Just got an 8-core Mac Pro!! What's the best drive to buy to get around riplock?

[jimmypopjr]

Finally stepped into the Mac Pro club yesterday! This thing is freakin' gorgeous and I can't touch the 8-cores. VM of windows 7, handbraking, ripping with RipIt, and watching Dexter in HD all at once and I was only at 70%! Holy freakin' crap.

Anyways, I think I've noticed that the optical drive is the bottleneck for my handbraking. I can't seem to get handbrake to use more than 30% of the CPU, though one movie got it up to 40%. I know the HDD speed will play a factor, but I think the machine in it's current state can do better.

So should I look at getting a new drive (if so, which one is best), or should I attempt to flash this drive?

Finally - I just wanted to say thanks to all you guys. The Macrumors forums have been an amazing resource for all questions I could have for mac. For every question I have to post here, there's five I found by using the search function. Unfortunately I couldn't find these exact questions with the search.

Thanks so much, guys. All your enthusiasm put me over the edge on getting one of these and I'm super happy with it!

 

[brentsg]

Rip a bunch of *.iso images to your hard drive, then queue up HandBrake on the Mac Pro to plow through them from the iso files.

Also, compile the latest source for HandBrake. Don't use the old binary.

 

[grue]

Rip a bunch of *.iso images to your hard drive, then queue up HandBrake on the Mac Pro to plow through them from the iso files.

Also, compile the latest source for HandBrake. Don't use the old binary.

Actually, I could be wrong here but I'm fairly sure that RipLock will affect the ISO imaging as well, it sure as hell affects MacTheRipper.

I reflash my drives to be region free and banish RipLock, then I rip in bulk with MTR, then I batch encode with HandBrake. Only 300 left to go… sigh.

 

[jimmypopjr]

Rip a bunch of *.iso images to your hard drive, then queue up HandBrake on the Mac Pro to plow through them from the iso files.

Also, compile the latest source for HandBrake. Don't use the old binary.

That's what I've been doing, but I noticed something:

The 20+ minutes it takes to actually rip the disk to the HDD could be applied to just handbraking it directly off the disk and ultimately be quicker that way. I guess what I'm looking for is quicker rips, as I can't even hear the disk spinning in the drive when I'm ripping.

Also - Never done a compile before. Is this something I can find easily on Handbrake's site? Forgive my ignorance!

And thanks for your quick reply!

 

[techfreak85]

id use mac the ripper insted of making ISOs.

 

[jimmypopjr]

I usually use mac the ripper 2.66, but through the latest Macupdate sale I got RipIt and started using that.

Either way, it seems that any program used to rip a DVD is slowed by riplock.

 

[danny_w]

I usually use mac the ripper 2.66, but through the latest Macupdate sale I got RipIt and started using that.

Either way, it seems that any program used to rip a DVD is slowed by riplock.

Same here, I gave up on MTR as soon as I got a taste of RipIt; MTR used to crash routinely, but RipIt has not crashed once, and it has never failed on a DVD yet. However as you say the real bottleneck is RipLock. Unfortunately all of the drives that I have include it, and I haven't flashed any of them to get rid of it. Really annoying!

 

[jimmypopjr]

Same here, I gave up on MTR as soon as I got a taste of RipIt; MTR used to crash routinely, but RipIt has not crashed once, and it has never failed on a DVD yet. However as you say the real bottleneck is RipLock. Unfortunately all of the drives that I have include it, and I haven't flashed any of them to get rid of it. Really annoying!

I know! Maybe I'll pick up an external DVD drive and see if that makes a difference at all. I've seen people on this forum, with the same computer I have, say they can rip movies in less than 10 minutes when riplock is out of the picture. That's what I'd like to hit!

Also, Ripit's GUI is a lot nicer, I think. Less options, sure, but I like the way it looks a lot more.

 

[danny_w]

I know! Maybe I'll pick up an external DVD drive and see if that makes a difference at all. I've seen people on this forum, with the same computer I have, say they can rip movies in less than 10 minutes when riplock is out of the picture. That's what I'd like to hit!

Also, Ripit's GUI is a lot nicer, I think. Less options, sure, but I like the way it looks a lot more.

Actually, the less options the better IMHO for a simple ripping program. What kind of options do you need?

 

[brentsg]

That's what I've been doing, but I noticed something:

The 20+ minutes it takes to actually rip the disk to the HDD could be applied to just handbraking it directly off the disk and ultimately be quicker that way. I guess what I'm looking for is quicker rips, as I can't even hear the disk spinning in the drive when I'm ripping.

Also - Never done a compile before. Is this something I can find easily on Handbrake's site? Forgive my ignorance!

Well I guess my reply was half-baked. I haven't found any ripping tools I really like in OSX so I pop over to Windows and utilize AnyDVD HD. It's well maintained and really an excellent piece of software.

The main advantage to ripping in advance is that I can do a bunch of rips while I'm going to be around anyway. Then I can encode while I sleep. I use some insane quality settings so encodes on my quad 2.66 i7 take about 2 hours each.

Compiling the latest HandBrake is very easy. I've found the latest code to be considerably faster than the last binary.

http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/CompileGuide#macosx

Follow those instructions exactly, just copy/paste into terminal after you install the Apple Dev tools. That's also easy, just a download and typical install and there is a link for that too.

 

[jimmypopjr]

Well I guess my reply was half-baked. I haven't found any ripping tools I really like in OSX so I pop over to Windows and utilize AnyDVD HD. It's well maintained and really an excellent piece of software.

The main advantage to ripping in advance is that I can do a bunch of rips while I'm going to be around anyway. Then I can encode while I sleep. I use some insane quality settings so encodes on my quad 2.66 i7 take about 2 hours each.

Compiling the latest HandBrake is very easy. I've found the latest code to be considerably faster than the last binary.

http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/CompileGuide#macosx

Follow those instructions exactly, just copy/paste into terminal after you install the Apple Dev tools. That's also easy, just a download and typical install and there is a link for that too.

Thanks so much man. I'm gonna try that right now. I also remembered that I have a spare DVD drive sitting around, so I'll try that guy as well.

I almost feel guilty asking about all this. It used to take my machine 90-150 minutes to do a 90 minute movie. Now it takes less than 30. I feel selfish for asking for more than that.

But the iStat menu core-reporting across the top of my screen pretty much mocks me when I see a DVD encode is using less than 30%!

Also, I'm a big fan of queuing and encoding overnight as well. Very handy! I used to use visual hub for that, but I've come to really appreciate Handbrake's options and interface.

 

[j2048b]

Well I guess my reply was half-baked. I haven't found any ripping tools I really like in OSX so I pop over to Windows and utilize AnyDVD HD. It's well maintained and really an excellent piece of software.

The main advantage to ripping in advance is that I can do a bunch of rips while I'm going to be around anyway. Then I can encode while I sleep. I use some insane quality settings so encodes on my quad 2.66 i7 take about 2 hours each.

Compiling the latest HandBrake is very easy. I've found the latest code to be considerably faster than the last binary.

http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/CompileGuide#macosx

Follow those instructions exactly, just copy/paste into terminal after you install the Apple Dev tools. That's also easy, just a download and typical install and there is a link for that too.

sorry for being a total newbee but:

how do you compile yasm?

Is it windows based or mac?

I donloaded version 0.8.0

on another note, i have tried to flash my pioneer drive, and it worked the first time, but after that i could not do it again, not sure why because it was a few months ago, but i am not sure if it has rip lock?

how to tell and remove?

thanks

 

[jimmypopjr]

sorry for being a total newbee but:

how do you compile yasm?

Is it windows based or mac?

I donloaded version 0.8.0

on another note, i have tried to flash my pioneer drive, and it worked the first time, but after that i could not do it again, not sure why because it was a few months ago, but i am not sure if it has rip lock?

how to tell and remove?

thanks

Hey Hey, I'm completely new to compiling anything. The link he provided is very easy to follow. You'll just need to install the xcode dev tools. Once that is done just follow the directions and you'll be done in a matter of... 5-10 minutes, easy.

Just open terminal and follow the steps and you're good to go!

 

[brentsg]

sorry for being a total newbee but:

how do you compile yasm?

Is it windows based or mac?

I donloaded version 0.8.0

on another note, i have tried to flash my pioneer drive, and it worked the first time, but after that i could not do it again, not sure why because it was a few months ago, but i am not sure if it has rip lock?

how to tell and remove?

thanks

The yasm instructions are included in the link I provided.

 

[j2048b]

The yasm instructions are included in the link I provided.

I had read everything but I now get it!!

thankjs people!!

 

[jimmypopjr]

So will every new SATA DVD drive you can buy in stores/newegg/wherever have the riplocked firmware on it? Is it possible to buy a drive in a store without having to worry about this?

Edit: yikes, I just got to see riplock rear it's ugly head. I had a disk ripping at a nice 4.5Mb/s when all of the sudden the drive spun down and bottomed out at less than 1.5Mb/s. very lame.

 

[danny_w]

So will every new SATA DVD drive you can buy in stores/newegg/wherever have the riplocked firmware on it? Is it possible to buy a drive in a store without having to worry about this?

Edit: yikes, I just got to see riplock rear it's ugly head. I had a disk ripping at a nice 4.5Mb/s when all of the sudden the drive spun down and bottomed out at less than 1.5Mb/s. very lame.

I would like to know this as well. The only external that I have (Memorex 16X DL USB/Firewire) doesn't seem to rip any faster than my internal Optiarc AH-5630A (1AHM).

 

[j2048b]

Wow!

The new build of handbrake is quick as F$%K!!

i just encoded a movie in like a few minutes!! from my hard drive though, not from the disk.

Thanks for the instructions!!