Yesterday my Toshiba 16X DVD-ROM started behaving strangely… when ripping with DVD Decrypter, the speed was between 0.0X - 0.6X, when I normally get 2.0X - 2.1X with encrypted DVD’s.
At first I thought the originals were bad, but I looked at the discs and they were fine; no scratches at all. Ripping in my Sony DRU-500A confirmed that it wasn’t the discs… I tried ripping unprotected discs (porn) where I normally get 4X - 6X in the Toshiba and the same thing, 0.0X - 0.6X or a lot of errors; we’re talking 800-900 retries here.
I had to replace my DVD-ROM… I did some searches and found that the Star Logic DVD-ROM sold at Circuit City of all places had great ripping speeds so I went and bought it… after a quick install, I test ripped some encrypted DVD’s and was getting 4.5X - 7X… that’s anywhere between 8 - 15 minutes - awesome!
My workflow used to be:
- Rip with DVD Decrypter - anywhere from 30 - 45 minutes
- Transcode with DVD2One - anywhere from 10 - 25 minutes
- Burn with Nero - anywhere from 23.5 minutes (1X DVD+R) to 15 minutes (4X DVD-R)
Now I can consistently back up a full DVD in less than 45 minutes total… all I can say is WOW!
Lesson: Get a fast DVD-ROM for ripping and under no circumstance should you use your burner to rip… that will shorten its life and they’re much more expensive than the readers!