please suggest good config.for dvd/bd ripping? [Archive]

hello_hello

1st February 2012, 16:57

Without getting into Intel vs AMD, you'd probably want a quadcore CPU for encoding and the fastest one you can afford. Pretty much any video card will display HD content and all but the very cheapest do hardware decoding (instead of the CPU decoding for some video types).

If you can afford it, I find a couple of drives running as a RAID-0 volume instead of just a single drive can take some of the tedium out of working with large files. It won't speed up the ripping or encoding process but does speed up jobs such as extracting streams from files ripped to your hard drive or when moving them around etc. For that matter it'll speed up most PC functions to some degree as two drives running as a RAID-0 volume should be around twice as fast as a single drive.

I own a couple of Pioneer Bluray writers and I've been quite happy with them. Mine are BDR-206 but chances are that's no longer the current model.

I've got two PCs which are basically identical except for the CPU's. They're getting a little long in the tooth now (Q9450 and E6750). They both run at the same clock speed and while the quad core is still adequate for x264 encoding, the dual core is just too slow.

varekai

3rd February 2012, 15:17

Hi
Can anybody please tell me best pc cofiguration for ripping the dvds/Bds, and for HD Playback.

Built this last year and I am really happy with, it does all I need!
It's fast, stable, cool and quiet. Get great performance whatever I do!

Chassi: CORSAIR FULLTOWER OBSIDIAN 700D EATX BLACK
(replaced all chassi fans for quieter Noctua fans)

PSU: CORSAIR AX 1200W PROFESSIONAL SERIES MODULAR PSU

Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 DELUXE B3 P67 S-1155 ATX

CPU: INTEL CORE I7 2600K 3.40GHZ 8MB S-1155 (overclocked and stable @ 4.3GHz)

CPU cooling: NOCTUA NH-D14 S-1155/1156/1366/AM3
(added 2 fans for push and pull and temp is at CPU idle: 25-30C and at CPU 100% load for hours: 50-55C so really cool temps)

RAM: CORSAIR 16GB DDR3 VENGEANCE LP PC3-12800 1600MHZ CL9 (4X4GB)

Graphic: ASUS GEFORCE GTX 560Ti DIRECTCU II 1GB PCI-E DVI/HDMI (I've got 2 for SLI gaming)

Harddrive OS: INTEL 510 SERIES 2.5" 120GB SSD SATA/600 MLC 34NM RETAIL

Harddrive: 2x WESTERN DIGITAL VELOCIRAPTOR 600GB 3.5" 10K RPM SATA/300 16MB

Chassi fans: 4x NOCTUA NF-S12B-FLX CASE FAN 120MM

Blu-Ray: Pioneer BDR-206DBK Internal 12x BD-RE DVD+/-RW SATA Blu-Ray Drive
(just bought a second a couple of days ago)

OS: MICROSOFT WINDOWS 7 64-bit

Just copy and paste each component into google and you'll find all the links you need for your research.
A decent 24" display and perhaps a long HDMI cabel from GPU to watch HD content on your HD TV.
I do that at times and it works perfect.

Ghitulescu

3rd February 2012, 15:30

I rip Blu-rays and DVDs with my 2001 system, having 1.5GB RAM and a PIV of 1.7GHz with on-board VGA chip. The only additions were a server HDD and a SATA card.
One doesn't need to invest 2000€ in a latest technology PC just to rip a few discs (it may be feasible only after ripping 200 discs - otherwise you'll be much cheaper served buying twice the originals).

However from other posts of yours it looks like you're not only ripping, you're converting them, too. In that case you should invest in a faster CPU + chipset + RAM. Maybe an above-the-average nVidia card, if you plan using CUDA or use the PC as a player.

olyteddy

4th February 2012, 00:36

If you're compressing too Sandy Bridge is really quick especially for encoders that utilize Quick Sync. Badaboom (http://badaboomit.com/) is one such transcoder. I get around 360 FPS conversion on an i7 2600 (DVD to x264).

vrpatilisl

6th February 2012, 12:31

I have decided for i 5 2500k , is it okay?

varekai

6th February 2012, 13:29

I have decided for i 5 2500k , is it okay?

There's no hyperthreading in i5, which will improve CPU intensive tasks like encoding.

i5 2500k is a very good CPU and great value for it's price, the i7 2600k is better but more expensive.

Here's a thorough comparision of CPU's:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

ramicio

6th February 2012, 15:04

varekai

6th February 2012, 16:25

QuickSync is for decoding. Decoding is such a minimal task, anyway, I don't see the need for acceleration. Could there be a QuickSync decoder/indexer in the future, like DGDecNV? I find no use for a video card anymore, and even though I can decode them with FFMPEG to encode, I have no way of looking at elementary streams anymore, to figure out cropping. I bought an i5-2500k mistakenly not seeing it didn't have HT. I could care less, now, as it was never going to be used for encoding. My i7-970 is being used for encoding, and would still probably smoke an i7-2600k at encoding. That CPU benchmark site is utter crap. Go and compare the desktop CPUs to dual and quad socket systems. The dual socket systems barely outshine the consumer crap, which is totally unrealistic in the real world.

Utter crap? Really? In your opinion is this any better for comparision?

i7-970 vs i7-2600k
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/157?vs=287

i7-970 vs i5-2500k
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/157?vs=288

i7-2600k vs i5-2500k
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/287?vs=288

Try this and see what results you get:
http://www.maxon.net/downloads/cinebench.html

ramicio

6th February 2012, 16:33

Yes, those are better, because you will notice they test actual applications, whereas that cpubenchmark.net is ONLY a Passmark benchmark. All benchmarks favor newer CPUs just to toe a corporate line. You will notice, in practicality, that the 970 beats the 2600k in x264 encoding. In the first pass the Sandy Bridge only wins because of the higher clock speed, but when real load is put on it, cores is what matters. I'd like to know if they specify the amount of cores or let x264 automatically decide that. I wonder if they are using a 64-bit chain, as well. Cinebench is a 3D rendering test. Get a professional video card like a Quadro and watch the CPU numbers look quite pathetic. Even, again, multithreaded, the 970 wins there. That cpubenchmark site is crap. If you want to know how your CPU will perform in a specific area, STAY AWAY from generic benchmarks like that. But even that Anandtech site sucks, in that they don't bother testing any dual or quad socket systems. A dual socket Xeon system is not something to be unheard of in a workstation, and stuff like this is even now breaking into the nerdier home users, like myself, but I can only dream about being able to afford that stuff.

Ghitulescu

6th February 2012, 16:43

ramicio

6th February 2012, 16:53

All computers have now passed the line of simple performance. For some light user who just browses, checks e-mail, and basically just lives online, they don't need much. Even something like an Atom is enough for those users. It is probably because the internet world is stuck in a great bandwidth depression (to control the people and the content they get, and because ISP CEOs are greedy and would rather take some profit now and fail later than the re-invest some money into building their network), so everything in that world does not need much computational power.

varekai

6th February 2012, 20:13

@ramicio

So, got any ideas on a CPU comparision site that's not utter crap and doesn't suck?

ramicio

6th February 2012, 20:59

That Anandtech seems decent, I just wished they delved into professional hardware a bit. There is a x264 benchmark out there at some Tech ARP place, but even that seems skewed, and looks like it's an x86 chain. The Xeons there are lower in the results than the consumer hardware, which I don't think would be realistic.

hello_hello

7th February 2012, 04:08

I don't have any of them, but I remember well the times when I did such comparisons and all were more or less irrelevant (my tuned, non-over-clocked 200MHz Pentium I MMX based computer was faster than or equal to any PII I tested at all usual tasks, except pure CPU tasks like computing 65536!). There are a lot of other factors that must be taken into account besides the CPU. Since that experiment I don't pay attention at all to sys indexes and stuff, what I look for is to be solid built. In a certain price range all computers will have more or less the same performance. Higher performance require far less extra money than stability.

Seems like you're offering an odd generalization which has little to do with PCs built this century, modern CPUs or video encoding.
How do you "tune" a PC if you're not overclocking it? When it comes to comparing CPUs as old as those, you might have been comparing hard drive speed more than CPU speed. What sort of tasks did you perform to make comparisons?
How do define a "solid build"? What do you look for?

I have two PCs here. The only hardware difference between them (when it comes to encoding) is the CPU. Same motherboard, same RAM, same BUS speed, same CPU clock speed. One's a quad core, the other's a dual core. Neither support hyperthreading. When it comes to X264 encoding, there's no competition between them. The quadcore is at least twice as fast.

hello_hello

7th February 2012, 04:31

@ramicio

So, got any ideas on a CPU comparision site that's not utter crap and doesn't suck?

Sometimes it's just not worth banging your head against a wall. Once some people have made up their mind, whether they've personally tested a CPU or not.....

Here's two more benchmarks which indicate a 970 hardly smokes a 2600k when it comes to x264 encoding.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/Video-Transcode-Handbrake-MPEG-2-to-H.264,2421.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/Video-Transcode-Mainconcept-Reference-v2.0-MPEG-2-to-H.264-AVC,2424.html

For some encoding tasks, it seems like the 970 is slower.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/Audio-Encoding-Lame-3.98.3-wav-to-mp3-Audio,2423.html

Ghitulescu

7th February 2012, 06:55

Seems like you're offering an odd generalization which has little to do with PCs built this century, modern CPUs or video encoding.
How do you "tune" a PC if you're not overclocking it? When it comes to comparing CPUs as old as those, you might have been comparing hard drive speed more than CPU speed. What sort of tasks did you perform to make comparisons?
How do define a "solid build"? What do you look for?

I have two PCs here. The only hardware difference between them (when it comes to encoding) is the CPU. Same motherboard, same RAM, same BUS speed, same CPU clock speed. One's a quad core, the other's a dual core. Neither support hyperthreading. When it comes to X264 encoding, there's no competition between them. The quadcore is at least twice as fast.

There is no change in the laws of physics during centuries. As I don't care about reencoding I don't care about the last cry in CPUs.

Two factory-identical Ferrarris cannot reach the same time the finish line - the difference lies in the pilots. The power of multithreading lies in the SO - how well can Windows manage to distribute the tasks between the cores, and the SW must support it too.

A badly written SO/SW can make a quad-core perform slower than an honest single-core CPU (this happened actually with the HT technology).

---

Solid built means stable, mechanical and electrical, like business PCs and laptops. They are not over-clocked (sometimes under-clocked) and use tested components.

varekai

7th February 2012, 09:02

Sometimes it's just not worth banging your head against a wall. Once some people have made up their mind, whether they've personally tested a CPU or not.....

Here's two more benchmarks which indicate a 970 hardly smokes a 2600k when it comes to x264 encoding.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/Video-Transcode-Handbrake-MPEG-2-to-H.264,2421.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/Video-Transcode-Mainconcept-Reference-v2.0-MPEG-2-to-H.264-AVC,2424.html

For some encoding tasks, it seems like the 970 is slower.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/Audio-Encoding-Lame-3.98.3-wav-to-mp3-Audio,2423.html

Thanks for the info! Now the OP has got some useful tests to consider when getting a new CPU.
I knew the performance of the i7-2600K would be great, lots of documentation on that.
It's interesting to see how well the i5-2500K performs without hyperthreading, great value for money!

regards

ramicio

7th February 2012, 15:53

Lame is more of an indicator of clock speed. It only runs a single thread. Still wins, but barely is not really a valid argument. People are vehement about how the 1366 platform is dead and utter crap, while newer technology scaled down the core count and performance. Clock a 970 to 3.4 GHz and it would likely equal the 2600k in single-threaded applications. Plus the 1155 platforms are utter crap as an offering for PCI-e lanes. They will finally have something in the LGA-2011 when they go to 6 or 8 cores. Plus all these tests are likely the x86 versions of all of this software. It would be interesting to see them test an x64 chain, but that's unlikely.

hello_hello

7th February 2012, 20:59

There is no change in the laws of physics during centuries. As I don't care about reencoding I don't care about the last cry in CPUs.

Whether you care about re-encoding is irrelevant. That's what's being discussed, not opening a word document with a Pentium 2.
If you don't care about a subject, why post? Surely there's a forum dedicated to non re-encoding computer tasks such as checking email where your claims might have a chance at relevance.

Two factory-identical Ferrarris cannot reach the same time the finish line - the difference lies in the pilots. The power of multithreading lies in the SO - how well can Windows manage to distribute the tasks between the cores, and the SW must support it too.

A badly written SO/SW can make a quad-core perform slower than an honest single-core CPU (this happened actually with the HT technology).

So? This means we can't discuss the difference in encoding speed of various CPUs why exactly?

Solid built means stable, mechanical and electrical, like business PCs and laptops. They are not over-clocked (sometimes under-clocked) and use tested components.

Well there's no surprises there. Likewise there's no surprise you ignored the question on the Ghitulescu method of "tuning" a PC.

hello_hello

7th February 2012, 21:25

Lame is more of an indicator of clock speed. It only runs a single thread. Still wins, but barely is not really a valid argument.

20% isn't "barely" faster by any definition.
But if you're trying to argue a 970 is faster than a 2600k at video encoding, "barely" is all you've got.

Clock a 970 to 3.4 GHz and it would likely equal the 2600k in single-threaded applications.

Well apparently.... although it's just a rumor I heard.... the 2600k can be overclocked too.

Plus the 1155 platforms are utter crap as an offering for PCI-e lanes. They will finally have something in the LGA-2011 when they go to 6 or 8 cores. Plus all these tests are likely the x86 versions of all of this software. It would be interesting to see them test an x64 chain, but that's unlikely.

You keep referring to x64 testing as though it's going to reveal the huge speed advantage of the 970 nobody has noticed until now. Do you have a logical reason for suspecting the 970 is going to start outperforming the 2600k running x264 software, or are you hoping if you mention it enough we'll all assume that's going to be the case for no apparent reason?

ramicio

8th February 2012, 01:27

I mention x64 because it will show what both CPUs on the bleeding edge of what they can really do, that's all. Using a 64-bit processor to gauge how 32-bit tasks do is kind of a waste, not in general, but really when there is a 64-bit software option available. It's still amazing that people suck the teat of the Sandy Bridge, while it has barely any PCI-e lanes, is a newer platform, and still can't perform at the level of an i7-970, which wasn't even the top of the line CPU. The 970 doesn't even have an unlocked multiplier, while every K processor does, so those overclocks can't be compared. Still, clock for clock, the 1366 platform is equal in single threads, and in multi-threaded stuff, smokes the 1155 platform. Now the 2011 platform really looks promising. Especially when the Ivy Bridges will come out.

Even with my distaste for the SB, I just recently went with one for my desktop (MicroATX, 2500k). I like not needing a video card, and the quietness of this low power system. The i7-970 is going to be put in a rack case for encoding and file serving, until I can afford a dual 1366 server board and Supermicro chassis. By then, the 1366 Xeons and boards should come down a lot, once the 2011 Xeons get released.

I guess tested components can only come in computers you buy in a store. I guess every part that is sold separately just leaves the factories untested. This is not the 1990s. Everything pretty much works together anymore. The internet has greatly helped with this. If something major doesn't work right, someone can report it instantly, and then a new BIOS release follows shortly after. We don't need to be setting jumpers and toggling DIP switches to set IRQs anymore, and still not have it function.

hello_hello

8th February 2012, 03:49

It's still amazing that people suck the teat of the Sandy Bridge, while it has barely any PCI-e lanes, is a newer platform, and still can't perform at the level of an i7-970, which wasn't even the top of the line CPU.

What's to be amazed at? It comes down to price vs performance.

The 970 doesn't even have an unlocked multiplier, while every K processor does, so those overclocks can't be compared.

Of course they can. Just because the 970 doesn't have an unlocked multiplier, it doesn't mean overclocking abilities should be removed from any comparisons. You're the one who brought up the subject of overclocking, but now you want a take-back.

Still, clock for clock, the 1366 platform is equal in single threads, and in multi-threaded stuff, smokes the 1155 platform.

"Clock for clock"? So we can't compare overclocking, but an overclocked 1366 CPU vs a stock 1155 CPU is a fair comparison? How about we either compare them both at stock speeds, or see what they'll both do when overclocked, because that's really a separate discussion.
None of those Tom's Hardware benchmarks indicate the 970 "smokes" the 2600k as a general rule at stock speeds, and while the 980 and 990 could be considered faster at some tasks, they're also in a different price bracket. According to my (admittedly 5 month old) price list, the 980 costs nearly twice as much as the 2600k while the 990 is just silly expensive.
When it comes to looking at encoding benchmarks (as encoding is what we're all really interested in) even the 980 appears to offer little gain over the 2600k for a lot of extra money.
The 960 is around the same price as a 2600k but doesn't match it for performance in any of the benchmarks I looked at.

Even with my distaste for the SB, I just recently went with one for my desktop (MicroATX, 2500k). I like not needing a video card, and the quietness of this low power system.

So even though it still amazes you people do it, you decided to "suck the teat of the Sandy Bridge" yourself? Maybe when you chose a 2500 for your new desktop, you weighed performance against price just like the rest of us, which included the advantage of not needing an additional video card.

Monica-cc

8th February 2012, 10:05

CPU: Intel Celeron 400Mz
System Memory:64Mb RAM
DVD-ROM; DVD writer
A DVD ripper
That's enough for ripping DVD / BD and a player plus for HD playback.

Ghitulescu

8th February 2012, 10:17

Whether you care about re-encoding is irrelevant. That's what's being discussed, not opening a word document with a Pentium 2.

It's not discussed here. Read the question again. It's the ripping that's discussed. For ripping one need the lowest CPU accepted by a mainboard with a SATA connector (there is only one BD-drive on ATAPI) and the minimum in RAM required by the ripping software (say AnyDVD or DVDfab or DVDdecrypter or etc etc etc). And a HDD big enough to hold twice the medium size, a superfluous issue nowadays.

It's irrelevant for this topic whether you reencode using x264 or not.

But again you managed to deviate a thread from its original purpose, and as usual you tried to blame someone else for this.