Is 'ripping' different than 'importing' ?? Or is it just a different name for the same thing ??
Yes, ripping is different from importing.
Ripping is the process of extracting audio data (or video in DVD/BluRay format) from an optical disc, converting it to a format that your computer can use natively (so FLAC, WAV, MP3, MKV, MP4, etc), and saving it to your hard drive.
Importing is is simply the
process of entering information about the files into MC's database (called the
Library). When you rip discs, after it has created the files on your drive, MC then automatically Imports them, but they are distinct concepts.
As to the ripping speed, 6233638 explained it. iTunes (and most other common media players in their default configurations) do not verify that the data they got when ripping (the result in the end) matches perfectly the original source data. MC does, by default. It also does this on the fly as it goes so that it can slow the read speed up or down as it encounters different quality conditions on the disc. You can turn this option off in
Options > DC, DVD & BD but, I agree with 6233638 that you should not. The quality guarantee is worth the increase in time required. In fact, you may want to enable the option in there that creates the quality report when the rip is complete, so that you can verify that your source was not damaged.
Also, it should be noted that the initial metadata lookup process requires an active network connection (and requires JRiver's servers to be working). There was some server downtime last week, as well. So, if it was hanging
there, when trying to look up track metadata, then those could be the cause. MC should recover gracefully and report the network failure, I'd think, but maybe something's broken in there. I hardly ever rip discs so I can't say for sure.
