Toshiba DVD-Rom's == Slow Reads?

[Chu]

Hello all. I am currently replacing a 12x Toshiba DVD-ROM that died on me (no fault of the drive, got hit by a nice power spike), and was thinking of replacing it with one of its breathern. I could only find 16x drives for sale though, but from a thread on DVD-ROM's in the Hot Deals forums on anandtech, they seem to be just as quiet as the 12x drives.

Well, I made a post of its own to see if anyone knew of a quieter drive before I spent my money, and the issue of DVD ripping came up. Someone said the 16x basically can detect if you are trying to rip a DVD, and then falls back to 2x. Here are my two replies so I do not have to retype them:

>>
I do a lot of encoding, and something I noticed was that my Toshiba 12x sometimes refused to get above 2x or so, and sometimes would rip happily around 7x. I've always wondered about this . . . but somehow I don't think it is isolated to DVD ripping, since DVD-ROM's and DVD-VIDEO disks are essentially identicle at the level the DVD-ROM cares about, unlike CD-ROM's and CD-AUDIO disks.

-Chu
<<

2 minutes later:

>>
You know, now that I think about this, this would also explain some stuttering on some of my high bitrate DVD's. I have some 2 hour films that use the full 9.6 gigs, which could easily put it above 2X in certain scenes using CCE in multipass mode if you were a little careless with your encoding settings. Hrmm . . . this might be something to investigate.

-Chu
<<

Anyone else here with a Toshiba care to share their expirences?

-Chu

(thread in question here: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=30&threadid=885734

[Zhnujm]

toshiba limits the speed to around 3-5x speed with css encrypted dvds. most video dvds are css encrypted, but not all. thats why it sometimes rips with full speed and sometimes not.
it not to prevent you from ripping - toshiba simply uses the encryption to detect if its a video dvd or not. (dont know if theres another way)
most people use there drive for dvd playback, not for dvd ripping. and in such case silent playback is wanted, thats why the speed is limited.

of course it would be better to let the user choose between the settings.

[gnutellafan]

what drives do not limit ripping speeds? IE, what drives are fastest at ripping? Ive looked an have had a hard time finding a good answers.

[manono]

Hi-

As much as I hate to sing the praises of Creative Tech., I've had nothing but good luck with my two Creative DVD-ROMs. The 16x (DVD1610E) will easily get over 15x when ripping a single layered DVD (maybe they're not encrypted, I don't pay much attention), and spends most of the time above 10X. It's slower on dual layered discs, but averages 7-8X. It's not exactly noisy, but it does make a whirring sound when it's cranked up. I don't play the DVDs on it, so I have no idea how it sounds when playing one at 1x.

[abo_alkeem]

yes i have the same prob. I hope i can find a solution like firmware>> so any one had this prob and he was able to solve it plz post here. or if any body knows there is firmware to solve the prob plz tell us.