Well, after ripping about 3 DL and 3 SL disks without the speed rising above ~8x, I finally got a decent result with an anime SL dvd. The speed averaged 9.8x and peaked at ~12x. That made me happy, but then the very next disk I put in, which was actually pretty prestine, came up with I/O errors, which frusterates the hell out of me. I hate having to use my slow ass nec3500 for ripping. This one's going back. But at least now I know that it's not my system, so I feel a little better about experimenting with another drive.
ExtremeMgz does some of the best dvd-writer reviews that ive seen so far as they (Miguel) includes dvd ripping in the dvd burner reviews. Apparently, Benq, Liteon, and Plextor do not have a rip lock built into their firmware (while pioneer and nec do). To see the reviews for drives scroll down to the drives/storage section and pick a drive. The plextor 716 was the fastest ripper of those tested but had some other issues in the review. I use the benq 1620 and it is very fast at ripping, but slower than some at DL burning (which i never do). I got the benq (chiefvalue.com has then for $50-60) because it is quieter than the liteon and cheaper than the plextor.
Asus K8N nVidia nForce3 Pro 250 GB, Athlon 64 3200+, Hitachi 80 gig SATA 150, Corsair XMS 1 gig PC4000, ATI Radeon Saphire 9600 Pro (256 DDR), Windows XP Pro (64 Bit),Lite-ON SOHD 167T,, Plextor PX-712SA,BenQ 1640.
