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james.dylan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 6, 2007
13
3
Honolulu, Hawaii
I was overseas for many years, and digging around in my storage unit, I found a box of dvd's I never got around to ripping, mostly rare or older shows, special dvds. I used MacTheRipper years ago, but since I haven't touched a dvd in years, I bought MacX DVD Ripper Pro. Nice interface, easy to understand...but man is it slow! It literally rips the dvd "slower" than if it was playing in real time! I'm ripping dvd 2 of a Pulp Fiction Special Features set, and one of the clips is 55min. It took it 61 minutes to rip it! I remember MacThe Ripper could rip a whole dvd in 20 minutes, and HandBrake convert the files much faster, and those are 10 years old!

Heck, I don't think I even have a question, just wondered if anyone knew why this software is so slow? Shouldn't be, right?
 
Depends on how fast your processor is and how many cores you've got. For reference, my quad-core (eight thread) cpu that runs at 3.4 Ghz takes about 20 - 30 minutes to rip a movie using handbrake (free). On my previous dual-core (four thread) cpu at 2.33 Ghz took about 1:30 to rip a movie of the same length and size.
 

phrehdd

Contributor
Oct 25, 2008
4,515
1,468
Depends on how fast your processor is and how many cores you've got. For reference, my quad-core (eight thread) cpu that runs at 3.4 Ghz takes about 20 - 30 minutes to rip a movie using handbrake (free). On my previous dual-core (four thread) cpu at 2.33 Ghz took about 1:30 to rip a movie of the same length and size.

Perhaps the software he mentions doesn't take advantage of multi-core. Perhaps the DVD reader is a bit on the slow side as well and has minimal cache/memory if at all.
 

james.dylan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 6, 2007
13
3
Honolulu, Hawaii
Thanks. My BBP is 4 years old, 8-core? It says its using them all. I ripped the whole dvd, it took like 4 hours, lol. Handbrake as fast as ever. I only posted this because despite being a few years old, the computer is as fast and good as ever, all the other software works fast and fine. I regretted buying this dvd ripper, as MacTheRipper was 4 times as fast. Granted it only "ripped" the dvd into a folder, and you'd have to extract the movies with Handbrake, but still...
 

phrehdd

Contributor
Oct 25, 2008
4,515
1,468
Have you checked out MakeMKV? Not sure it suits your purposes but quite a following (meaning other users can answer questions in their forums) and seems to work quite well.
 
Perhaps the software he mentions doesn't take advantage of multi-core. Perhaps the DVD reader is a bit on the slow side as well and has minimal cache/memory if at all.

That is also a good point, but I'd tend to lean more towards it doesn't support hyperthreading, so if you have a dual core i5, it will use two lanes of the highway instead of all 4 so to speak.
 

phrehdd

Contributor
Oct 25, 2008
4,515
1,468
Depends on how fast your processor is and how many cores you've got. For reference, my quad-core (eight thread) cpu that runs at 3.4 Ghz takes about 20 - 30 minutes to rip a movie using handbrake (free). On my previous dual-core (four thread) cpu at 2.33 Ghz took about 1:30 to rip a movie of the same length and size.

Did something change with Handbrake? It used to exploit only a single core. Perhaps your 3.4 Ghz was a significant improvement over your 2.33 Ghz system with single core usage.
 

ColdCase

macrumors 68040
Feb 10, 2008
3,364
276
NH
Did something change with Handbrake? It used to exploit only a single core. Perhaps your 3.4 Ghz was a significant improvement over your 2.33 Ghz system with single core usage.

I've been using handbrake for more than 8 years and it has always used as many cores/threads as the machine provides. Some software, like MacX DVD Ripper pro allows one to set/limit the number of cores.
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Heck, I don't think I even have a question, just wondered if anyone knew why this software is so slow? Shouldn't be, right?

How many cores do you have selected (lower right corner of the MacX DVD window). Dunno if it defaults to the machine or needs to be manually set.
 
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phrehdd

Contributor
Oct 25, 2008
4,515
1,468
I've been using handbrake for more than 8 years and it has always used as many cores/threads as the machine provides. Some software, like MacX DVD Ripper pro allows one to set/limit the number of cores.
[doublepost=1469105608][/doublepost]

How many cores do you have are selected (lower right corner of window). Dunno if it defaults to the machine or needs to be manually set.

Well alas, that just shows how long it has been since I last used Handbrake (I don't convert for i-devices). Thanks for the heads up.
 

bflowers

macrumors 6502a
Jul 19, 2006
636
136
The older versions of this software were not this slow. I had an older version from a free giveaway, and it worked great. I had to upgrade eventually, and now it runs like frozen molasses. It is using half of my i7's cores according to Activity Monitor. I don't know what changed from earlier versions, but it went from faster than real time to almost double real play time.
 

bflowers

macrumors 6502a
Jul 19, 2006
636
136
It works faster if you use all the cores, and if you have a SSD as the system drive.
I've never found a way to force it to use all the cores. I have it set to 8, but Activity Monitor shows it isn't using them. I'm on a i7 with a Fusion drive, so it isn't the system drive slowing me down either.

As I said in my previous post, the older versions of the software (on the same hardware) was much faster. Anywhere from 2x to 10x faster than recent versions.

Not free, but much better. I use http://www.macdvdripperpro.com Highly recommend it.
That is the same software we are talking about. How quickly is it ripping for you?
 
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MSastre

macrumors 6502a
Aug 18, 2014
614
278
I've never found a way to force it to use all the cores. I have it set to 8, but Activity Monitor shows it isn't using them. I'm on a i7 with a Fusion drive, so it isn't the system drive slowing me down either.

As I said in my previous post, the older versions of the software (on the same hardware) was much faster. Anywhere from 2x to 10x faster than recent versions.


That is the same software we are talking about. How quickly is it ripping for you?


Two different softwares .. https://www.macxdvd.com is definitely different from http://www.macdvdripperpro.com . check them out.
 
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