Ripping with Two DVD Drives

[mukkamart]

Here's the thing - I'm running Vista 32bit and AnyDVD 6.1.2.5. I have two DVD drives on one IDE channel - master and slave. Both drives do all that they should - read, write etc. But the Master (Philips SPD2400L1) will not allow a DVD to be ripped and the Slave (LG GSA-H22N) will. Neither have a region selcted in Windows.

Could be an IDE Driver issue but all other functions seem to be fine so it looks unlikely. Both drives are listed and checked in AnyDVD Drive Selection.

I am pretty sure this used to work fine in XP so I just wondered if there were any bright ideas or if this is by design in the latest AnyDVD version.

Any thoughts much appreciated

Mukkamart

[Webslinger]

I have two DVD drives on one IDE channel - master and slave.

Are these the only optical drives in your system? If you want one to read and the other to write--never have them share the same cable (unless you enjoy taking your time to do accomplish the task).

[mukkamart]

Indeed - these are the only two optical drives and yes, in my previous installations of XP (not Vista due to various hard disk reasons) I had each on a dedicated IDE channel. Are you effectively saying that AnyDVD will only work on one drive per IDE channel? Not a problem, just like to get to the bottom of these things

[Clams]

See this image for best bitflow in a simple IDE multi-drive setup.

[Webslinger]

Are you effectively saying that AnyDVD will only work on one drive per IDE channel?

No. I'm just saying one should never have one's reader and writer sharing the same IDE cable, period.

[oldjoe]

You might try using CS (Cable Select) instead of the Primary(Master) and Secondary (Slave) jumpers. Vista might prefer that?
I, personally, have never experienced any problems using two optical drives on the same IDE channel but all of my PC's are home built.

[Webslinger]

I, personally, have never experienced any problems using two optical drives on the same IDE channel but all of my PC's are home built.

That's just bad form, because only one device can be active on an ide cable at one time. So if you're reading and writing, you'll be engaging buffer underrun protection of your burner quite frequently, depending on the burning application you're using (and the method, such as, burning on the fly). This was a very common problem when older cd-r burners didn't have buffer underrun protection and had both the reader and writer sharing the same ide channel.

Never have the source and destination sharing the same ide channel.

[Webslinger]

That's just bad form, because only one device can be active on an ide cable at one time. So if you're reading and writing, you'll be engaging buffer underrun protection of your burner quite frequently, depending on the burning application you're using. This was a very common problem when older cd-r burners didn't have buffer underrun protection and had both the reader and writer sharing the same ide channel.

Never have the source and destination sharing the same ide channel.

from http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf_Performance.htm

"The following are some of the issues that you should take into account when configuring multiple IDE/ATA devices, to maximize the performance of your system:

* Master/Slave Channel Sharing: By its very nature, each IDE/ATA channel can only deal with one request, to one device, at a time. You cannot even begin a second request, even to a different drive, until the first request is completed. This means that if you put two devices on the same channel, they must share it. In practical terms, this means that any time one device is in use, the other must remain silent. In contrast, two disks on two different IDE/ATA channels can process requests simultaneously on most motherboards. The bottom line is that the best way to configure multiple devices is to make each of them a single drive on its own channel, if this is possible. (This restriction is one major disadvantage of IDE compared to SCSI). An add-in controller like the Promise "Ultra" series is a cheap way of adding extra IDE/ATA channels to a modern PC."

[oldjoe]

I have 4 PC's....all have two optical drives {both DVDRW) on the Secondary IDE channel. I've used the same setup on many personal PC's, and several retail builds, and have yet to experience any problems.
Again, my PC's are all home built...NO box units.
I will submit that having a HDD and an optical drive on the same IDE is not the ideal setup.

[Webslinger]

I've used the same setup on many personal PC's, and several retail builds, and have yet to experience any problems.


I am not going to get into a long-winded debate about this. The fact remains only one device can be active at one time on an ide channel. If you share source and destination drives on the same channel, you may experience

1) poor quality burns (due to engaging buffer underrun protection on your burners); burning on the fly is especially horrible if you share source and destination drives on the same ide channel

and

2) poor transfer rates

Experienced gamers and experienced burners know not to share source and destination devices on the same ide channel (big, big, big problem with inexperienced burners before the Plextor PX-WT1210TA cd-rw writer was released)

If you wish to disagree, that's fine. I'm not responding further.

[oldjoe]

I respect your opinion and I will not argue the point either. I related my experiences, as a PC builder, and what has always worked my customers and myself. I have over 1000 quality backups using the setup that I described.

[Webslinger]

I respect your opinion and I will not argue the point either. I related my experiences, as a PC builder, and what has always worked my customers and myself. I have over 1000 quality backups using the setup that I described.

My apologies . . . I probably shouldn't have been so gruff in my replies.

If you burn on the fly when the source and destination drives are the same, the problem that I mentioned will become extremely pronounced.

Anyway, take care

[oldjoe]

My apologies . . . I probably shouldn't have been so gruff in my replies.

If you burn on the fly when the source and destination drives are the same, the problem that I mentioned will become extremely pronounced.

Anyway, take care

No apology necessary but thank you for the gesture.

[Clams]

And I'm afraid as a longtime builder (since the 80's), I'm gonna come down on Webslingers side on this one. If you look at my diagram upthread, you'll see that ripping, burning, and disc to disc copying are all done "cross-channel". I'm not saying Joe's stuff won't work, I'm just saying that *everyone* I've ever read says to move the data across the channels, not to two devices on the same channel. And it makes sence if you apply logic to it.

And my bonus for using 2 hard drives: Doing redux of a disk already ripped to the HD isn't forcing the same drive to go crazy with reads and writes.

-W

[RAMROD]

if using same ide channel for 2 drives you would need to write to your hdd then when finished write to the other but copying on the fly with only one cable could cause bad backups

[mencan]

The fact remains only one device can be active at one time on an ide channel. If you share source and destination drives on the same channel, you may experience

1) poor quality burns (due to engaging buffer underrun protection on your burners); burning on the fly is especially horrible if you share source and destination drives on the same ide channel

and

2) poor transfer rates

Experienced gamers and experienced burners know not to share source and destination devices on the same ide channel (big, big, big problem with inexperienced burners before the Plextor PX-WT1210TA cd-rw writer was released)

If you wish to disagree, that's fine. I'm not responding further.


I also must concure that Webslinger is right on the money here. I found what he is saying to be true back in the mid 90's when building my first unit. It was thru trial and error that I found and learnt a lot about what to and what not to do.

Good Call ! :agree: :agree: :clap:

Cheer's

[mukkamart]

Well I thank you all for your comments and Clams Canino, thx for the diagram. Always good encourage some lively discussion.

I tried putting the drive on another channel but to no avail. I've got a spare one lying around so I'll give that a go, see what happens, could be a firmware issue.

As for the IDE debate, have to say that I've tried both over the years, quite extensively and whilst I cannot fault Webslingers logic, since buffer underrun appreared a few years ago, on the fly with both drives on the same channel has worked fine. Prepared to accept that it might be a little slower though and probably a little riskier.

[Webslinger]

since buffer underrun appreared a few years ago, on the fly with both drives on the same channel has worked fine.

If the laser is starting and stopping, which it most certainly is, then the burn quality isn't fine; this is recipe for bad burn quality (check pi/po scans).

[Clams]

Well I thank you all for your comments and Clams Canino, thx for the diagram. Always good encourage some lively discussion.

I tried putting the drive on another channel but to no avail. I've got a spare one lying around so I'll give that a go, see what happens, could be a firmware issue.

As for the IDE debate, have to say that I've tried both over the years, quite extensively and whilst I cannot fault Webslingers logic, since buffer underrun appreared a few years ago, on the fly with both drives on the same channel has worked fine. Prepared to accept that it might be a little slower though and probably a little riskier.

Make sure your jumpers are set correctly. I've never had a problem using a hard drive as Master and an optical as Slave on any IDE channel. And that's at least as far back as my P1-233 build. Set the BIOS to auto-detect all 4 drives. My next build is gonna use a couple of big SATA drives as the HD's and the 2 IDE primaries for opticals. I usually partition off about 10-20g as the C: "boot drive" and then the rest is D: and the other HD is E: - been doing it that way for eons now.

With Nero, thanks to the RAM read buffers you CAN do "on the fly" with two opticals on the same channel - but the only way to get a good burn is to go a lot slower than you could cross channel.

-W

[roog]

I'm having great success using SYBA SIL680-RAID IDE Controller Cards. I have 2 of them (with the latest Silicon Image bios and drivers) installed on an Intel D975XBX2 motherboard running Vista Premium. My DVD writers are 3 LG GSA-H42L drives. I have one connected to the motherboard IDE connector and the other two connected to the primary IDE connector on each of the SYBA controllers.

I am able to rip or burn simultaneously to all three drives without any performance hits. I use AnyDVD and CloneDVD for ripping and Nero for burning. The reason I use Nero is that it allows burning to multiple drives and has a verify option.

[roog]

I should have added that all of my hard drives are on SATA channels.

[Webslinger]

I am able to rip or burn simultaneously to all three drives without any performance hits. .

Yes, because everything is on a separate ide channel, and your hard drives are SATA.

[oldjoe]

Yes, because everything is on a separate ide channel, and your hard drives are SATA.

SATA is, without question, the better setup but PATA is also very capable of transferring data simultaneously with the same accuracy. I rip and burn simultaneously on two PATA optical drives and have yet to see any ill effects on any of my data.

[Webslinger]

Again, if you have both the source and destination ide drives sharing the same channel, only one can be active at one time, which produces inferior burns when burning on the fly (and, in general, it's a bad design decision).

[oldjoe]

And again...... I use both drives at the same time...... both are on the same IDE channel and I have made well over 1000 quality burns.
Bad design? ........every home built or store bought PC that I have ever seen is setup with both optical units on the same IDE channel. Placing an optical unit on the same channel as a HDD would be much a more undesirable situation...IMHO.

[Webslinger]

And again...... I use both drives at the same time...... both are on the same IDE channel and I have made well over 1000 quality burns.


Chances are you are not burning on the fly. Clonedvd2, Shrink, etc., write to the hard drive first (unless you choose "write existing data" in Clonedvd2--but most people don't do this)--and then from the hard drive to your burner. When you're burning on the fly, you don't write everything to the hard drive first. If you're not burning on the fly, this issue is unlikely to affect you--much.

Write at 8x or higher while burning on the fly with the reader on the same ide channel as the writer; the buffer underrun protection of the writer will be engaged every 5-10 seconds. This tends to produce pretty bad quality scans, even if the burn is successful.

Bad design?

Yes

........every home built or store bought PC that I have ever seen is setup with both optical units on the same IDE channel

Not Falcon Northwest . . .
My parents were at one point living in the U.S. and were inquiring about who I thought were good system builders (they didn't mind paying the premium for a well built system with good parts, and I didn't want to have to ship and deal with out of country warranty issues). Falcon called them prior to building their system, and mentioned this exact issue on the Asus m/b they were using at the time (and recommended a good add-on board). My parents called me to ask if the person at Falcon was correct, and I said he was. The person who called them was a very smart system builder.

One simply should not put the destination and source device on the same ide channel--unless there is no other choice (and then you have to start compromising)

Edit: This really is, this time, my last post in this thread (unless something like spam or other moderator type stuff needs my attention here).

[Clams]

Bad design? ........every home built or store bought PC that I have ever seen is setup with both optical units on the same IDE channel.

Then you never even bothered to open my .jpg ?? I'll attach it again. It demonstrates the correct bitflow in a DVD oriented PC. Other stuff might WORK - sure. But this is still the "correct" way to set one up.

[Clams]

By the way... for the life of me.. I'll never know why F: and G: are lettered the way they are in that machine. I thought Primary slave gets a letter before Secondary slave???

I even deleted both drives in device manager and let windows re-discover them. And yep still.... the Primary slave get G:, and the Secondary slave gets F:

-W (used to it by now - a quirk in that machine)

[oldjoe]

By the way... for the life of me.. I'll never know why F: and G: are lettered the way they are in that machine. I thought Primary slave gets a letter before Secondary slave???

I even deleted both drives in device manager and let windows re-discover them. And yep still.... the Primary slave get G:, and the Secondary slave gets F:

-W (used to it by now - a quirk in that machine)

Shut down the PC...disconnect the cable(s) to both drives...reboot and Windows will reassign the drive letters...shutdown PC and reconnect the cable(s).....reboot PC. This "might" put the drives in order.

[oldjoe]

.
Not Falcon Northwest . . .

Now I understand.

[Jason-Alaska]

Not trying to kick a dead horse or stir up old stuff. But this is great info and I searched the net and had trouble finding as much information as there is here. :clap:

So this is just a bump to put this info in front of any others, like myself, who are getting less than 100% on their backups.

I built my system and to save on cables inside the case and help improve airflow only used one IDE cable for both my DVD drives. I will revisit that and see if the change to two IDE cables helps with some of the burn issues I am having. Namely artifacts and skipping.

Thanks to everyone in this (one year old) topic who contributed and helped me to better understand this issue. :bowdown:

[Webslinger]

Namely artifacts and skipping.



Switching ide cables isn't going to help your improve your choice of single layer blank media. And what I wrote with respect to having two
drives sharing the same ide cable is only going to be potentially detrimental if you're burning on the fly. I find it highly unlikely that you are (and if you are, don't).
Here's what you should be using:

CD-Rs = Maxell CD-R Pro (these are Taiyo Yudens with a protective coating), Verbatim Datalife Plus, Taiyo Yuden
DVD±Rs = Maxell Broadcast Quality Series 8x (not regular junk Maxells you find everywhere), Verbatim 8x & 16x, Taiyo Yuden (not Valueline) 8x
DVD+R DLs = Verbatim made in Singapore (not India), MAM-A 8x

Also update your burner's firmware, and don't be burning at 16x or higher to 16x rated blank media.

[oldjoe]

As Webslinger said, changing your cable or setup is not going to help your situation. It appears to be a media problem.
Both drives can be connected to one cable with absolutely no conflicts or problems. All mass producers and every custom builder, that I am aware of, build that way. Every personal and retail build that has gone through my shop is built that way.
Using 40 wire cables, used in older PC's, you MUST use Master and Slave settings on all of drives.
Using 80 wire cable you can use CS (Cable select) with absolutely no problems. Cable Select will allow the MOBO to select the device on the far end of the cable (Black connection) as Primary (Master) and the device connected to the Center (Gray connectoion) as Secondary(Slave).
Most all MOBO's have a maximum of 2 PATA (IDE) connections. Newer boards have only one.
Your HDD(s) should be connected to the #1 (Primary) connection if the MOBO.
Optical devices should be connected to the #2 (Secondary) connection of the MOBO.

[Jason-Alaska]

Well my hard drives are all SATA. Two on the motherboard and two on a separate SATA Raid controller card. Both my DVD drives are on the primary IDE cable and set to a slave/master configuration. I'm old school and never trust cable select.

I know enough to make me dangerous. :disagree:

So would there be any disadvantages to running each DVD drive on its own IDE ribbon since I have the available IDE port on my MOBO? :doh:

[oldjoe]

Cable Select accomplishes the same as Master/ Slave ..........only simpler.
You won't see any difference if you use the vacant IDE channel but it won't hurt anything.

[Webslinger]

You won't see any difference if you use the vacant IDE channel

He will if he ever sends requests at the same time with both devices (burning on the fly is one example). Otherwise, no.
Regardless, I doubt ide channel sharing has anything to do with pixellation and skipping (unless Jason-Alaska is burning on the fly,
and I find that highly unlikely; if that is the case, then simply don't burn on the fly).

[oldjoe]

He will if he ever sends requests at the same time with both devices (burning on the fly is one example).

Possibly but I seriously have my doubts about that. I have never had any reason to run 2 optical devices on different IDE channels so I can't speak with any certainty.

[Jason-Alaska]

I am NOT burning on the fly. I'm using AnyDVD for S/L disks and not adjusting the audio tracks, Chapters etc. Just letting AnyDVD have it's way with the copy.

I get great results with the backups I burn on D/L Verbatim disks as recommended by oldjoe and Webslinger.

Which leads me to believe it's bad media as oldjoe suggested in another post. I'm using S/L HP Lightscribe disks. I have not ruled out a hardware configuration issue sence I am using both DVD drives on the same IDE ribbon. I think that's less likely since the D/L backups from CloneCD are perfect and as Webslinger said I am not burning on the fly.

I'll monkey with some S/L Verbatim Lightscribe disks as recommended and see if I get better burns with those.

Thanks again for all the tremendous help guys! :bowdown:

[Webslinger]

I am using both DVD drives on the same IDE ribbon

That's only an issue if you're using both drives at the exact same time.


from http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf_Performance.htm

"The following are some of the issues that you should take into account when configuring multiple IDE/ATA devices, to maximize the performance of your system:

* Master/Slave Channel Sharing: By its very nature, each IDE/ATA channel can only deal with one request, to one device, at a time. You cannot even begin a second request, even to a different drive, until the first request is completed. This means that if you put two devices on the same channel, they must share it. In practical terms, this means that any time one device is in use, the other must remain silent. In contrast, two disks on two different IDE/ATA channels can process requests simultaneously on most motherboards. The bottom line is that the best way to configure multiple devices is to make each of them a single drive on its own channel, if this is possible. (This restriction is one major disadvantage of IDE compared to SCSI). An add-in controller like the Promise "Ultra" series is a cheap way of adding extra IDE/ATA channels to a modern PC."


Since you're not burning on the fly, that's not an issue. And even if you were, the buffer underrun protection that's built into your burner would help to eliminate that being an issue (although engaging buffer underrun protection is great way to produce inferior quality burns).


So, as noted, I think your problem is your choice of single layer blank media. You may also want to try updating your drive's firmware, and ensuring that you're not writing at 16x or higher to 16x rated blank media.