I'm building an time-lapse app that needs to convert CR2 files (from 5DM3) as fast as possible (using some automated/predefined/default settings, i.e. no user interaction). This is Windoze app (yeah, yeah, I know...). I tried dcraw (needed to dance around for couple hours to make it work in VS2012), and then Canon's native EDSDK. Both gave me about same speed (~6 to 6.3s CR2 to TIF conversion on a pretty good machine - I7-3960, 64GB RAM, SATA3-RAID0 SDD array, etc, etc). I'm currently looking for the [way!] faster alternative; namely LibRaw and RawSpeed (or may be someone can recommend something else?). Problem is, every new library, especially UNIX-oriented, takes quite some time to learn and build even simplest test app (hey, I can live with hardcoded file names, if it helps!). And to spend several hours to several days just to figure out that library is no faster than previous one - is very, hmm, how to phrase it politely, unproductive.

So, because there is no simple "Hello world" (for Windoze) for LibRaw or RawSpeed, my question is this: did anyone run any sort of a comparative benchmark, to say, "product X is Y times faster(slower) than product Z for such and such case"? Mainly I'm interested in the comparison with dcRaw just to get a rough idea.

Thank you in advance for answers!