Very slow ripping

[ZIYAD A. M. AL-BATLY]

On Sun, 2005-05-01 at 20:23 -0400, Andy Choens wrote:
> > Hi Stephen (and to the others whom replayed to you).
> > 
> > I don't think there's a problem here.  
> 
> I actually disagree.  I agree with your points, below..........
> 
> 
> >Ripping Audio-CD depend on a lot
> > of factors, one of them of course is the speed of CD-ROM drive but it's
> > not the only thing! To name some:
> >       * The brand of your CD-ROM drive have a lot to do with this.  I
> >         found (from my personal experience) that some brands are *much*
> >         better than other.  For example Plextor and Yamaha are two of
> >         the best brands out there, Teac is okay, while BenQ, Acer, and
> >         Sony (my current one) are not that good (remember, this is *my
> >         own* experience!).
> >       * The condition of CD itself is another factor that *greatly*
> >         affects the ripping speed. Clean, not scratched, and commercial
> >         (silver) CDs are much better than the others.
> > 
> > The only way to see if your system have a problem or not is to try and
> > rip the *same* CD on another system (Mac or Windows) and preferably with
> > the same CD-ROM drive as yours and compare the time of the two ripping
> > process.
> > 
> > (I ripped some CDs myself, and I found some (silver/commercial) to take
> > far less time than some others (created myself a long time ago!).  Your
> > mileage may vary!)
> > 
> > Ziyad.
> > 
> >
> 
> I agree with everything you said.  But, there is a config issue with
> Ubuntu here.  With Ubuntu I can't get my ripping speed above 1.2x with
> a brand new CD.  I tried on a friend's machine and it ripped fine.  On
> SUSE this same laptop could handle anywhere from about 10 to 15x
> depending on the factors you have mentionned.  The OP seems to have a
> system comparable to mine, and should be getting similar speeds, not
> 1.x speeds.  No modern system should be ripping at 1.x speeds.
> 
> This is a Ubuntu or Debian thing not Linux.  I don't know how fast my
> machine would be on Windows....it's never booted into it unless they
> tested it at the factory.
> 
> --andy
> 
> 
>  
> > --
> > ubuntu-users mailing list
> > ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> > http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
> >
> 
I stand corrected.  I didn't try anything beside Windows (a very long
time ago, about 6 years!) and Ubuntu.  So, in my eyes, there was no
problem.  I simply was *wrong*.

Knowing that, I did some search.  I found this in "/var/log/syslog" just
after starting ripping (using Sound Juicer CD Ripper):
        kernel: cdrom: dropping to single frame dma

I did more search and found this link[1] and this one[2] which almost
describe the same problem.  Sadly, there *is* a problem in the Kernel
(and apparently, SuSE and others are patching the Kernel for this one).

A quick (but ugly) fix is to switch to ide-scsi which means accessing
your CD-ROM with SCSI emulation (just like the old days).

I hope this clears thing a bit.

[1]: http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0405.2/0042.html
[2]: http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0406.1/1548.html


Ziyad.