Slow BluRay/HD-DVD Rips

[JasonSansone]

I am inquiring to see if my slow rip speeds are normal or if anyone has advice as to how to speed them up. I have used the search and read all related threads, but none directly address my situation.

I am running OS X 10.5.6 on a MacPro with dual 3.2 GHz quad cores. The machine has 18 GB of Fully Buffered 800 Mhz DDR2 and two 64 GB SSD's in RAID 0 for the boot drive. A HighPoint RocketRAID 2314MS PCI-e controller is linked via an infiniband cable to a Habey DS-1220e enclosure. I have 6 Maxtor 7200 RPM 1TB drives in RAID 5 in the Habey enclosure. I typically run two virtual machines simultaneous in Parallels 4.0.3810 so that I can utilize multiple instances of AnyDVD HD. Each virtual machine is assigned 2.5 gig of ram (they are 32bit instances of XP, so that's about all they can address) and 4 cores. I rip off a Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive and a LiteOn DX-401S BluRay drive. Both are plugged directly into the back of the MacPro via USB 2.0 The virtual machines reside on the RAID 5 array and I rip to that array. My OS along with Parallels reside on the RAID 0 array, which is internal on the motherboards SATA 2 connectors. The RAID 0 array is not managed by a dedicated controller like the RAID 5 array is. I normally have Adium (chat program), Firefox, and Entourage (Mac version of Outlook) running in the background. I also typically run HandBrake to encode previously ripped files to H264 for the PS3. HandBrake scales across all 8 cores.

On average I am only achieving about 1.1-1.5 MB/s for each of the open instances of AnyDVD HD. Is this normal? Can I do anything to speed them up?

 

[JasonSansone]

I failed to mention that at this moment I am also running three instances of Toast Titanium 10 encoding BluRays, but that hasn't lowered or changed my rip speeds. My rip speeds are the same when Toast isn't running.

 

[JasonSansone]

I haven't received any feedback from any members, so I did some further experimenting. I deleted both virtual machines and created a new, fresh VM. The VM is based of my RAID 0 SSD array with access to 8 cores and 2.5GB of RAM. After a fresh system boot running nothing at all but Parallels 4, I achieve approx. 5 MB/s rips. I have not found any new firmware (official or unofficial) for either my BluRay of HD-DVD drive. This still seems very slow in light of others purported 20 MB/s rips. I am using brand new, fresh movies for the rips. I do not expect to see 20 MB/s across a USB bus or with the VM machine, but a 1/4 of that speed on a 8 core machine seems very slow. In addition, I have experimented with running HandBrake while ripping and it does not appear to lower speeds any. My CPU load can be maxed out without adverse effects to rip speeds, so that is not the bottleneck. Neither is RAM. I have never managed to actively use all 18 GB. Highest I have gotten is 17.

Any thoughts on how to speed up the VM transport interface or drive?

 

[markcu]

I use a GGC-H20L drive connected via SATA to an intel skulltrail board with 8 xeon cores running at 3Ghz.

Ripping a blu-Ray (ripping Rocknrolla) as I type I am seeing approx 12MB/s as reported by AnyDVD HD this is for an ISO rip. I dont know if it would be any different if ripping to folders/files.

I'm ripping to 4 1TB samsung drives in a raid 0 stripe on a dedicated controller.

To be honest over USB, I dont think that 5MB/s is too bad..how much higher speed do you get if ripping a normal DVD?

 

[damnskippy]

USB 2.0 has a maximum throughput of 480 Mbps (60 MB/s) though I would not expect that from it. However you are going through a VM and I have no idea how it has the hardware setup. Does it use DMA etc. Try doing a rip on the main system rather than the VM and see what you get.

 

[nesNYC]

A lot of mumbo jumbo but you're not mentioning the read speed of your Xbox and other drive.

These are not hard disk and are very limited in thoughput. Add the fact you're going to USB instead of inside the actual machine using a SATA config and 5/mbs per second isn't really that bad.

Your limitation is the external optical drives. Get internal ones connected right to the system bus via SATA and you'll speed things up a bit more. But agian, for BD I think max read speed is like 6x depending on the drive.

Both are plugged directly into the back of the MacPro via USB 2.0

 

[ocgw]

I get 16mb/s thru my usb so that isn't necessarily the problem, but then again just because a usb connection is usb2.0 doesn't mean it is fast any more than a HDD being sata II means it is fast

ocgw

peace

 

[JasonSansone]

Thank everyone for the feedback. I appreciate it.


markcu - I normally rip DVD's off my two internal drives so I can't offer a great comparison. I use HandBrake, which doesn't give a MB/s indication but instead FPS, since I don't rip the video_ts. I convert straight to my output file (H264). That takes under 15 minutes, but its a total meaningless apples to oranges example. BTW, bad ass rig.

EDIT: I tested DVD speeds using Casino Royale in the BluRay drive and in an internal DVD SATA drive. AnyDVD doesn't give a speed indicator when reading regular DVD's. It took roughly 20 minutes for both. Didn't seem to be any difference in time since each is capable of 16X DVD.


damnskippy - I have always been under the impression that direct memory access could only be configured for IDE / SATA controllers, not USB. Am I wrong? I cannot run AnyDVD directly off the system since I do not have BootCamp installed. The only way for me to run any Windows software is virtualization.


nesNYC - The BluRay drive is 4X, so it has a theoretical limit of 18 MB/s. Clearly I will never sustain, or likely even see, the max rated speed. They do have a few 8X drives out but otherwise 6X is the fastest out now. I may have to break down and buy an internal drive.


ocgw - Just curious as to your setup and drive via USB that gets you 16 MB/s.



It doesn't seem to be a bus issue because I can rip HD-DVD and BluRay simultaneously on the same bus at 5 MB/s each. As was stated, USB 2.0 can handle far greater bandwidth. I'm guessing it is a combination of drive and driver limitations. I have to accept I am on a VM which has its serious disadvantages. I plan to upgrade my VM to x64 so I can address more RAM and also purchase an internal drive. I will report back with my results.

Thanks again to everyone for the help.

 

[damnskippy]

No there is no setting for DMA on USB. At some point the data is going to a HD right so you might check there. I am really just grabbing at straws as it could be a lot of things. I agree with your statement that it seems to be an issue of the VM but it can't hurt to look.

 

[ocgw]

Thank everyone for the feedback. I appreciate it.


markcu - I normally rip DVD's off my two internal drives so I can't offer a great comparison. I use HandBrake, which doesn't give a MB/s indication but instead FPS, since I don't rip the video_ts. I convert straight to my output file (H264). That takes under 15 minutes, but its a total meaningless apples to oranges example. BTW, bad ass rig.

EDIT: I tested DVD speeds using Casino Royale in the BluRay drive and in an internal DVD SATA drive. AnyDVD doesn't give a speed indicator when reading regular DVD's. It took roughly 20 minutes for both. Didn't seem to be any difference in time since each is capable of 16X DVD.


damnskippy - I have always been under the impression that direct memory access could only be configured for IDE / SATA controllers, not USB. Am I wrong? I cannot run AnyDVD directly off the system since I do not have BootCamp installed. The only way for me to run any Windows software is virtualization.


nesNYC - The BluRay drive is 4X, so it has a theoretical limit of 18 MB/s. Clearly I will never sustain, or likely even see, the max rated speed. They do have a few 8X drives out but otherwise 6X is the fastest out now. I may have to break down and buy an internal drive.


ocgw - Just curious as to your setup and drive via USB that gets you 16 MB/s.



It doesn't seem to be a bus issue because I can rip HD-DVD and BluRay simultaneously on the same bus at 5 MB/s each. As was stated, USB 2.0 can handle far greater bandwidth. I'm guessing it is a combination of drive and driver limitations. I have to accept I am on a VM which has its serious disadvantages. I plan to upgrade my VM to x64 so I can address more RAM and also purchase an internal drive. I will report back with my results.

Thanks again to everyone for the help.

You know how some usb multi-media card readers are usb1.1 and some are usb2.0, well I learned that just because a reader is usb2.0 doesn't mean anything as far as speed of the drive electronics is concerned it just means it is compatible w/ usb2.0, which isn't saying much because usb1.1 is backwards compatible w/ usb2.0

I bought a Kingston 2GB 50x CF card for my Canon Rebel XT and my PC's old internal media card reader would only read around 1mb/s

Sadly media card reader manufacturers don't make speed claims for the readers to compare

I called Kingston on the phone and told them I wanted their fastest reader so it could keep up w/ my new fast Kingston 2GB CF card

They told me which model to order, I now have it, it connects to my PC thru the usb and I bench marked it w/ HD Tach @ 16mb/s, so I don't think that going thru usb is going to hurt ripping a blu ray unless you are going thru a slow usb hub or something

in my most humble of opinions

ps. Just bench marked my new Kingston 133x 8GB CF card thru my Kingston usb2.0 card reader and got 17.4mb/s, it is disappointing but still faster than it's rating



btw I notice your use of the phrase "This still seems very slow in light of others purported 20 MB/s rips", I myself don't buy into everyones claims w/o screenshots

I posted this screenie in another thread which is the fastest rip speed screenie I have seen here tho' others have "purported" to have rips as high as 26mb/s



Amazing a guy posted a screenie of a Sony 8x BD drive clocking 35mb/s completely blowing me away

http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=26715&page=2

ocgw

peace

 

[JasonSansone]

Thanks for all that feedback. Great screens.

I first switched the VM to XP x64 which had some improvement, but not much. The additional RAM didn't change much. I ended up running a series of different benchmarking suites in my VM to identify the bottlenecks. When accessing the VM's virtual hard drive (which is physically located on my SSD RAID 0 array) I have normal HD access rates. When writing to my RAID 5 array, which the VM sees as a network location, speeds are deplorable. I averaged 8-10 MB/s. All my testing tells me that the VM's drivers and access to devices crawls. I also believe these particular 4X external USB drives cap out around 5-6 MB/s. This would explain my current ceilings and why speeds drop when running multiple instances.

As soon as I can get Vista x64, I will be setting up bootcamp and dumping the VM. I have ordered a GGW-H20LK and a GGC-H20L (in addition to another 16GB of RAM to max the system out). I plan to start ripping off all four drives simultaneously while in Vista (HD-DVD's and BluRays). I hope that a direct hardware level operating coupled with SATA BluRay drives leads to improvements.

I will report back with my results next week after I set everything up.

 

[JasonSansone]

I attached a screenshot of how things are currently running in Vista x64 through bootcamp. I haven't been able to get my hardware RAID5 recognized yet, so this is writting to a single 7200 RPM drive. Vista is on the same drive (and not my SSD RAID) because OS X software RAID's can not be seen in Windows, I also haven't recieved the new internal SATA drives yet. Not bad for simultaneous rips on external drives. Fastest it has hit has been 9.4 on both drives. I am anxious to see how things perform once I have the two new internal drives, additional RAM, and can utilize my RAID array.

Ultimately, I would say the VM and its transport layers/drivers were the bottleneck for my speed.

 

[ocgw]

I attached a screenshot of how things are currently running in Vista x64 through bootcamp. I haven't been able to get my hardware RAID5 recognized yet, so this is writting to a single 7200 RPM drive. Vista is on the same drive (and not my SSD RAID) because OS X software RAID's can not be seen in Windows, I also haven't recieved the new internal SATA drives yet. Not bad for simultaneous rips on external drives. Fastest it has hit has been 9.4 on both drives. I am anxious to see how things perform once I have the two new internal drives, additional RAM, and can utilize my RAID array.

Ultimately, I would say the VM and its transport layers/drivers were the bottleneck for my speed.

I am glad you have achieved some improved performance

I have high hopes for you when you mount your internal BD drives

ocgw

peace

 

[JasonSansone]

I got up over 20 MB/s but didn't grab a screen shot at its peak. I will need to try again. I grabbed this one at 20.1. I think I got near or over 20.5. Will play with it some more.

 

[ocgw]

I got up over 20 MB/s but didn't grab a screen shot at its peak. I will need to try again. I grabbed this one at 20.1. I think I got near or over 20.5. Will play with it some more.

Now rip the main movie m2ts directly from the disc w/ TsMuxer (w/ AnyDVD HD running in the background) and cut your rip time almost in half

ocgw

peace

 

[JasonSansone]

Ingenius. No idea why I was wasting time on the redundant step of copying streams I didn't need and still have to recode anyways. Now I am copying only the tracks of the stream(s) I will utilize. Thanks ocgw, your pointers have been invaluable.

 

[ocgw]

Ingenius. No idea why I was wasting time on the redundant step of copying streams I didn't need and still have to recode anyways. Now I am copying only the tracks of the stream(s) I will utilize. Thanks ocgw, your pointers have been invaluable.

thx bro'

ocgw

peace