CD/DVD Drives

[sparrow]

Grettings....


What is it with CD/DVD Drives with Vortexbox? I used to use on old PC for vortexbox and had problems with cd drives, I got 1 out of 4 to work. (all actually worked fine but only one of them with vortexbox) Not knowing much about Linux I reinstalled Voretexbox from scratch each time to ensure any configuration changes were made by the software not me - and vortex box was installed from each of these drives OK. When it worked, of course it was great, magic, brill etc etc!!!


Recently I bought a MINI-ITX box as I wanted something silent and my wife wanted something pretty under the TV. I could have bought a VBA - but the shipping and import taxes do not make it good for the UK compared to building your own.


I installed Vortexbox from an ISO made cd via the new box's CD/DVD writer, and it installed first time no problems at all. Vortexbox came up nicely. But it will NOT rip a music CD. Just get the stuff some of us havel seen before about buffer overruns etc. on the console


I am perplexed. If I can install Vortexbox from a CD without a problem, why won't it rip music from the same cd drive? I have ripped over 300 CD's without any real problem on the old PC oce I found a drive that worked. I have tried ripping CD's I have already ripped on a clean install of Vortexbox on this new Mini-ITX but it sits there smiling at me.


Anyone shed any light on this please?

[andrew]

I'm not really sure what the problem is. The ripper should rip from /dev/cdrom. That device should map to your CD. Linux can be picky about hardware though. That is why we make to VortexBox appliance to save on hardware headaches.

[dec]

The trick I used is to do this via the command line (which can be done over a network on another computer with putty) ignore the quotes:


"service vortexbox stop"


then put a DVD (film) into your drive then type:


"ripdvd"


this should bring up a dialogue and hopefully will state somewhere the device that is being used (your dvd drive) - something like: /dev/cdrom or /dev/sr0.

If it does show something like this you can then edit your ripit config file by first typing this:

"cp /etc/ripit/config /etc/ripit/config.old"


this will backup your current config, just incase something goes wrong. Then type this:


"nano /etc/ripit/config"


This should bring up the config file for your ripping. You should be looking at the first section "ripping device and path", specifically "cddevice=/dev/cdrom". Depending on what ripdvd displayed for your device, you should then put this in place of the ripit config.


So in my case I changed:


cddevice=/dev/cdrom


to


cddevice=/dev/sr0


You then hit CtrlX to exit, you should then be prompted to save the changes (hit y if you do!) and confirm the file name (just hit enter).


Make sure to then type:


"service vortexbox start"


It did the trick for me, so good luck!


Just for your information I'm using a slimline (laptop style) SATA DVD Drive, I don't know if that has any effect on the setup?

[sparrow]

Turmed on the machine yesterday having beeb away for a few days and it just worked -how bizarre is that - I have changed nothing - even used the same CD's to rip from

[meatl]

Hi,


My first post - so please be gentle


I got a vortexbox appliance (ausie version) - as I wanted something that didn't need too much tweaking.


It was originally installed with version 0.9 but I kept getting buffer i/o errors and cd's would fail to rip at all.


I did a clean install of 1.0 and now cd's do at least seem to be ripping (I don't know if having it horizontal made a difference!), but they are taking typically taking over 20-30 mins a CD to rip.


Any (hopefully simple!) suggestions on what I might try?


Cheers

[Ron Olsen]

1. Open up a command-line window on your VBA and login as root.
2. Enter "service vortexbox stop" to turn off the Autoripper.
3. Place an audio CD in the drive.
4. Enter "cdparanoia -A" to run a test on the drive.
5. Copy and paste the results to a file, and then post them here.
6. This will let us know what kind of drive you have and how it is performing on read tests.
7. Enter "service vortexbox start" to resume normal ripping operation on your VBA.

[meatl]

Hi,


Thanks for very much for the reply - the results are below. Any suggestions?!


Cheers,


===============================


login as: root
root@192.168.2.20's password:
Last login: Tue Jan 5 22:51:22 2010 from 192.168.2.4
[vortexbox.localdomain ~]# cdparanoia -A
cdparanoia III release 10.2 (September 11, 2008)

Using cdda library version: 10.2
Using paranoia library version: 10.2
Checking /dev/cdrom for cdrom...
Testing /dev/cdrom for SCSI/MMC interface
SG_IO device: /dev/sr0

CDROM model sensed sensed: TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223C SB01


Checking for SCSI emulation...
Drive is ATAPI (using SG_IO host adaptor emulation)

Checking for MMC style command set...
Drive is MMC style
DMA scatter/gather table entries: 1
table entry size: 131072 bytes
maximum theoretical transfer: 55 sectors
Setting default read size to 27 sectors (63504 bytes).

Verifying CDDA command set...
Expected command set reads OK.

Attempting to set cdrom to full speed...
drive returned OK.

=================== Checking drive cache/timing behavior ===================

Seek/read timing:
[46:40.03]: scsi_read error: sector=211004 length=1 retry=0
Sense key: 5 ASC: 64 ASCQ: 0
Transport error: Illegal SCSI request (rejected by target)
System error: Invalid argument
scsi_read error: sector=211004 length=1 retry=0
Sense key: 5 ASC: 64 ASCQ: 0
Transport error: Illegal SCSI request (rejected by target)
System error: Invalid argument

[39:59.69]: 44ms seek, 0.98ms/sec read [13.6x]
[30:00.00]: 39ms seek, 1.08ms/sec read [12.3x]
[20:00.00]: 40ms seek, 1.23ms/sec read [10.9x]
[10:00.00]: 55ms seek, 1.45ms/sec read [9.2x]
[00:00.00]: 49ms seek, 1.87ms/sec read [7.1x]

Analyzing cache behavior...
Drive does not cache nonlinear access

Drive tests OK with Paranoia.


=====================================

[Ron Olsen]

CDROM model sensed sensed: TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223C SB01



You have the same drive as I have on my VortexBox Appliance, and I get about the same results in the "cdparanoia -A" tests — about 7x to 14x read speeds. Most of my rip times are in the 10-15 minute range. That seems to be about the best that this drive can do with the SB01 firmware.


Samsung has released newer firmware (SB02) for this drive, but updating the firmware probably means removing the drive from the VBA and installing it in a Windows PC to do the fw update. Hopefully, the updated firmware will result in faster ripping speeds, but who knows?


If you have a Windows PC or a MAC, you could try ripping on those machines instead of on the VortexBox. dBpoweramp is a great PC ripping/encoding/tagging program that's far better that ripit on the VBA. Maybe the drive on your PC will provide faster rips than the Samsung SH-S223C on the VBA.


So your alternatives come down to this:


1. Upgrade the firmware on the SH-223C to the SB02 version. This may or may not improve ripping speed; you won't know until you try it.


2. Rip on another computer with a faster drive.


3. Replace the SH-223C with a faster drive.


The SH-223C is advertised as a 48X CD-ROM reader, but in fact it's nowhere near that fast with the SB01 firmware, as your "cdparanoia -A" test shows.


I think the VBA manufacturer should stop shipping the SH-223C drive with new VBAs unless they have the new SB02 firmware, and verify that the new firmware results in faster ripping. Lots of recent VBA buyers (including you and I) are not happy with the ripping speed of the SH-223C; it's not what it's supposed to be. This drive is a poor choice for an appliance whose primary function is ripping/encoding/tagging CDs. The older SH-223F works well, but the newer SH-223C is really a dud.

[meatl]

Hi,


Thanks for the info Ron - I might try and upgrade the firmware if I get a chance / get irritated with the performance enough and see if there is an improvement. My desktop PC(a bog standard HP) rips very quickly (~5min a CD), but not really that convenient to use - as you've said I got the VBA for dedicated ripping - but it doesn't really seem that it's up to the job with the current drive iinstalled.


Cheers.

[Ron Olsen]

Unfortunately, upgrading the firmware on the SH-S223C does not seem to improve its performance on audio CDs.


This drive is sold by newegg.com:


http://www.newegg.com/Product/.....6827151192


The customer reviews are mixed; about half 5-star and half 1-star. The drive seems to work reasonably well for reading/burning DVDs, but has serious problems with audio CDs. One review in particular was very critical of its audio CD performance, and stated that upgrading the firmware didn't help:


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Pros: Seems to work for reading and writing DVDs


Cons: Does not work for CDs


Other Thoughts: I bought this device a couple months ago and it seemed to work fine, but I only tested it with DVDs for reading and writing. For Christmas, I got a couple audio CDs, and this device will not even play them reliably (plays about 10-30 seconds then starts to skip or plays silence - I also checked it with audio CDs I knew worked with my previous drive and got the same results) much less allow me to extract audio files. I upgraded to the most recent firmware and the problem persisted. Regretably, I discovered this after the 30 day return period, but thats my fault for not doing a more thorough test when I got it. Its not complete junk since the DVD part works and thats what I need it for the most, but it is very disappointing to discover this serious flaw that will necessitate the purchase of a new unit sooner or later.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


So my guess is that upgrading the firmware won't improve audio CD ripping speed -- Samsung dropped the ball with the "C" revision of this drive, whereas the previous "F" version worked well on audio CDs.


My suggestion: buy a new drive. Several models get reasonably good reviews on newegg.com:




1. Sony Optiarc AD-7240S-0B ($30 + $7 shipping at newegg.com)


http://www.newegg.com/Product/.....6827118030




2. Plextor PX-880SA ($47 + $7 shipping at newegg.com)


http://www.newegg.com/Product/.....6827249054


This is a two-time winner of newegg's Customer Choice Award for best CD/DVD burner.




3. Lite-On iHAS-324-98 ($32 + $7 shipping at newegg.com)


http://www.newegg.com/Product/.....6827106334


This is a one-time winner of newegg's Customer Choice Award for best CD/DVD burner.




I'd read all the customer reviews to see what I could glean about CD audio extraction performance -- most of the reviews focus on DVD/CD burning. But these models should be a good place to start in looking for a replacement for the Samsung SH-S223C.