[George Bate]

I think that the settings on the Data page of Toast (Mac only, Mac or PC etc) influence the copying of video disc images. If so, this doesn't seem to be mentioned in the manual. Until recently I have always accepted the default of "Mac or PC". But the last time I burned a Data DVD I chose "Mac only" as it seemed to offer advantages. All was well with the resulting discs.

When making video discs (from eyeTV recordings) I invariably create a disc image, which I can test on DVD Player, before using Copy to burn the DVD-R. It didn't occur to me that the Data page setting might be relevant to this process but the next time I copied a disc image, with "Mac only" still selected on the Data page, the resulting disc would not mount on the Mac. I repeated the copy with the same result. Finally I performed the copy with Disk Utility and all was well.

The Data option was the only thing that was different from all previous DVDs and that strongly suggests that this was the cause of the problem. Was I perhaps, unwittingly, trying to make a Mac only formatted DVD which, as far as I know, does not exist?

[tsantee]

It's unclear to me how the Data window was involved at all. To burn a disc image, use the Image File setting in the Copy window, not the Data window.

[George Bate]

tsantee, on Nov 7 2006, 06:53 AM, said:

It's unclear to me how the Data window was involved at all. To burn a disc image, use the Image File setting in the Copy window, not the Data window.

I think you have misunderstood me. I had previously been burning Data discs and had set the option "Mac only". Toast remembers all settings when you rerun it so, when I later came to copy the disc image, this option was still selected. It was precisely because there is no call to look at the Data window at this point that it didn't occur to me to change it back to the default. In any case, I never imagined that it would matter. But the evidence is that it does. These options have no counterpart in Disk Utility which I suspect burns discs to be compatible with all types of DVD player by default. That would certainly be the Mac way.

[tsantee]

George Bate, on Nov 7 2006, 09:03 AM, said:

I think you have misunderstood me. I had previously been burning Data discs and had set the option "Mac only". Toast remembers all settings when you rerun it so, when I later came to copy the disc image, this option was still selected. It was precisely because there is no call to look at the Data window at this point that it didn't occur to me to change it back to the default. In any case, I never imagined that it would matter. But the evidence is that it does. These options have no counterpart in Disk Utility which I suspect burns discs to be compatible with all types of DVD player by default. That would certainly be the Mac way.

Thanks for the clarification. FYI, Disk Utility cannot format a UDF disc which is required for video DVD. However, Toast did that formatting when creating its disc image which then can be burned with Disk Utility. I can't imagine why any setting in the Data window would have an affect on anything burned in the other Toast windows, except for when Add Data Content is chosen in the Video window. In that case it is important that the Data window is set to DVD (UDF) format.

[George Bate]

tsantee, on Nov 7 2006, 11:41 AM, said:

Thanks for the clarification. FYI, Disk Utility cannot format a UDF disc which is required for video DVD. However, Toast did that formatting when creating its disc image which then can be burned with Disk Utility. I can't imagine why any setting in the Data window would have an affect on anything burned in the other Toast windows, except for when Add Data Content is chosen in the Video window. In that case it is important that the Data window is set to DVD (UDF) format.

Thanks for this. It broadly represents what I would have thought before the problem arose. There just didn't seem to be any other explanation for a disc image working from the desktop but not from a DVD-R. Since Disk Utility did create a valid DVD from the same image, the problem has to be with the Toast Copy operation unless it was a bad DVD-R. As I have rarely encountered one such, I am reluctant to think I found two in succession. Any alternative suggestions will be gratefully received.

[George Bate]

tsantee, on Nov 7 2006, 11:41 AM, said:

Thanks for the clarification. FYI, Disk Utility cannot format a UDF disc which is required for video DVD. However, Toast did that formatting when creating its disc image which then can be burned with Disk Utility. I can't imagine why any setting in the Data window would have an affect on anything burned in the other Toast windows, except for when Add Data Content is chosen in the Video window. In that case it is important that the Data window is set to DVD (UDF) format.

The situation has got worse. I don't seem to be able to write DVDs at all now whether Video or Data, with Toast or the Mac burn facilities. It looks very much as if the drive as failed. I've arranged to have it relaced. Thanks for your interest though.