Which processor for dvd ripping etc
 

Have always upgraded the pc myself but have to say that I have lost track over the past few years of the progress on processors. Dual core was about as fast as things got when I last upgraded my pc.

We are moving to a new house which is going to be run for Cat 5, gigabit switch, NAS, TV's with DLNA etc etc. I am looking to rip a whole bunch of kids dvd's onto the NAS and the thought of sitting there for 3-4 hours to do just 1 dvd is putting me off to say the least. From other websites I see that the geeks can get a dvd rip down to about 15 minutes or so.

Other things I use the pc for are editing raw photos from my DSLR and then the usual home office stuff. No gaming at all.

So any recommendations for what I will need in terms of processor, RAM, mobo and possibly a new dvd burner plus anything else I have forgotten.

Cheers.

For photo editing the more RAM the better, but it doesn't take a massive processor or video card. It's the main thing other than wp and internet I use my PC for, and I have 4GB and could increase that - the PC is running W7x64.

As to the processor etc. for DVD ripping - why not ask the people you have found achieving such impressive results what kit they are using?

My main box at home hasd a dual core E4400 Intel processor, which is waaay behind the times & it's fine for dvd ripping, burning, all that stuff. PLenty of RAM helps as mentioned above.

Run the house for Cat5E or fibre, not Cat5 (and probably pointless for Cat6).
Best (fastest) processors at present are the Intel i7 range, although the i5 is pretty fast too.
Windows 7 in 64bit if you don't have any programs/drivers that are going to barf in 64bit (most won't but it's best to check first if you've got something crucial to run) - that should give you the ability to fill your PC with more than 4Gb RAM and address it properly (also Office 2010 is available in 64bit now too and flies!)
Also, you might want to buy a Blu-Ray reader/burner rather than a DVD burner, since you might want to take advantage of that in future?

In all fairness the quality of the cable will matter little in the average house. A few years ago in a building cabled with Cat 3 I replaced an old 3com 10meg/half switch with a Nortel 1000meg/full switch and the error count on ports with cable runs <30m was no higher than buildings with Cat 5e/6.

DVD ripping is not in itself a particularly cycle intensive process - however the Encoding is another matter.

If you intend to convert the DVD's into something more compact such as DIVX / H.264 then you can end up with pretty much the same quality for 6-7x less storage.

Any current dual-core (or better) processor is more than up to the task.

As stated above - the RAM is the main issue so go for 4gb+ (you must have 64bit OS to benefit from more than 3.2GB)

Tom's Hardware: Hardware News, Tests and Reviews is a goldmine of accessible (sometimes rather geeky) information.

Also - Doom9.net - The Definitive DVD Backup Resource is pretty much a one-stop-shop for all things media related.

I'd be surprised if you could get Cat3 cable any more :) I was merely pointing out that for futureproofing you don't need to go to Cat6 (with the associated expense), and that Cat5E for copper, or replacing the whole lot with fibre and just swapping out transceivers if necessary, would offer the best futureproofing and bang for your buck.

That Nortel switch would have been a BayStack?

(ex Nortel :ok:)

Can anyone enlighten me as to how large amounts of RAM aid in the encoding process? Encoding video is hardcore mathematics, CPU-shredding stuff. Open up the performance tab in Task Manager on Windows and watch it during an encoding run (or use top on proper operating systems)... Last time I did any serious video work was with Premiere, Avid and After Effects on Windows 2000 with a single core 1.4 Athlon. Surely we must be knocking on for way over real-time 720p MPEG2 software encoding on high end systems by now?

When buying/building a system, just get as many cores per socket at as high a clock speed as possible as you can reasonably afford. Ignore the RAM; it's cheap as chips and can be bought as/when if you need. A dual-socket system with a pair of 6 core i7 chips, 16GB of RAM, SSD for OS and big RAIDed conventional HDs for general storage will romp home for many years to come no matter what you throw at it. It would also probably cost less than the piece of junk you bought from PC world 10 years ago which you threw in a skip in 2006.

Was 5510s with MLT'd fibre uplinks to 10gig backplane passports back in the day. Budget not that fat any more.

Don't know about processor .. but I've recently started using Linux Ubuntu on an old Athlon powered laptop with only one gig of memory.

Zips along and doing everything I need .. including dvd ripping :D