DVD-ROM Drive Died - Dvdx direct to TMpgEnc the cause?

[dcolemanca]

I have a cheap DVD-ROM (Superb brand 16X) which has died after 2 months of use.

The drive is visible to windows, opens and closes OK and attempts to read the disks I put in but then nothing. I have trried DVD, SVCD, CD-r CD-RW all the same, nothing is recognised. I am guessing the laser has gone but I am really clueless. It was working very well until it died.

I basically only use it to do direct DVD to SVCD conversion.

The tools I use are DvdX 1.8a, viderserver plugin and TMpgEnc v2.53

This method does not create an intermediate file so the DVD drive is being accessed periodically throoughout the conversion which can take any time from 2 hours to 12 hours.

I set a 20 Mbyte RAM buffer in DVDx which is meant to help save the DVD drive but I am wondering if this really helps. Possibly the drive stays on all the time anyway despite the RAM buffer. Howveer the drive defintely spins up every time it gets the next 20 Mb and spins down again. Maybe the laser stays on despite this.

I am going to return it and swap for another one.

What I am wondering is will the same thing happen all over again?

Are there any ways I can reduce the stress on the drive. I am light on memeory at the moment - 128 Mb and will get some more, perhaps a really large buffer will do it.

I have tried using the hard drive with very large buffer, but this really slows the encode time.

TIA

[Mirror_Image]

Just rip the VOBs to your hard drive with Smartripper, then convert those VOBs. Another option is to set your DVDx RAM buffer to 100MB or 200MB (a larger value) and the drive won't run very often at all.

If you don't have a hard drive big enough to hold the ripped VOBs, go buy one - it will be cheaper than replacing DVD drives every so often, and simpler as well.

Rip the VOBs. Rip the wav out of the VOBs with DVD2AVI, then Frameserve DVD2AVI to TMPGEnc, using the D2V for video and the WAV for audio, and there it is.

[fritz]

Hello!
Would it be possible for me to:

1) rip the VOBs to my hard drive with Smartripper
2) use DVDx to process the vobs

I don't have much hard drive space. And I don't have a budget yet to purchase enough hard drive for further processing. My hard drive is just enough to rip the DVD to my hard drive but not enough to create the wav.

Will increasing the DVDx Buffer work also?

Thanks.

[SLK001]

I would say that the extended time accessing the drive killed that puppy dead. These things run hot (the laser diodes) sometimes and heat is the killer of things electronic.

[eKa]

have you tried re-blowing the DVDROMS bios ? I have had to do this with bth my cdrw and normal CD rom...

Just a thought.

and YES rip the VOBS to the HDD and then use whatever program you like to do the rest from the HDD image not the DVD.

[Faceman101]

have you tried re-blowing the DVDROMS bios ? I have had to do this with bth my cdrw and normal CD rom...

how would one go about doing that?

[Mirror_Image]

Ask yourself this:

Is is less expensive to purchase another hard drive once, or to replace DVD-ROM drives evry so often - forever.