Dream system?

[scifiguy]

If you could put together your own system with the best/fastest components currently on the market (best=fastest machine to backup DVDs), what would you select?

What software would you choose?

[The Geek]

1) Plextor PX-716A
2) DVD Decrypter

Using DVD Decrypter in ISO Mode to rip and burn to DVD. The Plextor 716 will burn quite fast, it'll need about 25 minutes to burn a DVD+R DL.

The Geek

[scifiguy]

Plextor's are running about $140 now. Sounds reasonable.
How about the CPU, box, memory, and Hard Drives?

Originally posted by The Geek
1) Plextor PX-716A
2) DVD Decrypter

Using DVD Decrypter in ISO Mode to rip and burn to DVD. The Plextor 716 will burn quite fast, it'll need about 25 minutes to burn a DVD+R DL.

The Geek

[The Geek]

How about the CPU, box, memory, and Hard Drives?

Don't matter. They're all fast enough. Actually only the hard drive matters, and all current ones are fast enough.

The Geek

[Mug Funky]

hehe.. i beg to differ.

try clicking on firefox accidentally while burning at 6x.

NTFS is atrocious for fragmantation, so if you back up a lot of discs, you'll have a very fragged disc, and this can affect your burns.

non-volatile memory is getting faster, more stable and cheaper. hopefully soon we'll be able to replace our hard discs with these (after all, the basic design for a hard-disk is exceedingly old in computing terms, though that just proves it's a pretty good design).

[Sirber]

My box with a GF 6800 GT AGP8x :D

WS: AMD64 3000+, 1GB DDR400 D-C, GF4 TI4200-8x, 16x NEC 3500-AG RPC1
SRV: http://www.detritus.qc.ca/info/

[neo75903]

Apple! :)

[aaron10]

I just bought the PX-716UF, which is the external version of the PX-716A. I'm quite pleased with it so far. It is blazing fast reading...averages about 6 minutes to rip a DVD movie with DVD Decrypter. Depending on the media speed, the burn can be fast and I have not had an error yet. I've used a Maxell DVD+R (rated at 4X), a Fuji DVD-R (rated at 2.4X), a Ritek DVD+RW (rated at 2.4X), a Verbatim DVD+R (rated at 16X) and a Verbatim DVD+R (rated at 8X).

In an earlier post here, I read some negative comments on both the read and write quality of the PX-716A. The recommedation was to steer clear of it and opt for a Pioneer DVR-A08. I then read a few articles with similar criticisms of the DVR-A08. I scouted around and found lots of good comments from folks who had the PX-716, so I went with it and am so far quite pleased.

I do not encounter the CD-RW issue that is mentioned in this article. I popped in a few Maxell CD-RW's that I have and they are all read properly.

http://www.benscustomcases.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=568

To shorten things, if you don't intend to get over there to read the article. He gave it a 9.3 out of 10. His only criticism was the CD-RW problem that I can't reproduce. His conclusion...

"Before the PX-712A drive was released, Plextor told me that at that time they had no intention of supporting the Dual-Layer format or even writing at 16x until things could be improved. With Plextor's "Media Quality Check" and Autostrategy features, things have been improved. This drive seems to be able to write good quality disks at 16x on 16x media, Verbatim 12x media and even Taiyo Yuden 8X media. That is a feat in itself. What's more, it produces high quality disks in under 6:00 minutes. Not bad at all."

[lukezter]

I have a box with a +1700 AMD Athlon and I just bought a LG GSA-4163B
which reads and burns all formats including double layer (8.5 GB). I am quite happy with the product and it is quite fast using DVDDecrypter. Also, LG puts out firmware upgrades for their burners once in a while which is also cool. Otherwise, just make sure you have a lot of room on your HD as these files are gluttons for space. Someone also mentioned that NTSC has a bad habit of fragmenting. What do you mean by this? Does that mean I should defrag my drive more than the once a day I already do?

Lukezter

[Sergei_Esenin]

Given the expense of dual layer media and the falling prices of hard drives, I'm surprised more people haven't opted to switch to just using hard disks. My dream system doesn't need to burn DVDs except for portability; it rips to hard drives in hot-swap enclosures. :cool: That's what I do currently, and it's terribly convenient to swap in a hard drive enclosure that has 250GB of movies instead of using tiny capacity discs. For huge DVD box sets like LOTR and TV series, it's killer--swapping discs is a pain, but having it all a few clicks away is bliss...

[lukezter]

I wish I had the $$ for more HDs as I agree with you on the ease factor. But,unfortunately, I don't have the $ and besides, I love playing my DVDs on my TV thru my Digital Surround rather than on my box.

Thanx anyways,

Lukezter

[Sergei_Esenin]

Originally posted by lukezter
I wish I had the $$ for more HDs as I agree with you on the ease factor. But,unfortunately, I don't have the $ and besides, I love playing my DVDs on my TV thru my Digital Surround rather than on my box.

Thanx anyways,

Lukezter

Hehe, I'm surprisingly poor for a guy who uses mostly HD instead of DVD, but when I realized I could get HD for only about 2x or less the price/GB of quality blank DVDs, I decided it was for me. :D

As for set-top DVD players--check out the HTPC forum at the AVSForum website. You can get much higher quality DVD playback from a PC to a TV than with a set-top DVD player. I replaced all my usual A/V components like DVD player and receiver (except for old stuff like VCR and laserdisc player, and old receiver for LP phono preamp) with one HTPC that gives me upscaled video and true 7.1 surround. It isn't for everyone, but for me it was perfect. Even on a very tight budget I built a system that integrates DVD and live TV and internet video into a single interface that impresses guests whenever they see it on my projector TV system. It was all controlled by a Remote Wonder remote control at first, but I replaced it with a wireless trackball with a few labelled function keys and guests like it.

If anyone finds such things interesting, check out the HTPC section of AVSforum. It isn't ideal for everyone, but many love it...

[manono]

Hi-

You can get much higher quality DVD playback from a PC to a TV than with a set-top DVD player.

You care to elaborate on that? Of course, HTPCs can play every format under the sun, whereas a standalone can't, but you specifically mentioned DVD playback. So, I'm curious in what ways an HTPC is better than a good Progressive Scan DVD player outputting to a Progressive display. You did mention upscaling, but there are plenty of upscaling DVD players, with more on the way.

[Sergei_Esenin]

Originally posted by manono
So, I'm curious in what ways an HTPC is better than a good Progressive Scan DVD player outputting to a Progressive display. You did mention upscaling, but there are plenty of upscaling DVD players, with more on the way.

Well, you don't have to look far on the HTPC Forum (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=26) at AVS to find discussion threads filled with people who've compared the most expensive hardware DVD players to HTPC DVD playback and favored the latter. The forum is populated with A/V professionals and PQ perfectionists in addition to regular joes, and they're always comparing the results of the newest software decoders and finding new winners.

Set-top DVD players are also improving, but of course every time you want the new "best quality" hardware player it'll cost you $250-$1000 more instead of the $0-100 it'll cost to upgrade your software filters. And ignoring that, there's one thing no set-top DVD player will ever do: apply filters through ffdshow RAW video and Avisynth during playback for not just superior 4-tap or 10-tap upscaling that beats the simplistic bilinear or bicubic upscaling done by most hardware DVD players, but also filters to reverse DCT artifacting, halos and overzealous edge-enhancement, subtly boost contrast and sharpness, etc. There have been $20,000 hardware
video processors (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=37) in the recent past which didn't do that much that well. Heck, there are $2000 hardware video processors available now that can't give results much better than Undot(), Unfilter(), and some simplistic color/contrast manipulation would. But on the PC it's far more powerful than on any DVD player or most video processors, and all 100% configurable to the user's tastes, which in itself ensures superiority to a hardware solution with some simplified presets. No hardware DVD player can be custom-configured to tweak and enhance every aspect of the image to the viewer's tastes. Not just that, but specialized playback software like ZoomPlayer can be configured to tailor several aspects on a title-by-title basis, and mix-and-match audio and video decoders. There's full and granular control.

The best part though is the complete upgradeability at low or no cost. There are *always* PQ advancements, and upgrading a top-of-the-line hardware STB every 6 months to get them would prove prohibitively expensive for most. Upgrading a standalone video processor is an even larger investment undertaken less frequently. Upgraded capabilities are cheap or free on the PC.

For example, some of the best picture quality offered right now comes from the experimental alpha Dscaler 5 MPEG-2 decoder, which when completed will be integrated with the current Dscaler 4 deinterlacing codebase for a completely automatic film/video detection which will eliminate the issues associated with hybrid film/video content (like TV shot on film/edited and special-effected on video, some anime, etc.), poorly flagged DVDs, and other annoyances. Even players with Faroudja chips aren't as good as Dscaler 4 at that, and if one with improved abilities in that area were released it would be a major, costly upgrade. Cost of experimental Dscaler 5 MPEG-2 decoder: $0. Probable cost of the full package when it's integrated with Dscaler 4's adaptive deinterlacing: $0. Even buying the current "top of the line" leader for commercial MPEG-2 decoder quality, NVDVD, is inexpensive compared to buying the current "top of the line" hardware DVD player, for obvious reasons.

Even ignoring economics and upgrades, though, the PC has some of the best quality decoder output and the improvements of ffdshow RAW and Avisynth filtering during playback can only be equalled or exceeded by some very expensive standalone video processors. Bottom line: sure, a $50 set-top DVD player is good enough for most people. But if you want the best picture quality you can squeeze from a DVD for critical viewing on a big screen, you have to either spend thousands of dollars on a reference-quality DVD player and hardware video processor, or use a PC with good combinations of software.

[gadh]

I'm using a AMD Athlon XP (Barton) 3200+ with a Plextor 708A (I'm thinking of an upgrade to the new 716 - but DL-Discs are very expensive)
512 MB (Dual-Channel) and three 80 GB WD with 8 MB Cache are fast an enough to rip DVDs.

Maybe you get a lot of more speed using the DVDRebuilder and CCE with an AMD64 oder an P4E but you have to pay a lot too. I'm ripping 3-5 DVDs per month so who cares about a lost hour.

A Drem-Machine would be:
AMD64 3400+
1 GB RAM
SATA Harddisk with 16MB Cache
Plextor 716A
and d good ripping DVD-Drive

[manono]

Hi Sergei-

Thank you for the long and detailed reply. Unless you had all that information already stored in your head, it must have taken you some time to gather and write it all down, and I much appreciate it.

Yes, I know about the AVS Forums, and I might have to spend some serious reading time in the HTPC forum, whereas, until now I've visited only the DVD Player and Rear Projection forums.

Although I knew there were different degrees of upscaling, the DVD Player I had was said to be one of the best, and I've never had any complaints myself. Looked good, but I've never compared it to that done by a good HTPC.

My main objection to HTPCs has to do with the quality of the software players used. Now, I know nothing about the new NVidea player; nor do I know anything about the newest DScaler decoder. Traditionally, the software players pretty much crap out on anything other than properly flagged progressive material. They just deinterlace it, and the deinterlacers aren't nearly as good as the Faroudja's DCDi. I understand that even the finest AviSynth deinterlacing filters don't do as good a job deinterlacing. So, for example, hard telecined interlaced encoded DVDs, of which there are many, get deinterlaced by the software players, whereas a standalone with a Faroudja chipset can detect the 3:2 pulldown pattern and return the progressive frames. It also handles well the other difficult DVDs that you mentioned (improper flagging, hybrids, bad edits, and the like), returning progressive frames when possible, and deinterlacing well when necessary.

In any event, it looks like I've some reading and catching up to do, and I thank you again for your reply.

[Sergei_Esenin]

Yeah, I'm an HTPC nut, so that was all just off the top of my head. It's been a few months since I've extensively read the HTPC forum though, so I might be out of date! ;) That's what I love about it though--every few months there's always some incremental improvement to be had. Anyone not interested in PC DVD playback, skip this post, because it's about to get long and bloody. :devil:

Anyway, most people into HTPC DVD playback tend to fall into one or two of three camps:

1) Zoomplayer
2) Theatertek
3) PDI card + Dscaler

Zoomplayer is basically a very configurable frontend/backend application that doesn't have its own DVD decoder filters--you configure it to use your own. NVDVD's filters are probably the best commercial ones, and the Dscaler 5 alpha MPEG-2 filters are probably even better but aren't full-featured yet; when they are I believe the plan is that they'll be combined with Dscaler 4's deinterlacing engine for better-than-DCDi adaptive deinterlacing. Zoomplayer allows manual setting of filter priorities and easy filter switching and renderer selection, with most people preferring the look and color vibrance of VMR9 Renderless mode. Ffdshow RAW and Avisynth filters can be used for upscaling/denoising/DCT artifact reversal/etc. One trick people have experimented with and most like is to do a Lanczos4Resize to a much *larger* resolution than the display, and let the video card do a simpler hardware downscale to the display res--which has the effect of eliminating any residual aliasing while maintaining details. Advantage: easy use of favorite "current best" filters and no need to use different interfaces to use the filters that come with different player apps; much better upscaling aglorithms and filtering than any hardware DVD player. Disadvantage: until Dscaler 5's alpha MPEG-2 decoders are combined with Dscaler 4's deinterlacing engine, no filters have bad pulldown/mixed content detection equal to or better than hardware Faroudja DCDi, though you can still get "good enough" pulldown detection for most filters and titles.

Theatertek is a more traditional DVD player app that comes with its own decoder filters instead of being a frontend for other decoders. Advanced audio playback filters are included and the interface is very refined and well-designed for use on a large widescreen display. You can still process the video using ffdshow RAW and Avisynth. Advantage: less configuration than Zoomplayer because it has its own decoders. Disadvantage: less configuration than Zoomplayer.

PDI cards are used to digitally input the already-decoded DVD stream from a hardware DVD player, which can be either an external DVD player equipped with a PDI mod or an internal REALmagic Xcard. They're usually combined with the Dscaler 4 viewing application software for very advanced pulldown detection and deinterlacing which is superior to Faroudja DCDi and offers a huge choice of video-mode deinterlacing options including both motion-compensated and non-motion-compensated. Dscaler viewing offers its own internal filters for some video processing tasks as well as an ffdshow plugin. Advantage: better-than-DCDi deinterlacing with many internal filters and an ffdshow plugin, and choice of hardware DVD player. Disadvantage: not as configurable as Zoomplayer, relies on expensive hardware for DVD playback and input, and hopefully the advanced deinterlacing of Dscaler 4 will be useable by the Dscaler 5 MPEG-2 decoder when it's further developed.

There are many other PC DVD playback choices in lesser use though. Some use the MyHD MDP-120 HDTV capture card as a DVD player too, which is basically like having a hardware-upscaling DVD player in a PCI slot with a passthrough VGA or DVI in/output. Some use expensive Holo3Dgraph or even more expensive Holo3Dgraph-II cards for DVD input and scaling or Dscaler viewing; these cards include a built-in Faroudja DCDi chip. At the lower end of both cost and configurability, some are happy just using WinDVD or another consumer player. Just as in the hardware DVD player world, there's a whole range of options--but the options extend into far more advanced video processing. :sly:

[SeeMoreDigital]

Some of the point's raised are indeed interesting!

Personally speaking I've always been more than a little pissed off that "so called" digital devices (DVD players and DVB set-top boxes etc), have not been fitted with say, DVI output sockets and therefore capable of outputting a pure digital video stream.... but maybe that's just me!

We are now being told that HDMI is the new way forward because it can carry both digital video and audio signals down the same lead... But I have to admit I'm more sceptical, in my opinion this socket offers nothing more than the possibility of introducing new levels of encryption as a way to appease certain parties of the A/V industry!

How about moving topic over to the "Hardware Players" section?


Cheers

[Sirber]

Originally posted by Sergei_Esenin
Given the expense of dual layer media and the falling prices of hard drives, I'm surprised more people haven't opted to switch to just using hard disks. My dream system doesn't need to burn DVDs except for portability; it rips to hard drives in hot-swap enclosures. :cool: That's what I do currently, and it's terribly convenient to swap in a hard drive enclosure that has 250GB of movies instead of using tiny capacity discs. For huge DVD box sets like LOTR and TV series, it's killer--swapping discs is a pain, but having it all a few clicks away is bliss... It's good to have both: DVD as backup and HDD for daily uses. Filesystem crash is sad...