How to burn two movies with two drives @ the same time.

[joed1228]

I already used the search feature, read 4 different threads. No one has really answered the question.

My system:

1.7 gig Pent 4
768 megs of ram
120 gig hard drive
4x DVD burner

I would like to take two different movies and burn them at the same time. Aside from a second burner, what do I need? I heard I should use a second hard drive for the extra burner. Should I put both burners on the same ribbon cable? What else do I need to take into consideration?

Has anyone ever done this, I would like to know if you are telling me if your method is how it should work or if you are actually doing it yourself.

Thanks

[bazooka]

Do not put both burners on the same cable.

If they are on the same cable, one drive can only read or write at a time.

What is your hurry?

Why not burn one, then burn the other?

It is only 15 minutes that you are talking about.

[joed1228]

I rather not get off topic here and explain, sorry. BTW, they take 20-35 minutes each.

So what your saying is get another hard drive and use another ribbon cable and I'm good to go?

What software would allow me to run two burn sessions at once? DVD Shrink only allows one at a time.

[bazooka]

Nero will allow you to use multiple burners.

And single layer 4x dvd burns take 15 minutes.

The point I was trying to make was that what you are attempting to do has a very large margin of error and can create coasters.

That is why I said you should burn one at a time.

Yes put both burners on different ide channels.

[joed1228]

I already have Nero, I didn't know that. I use DVD Shrink. Thanks.

I was reading a sticky thread in the newbie section and there was a post of tweaks I can try. I'll give that a shot. If that doesnt help I am going to download a program to test my burner. There are alot of other test results on the web page so I can compare.

15 minutes, I wish it was 15 minutes.

Test results:
http://www.cdspeed2000.com/go.php3?link=dvdresults.php3
Test software (DVD Speed 99):
http://www.cdspeed2000.com/go.php3?link=dvdspeed.html
Tweaks:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=187112

What are your thoughts on this?

[joed1228]

I own:

DVD X-Copy (the best one)
Nero (the complete verison)
DVD Shrink

I use DVD Shrink because it's an all-in-one product and it's pretty easy to use. Do you think the software itself could be slowing me down? What would you use (I prefer to stick with an all-in-one but suggest anything).

[bazooka]

It is 15 minutes if you have dma turned on and are not using an 80 conductor cable and are using a 4x burner with updated firmware.

[bazooka]

I own:

DVD X-Copy (the best one)
Nero (the complete verison)
DVD Shrink

I use DVD Shrink because it's an all-in-one product and it's pretty easy to use. Do you think the software itself could be slowing me down? What would you use (I prefer to stick with an all-in-one but suggest anything).

I would not even use dvdx copy to wipe my feet with.

You overpaid for freeware programs.

Xcopy has a delphi frontend that wraps around freeware applictions.

Xcopy also inserts a warning screen in the front end of a backup stating it i sa backup. That is annoying.

Dvdshrink and dvddecrypter are all you need. They are free and easy to use.

[joed1228]

Oh I didn't buy any of them.

I'm going to have to check the 80 wire thing (how do I know, it's just an 80 pin ribbon cable?) and the firmware.

[bazooka]

The cable will have writing on it stating what it is.

On the firmware,I recommend visiting this site http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php

That is a firmware site and is very good.

Just look for a firmware upgrade for your burner.

[networkswiz]

The only way you can do this is if you have a 2-CPU computer (that requires Win 2000 or XP; I don't recommend NT4), 2 burners, 2 burning softwares, let's say DVD Decrypter and Nero. You can not run the same software to burn both movies. Your RAM amount seems adequate.
Your burners should be set up as masters on 2 different IDE controllers otherwise you will only produce coasters. The last sentence means you must have at least 3 controllers, one for the hard drive and one for each burner.
Now assign one application per CPU, then run. I don't own a HyperThreaded Intel chip, so I cannot say if it's possible for your scenario to work with just one HT CPU or not. But as you can see, that's a lot of requirements.
Dan

I already used the search feature, read 4 different threads. No one has really answered the question.

I would like to take two different movies and burn them at the same time. Aside from a second burner, what do I need? I heard I should use a second hard drive for the extra burner. Should I put both burners on the same ribbon cable? What else do I need to take into consideration?

Has anyone ever done this, I would like to know if you are telling me if your method is how it should work or if you are actually doing it yourself.

Thanks

[joed1228]

Bazooka -

I tried that site. They dont have anything for IO Magic burners. I went to IO Magic's site, downloaded some identifcation software, found out that I have 120I for the revision but IO Magic's site doesnt have any updates for that. Just all kinds of other verisons.

I spoke to someone and they said they have a 4x burner making copies in 10-15 minutes. They said the DMA was what helped them. I had to download the Intel Application Accelerator because I did not have the "advanced" tab in device manager. I'm going to install the Intel program and see if I can get the advanced tab. If not, the person whom I spoke to said he had to buy the same brand, but a dvd reader and everything worked.

This is starting to get a little time consuming

[Gurm]

The only way you can do this is if you have a 2-CPU computer <snip> You can not run the same software to burn both movies.

Wrong wrong SO VERY WRONG.

Ok, let's back up.

1. This is a stupid idea. Despite what everyone says, your machine is most likely NOT adequate for this task. While most modern computers have no problem delivering the sustained data rate for 8x to a DVD burner, the odds that you can maintain MULTIPLE 4x streams is slim.

2. You say it takes 20-35 minutes to burn with DVD Shrink. Yeah, DUH of course it does because DVD Shrink transcodes first. The actual BURN time on a 4x drive is 15 minutes. If it's longer, you're not burning at 4x and you ought to look into what's wrong with your burner.

3. If you run TWO instances of just about any burning program... you can burn to two drives. It requires hefty system performance - more than a single burn at twice the speed.

4. SMP (multiple cpu's) is not necessary. It would only help if you needed a lot of CPU power. Last time I checked, burning was mostly hard drive and bus intensive... little to no CPU use involved.

5. If you ARE transcoding, be aware that it's using ALL of your CPU. Let's do a breakdown. When I hit "go" in DVD Shrink, it takes as you say about half an hour. 15 minutes to transcode and another 15 to burn. If I were to run TWO transcodes at the same time, instead of 15 minutes it would take LONGER THAN 30 just to do the transcode. The burning, if successful, would take place at the same time... but the transcoding would more likely take around 40-45 minutes because of all the process contention on the CPU. Therefore, instead of two complete transcodes at 30 minutes per, you get two complete transcodes at 60 minutes combined. It's no faster.

6. Not only is it no faster, but it's liable to screw up.

7. IF you wanted to do this, you would really ideally want the drives on separate channels, this is true. Unless your hard drives are BOTH SATA, this is not a feasible thing. EIDE is a lousy protocol, despite the improvements in it in recent years - you can't just dump data from one drive to another - it has to all come down to the system and back... and both devices can't be using the cable at once... making for a HIGH probability of buffer underruns.

In case all of this has NOT dissuaded you yet, feel free to experiment. However, I think - and I'm not trying to offend you here - that you lack the basic computer knowledge necessary to pull this off. You don't know the difference between burning and transcoding, you don't know about hard drive channels, you don't know how to open two copies of Nero... *shrug* it's your wallet.

[joed1228]

I didn't take anything personal. I posted because I didn't know (I wanted to prove what I thought/heard, I hate assuming) and I wanted proof from people who have been there and done that.

I do understand about the coding and burning and how they are two different tasks. I didn't want to spend the money on a new burner because it seems the coding takes so much more time than the burning (my 4x burner doesnt take 15 minutes). I rather try to speed up the culprit of the slower/longer process; which in this case seems to be the coding. I also understand what your saying when there are two coding tasks being run at the same time, it actually is a step backwards. The explanation of the bus being the limiting factor would perfectly explain what I noticed yesterday, I monitored the usage of my CPU and it really wasnt that high. I was wondering what else was limiting the speed if the CPU wasnt running at 100%.

Nero... bah, I dont know about Nero because I dont like the GUI and I have used other programs which worked so well that I have not had any incentive to even fool around with it.

I think I'll tweak what I can out of the DMA feature and firmware (hopefully it helps, I was looking for your thoughts on that) and if all else fails I guess I'll break down and get a faster burner for what thats worth.

[cbsmooney]

I think you will not save any time doing this. 1.7 GB processor and anything below 1 GB of ram burning at the same time will eat up your resources and bog down the pc to a snail’s pace. I bet using the machine to burn two DVDs will be longer than burning one at a time. Now a 3.0 processor and 1GB of ram is a whole different ball of wax (just my opinion).

Cheers

[Gurm]

A faster burner won't help you.

If you have a 4x burner, and 4x media, and it takes more than 15 minutes JUST FOR THE BURNING PHASE (little red light going flashy flashy on your burner), then there's something very wrong with your system. Even in PIO mode your drive ought to be able to get 4x - it's only 5MB/sec.

The only way a 4x burn takes more than 15 minutes is if MASSIVE buffer underrunning is taking place.

Now, what program is DVD Shrink using to burn? DVD Decrypter or Nero? DVD Shrink doesn't burn its own discs... Either one of those programs will tell you what speed you're actually burning at, and show you the buffer level whilst burning.

[djblade]

I use 2 pioneer burners (108's), on the same ide cable, 1 set to master, the other set to slave, i burn 2 disc's at a time, and produce no coasters, and the 4 X's burns take 15 mins, i burn with nero......

[SLICK RICK]

THE BURNING PHASE (little red light going flashy flashy on your burner)

Oh. So that's what that flashing light means. :P

[Sillyname]

Buy another computer, if you're trying to burn 2 different things to 2 different drives.

Buy one of these: http://www.axiontech.com/prdt.php?item=36476
If you're trying to burn 2 copies of the same thing at the same time.

[Halm]

Are you running XP? If so, something may have stepped on your OS and/or burning program. My set up is similar to yours (CPU is faster on mine - 2.5GHz Pentium) and my 4X burner suddenly slowed to a max of 2X.
Tried the uninstall/reinstall of IDE channels/devices and it was no help, defragged drive, cleared out garbage files, ran Adware, turned off all non essential processes during burning...all no help.

What fixed the problem was a reinstall of Win XP and then a reinstall of Nero.

Hope this helps

[iooi]

I use 2 pioneer burners (108's), on the same ide cable, 1 set to master, the other set to slave, i burn 2 disc's at a time, and produce no coasters, and the 4 X's burns take 15 mins, i burn with nero......

But that is only burning ONE film.... THe OP wants to do 2 diffrent films at the same time....
Personally just buy a cheap 2nd system.....
Network them together use VNC so you only have one monitor, keyboard & mouse. Away you go.....
Thats what i do if i need to back-up more than 1 movie at a time....

[Sillyname]

I use 2 pioneer burners (108's), on the same ide cable, 1 set to master, the other set to slave, i burn 2 disc's at a time, and produce no coasters, and the 4 X's burns take 15 mins, i burn with nero......

But that is only burning ONE film.... THe OP wants to do 2 diffrent films at the same time....
Personally just buy a cheap 2nd system.....
Network them together use VNC so you only have one monitor, keyboard & mouse. Away you go.....
Thats what i do if i need to back-up more than 1 movie at a time....

That's what I said...

[djblade]

aghhh 1001, now i c, y would anyone want to do that ?

[Gurm]

Because he doesn't know the difference between transcoding and burning?

(That's why I told him about the blinky red light, by the way!)

And he thinks that somehow it's going to make his life easier...