Running Out Of Capacity - When I Shouldn't

[willfriedwald]

I fill up a DVD with appx two hours of content - roughly 2 GB

 

the program tells me that I have plenty of room left, the disc is NOT full to capacity.

 

then, it goes through the whole long process of encoding, multiplexing etc.

 

And when it is finally done, it then tells me that I don't have enough capacity on the disc!

 

is there any way to know BEFORE I start to burn the disc?

 

So far I've been up all night trying to get this one disc right.

 

Very frustrating! This happens over and over, almost every time I start to burn a new disc.

 

will

[d_deweywright]

The easiest way to know how much will fit on a DVD is the length of the video. A single layer (4.7GB) disc will hold just about 1 hour of video at best quality. A double layer DVD, about 2 hours. Obviously, the source you're using is more highly compressed than what it is being decoded to go onto the disc. You can use a higher compression setting, but the quality of your final DVD will suffer considerably.

 

So think in terms of duration, not source file size.

 

Hope that helps!

[willfriedwald]

that does make perfect sense!

 

The DVD blanks I am using say "120 Min. / 4.75 GB" so I was expecting them to hold two hours.

 

I should look for double layer DVD blanks? (9 GB?)

 

I would have thought that the program could tell me how much room I have based on the type of disc (before burning) but I guess not.

 

lastly, where I do adjust the compression? Somewhere in Toast 12, but I can't figure out where ...

 

thanks very much!

 

w

[tsantee]

Toast should automatically encode the video so that more than 2 hours (maybe even 3 hours) of standard-definition will fit a single-layer DVD. The longer the video the lower the quality. It should be automatic. Since you are using Toast 12 choose Save as Disc Image instead of clicking the burn button. When that is done select the resulting .toast file using the Image File setting in the Toast Copy window. If the disc image size is too big for a single-layer disc (it shouldn't be with your 2-hour video) Toast will use its Fit-to-DVD process to make it fit.

[willfriedwald]

thank you for that information! I was wondering why it kept telling me two hours of video was too long! anyhow, I will try the DISC IMAGE option. and the FIT-TO-DVD process is automatic? thanks very much! (I wish I had known this yesterday - my bad - since I need this discs right now, but glad to know it now.)

 

very good ! thank you!

 

w

[tsantee]

thank you for that information! I was wondering why it kept telling me two hours of video was too long! anyhow, I will try the DISC IMAGE option. and the FIT-TO-DVD process is automatic? thanks very much! (I wish I had known this yesterday - my bad - since I need this discs right now, but glad to know it now.)

 

very good ! thank you!

 

w

If you are burning a high-definition DVD you can only get about 30 minutes to a regular DVD disc and the fit-to-DVD option isn't applicable. If you choose DVD-video as the setting in Toast then you are making a standard-definition DVD and my earlier post applies. Fit-to-DVD is turned on in the Copy window by default.