn't one before the "\"?

For maintainability, I break out the "third line" (the one hidden from user command line options in the BR configuration) into often a dozen or more lines to organize the procedures into blocks. I then, before distributing, have to manually combine them all into a single line.

If that's not possible, or not something you want in the batch ripper automation device settings core routines, I may write my own autoit script to do the same.

-brendan

[Spoon]

Re: Two Batch Ripper requests

Can you not put a delay in load.exe? but really the "No CD After Load" is a failure of the drive / connection because:

There is code before that section which asks the cd drive if there is a disc, the cd drive says yes and it move on to the section which reads the TOC and it fails, so the cd drive cannot report it has a disc but not allow the toc to be read...

The '\' request will have to go to r2, code is frozen for r1 (apart for bug fixes).

[bhoar]

Re: Two Batch Ripper requests

Can you not put a delay in load.exe? but really the "No CD After Load" is a failure of the drive / connection because:

There is code before that section which asks the cd drive if there is a disc, the cd drive says yes and it move on to the section which reads the TOC and it fails, so the cd drive cannot report it has a disc but not allow the toc to be read...

I think this is the scenario: under certain circumstances (drive+bridge combination) after a Start Stop Unit command is received with the requisite LoEj=1 Start=1 and *another* command is received in too quick succession, the tray does retract but the spin up fails to occur, perhaps leaving the disc in a loaded, but not yet "recognized" state.

If the Load.exe returns control to the Batch Ripper with this situation above in place, it appears that the Batch Ripper's attempts to probe the drive fail to return what is expected.

The situation may arise randomly if windows sends out a command (status?) to the drive/bridge at the wrong moment. And I can definitely trigger the problem if I send more than one Start Stop Unit command back to back with the Immed bit set (interrupting the previous command) even if LoEj=1 and Start=1 on both of them. I am now avoiding this.

Perhaps the Batch Ripper can issue a Start Stop Unit Immed=0 LoEj=0 Start=1 request before looking for the disc? I may also add a command the the ULCLI to request a spinup as well, which I would execute before exiting but after releasing the robot to work on another drive (I'm trying to avoid waiting for spinup before servicing other drive requests on each drive bank).

The '\' request will have to go to r2, code is frozen for r1 (apart for bug fixes).

Ok.

-brendan

[Spoon]

Re: Two Batch Ripper requests

The SCSI specs say that a drive should be able to respond to a disc loaded request at any time, it is a failure of the drive firmware or the bridge.

an IMMED (immediate) bit of 0 requested. If the Logical Unit does not support Asynchronous Mode, the
command shall fail as an illegal request. If the Initiator requests Asynchronous Mode using a request that is
not queued or overlapped, the command shall fail as an illegal request.
..
This command shall not return CHECK CONDITION status to report a unit attention condition.

Immed 0 is not even a requirement.

[sredmyer]

Observations/Issues

So here is my situation, I am looking at getting into the CD ripping business. For hardware, I have two Powerfile R200s and I am currently investigating a few software solutions. After a few weeks of software testing I have decided on the dbPowerAmp Batch Ripper for both its AccurateRip and Perfect Match features. So first let me say WOW!! What an incredible piece of software.

Now with the kudos out of the way let me move onto some observations and questions I have.

1. My Powerfile units have two drives each. It would be nice if the Batch Ripper could utilize both drives within a single Powerfile unit simultaneously. This would double the effective throughput of a setup using these Powerfile units. Spoon said (in an earlier post on the forum) that during development he only had one of the Sony changers (which are based on these Powerfile units but only have single drive) to use for testing. My question is, will support for utilizing both drives be added in a future release.

2. I have seen where others on this forum have requested that there be someway to cache meta data lookups so that we are not paying to lookup data multiple times for problem CDs which require multiple rips. I would like to jump on this bandwagon. The value of this features seems obvious during testing (where the same CD may be ripped many times).

3. I cannot get the software to manage both of the Powerfile units at once. This is a different issue than the one of utilizing both drives within a single Powerfile unit. I have setup and configured all four drives (two drives in two Powerfile units) and tested the functionality of each drive using the test features of the configuration utility. I have also successfully calculated the offset (for AccurateRip) and ripped a disc using CD Ripper (not Batch Ripper) in each of the four drives. However when I attempt to rip from both Powerfile units simultaneously, one unit mounts its CD and begins ripping as expected but the other unit always fails to mount the CD and just continues to try mounting (loading disc from slot into drive). Has anybody else been able to get two Powerfiles (or Sony changers) to work with this software?

Steve

FWIW, The two Powerfile units are not "daisy chain" connected but are both connected directly to the PC. I have a two port Firewire card and each unit is individually connected to one of the ports.