3 replies to this topic

[jataos]

I've tried several ways to make a DVD with 6.1 Toast in Mac 10.3.9 with an external Fantom DVD recorder. When burning a disc from a Final Cut Quicktime file it takes several hours to encode a 10 minute movie and the results are terrible - strobeing and artifacts make the quality unacceptable.
As an alternative I tried plug and burn connected by firewire to a DV recorder and after a few minutes the process stops saying "Mac OSX problem". Any way to make it work? Thanks.

[tsantee]

I'm unclear what you are doing. Plug and burn in Toast is only for importing video from a DV camcorder which Toast then encodes, authors and burns to a video DVD. There is no DV export from Toast to a standalone DVD recorder.

You can, however, export directly from Final Cut or iMovie to a DVD recorder that has a Firewire link. Or you could use a freeware app called SimpleVideoOutX. I'm don't have Final Cut so I don't know the steps for Firewire export. With iMovie it is necessary to play the movie from the timeline rather than use the Share to camera. You can experiment or possibly get the answer in the Final Cut forum at discussions.info.apple.com.

[jataos]

I'm unclear what you are doing. Plug and burn in Toast is only for importing video from a DV camcorder which Toast then encodes, authors and burns to a video DVD. There is no DV export from Toast to a standalone DVD recorder.

You can, however, export directly from Final Cut or iMovie to a DVD recorder that has a Firewire link. Or you could use a freeware app called SimpleVideoOutX. I'm don't have Final Cut so I don't know the steps for Firewire export. With iMovie it is necessary to play the movie from the timeline rather than use the Share to camera. You can experiment or possibly get the answer in the Final Cut forum at discussions.info.apple.com.

I'm unclear what you are doing. Plug and burn in Toast is only for importing video from a DV camcorder which Toast then encodes, authors and burns to a video DVD. There is no DV export from Toast to a standalone DVD recorder.

You can, however, export directly from Final Cut or iMovie to a DVD recorder that has a Firewire link. Or you could use a freeware app called SimpleVideoOutX. I'm don't have Final Cut so I don't know the steps for Firewire export. With iMovie it is necessary to play the movie from the timeline rather than use the Share to camera. You can experiment or possibly get the answer in the Final Cut forum at discussions.info.apple.com.

I'm not going from a DVD recorder but am using a DV recorder (Sony DHR 1000) instead of a DV camera.

[tsantee]

I'm not going from a DVD recorder but am using a DV recorder (Sony DHR 1000) instead of a DV camera.

Toast's plug and burn requires a camcorder because Toast is looking for the camcorder's controls. It doesn't work with other DV devices. Instead I suggest using the freeware application Vidi to capture the video to your hard drive before adding to Toast. Alternatively you could go to Apple's developer site and download the Firewire SDK that includes a number of applications including VirtualDV which I think will serve your purpose for the transfer.

Why did you mention the Fantom DVD recorder? I thought you were unsatisfied with the encoding by Toast and wanted to use the DVD recorder to do that encoding instead. You actually will get better quality that way even if you had to connect your DV recorder to the Fantom via S-video or by going through the process of transferring to the Mac, editing, and playing back to the DVD recorder. Toast 6 did not have a great-quality MPEG encoder and doesn't do Dolby Digital AC-3 audio unless you also have Jam 6. Meanwhile your DVD recorder's hardware MPEG encoder is better plus it does AC-3 audio which leaves more room for higher bit rate video.