VERY SLOW DVD- ROM LOAD TIMES WITH VSL???

[scores4film]

I have a 16x dvd rom in one of my giga machines. It takes a least an hour to load a single DVD of VSL. My other machine was much quicker than this. Does this amount of time sound correct for a 16x Dvd- rom

Thanks,

Colin

[Peter Alexander]

No, it doesn't. We've tested several DVD ROM Drives, and on average, you should be able to load a single DVD of VSL in about 15 -20 minutes. Some shorter, some longer. The whole library should be installable in about 5 hours.

[brownhunter]

Colin,

I found out some interesting things about my DVD-Rom set up recently dealing with speed and how to improve it.

You may have read an earlier posting from last week I had about a scratched disk, etc. The nice folks at ILIO sent me a couple replacement CD-ROMs with the files I couldn't transfer. (thanks!)

My old DVD-ROM drive (Pioneer, 105s) had stopped working when a disk was inserted. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. BUT when it did work, it yes, took an hour or even longer to offload a full VSL DVD onto my hard drive. Consequently the Pioneer 105s, was rated at 16x DVD speed.

I upgraded DVD drives to the Pioneer 106s, the next logical model of the line. The 106s is MUCH quieter; the 105s was like an old Volkswagen in first gear, up hill.

BUT this new drive also features the IDE ATA/66 capability, which means improved transfer speed. As I have a Promise ATA/133 IDE expansion card in my computer to allow me to add more hard drives, I came up with the bright idea of putting the new ATA/66 DVD drive on one of the Promise ATA/133 channels. (Btw, the pioneer 106s is also rated at so called "16x DVD", but that doesn't mean anything unless you have the right IDE hook up, I think.)

AMAZING speed now.

Also note, if you use ATA/33-66-133, you need an 80 pin IDE cable that is specifically designed for such designation (ATA 33,66,133, etc.)

The IDE cables that come with your computer most likely are not 80 pin. Look around at a computer parts retailer, and they'll hook you up with a the correct cable, and perhaps an ATA/66 DVD drive.

Anyhow, the Pioneer 106s is only $60 American, and the cable, about $8.50 bucks. As I already had an ATA/133 expansion boad (PCI slot, etc), I didn't need to upgrade. You need to have an ATA/33/66/133 IDE channel capable motherboard, or expansion board in order to get this speed.

My system loads VSL DVD's now in under 20 minutes (or quicker). Other strategies of putting your hard drives on a channel close to the DVD-Rom drive (maybe even the same channel as master with DVD as slave) can increase transfer times I bet. (You can look at various digital audio work station building techniques online that talk about IDE assignment, etc.)

So it's all relative on your system set up. My old DVD rom was the best of 2000. Here in 2003 and upgrades I cut the transfer speed to 1/3 the old time. To think, back in 2000 the state of the art then pioneer 105s DVD-Rom drive was like $170. Hardware is quicker and cheaper now!

-Hunter

[cm]

the speed does of course depend on the nominal speed of your DVD-drive, but:
some of the VSL-DVD's ar double-layer (two data-layers readable from one side in a different depth) - if your DVD-drive is somehow dusty (e.g. you smoke, ect) or has a certain age, the error-correction during the read-process get's busy (in worst case a message, that a CRC-error occured or the medium is not readable)
i had to clean my 2 years old drive before i could read the second layer

of course a brandnew drive has a well adjusted head and is perfectly clean, so you will not expect read-errors or slow copying
christian