Good CPU for ripping BluRay to an HTPC?

[Blueprint]

Anybody have a good experience with any particular CPU for ripping BluRay / DVD media? I'm in the process of building a rig, and was not sure the best way to go about this. I will be running a Samsung 1 TB spinpoint HDD dedicated to the movie storage, and using AnyDVD software to perform the rip.

Is the hard drive going to limit how quickly the movies can rip regardless of the CPU? If not, what is the best bang for the buck in a CPU / Mobo combo to rip movies quickly?

 

[Rifter]

more cores the better. new 6 core AMD or i7.

 

[lopri]

For ripping the read speed of your BD-ROM matters, not the CPU.

 

[Rifter]

thats true, i assumed he ment he wanted to rip then encode them to somthing smaller than raw blu-ray. Cause 1TB aint going to get you alot of blu-ray storage.

 

[Claudius-07]

I had asked a similar question a few months ago. Really the best answer I could give is that it's your BR-ROM that will be your bottleneck if all you are doing is grabbing a BluRay movie and ripping it to your hardrive using say a program like DVDFab, and again you are NOT encoding the movie in any format -- just a straight, raw extraction to your hardrive, it's all the BR-ROM. If you have lots of movies, might consider getting a second BR-ROM to double up your rips.

If on other hand you are actually extracting from the disk and THEN encoding using x264 etc., etc., then it's gona be lots of cores, the more the merrier but also sortware that can take advantage of all the cores -- AMD 6 core, any i7 etc.

You can also leverage your GPU if you use specific apps that help speed up encoding.

 

[alyarb]

a 1TB disk will hold about 30 BR movies unless you compress them. Then you can hold about 70-90 movies depending on how small you want them to be. The fastest chip for the money would be an i7 or PII X6, depending on if there's a microcenter near you.

It's a pity there's no x264 encoder for PowerPC. Leadtek put a Cell processor on a PCIe card and that thing was flying in tmpeg, but i'm not a big fan.



Seriously though, depending on the size of your library, it's kind of silly to spend $250+ extra on encoding hardware when a $70 CPU is all you need for playback. The money you save on heavy-duty CPU-RAM could get you 4TB worth of storage, and then you wouldn't have the need (or at least the same need) to spend days or weeks compressing your media.

 

[Blueprint]

I was just going to run a single 1 TB drive for now and then add more as necessary. I've read that higher capacity drives aren't as bulletproof as the 1 TB but I guess that's an entirely different conversation for another forum.

Regarding what's been mentioned about the software and encoding, I didn't plan on compressing the content. That said, will most software bottleneck on the BD-Rom read speed? If that is the case then it certainly doesn't sound necessary to get a big CPU. Would ripping media be considered the most processor intensive part of an HTPC in general?

And since software was mentioned, even if the software is ripping it uncompressed, won't the CPU still be exercised in the process? I guess that depends on the software. Any software to pair up with recommended CPUs is also appreciated. Thanks for all the help so far!

 

[alyarb]

Ripping and encoding (compressing, shrinking, many other synonyms) are two separate processes entirely. During ripping, data is read from the disc and written to a location on your hard drive. It's mostly I/O but there is some mild CPU activity as well. The data is copied exactly, nothing is compressed or lost or shrunk or anything. In other words, the speed of the rip depends on how fast your BR drive is.

Encoding is the process of taking your uncompressed blu ray content and reprocessing it for lack of a simpler term. An encoder can alter the compression ratio of the audio video, resolution, add/remove audio streams or subtitle tracks, apply filters and so forth and this is what you need a large CPU for. You typically want to preserve as much bluray quality as you can while having a file size that is about half that of the original data, or perhaps even smaller to better economize on storage. This can take up to a day, or more, on a 3 GHz dual core depending on the job. The i7 is the fastest CPU for this, but you say you are only going to be ripping, so you do not need a fast CPU.

 

[Fallen Kell]

The limiting factor on ripping is the BD-ROM drive speed. A 12x BD-ROM will make the biggest performance difference in time it takes. That said, ripping multiple discs is the biggest pain unless you can automate it with a changer. That said, the only changer I know of for BD-ROM is a S1 Digital USB2 device which also costs about $1000 for a 100 disc changer. I don't know if anydvd hd detects it as a bd-rom or not either, so you might wind up with a 100 disc changer that you need to use with Win7 to interface with the BD's and then, only play them.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Would ripping media be considered the most processor intensive part of an HTPC in general?

And since software was mentioned, even if the software is ripping it uncompressed, won't the CPU still be exercised in the process? I guess that depends on the software. Any software to pair up with recommended CPUs is also appreciated. Thanks for all the help so far!

Ripping is not very processor intensive and would definitely not be the most processor intensive part of a HTPC in general. The real benefits of a HTPC are for organizing your data and being able to do better image quality enhancements than stand-alone equipment can. This was a much bigger job with SD movies/video, but with HD not as much. It can still make a big difference if you are recording HD video, like cleaning up some of the video stream artifacts, etc., that are inherent to the broadcast video, but for Blu-ray movies, it isn't something that you really want/need to do (in fact with them you will most likely just make the image worse).

Anyway, I highly recommend getting as fast a quad core as you can with decent thermals. The biggest battle with a HTPC (aside from software), is the fight for noise/heat/space/performance. The easiest solution is to have a big case like an Antec Fusion Remote Max or similar which support large tower CPU heatsinks and 120mm case fans. Really the case is going to dictate what CPU you can use since the case needs to have enough airflow to stay cool, and something with 60mm exhaust fans just won't cut it on a quad core CPU (without being EXTREMELY LOUD and ANNOYING!).

 

[Blueprint]

I may have jumped the gun when I said I would only be ripping. I started to play with the software and unless I find another way, I just discovered that it is indeed very processor intensive, as I currently am transcoding as well. I started with AnyDVD ripping a standard 8 GB DVD into video TS files in about 10 minutes.

At this point, are there any programs that can play back the files as is?

Assuming there wasn't, I used Handbrake to transcode the movie into an MP4 file with what I assume are lossless settings (720x480). I haven't yet built the HTPC that will be doing the majority of this work, so I'm testing it on my current desktop, equipped with an Intel E6750. The ETA to complete this rip is about 5.5 hours. I suppose that breaks down into two more questions then:

1. While I understand it's impossible to know exactly, what kind of speed increase percentage-wise is reasonable to assume with the like of an i7.

2. I purchased a regular ATX HTPC case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811204032 Does this case look large enough to handle the cooling requirements of a CPU of that caliber? (or maybe Phenom II x6)

3. Am I missing a way better method to store my own DVDs for playback on this computer?

 

[Fallen Kell]

There are plenty of programs to play back a ripped movie. Personally I rip to iso. I know I could save some space by converting them, but that also comes with some quality loss on the re-encode. 8GB for a DVD is not a big deal to me (I have over 4TB of usable space on the HTPC and another 6TB on network shares).

You need to look at your front end software, as that is what will determine what way you can store the movie effectively. Again, I like iso files, but you need the space for them. I do have some which are h.264 TS files, and again, my front end software has no problem with dealing with them. I use MediaPortal as the front end interface which can hook to any player software I want to use, or use the built in players that it has (which are pretty darn good, but the hooks are there in case you want to use blu-ray with bit-streaming audio which there are only a few software players out there approved and you would need to use one of them).

Take a look at MediaPortal if you havn't, it is free and has tons of plug-ins to do all kinds of stuff. I use the MovingPictures + MP-TVSeries + StreamedMP plug-ins/skins.

A demo of how the TV series can be setup (you can also change the listing to use artwork instead of the series name and put them in a grid (up-down-left-right) which you simply highlight the series name and then click on it to go to the seasons/episodes view that is shown in the video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgYK-MaBRRE

Another good demo of what can be done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL2rS72_cpA

That second link is really where the real power of a HTPC comes into play. Hulu, Netflix, DVD's, blu-ray (rips/or physical), live TV, recorded TV... MediaPortal does it all.... Hell you can even do a custom intro if you want like movie theaters do!

 

[elconejito]

I may have jumped the gun when I said I would only be ripping. I started to play with the software and unless I find another way, I just discovered that it is indeed very processor intensive, as I currently am transcoding as well. I started with AnyDVD ripping a standard 8 GB DVD into video TS files in about 10 minutes.

At this point, are there any programs that can play back the files as is?

Assuming there wasn't, I used Handbrake to transcode the movie into an MP4 file with what I assume are lossless settings (720x480). I haven't yet built the HTPC that will be doing the majority of this work, so I'm testing it on my current desktop, equipped with an Intel E6750. The ETA to complete this rip is about 5.5 hours. I suppose that breaks down into two more questions then:

1. While I understand it's impossible to know exactly, what kind of speed increase percentage-wise is reasonable to assume with the like of an i7.

2. I purchased a regular ATX HTPC case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811204032 Does this case look large enough to handle the cooling requirements of a CPU of that caliber? (or maybe Phenom II x6)

3. Am I missing a way better method to store my own DVDs for playback on this computer?

I can't give you a really exact answer for #1... but I did a test ages ago using Xvid to see how much improvement I got from multiple setups. So don't take these numbers as real in any way shape or form, just representative.
e6300 (stock 1.8Ghz) = 2.5hrs
q6600 (stock 2.6?) = 1.5hrs
q6600 (OC 3.2ghz) = 1hr
q9650 (stock 3ghz) = 50mins
q9650 (OC 4ghz) = 30mins

Bottom line is it should be a pretty significant increase. And for Handbrake encoding DVDs you should just leave it at normal settings (maybe uncheck chapters) and the quality is really good and uses up a trivial amount of space compared to the uncompressed DVD. I actually just started an encode of a movie right.... now. I'll post back when it's done to see how long it took.

 

[lopri]

I may have jumped the gun when I said I would only be ripping. I started to play with the software and unless I find another way, I just discovered that it is indeed very processor intensive, as I currently am transcoding as well. I started with AnyDVD ripping a standard 8 GB DVD into video TS files in about 10 minutes.

At this point, are there any programs that can play back the files as is?

Most commercially available software will play the ripped materials. PowerDVD, WinDVD, Total Media Theatre, etc. They also play raw Blu-Ray rip (.m2ts) files fine.

Of course there is the good old MPC-HC which can do everything for free.

 

[elconejito]

I can't give you a really exact answer for #1... but I did a test ages ago using Xvid to see how much improvement I got from multiple setups. So don't take these numbers as real in any way shape or form, just representative.
e6300 (stock 1.8Ghz) = 2.5hrs
q6600 (stock 2.6?) = 1.5hrs
q6600 (OC 3.2ghz) = 1hr
q9650 (stock 3ghz) = 50mins
q9650 (OC 4ghz) = 30mins

Bottom line is it should be a pretty significant increase. And for Handbrake encoding DVDs you should just leave it at normal settings (maybe uncheck chapters) and the quality is really good and uses up a trivial amount of space compared to the uncompressed DVD. I actually just started an encode of a movie right.... now. I'll post back when it's done to see how long it took.

OK, with the CPU in my sig (q9650 @4.1Ghz) I compressed Terminator Salvation (about a 2hr movie) using "normal" profile with Chapters unchecked. Took 19mins to encode. Quality is great.

If you run the same settings on an approximately 2hr movie that should give you a ballpark.

An i7 860 or 930 will probably do maybe 20-30% better, if not more.

 

[elconejito]

Take a look at MediaPortal if you havn't, it is free and has tons of plug-ins to do all kinds of stuff. I use the MovingPictures + MP-TVSeries + StreamedMP plug-ins/skins.

+1 for MediaPortal. It's like Windows Media Center, only BETTER.