[macaroon88]

Sorry, I really couldnt find this anywhere.

I have a whole season of 23 AVI files, approximately 40 mins each. I know how to burn the files as DATA, meaning it will fit in 2 DVDs (but I would not be able to play it properly on TV). I also know how to burn 2 episodes as videos (that may be used in the dvd player then TV), but that would mean i would need 12 DVDs in total.

I know there is a way to fit the whole season to one DVD, still playable in the standard DVD players (not the computer's) so that I can watch it on TV.

Can someone please post a step-by-step guide? I'd really appreciate it.

---Do I need to convert the AVI files to some other file type first?
---Do I need DVD2OneX? (I have it already---I just dont know how to use it.)
---Toast 7 can do this, right?

Thank you so much.

[ffooky]

920 minutes in MPEG-2 on a single disc will look like utter rubbish whatever program you use to encode.

If you want to use Toast 7 then your best bet is to select DVD-Video and drop, say 6 episodes on the Video window. Select Save As Disc Image from the File menu (or command-D) and once the image is created go to the Copy tab and select Image File from the drawer menu. Check that Fit-to-DVD video compression is checked and then once again save to a (single layer) disc image.

Mount that image, play with DVD Player and see if the quality is acceptable. Depending on your opinion you can repeat the process with less/more episodes until you reach the best fit.

If you're really determined to try to get them all on one disc you could maybe try using ffmpegX's DVD-lo (Half DVD) setting to encode the files one by one but there'll be a lot of working out of bit-rates/sizes beforehand necessary.

This post has been edited by ffooky: 03 November 2006 - 03:35 AM

[macaroon88]

ffooky, on Nov 3 2006, 03:31 AM, said:

920 minutes in MPEG-2 on a single disc will look like utter rubbish whatever program you use to encode.

If you want to use Toast 7 then your best bet is to select DVD-Video and drop, say 6 episodes on the Video window. Select Save As Disc Image from the File menu (or command-D) and once the image is created go to the Copy tab and select Image File from the drawer menu. Check that Fit-to-DVD video compression is checked and then once again save to a (single layer) disc image.

Mount that image, play with DVD Player and see if the quality is acceptable. Depending on your opinion you can repeat the process with less/more episodes until you reach the best fit.

If you're really determined to try to get them all on one disc you could maybe try using ffmpegX's DVD-lo (Half DVD) setting to encode the files one by one but there'll be a lot of working out of bit-rates/sizes beforehand necessary.

Im currently encoding. It seems that it will take forever though (i put 10 episodes).
I'm not sure what this means: "then once again save to a (single layer) disc image" --- does this mean I have to drag the created filename.toast file to the copy window, make sure Fit-to-DVD is checked, then "Save As Disc Image" again?

Then say the quality is acceptable, I drag which disk image to copy window?

Thank you for the response!

[ffooky]

macaroon88, on Nov 3 2006, 01:15 PM, said:

Im currently encoding. It seems that it will take forever though (i put 10 episodes).
I'm not sure what this means: "then once again save to a (single layer) disc image" --- does this mean I have to drag the created filename.toast file to the copy window, make sure Fit-to-DVD is checked, then "Save As Disc Image" again?

Yes, I didn't make myself clear. Once your 10 episode disc image is created, you need to drag that one to the Copy window and then save to another disc image (call it something to distinguish it from the first one) with Fit-to-DVD checked.

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Then say the quality is acceptable, I drag which disk image to copy window?

Once you've created the 'Fit-to-DVD'ed image then you can just delete the first image, its work here is done If the quality wasn't up to snuff you need to repeat the process starting off with 8 or 9 episodes this time.

[macaroon88]

ffooky, on Nov 3 2006, 04:50 AM, said:

Yes, I didn't make myself clear. Once your 10 episode disc image is created, you need to drag that one to the Copy window and then save to another disc image (call it something to distinguish it from the first one) with Fit-to-DVD checked.Once you've created the 'Fit-to-DVD'ed image then you can just delete the first image, its work here is done If the quality wasn't up to snuff you need to repeat the process starting off with 8 or 9 episodes this time.

encoding still... does it really take that long? i cant skip this encoding part, right? even if I select "custom" next time?

i was just wondering... once i've created the 1st disc image, can i actually DELETE the original AVIs? Or this will ruin the whole thing? running low on memory so I have to free some space up to save the 2nd disc image... can i delete the original 10 AVIs?

thanks soooo much for the help!!! :D:D

[ffooky]

macaroon88, on Nov 3 2006, 02:09 PM, said:

encoding still... does it really take that long? i cant skip this encoding part, right? even if I select "custom" next time?

'Fraid not. In my experience Toast takes longer to encode to encode to any video format than any of the other tools available.

Quote

i was just wondering... once i've created the 1st disc image, can i actually DELETE the original AVIs? Or this will ruin the whole thing? running low on memory so I have to free some space up to save the 2nd disc image... can i delete the original 10 AVIs?

I strongly recommend you NOT to delete the originals until you've exhausted all the conversion/compression options. On reflection, you may want to look at VisualHub (DVD->make sure Author as DVD is checked) as another option, though it is not freeware. It automatically compresses however many files you add so that they will fit on a single disc and creates an ISO disc image which you can mount and check for quality. If you're beginning to run out of space it might be worth a bash for that reason alone.

Quote

thanks soooo much for the help!!! :D:D

No worries, though I recommend looking at the increasing number of DVD players that can play XviD/DivX. My Philips DVP 5960 has played everything I've thrown at it so far.

[tsantee]

macaroon88, on Nov 3 2006, 06:09 AM, said:

encoding still... does it really take that long? i cant skip this encoding part, right? even if I select "custom" next time?

i was just wondering... once i've created the 1st disc image, can i actually DELETE the original AVIs? Or this will ruin the whole thing? running low on memory so I have to free some space up to save the 2nd disc image... can i delete the original 10 AVIs?

thanks soooo much for the help!!! :D:D

ffooky's advice is right. In my opinion what you should be doing is trying to create DivX discs with Toast. Your AVI's may already be DivX. Then buy a DVD player that supports playback of DivX discs to connect to your TV. Some of these are very inexpensive.