Mpg-4 Video Long Conversion Time.

[MixPix]

I have a mpg-4 video file that I want to convert and burn to a normal dvd. I notice this is a blue ray video file and I want to burn onto a normal PAL dvd. Can I expect this to take many hours of converting as it seems to take ages. I am on Intel Mac 10.7.5 and suspect my processing power is lacking.

[tsantee]

Yes, you can expect many hours of encoding. I suggest choosing Save as Disc Image instead of clicking the Burn button because Toast often has trouble waking up a sleeping optical drive following hours of encoding. If you already have started, just make sure the Roxio Converted Items folder isn't emptied as you can use the files written there on a new project if Toast hangs when it gets to the writing stage.

 

Toast's mpeg 2 encoder is having to strip many pixels from the video frames when lowering the resolution to standard DVD and likely changing the frame rate. A workaround is to first convert the video to standard definition (probably h.264 or DVCPRO25 PAL) before adding to Toast. I don't know if that is faster overall.

[MixPix]

Thanks for that. I suspected that is the case. However if I purchased and used a blank blue ray disc would it significantly reduce the conversion time accepting that I also have to change to PAL not NTSC which the file is at present. I have a blue ray dvd player so could go that route.

[tsantee]

Unfortunately it also takes a long time for Toast to make a Blu-ray format disc from a HD video file. But you then will get to watch a much better-quality video from your Blu-ray player. Also, there is no NTSC or PAL with Blu-ray format videos.