Speed up iTunes CD importing

May 05, '06 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: osxpounder

This might be obvious for some people...

I find that importing a CD goes visibly faster [you can see it in the progress bar] if you're not playing the CD while importing, even if you're using a fast Mac with gobs of RAM. On my dual 2GHz G5, playing a CD slows down CD import considerably, but if I wait until the first song is imported, and play the iTunes file instead of the actual CD, importing isn't slowed down noticeably.

[kirkmc adds: I've noticed this as well, and, in fact, that's why I say it might be obvious. Two things are happening when you import a CD in iTunes: the CD is read, and iTunes processes the file to convert it. The first limit therefore is the read speed of your CD drive. If a song is playing, you can (on most Macs) here the drive skipping back and forth between the song it's playing and the one it's importing. The second limit is your processor speed. It is possible that, with a relatively slow Mac, or one with a very fast CD drive, there won't be much difference in the import speed if the CD is playing.

What I've tried to figure out, however, is why some CDs import at about a maximum of 8x on my 2 GHz iMac, and others hit up to about 14x. The fastest my iMac can go is around 15-16x; I can see that when converting AIFF files to AAC. While the type of music should make some difference, I'll see different results on multiple discs from box sets (such as different CDs of a set of Beethoven string quartets, for example) where the music is very similar. Anyone have any answers to this question?]

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