a few questions about Toast 7...

[patddfan]

Here are my questions:

 

1) I have Suddenlink Cable (Motorola HD-DVR Receiver), and I want to be able to take some of the recordings from the hard drive > edit out commercials > Burn to DVD-R, but what is the best (and easiest) way to get this taken care of? is it possible to copy the data to an external (USB 2) Hard Drive, or not?

 

2) has anyone ever had any problems playing Video DVDs (from Toast) in DVD players? the first two DVDs I made have worked with Apple DVD Player (is that even any good?), but my APEX AD-1500 DVD Player can't read Burned DVDs, so I can't test them out on my DVD Player!

 

3) I have an EyeTV USB, and just recently bought a DVD burner. anyone ever had any issues turning Recorded shows into DVD Videos?

 

4) what is the point of a Video CD (VCD/SVCD)? I tried to make one once, and found out that this is the least compatible format... why would that be? I never had problems with Data CDs (MPEG Videos burned direct to disk - backup disk), so then what is the point of SVCD/VCD?

 

5) the help documentation seems to be missing from my computer. how do I get another copy, or is that the way it was created?

 

Thanks very much for your help!

[tsantee]

Here are my questions:

 

1) I have Suddenlink Cable (Motorola HD-DVR Receiver), and I want to be able to take some of the recordings from the hard drive > edit out commercials > Burn to DVD-R, but what is the best (and easiest) way to get this taken care of? is it possible to copy the data to an external (USB 2) Hard Drive, or not?

The best way to do this is with either an EyeTV to capture the video playing from the DVR to your Mac, or with a standalone DVD recorder connected to the DVR.

2) has anyone ever had any problems playing Video DVDs (from Toast) in DVD players? the first two DVDs I made have worked with Apple DVD Player (is that even any good?), but my APEX AD-1500 DVD Player can't read Burned DVDs, so I can't test them out on my DVD Player!

As long as you are using the DVD video format in the Toast Video window you should get video DVDs playable in any DVD player capable of playing burned video DVDs. Be sure to use good-quality media. Avoid Memorex discs and bargain media.

3) I have an EyeTV USB, and just recently bought a DVD burner. anyone ever had any issues turning Recorded shows into DVD Videos?

If I'm not mistaken that EyeTV can only record MPEG1 video instead of the MPEG2 format used in video DVDs. The main issue is picture quality. MPEG2 has much better picture quality. You should get an EyeTV250 or comparable product as long as your Mac has a USB 2 port. The Toast 7 Media Browser will access the EyeTV video files when you use the current version of the EyeTV software.

4) what is the point of a Video CD (VCD/SVCD)? I tried to make one once, and found out that this is the least compatible format... why would that be? I never had problems with Data CDs (MPEG Videos burned direct to disk - backup disk), so then what is the point of SVCD/VCD?

Those formats made sense when blank DVD media (and DVD burners) were expensive. Their advantage is you can burn to cheaper CD-R media. But the picture quality suffers because VCDs are MPEG1 videos and SVCD has a lesser quality MPEG2 resolution than does video DVD.

5) the help documentation seems to be missing from my computer. how do I get another copy, or is that the way it was created?

Toast Help is a file inside the Toast application package. It cannot be missing, so your problem is that the Mac isn't reading the Help file. You may find a solution to this Here.