system slowdown when copying audio CDs
Good evening everyone! I have a problem when writing audio tracks from a CD to my HD. My PC slows down a *lot* when copying tracks from an audio CD, but not when I'm reading data (neither when I'm burning a CD). I use xcdroast as a frontend to cdrdao and its siblings, but I had the same problem with the command line tools. The CD and HD are on separate IDE controllers, so I don't see where the problem is... any clue someone ? TIA, Romain -- Well begun is half done. -- Aristotle
Re: system slowdown when copying audio CDs
On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Romain Lerallut wrote: I have a problem when writing audio tracks from a CD to my HD. My PC slows down a *lot* when copying tracks from an audio CD, but not when I'm reading data (neither when I'm burning a CD). Ripping audio data requires your machine to throttle the IDE controller and the CD-ROM drive hard... and depending on your configuration, it /can/ be a very intensive process.. I'm sure we've all seen Windows freeze when you put a CD in because it's asking the CD drive about the newly inserted disc, and the drive is locking the IDE interface while it has a think... I have no SCSI CD-ROM, but I wouldn't be surprised if things were MUCH better That's what I think anyway - I'm no hardware guru so I'm probably completely wrong :) Regards, Gavin
Re: system slowdown when copying audio CDs
On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Gavin Hamill wrote: On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Romain Lerallut wrote: I have a problem when writing audio tracks from a CD to my HD. My PC slows down a *lot* when copying tracks from an audio CD, but not when I'm reading data (neither when I'm burning a CD). Ripping audio data requires your machine to throttle the IDE controller and the CD-ROM drive hard... and depending on your configuration, it /can/ be a very intensive process.. I'm sure we've all seen Windows freeze when you put a CD in because it's asking the CD drive about the newly inserted disc, and the drive is locking the IDE interface while it has a think... I have no SCSI CD-ROM, but I wouldn't be surprised if things were MUCH better That's what I think anyway - I'm no hardware guru so I'm probably completely wrong :) Regards, Gavin Okay, well if it's not unusual, then I'm feeling better. :-) Funny that the behavior of the CD drive is so different in the audio mode than in the data mode. Thanks, Romain
Re: system slowdown when copying audio CDs
On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Romain Lerallut wrote: Funny that the behavior of the CD drive is so different in the audio mode than in the data mode. It isn't really. Data CD's contain data headers that help the drive position itself in arbitrary locations - similar to sector headers on floppy and hard disks. Audio CD's contain only vague information. They aren't designed to seek so precisely. Furthermore audio CD sectors are a different size from data CD sectors. When you try to seek somewhere on an audio CD, you can rig the CDROM to do it, but you will not have the required information to aim precisely. And, you can read only a few sectors at a time. With a data CD you can tell the CDROM drive which blocks you want and it will just go get them. With an audio CD, you give it coordinates on the disk, it will go somewhere in that area and return a few blocks. Then you have some small amount of time to get the next read request in before the drive loses its place and you have to start the whole seek process over again. All in all it is very difficult to treat audio CD's as data and this is why CD rippers are so hard to write (and so slow).
Re: system slowdown when copying audio CDs
It isn't really. Data CD's contain data headers that help the drive position itself in arbitrary locations - similar to sector headers on floppy and hard disks. Well done that man! You said what I was going to say - except I'd have rambled on aimlessly for ages :) gdh
