Topic: What kind of MP3 ripping speeds should I be getting in MJ? (Read 2893 times)

BigMike · « **on:** June 27, 2002, 07:29:45 am »

I downloaded the MP3 plugin, and MJ rips cd's just fine, but seems slow compared to others I have tried. I have a 56x CD-ROM, but according to the progress window in MJ, it is ripping at about 3.8 max. I am using the LAME plugin set at 192. Just wondered what kind of speeds other people are getting.

BigMike · « **Reply #1 on:** June 27, 2002, 08:19:44 am »

Just wanted to add that even though it seems a wee bit slow, it rips perfectly. I'm not complaining, just curious to whether this is normal, or if I might have something set wrong somewhere. Also, In case it's relevent, I'm using win98se, and I have an AthlonXP 1.4 gig processor.

ZRocker · « **Reply #2 on:** June 27, 2002, 08:50:35 am »

Audio extraction is a different speed (than your drive's quoted read speed) and MP3 encoding is very CPU intensive...3.3X is really not bad. I think you should be quite happy (really). For a test, rip to Uncompressed .WAV format and see what speeds you get (it'll probably be 15X to 24X because no CPU intensive compression is needed).

DocLotus · « **Reply #3 on:** June 27, 2002, 10:35:56 am »

Hi BigMike;

I have been curious about this myself.

I have a very fast system (2.2 MHz P4, 512 MB DDR memory, twin 80GB ATA 133 drives running in RAID 0 array), fast video, etc) but my ripping speeds are also less then what others seem to be getting.

So… I ran a test just now on a whole CD. The results are as follows…

Uncompressed WAV.. Start speed 3.1x, final speed 7.5x
WMA @96 KBs... Start speed 3.1x, Final speed 7.5x.

What gives? I thought that an uncompressed WAV should be blindingly fast, right?

I checked the ripped files just to make sure they really ripped to the two different formats… sure enough there were two of each… huge WAV files & very small WMA files with the same names in the same folder. By the way, I played them both back… could not tell the difference on my 10 speaker system.

So why the slow ripping speeds? Why were both formats ripping at the same speed?

The only things I can think of is that something is limiting the ripping…

1: I built my own system from scratch & did not replace my DVD/CD drive as it was working fine & I was very happy with it (a Creative 5X PC-DVD, 32X CD). However, thanks to Creative, the DVD would not run on Win XP as my drive was one model too old for them to make XP drivers for.
The CD portion of the drive worked ok on Win XP. When I added an ATI All-In-Wonder 7500 video card, I used it as it has built-in DVD support (part hardware, part software),
As the DVD/CD drive originally had an all hardware solution (by way of a PCI plug-in decoder card), I’m thinking that the part hardware, part software solution that ATI is providing may be part of my slow-down problem. Don’t know what part is taking care of the DVD & which is running the CD.

2: Another possibility may be that I am no longer using Creative drivers optimized (as there are none available from Creative for XP) for my drive, but am using Win XP default drivers or the ATI drivers (if any).

Either way BigMike, you need to make sure you have the latest (& correct) drivers for your CD drive.

3: There is this possibility… that is, that music CD’s may not rip as fast as the CD drive is designed to run due to the complexity of the music file, or due to the complexity of the ripping process. Remember, the drive is reading & the CPU is writing (through MJ).

3: Another possibility is that MJ is doing a more through job of ripping then other players do (that may be why it sounds so good) & simply takes a little longer.

Anyway, after it’s all said & done, MJ will still be my player for as long time to come.

HAVE FUN!!!

heinz57g · « **Reply #4 on:** June 27, 2002, 01:01:08 pm »

same here: compared similar good rippers (ie CDex latest version) with same encoders (lame) and most-possible same settings, so actual hardware is not really important: 10 tries, average MJ is only 1/3rd the speed of the others. cannot be. should not be.

BigMike · « **Reply #5 on:** June 27, 2002, 01:40:23 pm »

I also tried several other rippers, and they were all considerably faster, so MJ must be doing something different during the ripping process. MJ does a good job, and the rips sound excellent, so I am not complaining. I'm just curious why some programs rip faster or slower than others, and what effect it has on the sound quality of the rips, if any.

JohnT · « **Reply #6 on:** June 27, 2002, 01:42:32 pm »

Not sure what would be causing the slow-down. Do you have "digital large buffer" set for copy mode? The "secure" mode will definitely be slower.
I just downloaded the current CDEX and did a timing comparison using on-the-fly Lame encoding (CBR) at 192kbps and the rip times for CDEX and MJ were virtually identical. This was on our test machine running WinXP and also on my development machine running Win2000. One drive was IDE and the other SCSI. What OS's are you running?

- John T.

DocLotus · « **Reply #7 on:** June 27, 2002, 02:35:57 pm »

Hi JohnT;

Digital Large Buffer is always on & Secure Mode is always off. Am running Win XP Pro. My drive is IDE.

BigMike · « **Reply #8 on:** June 27, 2002, 03:23:54 pm »

I just tried the latest CDEX, and for me, the speed is about the same as MJ. Other programs I have tried vary wildly. Neromix just smokes when ripping, while EZCD crawled. Don't know what makes one faster or slower than other, but they all seem to make good rips. By the way, even though Neromix makes fast rips, its player really sucks. Not only does it not have anywhere near the number of features that MJ has, it cost twice as much! I am not in that big a hurry

sekim · « **Reply #9 on:** June 27, 2002, 03:41:44 pm »

I zorched everyone of my music files about a month or so ago, and started fresh with mp3 VBR. Average rip, just a guess, 1.2x. If you are getting anything above this you are doing good.

JohnT · « **Reply #10 on:** June 27, 2002, 04:07:11 pm »

DocLotus-

7.5X isn't bad, that's about what I get with wave and wma on most systems I test on, although with some drives/systems I can get up to 13 or 14X. WMA is a very fast encoder and the fact that it only needs to write one tenth of the data to disk compared to wave is probably why the speed is about the same as ripping to wave. Lame mp3 is a slower encoder but higher quality. The mp3 encoder that Musicmatch uses (and probably Neromix as well) is faster but lower quality.

- John T.

Chris Fox · « **Reply #11 on:** June 27, 2002, 04:29:23 pm »

Make sure that your controller is set to use DMA mode instead of PIO. DMA is much faster...

Chris

DocLotus · « **Reply #12 on:** June 27, 2002, 06:04:59 pm »

Yes, DMA mode is enabled for the drive.

Easyrider · « **Reply #13 on:** June 27, 2002, 06:41:53 pm »

Hi

I just got a new computer P4 2.4GHz with 512MB RDRAM PC800 Memory
120Gb drive. CDRW Drive Lite-on Windows XP PRO

Wave uncompressed started at 3x finish at 15.7
WMA @96 KBs... Start speed 10x finished at 20x

The computer Brand new at of the box, MJ has performed flawlessly!

Burning speeds are blazing fast.

I quess I won't be putting all the junk programs back on with this new computer.

ZAMPIT · « **Reply #14 on:** June 27, 2002, 07:08:36 pm »

I have noticed MJ is slow on the rip to

ZAMPIT · « **Reply #15 on:** June 27, 2002, 07:09:44 pm »

When I use MusicMatch My pc rips 12 - 20x depending what is going on in the background. RealOne rips at 10 - 13x is common. I am just starting to use this MJ to see if it is something I want to go to. My rip speeds are disipointing to me. It rips at 7 - 9x on the fast setting.

I to am looking for a solution as to why MJ rips slower???

JohnT · « **Reply #16 on:** June 28, 2002, 04:42:01 am »

Zampit-

Since the mp3 encoder in MusicMatch is known to be faster than the one we use (Lame), try encoding to either wave or WMA on both MJ and Musicmatch to see if you get pretty much the same speed.
We use Lame because it is know to be very high quality compared to others.

- John T.

JohnT · « **Reply #17 on:** June 28, 2002, 05:22:55 am »

heinz57g-

Is your copy mode in MJ set to "digital large buffer" or "digital secure"? If set to secure, that would account for the speed difference.

- John T.

drughunter · « **Reply #18 on:** June 28, 2002, 10:24:04 am »

With Musuc Match 7.2, I typically get 22X ripping on a Compaq Pentium 1.8, 80g, 5400 RMP drive, 512mb RAM, a generic (40X, I believe) CD ROM I rip at 160K.

Steve, what do you think?

Mel

PeterE · « **Reply #19 on:** June 28, 2002, 11:06:15 am »

I record to MP3 @ 320k and Ape @ Extra High
for MP3 @ 320 I get between 7x and 10x on a homebuilt Athlon 1.1, 32x DVD/CDRW combo drive, 1.5Gb RAM

The biggest influencer on speed I found was making sure that the IDE Controller Port to which the CD drive is connected, is set to DMA operation rather than PIO (on XP right click on My Computer and select properties then on the hardware tab select device manager - sorry if i'm sucking grandma's eggs ;-)

My MoBo controller allows Ultra DMA Mode 5

Hope it helps

cdrmaker · « **Reply #20 on:** June 30, 2002, 10:09:01 am »

I have ripping issues also. I'm running XP on a p4 1.6g 512ram and a plextor 40/12/40 (Only device on the secondary IDE Channel). What I've found is that with DMA transfer Mode I can get up to 13x. But XP is changing my transfer mode to PIO after every 5 to 15 CD's I Rip. If I Uninstall My Secondary IDE Channel (Where My Drive is) When XP reinstalls it I Have My DMA transfer mode back for another 5 to 15 CD's

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Author Topic: What kind of MP3 ripping speeds should I be getting in MJ? (Read 2893 times)

BigMike

BigMike

DocLotus

heinz57g

BigMike

DocLotus

BigMike

sekim

JohnT

Chris Fox

DocLotus

Easyrider

drughunter

PeterE

cdrmaker