2 replies to this topic

[crazydiamond23]

Just bought the VHS to DVD program for MAC and have one question. It appears as though you are to use the VHS to DVD program to first copy the VHS movie to the hard drive of your computer and then you have to use the Toast program to grab that file from the hard drive and burn it to the DVD, Is this correct? I was hoping to be able to burn the VHS directly to the DVD as opposed to going through a two step process.

Thanks
Tim

[crazydiamond23]

I think I've answered my own question as I've navigated through the process on my first try. Still a few questions though............once my movie was transferred to the hard drive it showed up in MP3 format (I think this is right). When I took it to Toast to burn to disc at first the system wouldn't allow me to just select if from the folder and drag it to the Toast program--somehow I eventually managed to get it there though. Once I got it to Toast it began the process of encoding and it seems to be taking as long as it took to get the movie downloaded to my Mac. The point I guess is that this is taking forever--2 hours to download the movie, 2 hours to encode etc. and I'm still not finished. Is this standard and what I should expect for each project or is there something I can do differently that would speed things up a bit?

Thanks
Tim

[tsantee]

I think I've answered my own question as I've navigated through the process on my first try. Still a few questions though............once my movie was transferred to the hard drive it showed up in MP3 format (I think this is right). When I took it to Toast to burn to disc at first the system wouldn't allow me to just select if from the folder and drag it to the Toast program--somehow I eventually managed to get it there though. Once I got it to Toast it began the process of encoding and it seems to be taking as long as it took to get the movie downloaded to my Mac. The point I guess is that this is taking forever--2 hours to download the movie, 2 hours to encode etc. and I'm still not finished. Is this standard and what I should expect for each project or is there something I can do differently that would speed things up a bit?

Thanks
Tim

The device records in MPEG 2 format which is the standard for video DVDs. There should be no need for Toast to do any encoding after it is captured. When the recording was completed you should have seen a window giving you the option to send it to Toast. Once in Toast's Video window (with DVD video selected as the format) you set up the menu to be what you want it to be. Then burn your DVD. Toast should first go through a very fast multiplexing stage and then burn the DVD. The exception is if the content is too long to fit the DVD. In that case Toast has to re-encode to get it to fit. There's a faster way to do this as well. Please tell me how long your recorded file is and which quality setting you used when making the recording.