Toast 8 and Video Recorded on DVD-RAM Discs ?

[SteveG]

Hi,

 

Toast 8 ad says "Improved! Import and burn shows from set-top DVD recorders" - does

this mean you can now extract things recorded on DVD-recorder DVD-RAM discs (assuming

you have a drive that can read 'em), and burn them elsewhere?

 

According to Panasonic the format used for their DVD recorder's DVD-RAM disc is a

Dvd_rtar folder created with the following files:

Vr_movie.vro : Actual image file

Vr_mangr.ifo : Management file

Vr_mangr.bup : Management file backup

 

Thanks.

[mcd768]

Hi,

 

Toast 8 ad says "Improved! Import and burn shows from set-top DVD recorders" - does

this mean you can now extract things recorded on DVD-recorder DVD-RAM discs (assuming

you have a drive that can read 'em), and burn them elsewhere?

 

According to Panasonic the format used for their DVD recorder's DVD-RAM disc is a

Dvd_rtar folder created with the following files:

Vr_movie.vro : Actual image file

Vr_mangr.ifo : Management file

Vr_mangr.bup : Management file backup

 

Thanks.

 

I am trying to do the same as SteveG with Panasonic DVD-RAM discs and am encountering the locked files in the Media Browser of Toast 8. I just purchased an external LG burner for my MacBook and the Toast 8 software to read the files on the DVD-RAM discs. My Panasonic set-top DVD recorder is dying and I need another way to read/edit/ & burn many DVD-RAM discs to DVD-R's. I am afraid to buy another set-top DVD recorder if it won't read/edit the DVD-RAM discs, so I went this route. Has anyone been able to find a solution to these locked files?

[Peter H.]

Has anyone had any success with this?

 

I am experiencing the same thing, but with my DVD-RW disks, not DVD-RAM, and with a Sony RDR-GX300 burner. The disks mount just fine in the finder, and the Media Browser can see the titles just fine, but as above, they are all showing locked.

 

I bought Pixe VRF Browser, and it insists that the disks are blank or have no valid vro files on them, but the files show up fine in the finder and the disks play just fine on the burner.

 

What is maddening is that the files have shown locked for months under Toast 7 and now under Toast 8, but yesterday for about 2 hours, while I was installing the VRF browser, and trying a number of other tips, suddenly Toast could see all the files just fine, but after a restart, they're all locked again. Some setting somewhere got changed and the drives worked just fine, then something changed it back. HELP!

 

I'm on a Mac Pro (Intel) with 10.4.10 and all current updates.

 

Peter

[tsantee]

Yes. Toast 8 will extract the video from VR-mode DVD-RAM discs. Insert the disc and select DVD with the Toast Media Browser. You then can select the titles you want to extract by dragging from the browser to the video window.

[Surfergirl]

I've had a couple times when a VR-mode DVD-RW showed as locked but quitting and reopening Toast with the disc still inserted cleared it up.

 

If you still can't extract the videos from the DVD-RAM discs using the Toast Media Browser you might try PixeVRF Browser available for $40 from www.pixela-1.com. It also allows editing of the extracted MPEG file. If it doesn't work you may or may not be able to get a refund. I bought a different Pixela application from that site which did not do what was claimed and they declined my refund request.

 

If you do get PixeVRF Browser and it works, you must save the MPEG file as elementary streams (separate audio and video files) in order for Toast to accept them. It's simple to do. Then just drag the video file only to the Toast Video window and Toast will either add the audio file automatically or ask you to locate the audio.

 

 

Thanks much for your reply. I tried quiting and reopening Toast to no avail. I still can't get an answer from Roxio about why it isn't working, but I suspect it is because I'm not using Firewire (my Panasonic D-200 digital camcorder only supports USB connections).

 

BUT...

 

Your suggestion about using PixeVRF Browser worked like a champ. And better yet, it came with my Panasonic VDR-D200. With DVD-R's you don't need it, so I ignored it at first. Now that I'm using DVD-RAMs, it works great. The downsides are that you have to deal with one clip at a time, and you have to use five pieces of software to create and burn a final DVD. This is a ridiculously complicated procedure, but I'm really happy to have it work at all. Here's how you do it:

 

How to extract DVD-RAM Camcorder videos to use on a MacBook

 

Tested using a Panasonic VDR-D200 connected via USB

Software used: Pixe VRF Browser (comes with the camera), MPEG Streamclip (freeware), MPEG-2 Plug-in for Quicktime ($20 from Apple store, but Streamclip requires it), IMovie, IDVD

 

Use Pixe VRF Browser to view and transfer scenes to the Mac (trust me: follow these steps in this order exactly or it doesn't work)

1) Take DVD-RAM out of Camcorder and close the camcorder's disc compartment.

2) Set camcorder to view video (not record).

3) Plug the camcorder into the power outlet.

3) Connect Camcorder to Mac via the USB Cable.

4) Start Pixe VRF. Select the drive button and insert the DVD-RAM when requested. The scenes will load into Pixe.

5) Save the ones you want using the save button. Save them using elemental stream (which saves them as two files: an audio and MPEG-2 video file).

6) Go into Finder and make sure the two file names (audio and video) are the same. They won't be because Pixe adds a "_1" to the AC3 audio file. This step is necessary for Streamclip to tell they are related and build one file from them.

 

Using MPEG Streamclip to attach audio

 

1) Open MPEG Streamclip and open the file you just saved

2) Save as either DV (preferred), MPEG-4 or Quicktime file.

 

Editing clips into movies using IMovie

 

1) Add clips you want to together into iMovie. Edit into a short

 

Making a DVD

 

1) Add shorts into I DVD and make a move. Burn!!

[tsantee]

I am trying to do the same as SteveG with Panasonic DVD-RAM discs and am encountering the locked files in the Media Browser of Toast 8. I just purchased an external LG burner for my MacBook and the Toast 8 software to read the files on the DVD-RAM discs. My Panasonic set-top DVD recorder is dying and I need another way to read/edit/ & burn many DVD-RAM discs to DVD-R's. I am afraid to buy another set-top DVD recorder if it won't read/edit the DVD-RAM discs, so I went this route. Has anyone been able to find a solution to these locked files?

I don't have a solution for Toast but I will repeat my suggestion to give PixeVRF Browser EX a try. It has two features that Toast doesn't have regarding DVD-RAM videos such as yours. One is the option to extract in "Playlist" mode which recognizes edits you made to your videos in a playlist (where the edits didn't actually delete content from the disc). The other is an MPEG editor for trimming the extracted videos. I've used it with some VR-mode DVD-RW discs from my Pioneer standalone recorder and it usually worked okay. I think there were some discs that had problems with the MPEG files which the application couldn't handle, but neither could Toast with those discs.

 

I typically use Toast for extraction rather than PixeVRF Browser but that's because Toast works okay with my discs and I don't need the MPEG editor feature.

[tsantee]

Glad you found a way to get what you need. Thanks for sharing the steps.

[BWMan]

Hello,

 

unfortunately all of the files the media browser displays are locked. How can I unlock them?

 

 

Regards

 

- Andreas -

[Surfergirl]

I just got taken!

 

I called the presales line BEFORE buying Toast 8, and they assured me that the DVD-RAM on a Panasonic Video Camcorder via a USB cable would work. Good news: it does see the VRO files (even the dates I filmed on). Bad news: I get the same message: File protected! and don't see a way around it.

 

Any ideas before I start working on getting my money back?

[tsantee]

I just got taken!

 

I called the presales line BEFORE buying Toast 8, and they assured me that the DVD-RAM on a Panasonic Video Camcorder via a USB cable would work. Good news: it does see the VRO files (even the dates I filmed on). Bad news: I get the same message: File protected! and don't see a way around it.

 

Any ideas before I start working on getting my money back?

I've had a couple times when a VR-mode DVD-RW showed as locked but quitting and reopening Toast with the disc still inserted cleared it up.

 

If you still can't extract the videos from the DVD-RAM discs using the Toast Media Browser you might try PixeVRF Browser available for $40 from www.pixela-1.com. It also allows editing of the extracted MPEG file. If it doesn't work you may or may not be able to get a refund. I bought a different Pixela application from that site which did not do what was claimed and they declined my refund request.

 

If you do get PixeVRF Browser and it works, you must save the MPEG file as elementary streams (separate audio and video files) in order for Toast to accept them. It's simple to do. Then just drag the video file only to the Toast Video window and Toast will either add the audio file automatically or ask you to locate the audio.

[Peter H.]

Well, it seems I have a working fix, although I really wish I understood WHY it works, because I still am afraid it is going to go away any minute like the last "fix" did.

 

Pixe VRF Browswer seemded to be no help whatsoever. I broke down and bought ReadDVD, specifically because of some comments on their website that it specifically addressed issues with the Intel Mac Pro not readiing some UDF formats.

 

With it installed, the disk mounts and the files are unlocked (Yay!) - but now nothing I do gets Toast to see the disk at all. (Boo.) If I use the Toast Media browswer to look for the file, it seems that it will happily copy the vro file to a disk, but won't look inside it for titles like it did (and showed them locked) before.

 

Copying the files to the hard drive didn't help either.

 

BUT! With ReadDVD installed,

 

If I copy the RTAV folder CONTAINING the .vro file to the root level of a hard drive AND keep it named RTAV , and THEN restart Toast, it sits and thinks for a while, but then decides that the RTAV folder makes the hard drive a disk it can read, and the titles show up unlocked under the DVD menu in the media browser (not the file menu- that just shows the vro file).

 

(I am not at my mac right now, so I may have the name RTAV wrong, I seem to remember an underscore or a dash in there somewhere, but the point is, copy the folder and don't rename it. That breaks it somehow.)

 

From this point on, Toast behaves exactly the way I expect it to. If I drag and drop the titles from the media browser to the main window, it does the Roxio Converted Items thing and lets me happily burn the DVD, or save the project. If I copy the converted files to another folder on the drive, then I can search for them using the FILES choice on the media browser and add them normally to a later project. (Since I cannot rename the RTAV folder, I cannot work from more than one disk at a time, since importing each one overwrites the last RTAV folder on the drive. If I want to add content from more than one DVD-RW disk, I have to go through the extra steps.)

 

It is still far more steps than I would have preferred, but it is also far better than repeatedly running analog to analog copies in real time, both for the time lost and the quality lost.

 

Thanks to everyone who contributed bits and pieces to this solution! It was driving me nuts. I hope it helps someone else.

[BWMan]

Toast erroneously believes the disc is copy protected. I don't know what's causing this. Try re-inserting the disc. Do you have a different drive available that can be used to read from the disc?

 

 

Hello tsantee,

 

thanks for your answer.

 

I've tried the internal drive aof my Imac (Core Duo 2), but it doesn't recognize the DVD-RAM drive, therefore I use an external LG burner. I also created a cdr-File, but it's alsways the same: the files are locked. (Although Finder tells me, that I have full read and write access to the files.)

 

 

Any ideas?

 

Regards

 

- Andreas -

[tsantee]

Hello,

 

unfortunately all of the files the media browser displays are locked. How can I unlock them?

Regards

 

- Andreas -

Toast erroneously believes the disc is copy protected. I don't know what's causing this. Try re-inserting the disc. Do you have a different drive available that can be used to read from the disc?

[xandra]

"Toast 8 ad says "Improved! Import and burn shows from set-top DVD recorders" - does

this mean you can now extract things recorded on DVD-recorder DVD-RAM discs"

 

doesn't sound improved... if you do a search under Toast 7 for Panasonic... you'll find that the locked problem is hardly new.

 

I haven't tried Toast 8 yet (was searching this forum with hopes that things had indeed improved with DVR created RAM disks) but all attempts at working with my DVR created disks in Toast 7 (other than complete disk copies of DVD-V disks) have resulted in crashes, failures (some that took hours and hours to fail) and other nasty experiences...

 

For now, I've only found 1 solution (or rather a combo of 2 other bits of software):

Purchase DVDRead from "Software Architects" ( unfortunately overpriced $50?!!) to properly mount DVD-RAM disks with ALL files visible. AND unlocked.-- (previously, I could only see/copy the obviously useless .ifo & .bup files.) further can't say anything great about the product, its a very hidden driver and am a little concerned that it's a tad funky.

 

Get "MPEG Streamclip": -- this a truly fabulous freebie, that inputs/outputs just about everything. The only downside to Streamclip, is that you need to manually set in & out points rather than choosing Titles, (and it is unable to pick up or transfer chapters.)

 

-----

Sadly, although Toast 7 could see the Titles etc... on my mounted DVD RAM disk (but strangely unmounted it), it crashed after over an hours attempting to export a 14 minute title -- looked promising for a bit there) Haven't the patience to try again was really hoping to hear good news re Toast 8.

So for now, I'll stick with DVDRead + Streamclip. I'm also going to try a couple of other Apps which look promising (but bigger bucks) in Particular: 'Cinematize Pro' which sounds like Streamclip with a prettier interface but ability to select Titles.(You'll Still need DVD-Read, if like me you can't get Toast to deal with the files)

 

Should it matter: using LaCie d2 Lightscribe DVD with disks created by Panasonic DMR-EH75. OS104.8, QT 7.15, Quad G5

HTH xandra

 

ONE NOTE: Supposedly Leopard will be able to read DVD-VR disks -- which will hopefully resolve this headache, and will likely aid Toast in dealing with VR files.

[freshburn]

If someone is willing to send a test disc to Roxio, I'm sure a problem like this can be fixed. You may want to PM John at Roxio.

[SteveG]

Thanks very much. Roxio Technical Support didn't seem able

to answer the feature question. 7 has been great, but I guess I'll

start looking for a good upgrade deal for Toast 8.

[tsantee]

Hello tsantee,

 

thanks for your answer.

 

I've tried the internal drive aof my Imac (Core Duo 2), but it doesn't recognize the DVD-RAM drive, therefore I use an external LG burner. I also created a cdr-File, but it's alsways the same: the files are locked. (Although Finder tells me, that I have full read and write access to the files.)

Any ideas?

 

Regards

 

- Andreas -

 

freshburn, if you see this do you have any advice why a DVD-RAM disc shows as locked files in the Media Browser?