What DVD burner drive is best for ripping?

[OhioGuy]

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Well, it looks like I'm going to RMA the LG H42 18X DVD burners I got from
Newegg about a week ago. It takes these drives on average 25 to 28 minutes
to rip a 6 to 7 GB DVD video. The drives just can't rip faster than about
4.6X. Plus, they aren't backward compatible with the hundreds of Verbatim
2.4X DVD+R media I have stockpiled. I could have lived with the latter, but
not the former. If I buy a 6 DVD set, I want to be able to archive it to my
PC in about an hour, not 3 hours.

So, I'm back to square one. I'm looking for a DVD burner that:

1) rips DVD's very fast (50% weight)

2) has a high MTBF (mean time between failure) (25% weight)

3) is fairly quiet (25% weight)

From your experience, can you recommend any specific BRAND and MODEL of
drive? (need both so I can be sure I'm ordering the same thing) I would
prefer not to have to keep testing them, and then paying return shipping and
restocking fees over and over, until I find something acceptable. I just
can't seem to find a good review showing ripping time comparison on the
modern burner drives. Thanks!

 

[JAD]

i would check your transfer mode via admin tools(winxp)
many time you can lose UDMA(IDE) when there are errors over the bus.

 

[sdlomi2]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, it looks like I'm going to RMA the LG H42 18X DVD burners I got from
Newegg about a week ago. It takes these drives on average 25 to 28 minutes
to rip a 6 to 7 GB DVD video. The drives just can't rip faster than about
4.6X. Plus, they aren't backward compatible with the hundreds of Verbatim
2.4X DVD+R media I have stockpiled. I could have lived with the latter,
but not the former. If I buy a 6 DVD set, I want to be able to archive it
to my PC in about an hour, not 3 hours.

So, I'm back to square one. I'm looking for a DVD burner that:

1) rips DVD's very fast (50% weight)

2) has a high MTBF (mean time between failure) (25% weight)

3) is fairly quiet (25% weight)

From your experience, can you recommend any specific BRAND and MODEL of
drive? (need both so I can be sure I'm ordering the same thing) I would
prefer not to have to keep testing them, and then paying return shipping
and restocking fees over and over, until I find something acceptable. I
just can't seem to find a good review showing ripping time comparison on
the modern burner drives. Thanks!

OG, check on the NEC 3550A. I've installed/sold about a dozen in the
last 12 months, and am yet to hear the first complaint. Work well on
Dual-Layer DVD's too. Best media for D-L seems to be Verbatim, even after
firmware upgrade. MTBF ~70,000POH. Site quote: "A one-hour DVD video can
be recorded in six minutes with the ND-3550A, irrespective of the DVD
format." I think NEC now has a bit faster, 18X vs. 16X?, NEC 7170A??.
Prices on Newegg are very close: ~$29 + ~$5 s/h. HTH, s

 

[Lez Pawl]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, it looks like I'm going to RMA the LG H42 18X DVD burners I got from
Newegg about a week ago. It takes these drives on average 25 to 28 minutes
to rip a 6 to 7 GB DVD video. The drives just can't rip faster than about
4.6X. Plus, they aren't backward compatible with the hundreds of Verbatim
2.4X DVD+R media I have stockpiled. I could have lived with the latter,
but not the former. If I buy a 6 DVD set, I want to be able to archive it
to my PC in about an hour, not 3 hours.

So, I'm back to square one. I'm looking for a DVD burner that:

1) rips DVD's very fast (50% weight)

2) has a high MTBF (mean time between failure) (25% weight)

3) is fairly quiet (25% weight)

From your experience, can you recommend any specific BRAND and MODEL of
drive? (need both so I can be sure I'm ordering the same thing) I would
prefer not to have to keep testing them, and then paying return shipping
and restocking fees over and over, until I find something acceptable. I
just can't seem to find a good review showing ripping time comparison on
the modern burner drives. Thanks!

Das Boot - 3 hrs 30min copied with Imtoo DVD Copy Express

NEC 7170A - 20 minutes
Sony 170A - 20 minutes

very quiet in both cases and no skips or glitches.

 

[JAD]

also what type ribbon?

i would check your transfer mode via admin tools(winxp)
many time you can lose UDMA(IDE) when there are errors over the bus.

 

[fwibbler]

Newegg about a week ago. It takes these drives on average 25 to 28 minutes

to rip a 6 to 7 GB DVD video. The drives just can't rip faster than about
4.6X. Plus, they aren't backward compatible with the hundreds of Verbatim
2.4X DVD+R media I have stockpiled. I could have lived with the latter, but
not the former. If I buy a 6 DVD set, I want to be able to archive it to my
PC in about an hour, not 3 hours.

You will find that most (all?) DVD writers are Rip-locked to about 4-4.6x
speed when ripping commercial DVDs. Some are locked as low as 2x!

You will either need to find one that isn't rip-locked, or buy a DVD rom
drive to do the ripping.

Failing that, you could have a look on the net for some hacked firmware that
removes the rip-lock.

Cheers!

 

[Peter]

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Well, it looks like I'm going to RMA the LG H42 18X DVD burners I got from
Newegg about a week ago. It takes these drives on average 25 to 28 minutes
to rip a 6 to 7 GB DVD video. The drives just can't rip faster than about
4.6X. Plus, they aren't backward compatible with the hundreds of Verbatim
2.4X DVD+R media I have stockpiled. I could have lived with the latter, but
not the former. If I buy a 6 DVD set, I want to be able to archive it to my
PC in about an hour, not 3 hours.

So, I'm back to square one. I'm looking for a DVD burner that:

As fwibbler said, why does it have to be a burner for just ripping to
your PC?

 

[Jim]

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You will find that most (all?) DVD writers are Rip-locked to about 4-4.6x
speed when ripping commercial DVDs. Some are locked as low as 2x!

You will either need to find one that isn't rip-locked, or buy a DVD rom
drive to do the ripping.

Failing that, you could have a look on the net for some hacked firmware that
removes the rip-lock.

Cheers!

I always assumed the rip-lock was there to make the process more
reliable given the variable quality of commercial DVD's. Please don't
tell me this assumption is incorrect

 

[Larc]

| OG, check on the NEC 3550A. I've installed/sold about a dozen in the
| last 12 months, and am yet to hear the first complaint.

Then you're about to hear one. A 3550A I bought last year is now gathering dust
on a shelf because PIF spikes of 7 or more present on every DVD burn cause my
stand-alone DVD player to "stumble" when it tries to play those DVDs. The
spikes are caused by the 3550A's repeated AOPC calibration as it burns. The
problem exists regardless of media brand and burning program.

Pioneer successfully uses the same chipset in its 111 series, but NEC either
can't correctly utilize AOPC technology consistently or it just doesn't care.

Larc



§§§ - Change planet to earth to reply by email - §§§

 

[OhioGuy]

Ok, here goes:

1) It is getting a sustained UDMA 2 connection.

2) The cable is the newer 80 wire one, with all of those smaller cables
inside, not the old 40 wire.

3) Why does it have to be a burner for ripping? Well, it doesn't, I guess,
but with the prices for new burners and new DVD-ROM drives shrinking down to
about $10 or even less, it seems like it would make more sense to have a
spare burner, instead of paying about the same and getting just a ROM drive.

I can put a fairly recent BenQ DVD burner on the same data connection, and
get ripping speeds of 6X to 8X. Even with my really old BenQ 4X DVD burner,
which is about 3.5 years old, I get ripping speeds up to 6.?X. This has got
to be some limitation of the drive itself, otherwise those other drives
wouldn't be giving me ripping speeds up to twice as fast. Note that I said
ripping speeds, not burning speeds.

Obviously, the newer drives burn at a much faster rate than the old 4X
burners. I just expected that ripping speeds had also increased greatly.
I've come to find out that it greatly depends on the drive. Several folks
on cdfreaks.com have told me that the LG H42 is a riplocked burner. Of
course, this "feature" isn't advertised, so I didn't know this until AFTER I
got it here.

Does anyone know of a website where they have listed comparison rip times
between different DVD drives? (or whether they are riplocked?)

Thanks!