14 replies to this topic

[btour]

So I had disc image about 4.5 gigs. I did a .toast image hoping toast would offer to convert Pal. It did not. So I made a mpeg streamline do a mpeg file fixing time breaks. Now I brought that mpeg into toast do a .toast and toast offered to do pal converstion. After 12 hours and toast was almost done it "unexpectedly quit". I had preferences set to not dump converted items, and hoped it would pick up where it left off. there was a 5.5 gig tmp file in converted items. I named the .toast file the same name and it asked if I wanted to replace, I chose yes and toast said there was not enough room, ( I had started with 13 gigs of space. and then I tried again. Toast had dump the temp file, and the thing is starting from the start again.

I guess my questions are, is there a better program to use to convert pal? How much room do I need? Three times the size of the file or more? How do I force toast to use the temp file it created? Should I have chose not to use the same name for .toast file. just deleted that one? Used a different name?

[tsantee]

You might have been able to skip the MPEG Streamclip step if you had used the Toast Media browser to extract the MPEG from the disc image. You'd do this by mounting the disc image and then choosing DVD with the Media Browser, going down to the title level and then dragging the title(s) you want to the Video window. Toast then extracts the MPEG from the VIDEO_TS folder and writes it to the converted items folder.

As for the unexpected quit during the PAL conversion that could be due to a lack of hard drive space, to a defect in RAM or to a defect in the source MPEG file. Usually the latter just results in Toast hanging.

I don't know any way to force Toast to use a partially completed file in the Converted Items folder. It typically will use fully completed files, so if you had three titles and it crashed on the third one that the first two would get reused.

Another application I'm aware of that does PAL/NTSC transcoding is MPEG2 Works. I have no experience with it.

[btour]

Hi again, and thanks again. I did use the media browser and had the source file mounted and dragged and dropped, and yes I did expect toast to offer to convert and it did not do that. So that is why I used streamclip. I also wanted to fix this disc. There is a problem where it does not start with main menu but first segment menu and then stops after every segment, and there were problems with playback unless one choses main menu every time, so streamclip found lots of timecode breaks.

I will look for MPEG2, is that for the mac? Where can I get it? I was aware there was an mpeg2 component available but not a program by that name.

[tsantee]

Hi again, and thanks again. I did use the media browser and had the source file mounted and dragged and dropped, and yes I did expect toast to offer to convert and it did not do that. So that is why I used streamclip. I also wanted to fix this disc. There is a problem where it does not start with main menu but first segment menu and then stops after every segment, and there were problems with playback unless one choses main menu every time, so streamclip found lots of timecode breaks.

I will look for MPEG2, is that for the mac? Where can I get it? I was aware there was an mpeg2 component available but not a program by that name.

I, too, have used the Fix Timecode Breaks feature in Streamclip. Glad it's there.

The application is called "MPEG2 Works 4". Search for it at versiontracker.com.

[btour]

Thank you once again. I am looking for it. Another question.

Once toast finishes converting and encoding, I will have a .toast image, hopefully. What can I do at that point to rearrange the menu that is messed up, so that the main menu is first to load and that all segments play sequentially? Will it take a long time to encode again?

[tsantee]

Thank you once again. I am looking for it. Another question.

Once toast finishes converting and encoding, I will have a .toast image, hopefully. What can I do at that point to rearrange the menu that is messed up, so that the main menu is first to load and that all segments play sequentially? Will it take a long time to encode again?

The settings Toast has for menus are check boxes next to "auto play disc on insert" and "play all items continuously." Apparently you had the first box checked and the second box unchecked.

You'll need to have Toast re-author the DVD. If you saved the project as a .disc file and did not empty the Converted Items folder, then you simply could change those check boxes and choose Save as Disc Image. But if you don't have that from the previous attempt then you need to drag in the MPEGs and set up your menu title info again.

You can extract the MPEGs from a .toast disc image by mounting the image file and using the DVD button in the Media Browser to access the mounted disc image. Of course you are working with limited hard drive space, so you'll need to trash that disc image after the extraction to free up space.

[btour]

I am still in the process of encoding the mpeg, single file, from streamclip, into toast. 14 hours and a little over half way there. Play on insert is NOT checked and play continously is checked, so maybe everything will be OK. I was wondering because the orginal had a menu structure but the main menu was not the first to load, The first segment loaded first, and the segments seemed to be orphaned. So I do not know what will happen. How does toast deal with menus? Will it write its own? Or how I could effect what it did with a menu? Does it go by how, what order I drag them in from a mounted image? Once I drag them in from a mounted image, at that point I can trash the .toast image?

Right now, in Converted Items folder, there is a tmp file,  that is 4.9 gigs and growing. My finder still says I have 10.9 gigs available. So I have no idea what is going on. There is also a SPU.temp fle which is small, and a DVD.tmp folder which is empty.

I wish toast had better help files which detailed the process instead of pretending it was so simple and making it transparent to the user.

[tsantee]

I am still in the process of encoding the mpeg, single file, from streamclip, into toast. 14 hours and a little over half way there. Play on insert is NOT checked and play continously is checked, so maybe everything will be OK. I was wondering because the orginal had a menu structure but the main menu was not the first to load, The first segment loaded first, and the segments seemed to be orphaned. So I do not know what will happen. How does toast deal with menus? Will it write its own? Or how I could effect what it did with a menu? Does it go by how, what order I drag them in from a mounted image? Once I drag them in from a mounted image, at that point I can trash the .toast image?

Right now, in Converted Items folder, there is a tmp file,  that is 4.9 gigs and growing. My finder still says I have 10.9 gigs available. So I have no idea what is going on. There is also a SPU.temp fle which is small, and a DVD.tmp folder which is empty.

I wish toast had better help files which detailed the process instead of pretending it was so simple and making it transparent to the user.

Toast does not use the menu from the source DVD unless you are copying the source DVD, not just its titles. When you choose DVD video as the format in the Video window Toast creates its own menu. The menu has the information and title order of what appears in the Video window.

When you disc image is finished you can mount it to preview how it plays in DVD player. Be sure to empty the converted items folder before burning the disc image to DVD (using the Image File setting in the Copy window). You'll need that spare hard drive space.

[btour]

Ok I think I get it. When the toast image is done, I will mount it and then I can rearrange order of menu items? Then toast will make a new tmp file in converted items and re-encode, or just multiplex (just thinking of time and space).

Speaking of space, it would seem that I will need in the future to consider it will require almost 4x times the size of the mpeg file. Because right now that temp file is 5.37 gigs and the source was 4.3 gigs, and the temp is only 2/3 done, and then it has to write the .toast file, and that I imagine will be at least 4.3 gigs, and hopefully not the I imagine 7 or 8 gigs size of the temp file.

Is this normal? I mean toast gave no warning I would need that much space. I have been deleting furiously. I can not even use toast to burn backups while this is going on.

It would be such a help if there were a document that I could read that explained exactly how toast performs its functions. Then I would not have to pester you so much. I feel like such a fool. I can program in six languages, but I am helpless to use a program with so little documentation. I am also a newbie to the world of video formats. I can understand the con concept of wrappers from C++ and Java, but  no clue as to details of what is happening with these video files.

[tsantee]

Ok I think I get it. When the toast image is done, I will mount it and then I can rearrange order of menu items? Then toast will make a new tmp file in converted items and re-encode, or just multiplex (just thinking of time and space).

Speaking of space, it would seem that I will need in the future to consider it will require almost 4x times the size of the mpeg file. Because right now that temp file is 5.37 gigs and the source was 4.3 gigs, and the temp is only 2/3 done, and then it has to write the .toast file, and that I imagine will be at least 4.3 gigs, and hopefully not the I imagine 7 or 8 gigs size of the temp file.

Is this normal? I mean toast gave no warning I would need that much space. I have been deleting furiously. I can not even use toast to burn backups while this is going on.

It would be such a help if there were a document that I could read that explained exactly how toast performs its functions. Then I would not have to pester you so much. I feel like such a fool. I can program in six languages, but I am helpless to use a program with so little documentation. I am also a newbie to the world of video formats. I can understand the con concept of wrappers from C++ and Java, but  no clue as to details of what is happening with these video files.

The Toast menu is formatted in the Video window before you Save as Disc Image. You can see the result by mounting the disc image and playing it in DVD Player. Normally if you don't like what you see (and haven't quit Toast and haven't emptied the Converted Items folder) you would just trash the disc image, change the layout or text in the Video window and create a new disc image. However, since you are having Toast transcode the video I'm not certain if Toast would go through all the re-encoding again. So the alternative  way would be to empty the Video window and empty the converted items folder and then use the Media Browser to extract the MPEGs from the mounted disc image file. That way there wouldn't be any need to re-encode those MPEGs again.

Your source was only a little more than 4 GB but Toast is creating much larger files when it is re-encoding. This suggests that your original video was very compressed and the re-encoded video is not compressed as much. Typically Toast fits about 2-1/2 hours of video to a single-layer disc so yours must be longer than that. When you have a disc image that meets your approval when played in DVD player, you will need to use Toast's fit-to-DVD feature in the Copy to make it fit a single-layer disc. This requires more free hard drive space again. Had you kept the content on the disc under 2-1/2 hours my guess is you wouldn't need to go through the additional fit-to-DVD compression.

As for documentation regarding Toast, there is the getting started guide, Toast Help (which is pretty much the same as the getting started guide) and the knowledgebase articles on the Toast support page. What you're trying to do is rather complex, though, so I'm not surprised that its giving you headaches.

[btour]

Aww the see the situation regarding file size. As you pointed out, the time of the content is 3 hours and 14 minutes, even though it came from one disc, when run through streamclip to create the mpeg. So what was compressed somehow got uncompressed? Yikes. Now I will have to compress it, as you point out to fit on one disc. It could have been edited in stream clip to remove some redunant stuff, but too late now.

Hopefully compression will not take so long. So now when toast image is done, I should trash converted items? Trash the mpeg file? Mount the image? Arrange menu items? Burn another toast image? And finally to disc? Or no? I would have to burn to disc to get the compression? Or is there some way to force a toast image to be a certain size?

[tsantee]

Aww the see the situation regarding file size. As you pointed out, the time of the content is 3 hours and 14 minutes, even though it came from one disc, when run through streamclip to create the mpeg. So what was compressed somehow got uncompressed? Yikes. Now I will have to compress it, as you point out to fit on one disc. It could have been edited in stream clip to remove some redunant stuff, but too late now.

Hopefully compression will not take so long. So now when toast image is done, I should trash converted items? Trash the mpeg file? Mount the image? Arrange menu items? Burn another toast image? And finally to disc? Or no? I would have to burn to disc to get the compression? Or is there some way to force a toast image to be a certain size?

When we're done here you'll will have been through enough to be qualified to answer everyone else's posts.

In order to transcode the video Toast has to decompress and recompress the MPEG as part of the process. All you see is the re-compressed MPEG in the Converted Items folder and in the VOBs that are in the disc image. Toast has a custom encoder window where the settings are made for how small the MPEG file will be. Unfortunately you'd have to know how to calculate average video bit rates plus the audio bit rate to know how many minutes of video will fit a single layer disc at any pariticular custom setting. That's why the Fit-to-DVD is such a great feature. You can have the encoder bit rate set too high for a single-layer disc and Toast will "requantize" the disc image content to fit. The problem in your case is you limited available hard drive space. All this requires additional space to complete.

As I've noted, the disc image you have created may be fine as far as menus go but just too big. You'll find this out when you mount the disc image and preview its contents with DVD Player. If you like what you see then you can empty the converted items folder and trash the MPEGs that you copied from MPEG Streamclip. Now choose the disc image with the Image File setting in the copy window and click the burn button. Toast will ask if this is for a single-layer or dual-layer disc. Choose single-layer and Toast begins the requantization, also known as additional compression or fit-to-DVD.

If you don't like how the menus look but the video is fine, then you can still empty the converted items folder and trash the Streamclip-copied MPEGs. After doing this choose DVD with the Media Browser and drag the titles from the mounted disc image to the Video window. Now get the menu the way you want in the Video window by organizing the titles in the desired order and entering the text you want. You can customize the look of the menu by clicking on the menu thumbnail on the left. After extracting the videos from the mounted disc image you can unmount the disc image and trash it to free up space. That's because the MPEGs have been copied from it to the converted items folder. Just make sure you don't quit Toast because that automatically empties the converted items folder unless you changed the settings in Toast preferences. I have my Toast preferences set to never empty the converted items folder because I don't want to lose anything accidentally.

If you choose Save as Disc Image again using the MPEGs extracted from the disc image (as above) there will be no re-encoding. Toast will multiplex the audio and video and create the new menu. Once you finally have a disc image that has the menu the way you want when previewed in DVD Player, you can use the Image File setting in the copy window to fit and burn it to single-layer disc.

[btour]

Thank you Tsantee. You have given me a lot of valuable information. I doubt that I can help others the way you can though.

The temp file is already 7.1 gigs and I imagine it will be 8 before it is done. I still have 9.5 on the hard drive it is going to. I do not know and hope the image file will not be that big. It is only 3 hours and 15 minute long. I should have paid attention to the time to realize it was compressed and left it alone, just using the pal version.

So I learned a lot. Now to remember. It would be nice if there were a way to make a temp partition, or empty disc image of a certain size on the hard drive and have toast fit to that. You are right I would not be able to calculate the sizes in the custom section.

I am going to be afraid to dump the image, even if I see those browser files in the converted items. They seem to get written really fast for their size. I notice they are usually larger too. Is that correct? So once I see them I can dump the .toast image? Can you tell I am nervous about that but am up against the wall with space issue?

At least it forced me to do some house cleaning, and I learned that the size in finder window does not get updated reliably. Now I am motivated to install the new hard drive. Just worried about keeping all the apps installed and migrated properly. I made an error of having too many volumes, and having OS volume too small. I am afraid my 466 processor is too slow for Tiger. I am thinking of using Cc cloner for the migration. Maybe someday I can afford to upgrade the processor, and with new hard drive Toast will really cook.

[tsantee]

I'm surprised that the file is that large. Maybe it will be smaller when it the encoding gets completed. I understand your fear of trashing the disc image after you later extract its contents. I think you can back up the disc image across a couple DVDs using the Mac Only setting in the Toast Data window. Toast will split the file using its DVD spanning feature. The file can be rejoined later on the hard drive if you need it.

Your idea about a temporary partition to force the single-layer compression is clever. Toast does have the ability to create temporary partitions, but Toast won't see that as an actual disc so it won't do what you've suggested.

Edited by tsantee, 26 March 2007 - 05:42 AM.

[btour]

Horrors. I am laughing at myself. Maybe some things just can't be done. Here is what I have: Last night the .toast image finished. It is 8.7 gigs. In converted items there is only an m2V file 7.6 gigs. I am using vlc to preview the .toast file which is mounted.

The video is somewhat jerky, which could be expected, since toast uncompressed a file and filled in the blanks. Maybe this could be accepted but the sound is out of synch. Sound is ahead of video. Orginal menu items were left in as true segments or chapters themselves (they are the type that includes a clip). The good news is that it is in Ntsc format.

Another strange thing is happening. Computer is behaving as if I was still encoding. When I click on that converted file the mv2 in finder the spinning ball comes up for a minute before file details are displayed, and this happens everytime not just the first. I am in the view which shows the complete path and directory contents. I will try a re-boot.

So I do not know if I can fix the audio /video synch. Maybe running through streamclip again?