Using Pandora To Rip Movie & Music Discs And Encode Them

[ImmaculateChimp]

Assuming you have an external(usb connected) dvd drive like this one for instance(or any other one for that matter, I guess), can the Pandora be used to rip movies from it and encode them to h.264, & music cd's to flac? I assume that because the Pandora is a lower-power device the process would take longer, but how much longer? I don't expect exact answers(obviously that would depend on many different factors), but if you had to venture a guess, might I be looking at something like 15 minutes or more like 4++ hours longer? By the way, my laptop(through the windows xp system information thing) says it is a Toshiba Satellite 1905 ~2392Mhz Pentium 4, 512MB ram & a 32MB ATI Mobility Radeon (LY). I wouldn't have a lot of movies or music to deal with too often so if the Pandora takes a little while longer to take care of such things, that would be ok. If this isn't too terribly beyond the Pandora's abilities, what Pandora-based programs would it use to accomplish these things?

p.s. If(and this is for future reference as well) my questions sometimes seem ridiculous, forgive me. There are certain things I know about computers and others I don't.

p.p.s. for those that know, how would something like my Toshiba Satellite 1905 ~2392Mhz Pentium 4, 512MB ram & a 32MB ATI Mobility Radeon (LY) stack up next to the Pandora...I honestly don't know and am curious to find out.

 

[Mofokubik]

Assuming you have an external(usb connected) dvd drive like this one for instance(or any other one for that matter, I guess), can the Pandora be used to rip movies from it and encode them to h.264, & music cd's to flac? I assume that because the Pandora is a lower-power device the process would take longer, but how much longer? I don't expect exact answers(obviously that would depend on many different factors), but if you had to venture a guess, might I be looking at something like 15 minutes or more like 4++ hours longer? By the way, my laptop(through the windows xp system information thing) says it is a Toshiba Satellite 1905 ~2392Mhz Pentium 4, 512MB ram & a 32MB ATI Mobility Radeon (LY). I wouldn't have a lot of movies or music to deal with too often so if the Pandora takes a little while longer to take care of such things, that would be ok. If this isn't too terribly beyond the Pandora's abilities, what Pandora-based programs would it use to accomplish these things?

p.s. If(and this is for future reference as well) my questions sometimes seem ridiculous, forgive me. There are certain things I know about computers and others I don't.

p.p.s. for those that know, how would something like my Toshiba Satellite 1905 ~2392Mhz Pentium 4, 512MB ram & a 32MB ATI Mobility Radeon (LY) stack up next to the Pandora...I honestly don't know and am curious to find out.

I'm sure it's possible, as long as there's an open source program that can be ported over. As far as speed? Don't expect it to keep up with anything faster than a netbook.

Anyone wanna guess how long it'd take to rip a dvd?

Spoiler

Maybe 2 months?

 

[laurencevde]

I guess x264 will need to spend 4+ hours. Sending them over to your laptop will be faster.
TI also has a set of optimised codecs available for download. That should be faster:
http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/omap35xcodecs.html
http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/c64xpluscodecs.html

 

[atomicthumbs]

encoding would probably take a few days.

 

[WizardStan]

Given that it can almost decode 480p video in real time with just the CPU, I wouldn't expect "days". Probably more like 5:1, a one hour video would take 5 hours to encode. At a guess, anyway, for now.

 

[Gricey]

That's one of the things I love about the Pandora. I see a thread like this and the voice in the back of my head says, 'why would you want to do that?'. With the Pandora, the answer is clearly, 'duh, because you can!'

 

[Pickle]

That's one of the things I love about the Pandora. I see a thread like this and the voice in the back of my head says, 'why would you want to do that?'. With the Pandora, the answer is clearly, 'duh, because you can!'

i see it like this, sure you can use a hammer on a screw, but its clearly the wrong tool for the job
The notion that 'because you can' do something against common sense makes you somehow unique(or cool) is overplayed. In other word theres nothing special about doing a mundane task in the crappiest way possible.
ok im off my soapbox for today

 

[cbox]

Encoding a dvd on my desktop can take several hours, I'd guess on the Pandora it would be 2-4 times longer. Dunno why you'd want to waste that time.

 

[may88]

That's one of the things I love about the Pandora. I see a thread like this and the voice in the back of my head says, 'why would you want to do that?'. With the Pandora, the answer is clearly, 'duh, because you can!'

i see it like this, sure you can use a hammer on a screw, but its clearly the wrong tool for the job
The notion that 'because you can' do something against common sense makes you somehow unique(or cool) is overplayed. In other word theres nothing special about doing a mundane task in the crappiest way possible.
ok im off my soapbox for today

Nothing done on the Pandora could possibly be crappy or mundane. The Pandora is the exception to the rule and the rule to any exceptions, or something.

 

[Pleng]

Nothing done on the Pandora could possibly be crappy or mundane. The Pandora is the exception to the rule and the rule to any exceptions, or something.

In other news, official spokes people are continuing to deny rumours of excessive fanboyism on gp32x.de....

 

[Prometheus]

Encoding a dvd on my desktop can take several hours, I'd guess on the Pandora it would be 2-4 times longer.

What do you use for this?

(I find that this stuff tends to take less than an hour with HandBrake, generally.)

Dunno why you'd want to waste that time.

If someone's travelling without access to another machine, it might be worthwhile.

 

[ImmaculateChimp]

As I have said, I'm not familiar with how well the Pandora compares to an average laptop(I know it's less powerful). Also my laptop had problems before I got it, I've always ended up with other peoples abandoned computers and my laptop is no exception, some of the keys are starting to fall off, leaving just the little springy plunger things underneath them. the little speaker covers are just sitting in place and the power connection at the laptop, has I think, a short in it so that if I accidentally bump the laptop too hard(which really isn't that hard at all) it destabilizes the power connection and the battery starts "discharging" and I have maybe 10 to 12 minutes(oh yeah, the battery is so old it doesn't hold a decent charge anymore) to fiddle with the connection to get it stable again before the whole thing just "dies" right in the middle of whatever I was doing. I also have to keep it elevated or it overheats and auto-powers off. The Pandora really is, for my interests, just about the best compromise between build quality, performance, features, portability, and price that I have found. I'm just interested in making the most out of it as I can.

 

[Gricey]

That's one of the things I love about the Pandora. I see a thread like this and the voice in the back of my head says, 'why would you want to do that?'. With the Pandora, the answer is clearly, 'duh, because you can!'

i see it like this, sure you can use a hammer on a screw, but its clearly the wrong tool for the job
The notion that 'because you can' do something against common sense makes you somehow unique(or cool) is overplayed. In other word theres nothing special about doing a mundane task in the crappiest way possible.
ok im off my soapbox for today

LOL - what I mean is that this device lets you do so much, that sometimes I have to re-read a thread title because someone is doing some zany thing which I wouldn't have even thought of.

No, its not the best tool for the job, but the fact that you even can is testament to how open the platform is.

 

[Pleng]

Mr Chimp I think my ex-laptop might be your laptops long lost cousin!

 

[cbox]

Encoding a dvd on my desktop can take several hours, I'd guess on the Pandora it would be 2-4 times longer.

What do you use for this?

(I find that this stuff tends to take less than an hour with HandBrake, generally.)

Dunno why you'd want to waste that time.

If someone's travelling without access to another machine, it might be worthwhile.

I usually use Handbrake as well, but with multiple pass encoding, which takes longer. Single pass is pretty fast though.

 

[Prometheus]

Ahh, ok. I've never felt a need for multiple pass encoding - I didn't know it would take that much longer. Wow. :blink:

 

[cbox]

Ahh, ok. I've never felt a need for multiple pass encoding - I didn't know it would take that much longer. Wow. :blink:

Multiple pass is good for getting a specific file size, you can't really do that well with single pass.

 

[Prometheus]

HandBrake lets me set a target size without using multiple passes, though (or at least, the Linux and Mac OS X versions do - I can't comment as to whether or not the Windows version does, though). It always seems to be dead-on what I ask of it.

 

[cbox]

I've often had single pass encoding be way off on the file size, not sure why. But then that was older encoders, maybe they've gotten better now.

 

[Prometheus]

I haven't a clue, I'm afraid. The versions I've been using have been released over the last year or two, though, if that sheds any light.

Anyhow, I'm off-topic, so I'll stop now.