Riplock is a firmware "hobbling feature" of some computer DVD-ROM drives that significantly slows (throttled back) the drive transfer rate when reading and writing DVD-Video data, typically to 2×-4× on drives that otherwise (as of mid-2005) could read at 8× or 16×. Proponents argue that this restriction in performance reduces the amount of noise when the drive is playing a DVD by providing the lowest rotational speed that allows for adequate data transfer from the DVD to the computer.