5 replies to this topic

[MercJ]

Ok, so i'm sure there is already a topic on this question but I could not find one. I just bought Toast titanium roxio 11 thing.

       Anyways, my question is, when I'm burning a dvd. 1) I have a file that is 1.8 Gb, when i drag it onto toast it says it takes up around 3.68gb of the DVD. Why is that? Secondly, I downloaded handbrake because the files were incompatible, and now when i Burn the DVD it take FOREVER to encode. Is there anyone who can give me just the run down on how to burn a simple standard dvd using these two programs? D:

[tsantee]

What you have is a source video in one encoding format (such as MPEG 4) and you're wanting a video DVD that requires a different encoding format (MPEG 2). MPEG 4 has higher compression so it takes up less space. If you want a disc playable on essentially all DVD players then it needs to be re-encoded to MPEG 2. Toast automatically selects a bit rate (amount of compression) that gains the best quality within the video DVD specs and will fit on the disc. Let's say your video is 90 minutes long. Toast will pretty much fill the DVD. If your video is 120 minutes long, Toast will lower the bit rate compared to the 90 minute version so it also fills the DVD. You can get more than 3 hours on a single-layer DVD. The quality gets lower with more length beyond 90 minutes but it still takes up the same amount of space.

A question to ask yourself is why you want a video DVD. If you are making copies to send to others to play on their DVD players it makes good sense. But if you just want this for yourself it's possible you may not need to do this. Many HDTVs and Blu-ray players can likely play your source file directly by streaming from your Mac or from a USB flash drive. There also are many products such as the WDTV and AppleTV that may be able to play that video just as it is.

[MercJ]

Ok I understand what you're saying I think, I'm new to this. So what you're saying is Toast will pretty much fill a dvd with the video because it makes said video the best quality it can. I was trying to put a show of mine onto a dvd for my mom to watch because she became in love it. So instead of her borrowing my Mac to watch the show. I decided to put it onto a dvd for her to watch, i don't think she's TOO worried about quality of video you know, I don't think she cares if it 1080 or 720, but something she can still watch and enjoy to see what happens. What would be the best approach towards this method?

[tsantee]

MercJ, on 02 June 2012 - 06:08 PM, said:

Ok I understand what you're saying I think, I'm new to this. So what you're saying is Toast will pretty much fill a dvd with the video because it makes said video the best quality it can. I was trying to put a show of mine onto a dvd for my mom to watch because she became in love it. So instead of her borrowing my Mac to watch the show. I decided to put it onto a dvd for her to watch, i don't think she's TOO worried about quality of video you know, I don't think she cares if it 1080 or 720, but something she can still watch and enjoy to see what happens. What would be the best approach towards this method?

If your source video is HD (720 or 1080) then the encoding time to make it SD is lengthy. If she wants to watch it on a TV then you need to make the video DVD and just let the Mac do its work. You might, however, find it useful to first convert the video to DV using the Toast Convert window (and set the correct aspect ratio) and then use that in the Toast Video window to make the  DVD. Doing this may be faster and may result in better quality.

If she wants to watch it on a computer then it can work to burn the source video as a data disc using the DVD-Rom (UDF) setting and no encoding is needed. Some Blu-ray players also can play videos from a data disc.

[MercJ]

Quote

If your source video is HD (720 or 1080) then the encoding time to make it SD is lengthy. If she wants to watch it on a TV then you need to make the video DVD and just let the Mac do its work. You might, however, find it useful to first convert the video to DV using the Toast Convert window (and set the correct aspect ratio) and then use that in the Toast Video window to make the  DVD. Doing this may be faster and may result in better quality.

How would I go about doing this process, because the videos are in 720, and they are around 1h, give or take 2/3 minutes. Would I only be able to fit 1 video on a DVD+R?

[tsantee]

MercJ, on 03 June 2012 - 12:14 PM, said:

How would I go about doing this process, because the videos are in 720, and they are around 1h, give or take 2/3 minutes. Would I only be able to fit 1 video on a DVD+R?

I'm not sure of which process you're referring. To convert to DV add the video to the Convert window (with Video files as the format), click the red button and choose Digital Video (DV) as the format. This makes the video standard definition. Be sure to select 16:9 to retain the correct aspect ratio. When the conversion is complete just use it instead of the original.

To burn a data disc, choose the Data window and select DVD-Rom (UDF) as the format. Click New disc and name the disc and then add your video.