Is buffer the problem?

I have backed up about 30 of my DVD's flawlessly. I notice the buffer % on dvd decrypter is very high, until a few minutes ago. I'm trying to back up my Kill Bill and I noticed that it starts at around 50%, then a minute later it goes down to 0% and stays there. But dvd decrypter still keeps on going and at the end it tells me the process was successful. I used dvd shrink to turn it into an iso file. When I opened up DVD decrypter, it started fine, then it stalled at 3%. It gave me an error on the log (didn't copy it, stupid me) and started "retrying" to write image. It stayed there. I tried exciting the program and couldn't. I couldn't open anything else, I had to ctrl alt del and end the task. I tried restarting the comp and it wouldn't do anything, so I restarted manually. Did the same process and still no luck. What's happening?

 

Thanx for the help. Well, this was the problem, it was a bad disk.

I was getting confused with the BUFFER % while it was ripping, trying to compare it to the BUFFER % while it was burning. Someone told me on another board that the BUFFER % while ripping should be at 0% and the BUFFER % while burning should be high, maybe 80% and above. Correct me if I am wrong. Thanx!

 

My buffer level goes from 98% all the way down to 7% but my discs play flawlessly..i think as long as your used read buffer stays at 100% you should be ok.

 

don't let your write buffer get down to 0%, that causes bad burns.

 

The buffer % should be at 0% while "ripping", but it should be at almost 100% when burning.

 

yeah, but while burning if your write buffer gets to 0, you've probably got a bad burn.

 

Yeah, thanx again!

 

Your buffer should drop to 0% when it is emptied................end of the burn.

During the burn, the buffer shall fluctuate, but will be controlled via the software controllers to enable 'controlled' streaming of data, therefore reducing bad burns.

Whilst ripping, the buffer does remain low, due to how the data is processed within the programs - ie 'bit by bit', therefore the use of the buffer is very minimal, however if you are using lower spec transport methods/dvdrom/reading crappy media etc, then it is there to handle the overflow of data if required.

 

dont talk to me about buffer problems,i am b*****d expert,
i have shit loads of problems with mine

found the main cause of buffer fluxuation is the hardrive being heavily fragmented

 

Ok guys, this is the explanation I got from DVD Decrypter forum by SHAMUS McFARTFINGER:

Alrighty.

When you rip a DVD you are obviously transferring data from a source and sending it to a destination. Where from or where to doesn't matter. Having an empty buffer when ripping means that your system is coping with the transfer of information. It means that the flow of information isn't being hamstrung or bottlenecked by your hardware, your hardware setup or other background tasks. It also means that your HD is able to write the ripped data as fast as your DVD-ROM can rip it. If your buffer starts to fill when ripping a DVD it means your HD is unable to cope for one reason or another.

For example: You might be ripping to a network drive and if network traffic is high, the information can't be sent to your HD fast enough and information is "buffered" to memory.

It could also be that your HD is already being flogged to death during a virus scan or some other disk-intensive process causing the drive head to bounce back and forward all over the place trying to do two or more things at once.

It could be CPU related. If you start a CPU intensive program (like a compression program), you'll find you will almost certainly have buffer problems.

You may have the source and target drives sharing an IDE channel. This forces the data to run down the IDE cable from one drive to the motherboard and then back up the same cable to another drive. The technical term is Buffer UnderRun.


Having full buffers when writing means your burner has information available to burn as fast as it can burn it. If your buffer levels drop, it means your drive is being starved for data to burn. All the examples above also apply to the burn process.

So, when ripping a DVD - 0% is what you're after. Although it doesn't really matter that much because all you are doing is slowing the rip down if your buffer levels get to 100%. It won't affect the quality of your rip.

When burning, 100% is desirable. Again it doesn't matter a great deal if it drops a little and you also have BURNPROOF (try Google) enabled.

Not a very technical explanation but I hope it helps.

 

I think it was a good explanation. I figured it's not that big a deal that buffer hangs at 0 during rip. Just means that your system specs are good some programs have buffer underrun protection that protects buffers from reaching 0 during burn. This probably saves some people from making bad burns. I suppose that someday the media will be so fast that buffers won't be able to keep up and then buffer underrun protection will be a godsend...... Someday.

 

LOL, that would be REAL nice...............do you think Mr Gates will be up for the challenge....................

 

he'll find some way to limit it I think. Maybe force Windows to cap the drive speed so it can't go faster than whatever he specifies.

But on the other end of that, there's always hackers

 

really? I wonder if that's because it steals some of your system resources. Luckily I have never had that issue. Once my buffers would hang around 50% and a 4x burn would take 30 minutes, but when I uninstalled and reinstalled Nero that problem cleared up.