[Morty from Queens]

I posed this problem with a web ticket on August 20th, but got one reply that didn't help. I burned a DVD from iMovie 4 with Toast 7.1 and after about 9 hours, the only sound that recorded was at the very beginning. While waiting for a reply to my web ticket, I successfully burned the movie in iDVD 4. The reply I'd gotten to my web ticket was, "Try saving the movie to .dv." Huh? In any case, I still haven't gotten a reply to my follow-up on the web ticket (today is Sept. 12th). After burning successfully with iDVD, I asked myself what advantage I'd gained from putting up $80 for Toast 7. Thank you.

[tsantee]

Does the iMovie have multiple sound tracks? How did you import the movie to Toast? After bringing the movie into Toast, click the Edit button to access the window with the preview. When playing the preview does the sound play?

The suggestion to export the movie as a "Full Quality DV Movie" (this might be in the Share menu) and use that file in Toast could be the way to go.

Toast has a better-quality MPEG encoder than does iDVD 4 and also can encode Dolby Digital audio which enables movies longer than one hour long to be encoded at a higher video bit rate than can iDVD. Even so, iDVD is very good, too.

[Morty from Queens]

tsantee, on Sep 13 2006, 06:29 AM, said:

Thanks, tsantee.

Does the iMovie have multiple sound tracks?
I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. I believe it has only one sound track
because when my original iMovie was corrupted when I upgraded from iMovie 2
to iMovie 4, I imported the S-Video VCR copy I'd made (luckily) back into my
eMac and iMovie 4, and there is no sound line accessable to me now.

How did you import the movie to Toast?
By accessing it through Toast's Media tab. --but now I'm dragging it from my
external firewire drive, as I can't access the firewire drive via Toast's Media tab.
(By the way, do you think it's better to bring the movie back onto my hard drive
when burning a DVD, rather than doing it from the external drive?)

After bringing the movie into Toast, click the Edit button to access the window with the preview.
For some reason, the movie is not whole, but in clips--and, the clips are not in order.
Does that matter?

When playing the preview does the sound play?
Yes, in each of the clips.

The suggestion to export the movie as a "Full Quality DV Movie" (this might be in the Share menu) and use that file in Toast could be the way to go.
The only choice (in iMovie 4, at least) for sharing for a DVD is via iDVD.
However, since I'm hearing sound now, then what's wrong with Toast, if anything, when
sound didn't record in almost all of my DVD before?

Toast has a better-quality MPEG encoder than does iDVD 4 and also can encode Dolby Digital audio which enables movies longer than one hour long to be encoded at a higher video bit rate than can iDVD. Even so, iDVD is very good, too.

Thanks again. Maybe a Roxio/Toast tech person will chime in here. Still no reply to the
web ticket. I think they or someone is annoyed at me for being sarcastic there.

Morty

This post has been edited by Morty from Queens: 14 September 2006 - 11:13 AM

[tsantee]

Quote

Does the iMovie have multiple sound tracks?
I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. I believe it has only one sound track
because when my original iMovie was corrupted when I upgraded from iMovie 2
to iMovie 4, I imported the S-Video VCR copy I'd made (luckily) back into my
eMac and iMovie 4, and there is no sound line accessable to me now.

It probably doesn't have multiple soundtracks.

Quote

How did you import the movie to Toast?
By accessing it through Toast's Media tab. --but now I'm dragging it from my
external firewire drive, as I can't access the firewire drive via Toast's Media tab.
(By the way, do you think it's better to bring the movie back onto my hard drive
when burning a DVD, rather than doing it from the external drive?)

It shouldn't make any difference using a Firewire drive.

Quote

After bringing the movie into Toast, click the Edit button to access the window with the preview.
For some reason, the movie is not whole, but in clips--and, the clips are not in order.
Does that matter?

This is puzzling. If you are dragging the iMovie Project File then it should add one movie that includes all edits made in iMovie. I never have seen the movie appear as clips so I don't know how to diagnose this.

The suggestion to export the movie as a "Full Quality DV Movie" (this might be in the Share menu) and use that file in Toast could be the way to go.
The only choice (in iMovie 4, at least) for sharing for a DVD is via iDVD.
However, since I'm hearing sound now, then what's wrong with Toast, if anything, when
sound didn't record in almost all of my DVD before?
This, too, is puzzling. According to Apple's support site iMovie 4 has several export options in the Share window including "Full Quality DV Movie." The other options are Web Movie, Web Streaming Movie, Email Movie and CD-Rom Movie. As for why Toast isn't recording the sound, are you using QuickTime 7 and OS 10.4? Those are Toast 7 requirements.

While experimenting with Toast, choose Save as Disc Image from the File menu so you won't waste any discs. When Toast starts the encoding, open the Roxio Converted Items folder in your Documents folder. Toast should be writing an .m2v file which is the video and a .ac3 file which is the audio. Are both of them being created?

[Morty from Queens]

tsantee, on Sep 14 2006, 12:38 PM, said:

It probably doesn't have multiple soundtracks.
It shouldn't make any difference using a Firewire drive.
This is puzzling. If you are dragging the iMovie Project File then it should add one movie that includes all edits made in iMovie. I never have seen the movie appear as clips so I don't know how to diagnose this.

The suggestion to export the movie as a "Full Quality DV Movie" (this might be in the Share menu) and use that file in Toast could be the way to go.
The only choice (in iMovie 4, at least) for sharing for a DVD is via iDVD.
However, since I'm hearing sound now, then what's wrong with Toast, if anything, when
sound didn't record in almost all of my DVD before?
This, too, is puzzling. According to Apple's support site iMovie 4 has several export options in the Share window including "Full Quality DV Movie." The other options are Web Movie, Web Streaming Movie, Email Movie and CD-Rom Movie. As for why Toast isn't recording the sound, are you using QuickTime 7 and OS 10.4? Those are Toast 7 requirements.

While experimenting with Toast, choose Save as Disc Image from the File menu so you won't waste any discs. When Toast starts the encoding, open the Roxio Converted Items folder in your Documents folder. Toast should be writing an .m2v file which is the video and a .ac3 file which is the audio. Are both of them being created?

This, too, is puzzling. According to Apple's support site iMovie 4 has several export options in the Share window including "Full Quality DV Movie." The other options are Web Movie, Web Streaming Movie, Email Movie and CD-Rom Movie. As for why Toast isn't recording the sound, are you using QuickTime 7 and OS 10.4? Those are Toast 7 requirements.

Here's all I get in Share: email, HomePage, Videocameera, iDVD, QuickTime, and Bluetooth.
Yes, QuickTime 7, but 10.4 not needed--spec for Toast 7 is s10.3.9 or later.[font=Times New Roman][size=3]


While experimenting with Toast, choose Save as Disc Image from the File menu so you won't waste any discs. When Toast starts the encoding, open the Roxio Converted Items folder in your Documents folder. Toast should be writing an .m2v file which is the video and a .ac3 file which is the audio. Are both of them being created?

I had made a Disc Image before I wrote you, and the sound didn't come out in that eitther. I hadn't checked the Roxio Converted Items folder, though. I don't want to try that now because of the movie showing-up in clips in Toast. Maybe that's because it should be on my hard disk.[font=Times New Roman][size=3]

Thanks again,
Morty
Sorry--got this HTML thing messed-up. Not used to it. [font=Times New Roman][size=3]

[tsantee]

I forgot that QuickTime 7 works with OS 10.3.9. Thanks for correcting that.

In the iMovie Share menu choose QuickTime. The window that appears should have an option to choose Full Quality. Choose that. Then export. This will create a new copy of the movie with all your edits. That should work for you.

By the way, what did you use to import the movie from the VCR into the computer? If you used the pass through on a DV camcorder do you know if the audio was set to 16 bit or to 12 bit in the camcorder?

I still don't get the clips appearing. You drag in one file but multiple clips appear in the Toast window. Is that what's happening? I've only seen that when I drag in a folder of clips. The reason they could be out of order is that Toast may be putting them in alphabetical (or numerical) order. You should be able to drag them into a different order, but there shouldn't be multiple clips from one movie in the first place.

[Morty from Queens]

tsantee, on Sep 14 2006, 09:10 PM, said:

I forgot that QuickTime 7 works with OS 10.3.9. Thanks for correcting that.

In the iMovie Share menu choose QuickTime. The window that appears should have an option to choose Full Quality. Choose that. Then export. This will create a new copy of the movie with all your edits. That should work for you.

By the way, what did you use to import the movie from the VCR into the computer? If you used the pass through on a DV camcorder do you know if the audio was set to 16 bit or to 12 bit in the camcorder?


I still don't get the clips appearing. You drag in one file but multiple clips appear in the Toast window. Is that what's happening? I've only seen that when I drag in a folder of clips. The reason they could be out of order is that Toast may be putting them in alphabetical (or numerical) order. You should be able to drag them into a different order, but there shouldn't be multiple clips from one movie in the first place.

[b][font=Palatino Linotype]That's how I started-out a month ago, tsantee, and the result was, in three attempts, an error message that said encoding failedf. And that's when I first submitted a web ticket and got the following reply: "The most ideal way would be to use the iMovie project file in Toast and then create a DVD and see if that works." And when I did it the way the Roxio tech guy said to do it, the sound was missing.

I believe when I originally imported the pure iMovie (not the S=Video copy), i used 12 bit because I had planned to add sound, and thought that that was the way to leave room for it. But I don't know about when I imported the S-Video copy through the camera--I eon't think I would have had that choice then, would I have? In any case, whatever I did worked fine with creating an iDVD.

The movie in one piece, and not in clips, came into Toast 7 when I created the DVD via Toast--but at that time, the movie was on my hard disk. I was tempted now to bring it back to the hard disk just to see if that made the difference, but it isn't worth the 24 GB, which I'd then trash once I found out.

I appreciate your help, and don't want to get you involved between me and Roxio, but what's up with them, still not replying to my last post? If they thought I was sarcastic--or rude or whatever--they're the pros, and I'm basically a respectful customer. Have a good weekend, Morlty

[tsantee]

Thanks for the good wishes for the weekend. In fact, I'll be gone for a few days.

The "correct" way to bring the project in to Toast is to use the iMovie Project file. But that resulted in no sound for you and I don't know why that happened. The export method is a workaround that may or may not make a difference. Perhaps you could test by creating a short clip of the movie in iMove and just export that so it won't gobble up hard drive space.

Always use 16-bit sound. There are times when 12-bit audio gets out of sync. But that shouldn't be why the audio didn't get included.

Maybe you'll get some Roxio help while I'm gone.

[Morty from Queens]

tsantee, on Sep 15 2006, 03:44 PM, said:

Thanks for the good wishes for the weekend. In fact, I'll be gone for a few days.

A) The "correct" way to bring the project in to Toast is to use the iMovie Project file. But that resulted in no sound for you and I don't know why that happened. The export method is a workaround that may or may not make a difference. Perhaps you could test by creating a short clip of the movie in iMove and just export that so it won't gobble up hard drive space.

B) Always use 16-bit sound. There are times when 12-bit audio gets out of sync. But that shouldn't be why the audio didn't get included.

Maybe you'll get some Roxio help while I'm gone.

[b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=3] A) With reference to Roxio's having told me to save the movie to a .dv file (which I'd never heard of and which I could not find in iMovie Help), I accidentally found out how to create it. When I Shared to best quality QuickTime movie, the finished movie had .dv after the title. That's a little weird because my first attempt to burn a DVD of the movie had been to do it with that--but I think that when I renamed the movie I inadvertently replaced the .dv along with the previous title. Then when I tried to burn a DVD from it in Toast, I got a message that said not enough space available. So my one hour, fifty-two minute movie was too long for a 4.7 GB disk--and then I thought that maybe the sound that was missing in my original Toast burn was Toast's way to make room for the whole movie. That doesn't seem right--why didn't I get a message to that effect before the 9-hour burn?
But how come iDVD burned the whole movie? Because it had automatically set my quality standard to Better instead of Best, and I hadn't noticed the first time around. When I did set it to Best, I got the space error message. So, off to Tek Serve in Manhattan some time, to get a dual layer external burner for only $120.
By the way, I tried the burn with the movie and Toast on the same drive, and still got clips in Toast instead of the whole movie. I rearranged the clips, but some things could not be incorporated, such as a still and some effects. However, the whole movie showed-up in iDVD. This is something for Roxio to explain, if they ever will. But I don't care anymore. All's well that ends well.

B) Thank you for that. And I would still be able to add sound to the iMovie when imported in 16-bit?

Best wishes,
Morty

[tsantee]

Morty from Queens, on Sep 18 2006, 06:46 PM, said:

[b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=3] A) With reference to Roxio's having told me to save the movie to a .dv file (which I'd never heard of and which I could not find in iMovie Help), I accidentally found out how to create it. When I Shared to best quality QuickTime movie, the finished movie had .dv after the title. That's a little weird because my first attempt to burn a DVD of the movie had been to do it with that--but I think that when I renamed the movie I inadvertently replaced the .dv along with the previous title. Then when I tried to burn a DVD from it in Toast, I got a message that said not enough space available. So my one hour, fifty-two minute movie was too long for a 4.7 GB disk--and then I thought that maybe the sound that was missing in my original Toast burn was Toast's way to make room for the whole movie. That doesn't seem right--why didn't I get a message to that effect before the 9-hour burn?
But how come iDVD burned the whole movie? Because it had automatically set my quality standard to Better instead of Best, and I hadn't noticed the first time around. When I did set it to Best, I got the space error message. So, off to Tek Serve in Manhattan some time, to get a dual layer external burner for only $120.
By the way, I tried the burn with the movie and Toast on the same drive, and still got clips in Toast instead of the whole movie. I rearranged the clips, but some things could not be incorporated, such as a still and some effects. However, the whole movie showed-up in iDVD. This is something for Roxio to explain, if they ever will. But I don't care anymore. All's well that ends well.

Thank you for that. And I would still be able to add sound to the iMovie when imported in 16-bit?

Best wishes,
Morty

Yes, you'll be able to add additional sound tracks to iMovie even if all of them are 16-bit.

Incidentally, Toast can fit about 2-1/2 hours of video to a single-layer DVD at its default settings. This is more than iDVD can fit onto a single-layer disc because iDVD using uncompressed audio and Toast uses Dolby Digital audio. Your error message about not enough room on the disk might have referred to the hard drive which has your Roxio Converted Items folder. If the error message is spelled "disk" then it is referring to the space needed on the hard drive to do the preparation for the burn. If the error message is spelled "disc" then it is referring to the blank media.

[Morty from Queens]

tsantee, on Sep 20 2006, 06:27 AM, said:

Yes, you'll be able to add additional sound tracks to iMovie even if all of them are 16-bit.

Incidentally, Toast can fit about 2-1/2 hours of video to a single-layer DVD at its default settings. This is more than iDVD can fit onto a single-layer disc because iDVD using uncompressed audio and Toast uses Dolby Digital audio. Your error message about not enough room on the disk might have referred to the hard drive which has your Roxio Converted Items folder. If the error message is spelled "disk" then it is referring to the space needed on the hard drive to do the preparation for the burn. If the error message is spelled "disc" then it is referring to the blank media.

[size=4][b]Thank you.