Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[michaelj]

I first installed the demo version (8.x). The ripping speed seems slower than other apps I've used and my computer performance lags considerably while ripping. I love the Media Center and I want to use it but I won't continue to if i can't solve this problem. Any suggestions?

thanks,
mj

[KingSparta]

>> The ripping speed seems slower than
>> other apps I've used
thats because MJ\MC uses the lame encoder, this encoder has been selected as the best mp3 encoder by many Encoder Testing And Download Web Sites.

[dmcdanal]

Is there a way to keep the encoder ripping at a consistent speed, rather than it resetting after every track?  On my it will get up to 12x on each track, but then resets and has to build up again.

[RemyJ]

Is there a way to keep the encoder ripping at a consistent speed, rather than it resetting after every track?  On my it will get up to 12x on each track, but then resets and has to build up again.

Don't be distracted by the "buildup".  It's caused by 2 things:  

1) The CD Drive will read faster as it progresses and will usually read the last part of the last track the fastest

2) At the beginning of the track, there are fewer samples from which to calculate the speed so the speed appears to be building up when it's just really just the calculation getting more accurate.

Don't forget, ripping and encoding are 2 separate things.  Rip speed is a function of the CD Drive, the IDE channel (DMA mode?), the condition of the CD, and the error correction mode (Digital Secure vs Digital Large Buffer).  Encoding speed is determined by the encoder settings (quality, bitrate, etc) and the amount of CPU resources available.  

To accurately judge ripping speeds, rip to uncomressed wave in both Digital Large Buffer and Digital Secure modes and compare.  If you want to see how fast the encoder will run by itself, use the convert function to convert the wave files just ripped to mp3.

[KingSparta]

I think the New Intel Chip Might help Also

Introduced November 14, 2002, the IntelŪ PentiumŪ 4 Processor with HT Technology delivers performance and system responsiveness for today's digital experiences and tomorrow's compute-intensive applications. Hyper-Threading Technology turbo charges your PC to respond to today's multitasking lifestyle.

Processor Core Speed
 
3.06 GHz (0.13-micron)
  Up to 3.06 GHz (0.13-micron)

Hyper-Threading Technology's
 
Yes. Improves performance and system responsiveness in today's multitasking environments by enabling the processor to execute multiple instruction threads in parall

[RemyJ]

Well, the 3.06ghz part will certainly help but the encoders are all single threaded and can't take advantage of the HyperThreading unless you can run more than 1 encoder at the same time (which you can't in MJ/MC).  

[michaelj]

Thank you all for your responses!

I'm not sure if its actually the ripping or the encoding that is slow. All I know is that Creative's media player rips and encodes my CD to mp3 (128 kps) much faster. Since the quality seems to be the same I'm not sure why MJ/MC is so slow. Realplayer also rips and encodes much faster but it is encoding at 96kps so perhaps that explains the difference in speed.

I don't like RealPlayer or Creative's media center but their performance has been superior.

I have been using the Digital Large Buffer, not the Digital Secure setting so that isn't the issue. I have a pentium 4 (1.6 ghz) so that isn't the issue.

Another issue that is that my whole system slows down with I'm ripping using MC. This does not happen when i use any other ripping software.

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

mike

ps - i assume that the free/demo version does not intentionally slow ripping speeds as an incentive to purchase the full player.

[RemyJ]

2 things to try then...

Change the encoder settings to uncompressed wave and try to rip.  Note the speed.  If it seems slow, report back here with the results.  

Make sure the mp3 encoder settings are comparable.  If you 're going to compare to creative, make sure the bitrate is set to 128 and choose speed over quality in the advanced dialog.

Also, are you still in the 30 day trial period for the software?  I thought there WAS a speed cap on the trial version.

[JimH]

I thought there WAS a speed cap on the trial version.

No, there is no limit in the trial version.

[xen-uno]

> I thought there WAS a speed cap on the trial version

No way...identical in every way (including performance) to registered version except for expiration date.

I've seen some trial versions that are bitrate limited (ie Thompson MP3Pro player and if I remember correctly...RealJukebox)

10^-27

edit > Darn it Jim, beat me to the punch again

[KingSparta]

Well, the 3.06ghz part will certainly help but the encoders are all single threaded and can't take advantage of the HyperThreading unless you can run more than 1 encoder at the same time (which you can't in MJ/MC).  

Well the GOGO encoder can it is based on an Early Lame.

As far as quality if you base it on when some people can hear like me 32bit stereo would be fine since i can't hear or see worth a darn. but if you look at the quality of the faster encoders and lame under testing programs Lame wins.

[rocketsauce]

I don't like RealPlayer or Creative's media center but their performance has been superior.

Superior in respect to the speed of ripping and encoding, but not necessarily in sound quality (depending on what bitrate you are encoding your mp3s at).  MJ uses the LAME encoder which will produce the best sound quality for bitrates above 180kbps.  Real and Creative probably use the Fraunhofer encoder which (according to various postings at Hydrogen Audio) may do better than LAME at bitrates of 128kbps or less.  Also, I think Fraunhofer is generally faster at encoding than LAME, but which is more important to you, speed or quality?  I think with LAME, you get a nice trade off between the two.  

Rob

[PeterO]

After some tests with the Lame (external and within MC) and the Fraunhofer FastEnc Encoder (Musicmatch 7.x) and various bitrates my personal decision based on hearing with my own ears was:  128 kbit is OK for me and both encoders are OK in Quality.

So only speed counts (for me).

Question:  Is there a  fast (10x)  external MP3 encoder which I can use with Media Center 9 ?
And I am willing to pay extra money for this extra fast encoder.

Thanks +  :-)
Peter

[RemyJ]

Totally dependent on the CPU resources available Peter.  On my 2.4ghz P4, lame will encode 256k bit rate, quality level 2 at 19x.

[PeterO]

Thanks RemyJ,
in MC 9 with external encoder (Lame 3.92) I have parameters like "%IN %OUT -b 128" .

What Quality Level is "Level2" ?  And what Parameter do I have to use ?

Do you use the external or interal MP3 Encoder ?

:-)
Peter

[RemyJ]

WARNING:   There's a high degree of subjectivity in encoder settings.   Only you can determine what's correct for you.

Visit http://www.r3mix.net/ and http://lame.sourceforge.net/ among others for more info.

my command line is

--cbr -b256 -q2 -ms --lowpass 19.5 %IN %OUT

For bitrate, the higher the number the better the quality, the larger the file and the FASTER the encoder runs.  The last bit sounds counter-intuitive but it's true.

For quality, the lower the number, the better the quality and the SLOWER the encoder runs.  No difference in file size that I can tell.

Lame IS the MJ/MC internal encoder.   The only differences between calling it externally and internally are mechanical.  If external, you can see Lame report it's stats but you can't do the "rip and encode simultaneous" option.  If internal, you don't see the stats but you can use the  "rip and encode simultaneous" option.  

[rocketsauce]

For the external encoder you could also try:

--alt-preset standard %IN %OUT

--alt-preset fast standard %IN %OUT

Recommended LAME settings:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?act=ST&f=15&t=203&s=8f26841a4324fb458ea1c51987175ed4

LAME will encode faster if you use one of the CBR (constant bitrate) settings like --alt-preset CBR 256 %IN %OUT, rather than a VBR (variable bitrate) setting like --alt-preset standard %IN %OUT.

Rob