I have Toast 7.1.2 and EyeTV 2.

When I send programs from EyeTV to Toast they transfer fine, but I can't seem to get more than 100 mins of video on a single layer DVD.

I have Toast Encoding set to Automatic, but it does not want to fit the 150 mins that Toast say should fit on a DVD.

Can anyone help or suggest what settings I need to change.

Is it because the output of EyeTV is DV16:9 format? Does that take more space than plain DV?

Thanks,

Ian

Toast does not re-encode existing MPEG 2 video files unless you change the re-encoding setting to Always. The problem you are experiencing is that the settings used by EyeTV to create the MPEGs are too high to fit 150 minutes of video to a DVD.

You have some options. 1) I don't have an EyeTV but it may be possible to change its MPEG encoding settings to a smaller bit rate. 2) When your videos are too long can choose Save as Disc Image in Toast rather than clicking the burn button. Then choose the disc image using the Image File setting in the Copy window. When you click the burn button Toast will ask if you want the contents to be further compressed to fit a single layer disc. 3) You can choose Always re-encode in the Custom Encoder settings and have Toast re-encode new MPEG files that are smaller in size.

I quickly tried Option 3 this morning but it still did not work.
It still stated that there was not enough room on the DVD.
I will try the others later.

Thanks,

Ian

In the same window that lets you change the Reencoding option, you could set the Average Bit Rate to a lower value. My guess for 150 minutes is 3250 kbps, so try 3.0 Mbps or 3.5 Mbps. These values are quite low for MPEG-2, so check the final output for compression artifacts, by playing from a disk image.

I have found a way to fit more on and it involves EyeTV rather than Toast.

I EyeTV there is a 'Toast' button which just transfers the recorded data directly to Toast, no conversion, compressing or encoding is done. When you then start the DVD burn it also does none of the above and just burns the DVD. These work fine but have a less than 100 min time limit.

Instead I have found that I can choose Export in EyeTV and select Toast as the format. This does do some compressing and make a smaller version of the file which means I can get more than 100 mins on a DVD.

I am sure the image will not be as good, but I am only doing this to send TV programs to my sister in NZ, who will only watch then once anyway.

The whole process does take a bit longer, but it saves 50% of the DVD's I need !!

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Ian