Disc Image Quality Help

[MementoMori]

I'm trying to send a film I made to discmakers.com, so they can make DVDs for me. They told me I need to send them the TS_Video and TS_Audio files, which I can create in Toast. I have Toast 11 Titanium 11.0.2. I drag my mp4 video to Toast with quality on "Best" Destination: Disc Image. Once it is done, it creates a .Toast file. When I open the toast file with disc utility, there are 6 files in the Video_TS folder, only one of which is my movie, "VTS_01_1.VOB" The problem I'm facing is that the quality on the new file is terrible compared to the original mp4, and it seems that the image is also smaller. Is there a way I can fix this?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[tsantee]

There are three ways to properly mount a .toast image file and not the way you chose. Possibly the easiest is to control-click on the .toast file in the Finder and choose Mount It from the contextual menu. You may need to scroll down to Services... before Mount It appears. Inside there will be a VIDEO_TS and and AUDIO_TS folder. The VIDEO_TS folder contains everything a DVD player needs. The AUDIO_TS folder is empty.

 

As for quality, your original mp4 may be a high-definition video whereas video DVDs are standard definition. That's a huge quality difference. You also are watching the video on a computer display rather than a TV. My guess is you are watching larger than actual size which makes it look worse than it is. You should be watching using DVD Player at Actual Size (selected in DVD Player's View menu). It probably will be about one-sixth or one-eigth of your computer's display.

 

Depending on how long your video is you may be able to manually raise the bit rate settings which affect the video quality. Let's say your video is less than one hour long. Click on Toast's quality selector and choose Custom. In the window that appears click the Encoding tab and the custom button. Set the minimum bit rate to near 7 and the maximum to near 8 and check the box next to Half-Pel. That's as good as Toast can do.

[MementoMori]

There are three ways to properly mount a .toast image file and not the way you chose. Possibly the easiest is to control-click on the .toast file in the Finder and choose Mount It from the contextual menu. You may need to scroll down to Services... before Mount It appears. Inside there will be a VIDEO_TS and and AUDIO_TS folder. The VIDEO_TS folder contains everything a DVD player needs. The AUDIO_TS folder is empty.

 

As for quality, your original mp4 may be a high-definition video whereas video DVDs are standard definition. That's a huge quality difference. You also are watching the video on a computer display rather than a TV. My guess is you are watching larger than actual size which makes it look worse than it is. You should be watching using DVD Player at Actual Size (selected in DVD Player's View menu). It probably will be about one-sixth or one-eigth of your computer's display.

 

Depending on how long your video is you may be able to manually raise the bit rate settings which affect the video quality. Let's say your video is less than one hour long. Click on Toast's quality selector and choose Custom. In the window that appears click the Encoding tab and the custom button. Set the minimum bit rate to near 7 and the maximum to near 8 and check the box next to Half-Pel. That's as good as Toast can do.

 

Thank you for getting back to me. I'm not trying to mount the file on a DVD myself. I'm trying to get the best possible quality Video_TS file, so I can send that file to discmakers.com, so they can put it on a dvd themself. I'm expecting to have around 30 made. and It's a short film around 18 min long.

[tsantee]

Thank you for getting back to me. I'm not trying to mount the file on a DVD myself. I'm trying to get the best possible quality Video_TS file, so I can send that file to discmakers.com, so they can put it on a dvd themself. I'm expecting to have around 30 made. and It's a short film around 18 min long.

I was pointing out that you may be viewing the one that was done in a way that makes it look worse than it is. If you didn't mount the .toast file and view it in DVD Player then how did you view it? In any case, I also gave you the details about how to change the settings in Toast so you can do the project over at possibly a higher bit rate which equates to higher quality. However, after the video's length exceeds about an hour the bit rate must be lower than maximum in order to compress it enough to fit on a DVD. Maybe the company that is doing your duplication has some advice about what they think are optimum settings for a video the length of the one you're doing.

[MementoMori]

I was pointing out that you may be viewing the one that was done in a way that makes it look worse than it is. If you didn't mount the .toast file and view it in DVD Player then how did you view it? In any case, I also gave you the details about how to change the settings in Toast so you can do the project over at possibly a higher bit rate which equates to higher quality. However, after the video's length exceeds about an hour the bit rate must be lower than maximum in order to compress it enough to fit on a DVD. Maybe the company that is doing your duplication has some advice about what they think are optimum settings for a video the length of the one you're doing.

 

I opened the toast file with disc utility, there are 6 files in the Video_TS folder, only one of which is a substantial size, "VTS_01_1.VOB" and opened that file qith vlc media player. The quality on the that file is terrible compared to the original mp4, but I guess it could be because it was not mounted and viewed on a DVD, like you said.

[tsantee]

 

 

I opened the toast file with disc utility, there are 6 files in the Video_TS folder, only one of which is a substantial size, "VTS_01_1.VOB" and opened that file qith vlc media player. The quality on the that file is terrible compared to the original mp4, but I guess it could be because it was not mounted and viewed on a DVD, like you said.

It is hard to evaluate the picture quality without burning a disc and viewing it on a TV screen rather than a computer display. It sounds to me that your video is less than an hour long. So start over in Toast and do the custom settings I suggested rather than the high-quality preset. That way you'll have the best Toast can do. You can compare the first one to the second to see if there is any noticeable difference and choose the one you like the best.