Toast 7 issue

[rspeaker]

I'm using Toast 7, trying to burn some AVI files to DVD. Each file is roughly 350MB, there are 6 files, so roughly 3.5GB of video. However, when I add them all in Toast and go to burn, I get a message saying the inserted DVD can only hold 4.38GB, and there are 8GB+ to be burned. Is there a reason why such small files are causing me such big problems?

 

[rspeaker]

Okay, think I figured it out... DVDs I have are only 120 minutes. Is there any way to get around this, besides getting DL disks? Frankly, putting two videos per DVD seems a waste, and a real hassle for archiving.

 

[shadowmoses]

I'm using Toast 7, trying to burn some AVI files to DVD. Each file is roughly 350MB, there are 6 files, so roughly 3.5GB of video. However, when I add them all in Toast and go to burn, I get a message saying the inserted DVD can only hold 4.38GB, and there are 8GB+ to be burned. Is there a reason why such small files are causing me such big problems?

Make sure you are burning the .AVI files as a DVD-Rom, click DATA on the top bar and then DVD-ROM on the tray on the left, then try and drag in your files....
SHould work if it doesn't not sure what it could be,

ShadoW

 

[x86]

Are you sure the combined files are not too large? Also, Toast may think you want to convert these files to be DVD player compatible, which would dramatically increase the size requirements. I'm not on my Mac so I can't really verify this, but I hope it helps anyway.

 

[rspeaker]

Well, I was hoping to make DVDs I could play in standard players, but it doesn't seem I can do that AND get more than two episodes per disk. Seems such a shame. What about converting the AVIs to MPEG2, and then burning DVD-ROMs? Would that work, albeit without a fancy menu system?

 

[x86]

I don't think the menu is going to take up any real noticeable space on the DVD, unless the videos just *barely* fit. Maybe you can somehow lower the quality a bit to get them to fit...

 

[shadowmoses]

Well, I was hoping to make DVDs I could play in standard players, but it doesn't seem I can do that AND get more than two episodes per disk. Seems such a shame. What about converting the AVIs to MPEG2, and then burning DVD-ROMs? Would that work, albeit without a fancy menu system?

thats where the problem is, when you make them into DVD files that can play on a standard DVD player Toast 7 will convert the files so that they can play, making them much larger.....

SHadoW

 

[NJuul]

Basically you have two options:

1: Burn the files as .avi, will take up ~3.5 gig, one DVD. However, if you want to play them on a DVD player, it must be one that is .avi compatible.

2: Convert the files to mpeg 2, which is the standard DVD format. Toast will do this for you if you select "Video". Plays on any DVD player, but is much larger than .avi, thus leaving you with only ~2 clips per DVD.

These are your options, check the manual of your DVD player to find out which video formats are supported. If it supports avi, burn as avi, if not, well, then you have to follow option no. 2 if you want to watch them on your player.

 

[zagato27]

I'm using Toast 7, trying to burn some AVI files to DVD. Each file is roughly 350MB, there are 6 files, so roughly 3.5GB of video. However, when I add them all in Toast and go to burn, I get a message saying the inserted DVD can only hold 4.38GB, and there are 8GB+ to be burned. Is there a reason why such small files are causing me such big problems?

Maybe I'm being stuuuuupid but can't you use the auto compression mode? I use it when I'm not burning a DL DVD.

 

[road dog]

Here's how you should do it.

1. Select Video tab, select DVD-Video in the drawer
2. Add your AVIs... add 2 of them
3. Instead of clicking red record button, choose File > Save As Disc Image

This will encode the video into standard MPEG2 so you can watch on an ordinary DVD player, and then save out a disc image file to your hard disk of the DVD-Video. Note that you will likely need 7 GB of free hard disk space to do this.

4. When done saving out the disk image, select Copy tab, select Image File in the drawer.
5. Drag/drop your disc image file into main Toast window
6. Make sure that Fit to DVD compression is checked in the drawer
7. Cklick red record button.

This will take the DVD material on the disc image and compress it down to fit onto a standard blank single layer DVD. It's the same compression that Toast users to compress a VIDEO_TS folder to fit.

You will likely need 5 GB of free hard disk space to do this (hence the hefty system requirements for some Toast functions - it says up to 15 GB of free temporary disk space may be needed on the box).

You can even use this process to probably cram 3 or more episodes onto a single DVD, but the more you cram, the lower the quality.

Also, some caveats... converting from AVI to DVD can take some time... several minutes per minute of source depending on the speed of your machine.

Also, when creating a DVD-Video, it's not the size in MB that matters for the source files, it's the time. A standard DVD in Toast can hold about 2.5 hours.

Good luck.

 

[rspeaker]

Thanks road dog, that's exactly what I was looking for! I read about the disk image thing on Elgato's website (in regards to one of their eyetv products,) but was unable to find it again.

I'm about 20% done with the first of two videos for this disk image... one hour for the first 20%. Would RAM help with encoding, or is it all processor? I could well be spending A LOT of time here at the iMac...

Thanks again.

 

[rspeaker]

Well, after spending NINE hours encoding two videos (about 105 minutes total,) I got "Error Code=-43," and when I tried adding the disk image into Toast, the computer crashed. Hard. Force Quit wouldn't even work; I had to power down with the button. Overnight, I encoded a different video, that, when finished, did not produce an error code, but crashed my iMac just as hard.

I have a CD iMac, with only 512MB of RAM but still... thouh, I'm thinking it's a software issue and not hardware. Has anyone else had this problem? Remedies?