[gr4nd]

I have a PowerMac G4 (Gigabit Ethernet) with a Sonnet 1.4 GHz upgrade card and 512MB RAM running OS X 10.3.9. While trying to encode iMovie HD 5.0.2 projects as DVD video with either Toast 6.1.1 Titanium or Toast 7.0.2 Titanium there will be a crash several minutes or hours into the encoding process. The crash is usually a kernel panic, but it is occasionally a frozen Mac or an unexpected quitting of Toast. Toast will complete the encoding without crashing only about once in 30 attempts. No other applications are running during the encoding. Trashing Toast preference files and unplugging external firewire and USB devices doesn't make any difference. I don't have crashing trouble with any other applications, and the Mac seems perfectly stable in all other circumstances.

Thanks for your help.

[tsantee]

One possibility is defective RAM, although I'd think that always would cause a kernel panic. If your Mac came with a hardware test CD try running the extended test from that CD. I had defective RAM in an iBook that passed every test except the hardware test CD's extended test.

[gr4nd]

Thanks for your reply Tsantee. I've replaced the old RAM DIMM with a new one, and unfortunately the problem persists. Do you have any other ideas?

I should mention that I've never had any trouble encoding video with iDVD, only with Toast 6 & 7.

I don't have the hardware test CD.

This post has been edited by gr4nd: 20 June 2006 - 05:24 PM

[tsantee]

gr4nd, on Jun 20 2006, 06:24 PM, said:

Thanks for your reply Tsantee. I've replaced the old RAM DIMM with a new one, and unfortunately the problem persists. Do you have any other ideas?

I should mention that I've never had any trouble encoding video with iDVD, only with Toast 6 & 7.

I don't have the hardware test CD.

I've rarely had Toast crash so I'm stuggling to think of a reason for this. Is your G4 processor overclocked or are there settings for it that you can tune down a bit? Does Toast crash about the same when you choose Save as Disc Image from the File menu instead of clicking the burn button?

Since you're using iMovie I'm guessing you have a DV camcarder. If so, give Toast's plug and burn a try to test if the crashing is in any way related to using an iMovie source. How are you importing the movie from iMovie to Toast 7.0.2?

[gr4nd]

Thanks for your reply Tsantee.

The G4 processor is not overclocked or otherwise modified from its stock configuration. It's a Sonnet processor, and I think the speed may be fixed, but I'll investigate this.

I'm always encoding using "Save As Disk Image", never with "Burn", because these iMovie projects are too long to fit on standard DVDs and need to be compressed with Popcorn after they're encoded. (Whenever I have an iMovie project that's short enough to fit on a DVD without compression, I encode it with iDVD instead of Toast. I've never had any trouble encoding with iDVD.)

I'm not using a camcorder. These iMovie projects are transcriptions of videotapes, transcribed using a VCR and Miglia's Director's Cut Take 2.

I'm importing the iMovie projects into Toast by dragging and dropping the iMovie project icon onto the Toast window.

Thanks.

[tsantee]

gr4nd, on Jun 24 2006, 03:20 AM, said:

Thanks for your reply Tsantee.

The G4 processor is not overclocked or otherwise modified from its stock configuration. It's a Sonnet processor, and I think the speed may be fixed, but I'll investigate this.

I'm always encoding using "Save As Disk Image", never with "Burn", because these iMovie projects are too long to fit on standard DVDs and need to be compressed with Popcorn after they're encoded. (Whenever I have an iMovie project that's short enough to fit on a DVD without compression, I encode it with iDVD instead of Toast. I've never had any trouble encoding with iDVD.)

I'm not using a camcorder. These iMovie projects are transcriptions of videotapes, transcribed using a VCR and Miglia's Director's Cut Take 2.

I'm importing the iMovie projects into Toast by dragging and dropping the iMovie project icon onto the Toast window.

Thanks.

Hmm. I've read about similar crashes with Toast when there is a Firewire capture device such as your Miglia connected to the Mac. But you say you're having the problem even when it is disconnected.

Toast seems to access and use Ram differently from iDVD. My only other total guess is that more than 512 MB of Ram is needed for your long encodings with Toast. However, I've done long encodings with my 933 mhz G4 iBook that only has 640 MB of ram. The crashes make me think the problem is a connected Firewire device and the kernel panics make me think it is a Ram issue. Yet it could easily be neither. I'm sorry that I can't diagnose this. It should be working.