so when i first got cloneDVD, i was totally surprised at the speed at which it read/wrote. normally, the dvd would read at about 25-30 minutes, sometimes 45 mintues if it was a super-long movie. and then write at about 25-30 minutes also. but now, any movie takes about 60-70 minutes to read and then 25-30 minutes to write. and these aren't long movies...they're just two hours or less!

does anyone know what the problem could be?

PIO Versus DMA mode? See this thread for possible solution;
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread....hlight=pio+dma
regards & good luck

yeah, i tried that but still no dice.

i have a p4 2.4 gHz with 512MB ram and an 8x drive.

i just tried a 2 hour 16 minute movie and it took 67 minutes at only 83% compression. does anyone else have any ideas?

Enable DMA

It can be very important to be sure that you Enable DMA and it is properly enabled. The sad fact is that it is not as straight forward as you might think. You can simply change the DMA in the Device manager, check here first regardless, but there is a DMA setting in the registry too. This can be very important to enable DMA on your machine. Be sure to check the registry.

There are several articles on this subject in Microsoft Knowledge base on this subject. Be sure check these as well for your situation to help you decide how best to enable DMA:

INFO: Call Enable DMA Translation Only After DMA is Complete
When you disable DMA translation prior to programming the DMA controller, do not reenable DMA translation until the DMA transfers are complete for that channel. Below is documentation from "PW0519: Virtual DMA Services (VDS)" on DMA translation...
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;163355

How to Enable Direct Memory Access (DMA)
This article describes how to enable Direct Memory Access (DMA) on your Windows 98-based, Windows 95-based or Windows Millennium Edition-based computer. DMA (also referred to as bus mastering) is a technique that some components and devices use to...
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;258757

How to Enable IDE DMA Bus-Mastering Using SP2 Atapi.sys
A DMA Bus-Mastering-capable version of the Atapi.sys device driver is available in Service Pack 2 or later for Microsoft Windows NT 4.0. By default, Atapi.sys will perform disk I/O through the Programmed Input/Output (PIO), which is the transfer...
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;158873

DMA Mode for ATA/ATAPI Devices in Windows XP
Provides information about DMA Mode for ATA/ATAPI Devices in Microsoft Windows XP
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device...e/IDE-DMA.mspx

MechWarrior 4: Improve Performance with DMA
If you play the game on a Microsoft Windows 98 or Microsoft Window Millennium Edition-based computer and you experience poor performance and instability, make sure direct memory access (DMA) is enabled. When you enable DMA on your computer, you...
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;287143

But first some background from Microsoft of what they call the DMA:
DMA is located in the Hardware Resources category in System Information. It displays information about your system's direct memory access (DMA). DMA transfers data between system memory and hardware devices without passing it through the CPU. The Resource column in the details pane displays the DMA channel that is being used by the device, which is listed in the Device column. The Status column displays the status of the device.

If the Status column indicates an error, such as Error, Degraded, Unknown, Pred Fail, Starting, Stopping, or Service, you can try the following troubleshooting solutions:

Use Device Manager to locate and troubleshoot the problem. For more information about Device Manager, see Device Manager.
Contact the device manufacturer to obtain an updated device driver.
Reconfigure the settings in the system BIOS.or EFI
For more information about Hardware Resources, see Hardware Resources.


go here for the rest of the info
http://www.blackmaxpc.com/Guides/Enable_DMA.htm


Enabling Direct Memory Access or "DMA" for faster DVD copying
Checking and setting the DMA settings is an important part of configuring PC for recording DVDs.

http://www.dvdplusvideo.com/dvdguide005.html

From Microsoft:
"Basically, DMA or Direct Memory Access is a system that allows devices in your computer to transfer data directly to and from RAM without having to use the CPU as an intermediary. This boosts the performance of your PC significantly as not only the device from which the data is being read responds quickly, but also leaves the most important component, the CPU, free for other critical operations. However, the UDMA or the Ultra direct memory access is further advancement over the DMA technology that uses even higher data transfer rate thereby boosting the overall performance of the PC.

For repeated DMA errors. Windows XP will turn off DMA mode for a device after encountering certain errors during data transfer operations. If more that six DMA transfer timeouts occur, Windows will turn off DMA and use only PIO mode on that device.

In this case, the user cannot turn on DMA for this device. The only option for the user who wants to enable DMA mode is to uninstall and reinstall the device.

Windows XP downgrades the Ultra DMA transfer mode after receiving more than six CRC errors. Whenever possible, the operating system will step down one UDMA mode at a time (from UDMA mode 4 to UDMA mode 3, and so on).

If the mini-IDE driver for the device does not support stepping down transfer modes, or if the device is running UDMA mode 0, Windows XP will step down to PIO mode after encountering six or more CRC errors. In this case, a system reboot should restore the original DMA mode settings.

All CRC and timeout errors are logged in the system event log. These types of errors could be caused by improper mounting or improper cabling (for example, 40-pin instead of 80-pin cable). Or such errors could indicate imminent hardware failure, for example, in a hard drive or chipset.
Let's take a look at enabling DMA in a computer using Windows XP.

To get started, you need to first open the Device Manager.
There is more than one way to do this, I will describe two.

* Method 1:
1. Click Start and Open Control Panel.
2. Click on "Performance and Maintenance".
3. Click on "See basic information about your computer".
4. This will open the System Properties menu.
* Method 2:
1. Click Start and then click on My Computer.
2. On the right, find the Systems Tasks menu and click on "View System information".
3. This will open the System Properties menu.

GO HERE TO SEE PIXS OF SETTINGS IN XP
http://www.dvdplusvideo.com/dvdguide005.html



You can try tweaking the registry settings to reset the error count. Be very careful here.
Backup your registry before proceeding.

Run REGEDIT.
Go to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

It has subkeys like 0000, 0001, 0002, etc. Normally 0001 is the primary IDE channel, 0002 the secondary, but other numbers can occur under certain circumstances. You have to go through these subkeys and check the DriverDesc value until you find the proper IDE channel.

Delete MasterIdDataChecksum or SlaveIdDataChecksum, depending on whether the device in question is attached as master or slave, but it can't actually hurt to delete both. Reboot. The drive DMA capabilities will be redetected.

Open Device Manager again and check whether the device is now actually using DMA mode. If so, congratulations, you've made it (at least until the next time Windows disables DMA)

Good post Ireland. Either that's alot of writing or your paste feature works real good ya?

I like this forum. How are you doing? You ARE still the great teacher!

Best regards
Whisperer

wow that's great! i totally see a difference in speed! 25 minutes at 91% compression! thanks a lot guys.

ireland,

Excellent post on DMA, thanks for taking the time to research.



I was attempting to assist joshuwack by going in my registry and seeing what the values were for 0001 and 0002 subkeys. It looks like his problem is solved but I’ll post my results in case anybody else may need to compare values.



I am attaching a snapshot of both the 0001 subkey (primary), and the 0002 subkey (secondary) to compare a properly functioning burner. The 0001 subkey depicts my Primary Ide that has two Hard Drives.
Subkey 0002 depicts my two burners, an NEC that is on the secondary as master, and a Liteon, on the secondary as slave. The snapshot of these two burners will appear in lower attachment (0002). There is only one difference between the two burners, and that being the checksum dword values. I suspect the values may be different because one is master and the other slave, but I may be wrong.

Very well done Ireland,
A previous post you made on the same subject in another forum, helped me thru the same problem, when I was having trouble after installing a new burner..... It was an older post at the time, which I found by researching the forum. I would like to take this oppurtunity to say thanks to you, and all in this forum who are so willing to help. Its great knowing help is out there when needed.
I might add to the post, that I have found Nero Drive Speed to be helpful with read speed. I haven't tried the drive speed feature within AnyDvd, but I assume it works similarly?
Sockeye

Ireland did a great job gathering information and I simply want to say thanks for using my guide from dvdplusvideo.com. as part of the answer.

Cut and paste is OK IMHO! And if it is cut and pasted together correctly and some thoughtful explanation is added, then people can actually understand it. I always try to give credit where due, just as Ireland has.

I was looking for a Nvidia/DMA solution to copy and paste into a reply elsewhere when I ended up at this thread! Oh well.

Later,

fasfrank