"Hung Up"

[Piper]

Toast 8 gets "Hung Up" while attempting to encode video. It does not go beyond about 30% done. Anyone else see this problem?

[Atlantic]

I have tried exporting the videos from EyeTV as MPEG programme streams now, then doing the encoding from those files. At least it meant that Toast picked up the correct soundtrack (instead of the mono commentary it often assumes is the default soundtrack and not encoding the main stereo soundtrack). I also realised that when you select the DivX button making a DivX disk, it only changes the DivX options for the tracks you have selected. If you have none selected, the DivX button won't work. Anyway, it turns out that what was making it hang and use no processing power doesn't appear to be the time code breaks but the encoding options. I had selected a two-pass encoding, which defaults to a high speed first pass. If the high speed first pass is selected, it will hang. If you de-select this, it manages to encode it with no problem (until the write protection error I get at the end of the encoding, but I think that may either be space on my hard drive or outdated firmware on my LaCie external firewire hard drive - I am checking that now, but have to let it go through the encoding process again). I am also encoding this time with the video coming direct from EyeTV (the same one that used to hang with the high-speed first pass encoding whether it was in EyeTV or exported).

 

Has anyone managed to get Toast to encode with a high speed first pass on DivX two-pass encoding?

[Atlantic]

Yes, turn off high-speed first pass encoding and it should run fine to encode to DivX using two-pass encoding. This applies to 8 and 8.01.

[Atlantic]

On EyeTV I don't have the DivX component installed, so I can't export to DivX from EyeTV. I have just started the export to MPEG streams from EyeTV and will try running it through Streamclip and fixing the timecode breaks. It seems strange that Toast tells me nothing about any issues. I managed to get it to encode as far as 50% before, now it gets to 2% in seconds, then halts. I checked activity monitor, and for about a minute, the processor works at 100%, then Toast only starts pulling about 2.5% of the processor and after a few hours it has settled to 1.7%, with no more than 2% encoded still (I left it running for 16 hours just in case). I'll see how Streamclip fixes the timecodes, anyway.

[Fritz A]

Toast 8 gets "Hung Up" while attempting to encode video. It does not go beyond about 30% done. Anyone else see this problem?

 

I get the same thing happening when I convert files - doesn't have to be a certain file type - MP4, Video TS, etc. the progress indicator just stops where-ever. Doesn't hang the software because I can cancel out, but after a night of converting to find it just hanging is not fun.

 

Took the same Video TS file and used a $15 conversion program I found on the net and it worked fine. I'm a first time user of Roxio Toast (it came highly recommended) but this is getting really frustrating. I even tried to lower the video quality to "better" instead of "best." In the end, Roxio again hung up and produced a file that was an hour shorter than it should have been (even though the progress indicator was a hair shy of done). This didn't happen converting the file with my other software. Now I see Crunch? Is this not what is included in Toast? Does it have the same problems? And I am not sure why I would need to buy yet another program to make sure the MPEG files are clean? Shouldn't Toast do that?

 

Please help! Also - what are the settings to convert a file so iTunes recognizes the file as a "movie" rather than a TV show? The auto settings for Apple/iPOD/iPhone (BEST) shows up as a TV show. Not too annoying, but annoying.

 

Thanks,

Fritz

 

I am using a Dual G4 1GHZ Power PC, have plenty of free disc space (>16GB), and 1GB of system memory - Toast Version 8.01

[Hanz]

Toast 8 gets "Hung Up" while attempting to encode video. It does not go beyond about 30% done. Anyone else see this problem?

 

 

I get the same problem as you. Yesterday I bought Toast 8 and wanted to encode one of my movies to DivX. I dragged the VIDEO_TS folder on toast, selected Home Theater Profile, and went to make a disc image. It started working then stuck at 10% for 45 minutes. I got suspicious and checked out the CPU usage and it said that it was only using 0.5% CPU. I stopped and tried to just create a dvd, but this time it stuck at 4%. I finally just went and used the EXPORT video file that is in the menu bar and it worked. I got it to work, but it's pretty fustrating when the program doesn't do what it is supposed to do. Just to let you know I am using 8.1, anybody have any answers to this yet?

[Atlantic]

I get Toast either quitting part way through an encode (though it is not re-encoding the actual streams - they are all original MPEG streams, they are just being re-muxed - from TVEye) or it just stops part way through the encoding (when encoding DivX from similar source files). I gave up burning straight to DVD from the source material since the quit will give me a coaster. I also find that starting again will often get it to work with no other changes (or if it quits again, it will be after a different percentage complete). The first type of error will leave the percentage complete visible on the screen but stalled until I switch to Toast and then it quits. The second type (for DivX) will just sit there at the same percentage for hours unless I "stop" it. I have had it stop on the same material at 55%, then 3% then 2%. After some stops, the DivX settings are no longer available without restarting Toast. I haven't yet managed to fully encode a DivX disc (I am only doing one as a test, but it has never got all the way through the encoding). I don't know what causes the stops, but it happened before and after the upgrade of Toast, and before and after my upgrade of the system software.

[mdareau]

No...you're NOT the only one......

 

Anyone have a thought, less than re-install?? Seems to have happened since I did the upgrade...even went back to the older version, same thing...

[tsantee]

I have tried exporting the videos from EyeTV as MPEG programme streams now, then doing the encoding from those files. At least it meant that Toast picked up the correct soundtrack (instead of the mono commentary it often assumes is the default soundtrack and not encoding the main stereo soundtrack). I also realised that when you select the DivX button making a DivX disk, it only changes the DivX options for the tracks you have selected. If you have none selected, the DivX button won't work. Anyway, it turns out that what was making it hang and use no processing power doesn't appear to be the time code breaks but the encoding options. I had selected a two-pass encoding, which defaults to a high speed first pass. If the high speed first pass is selected, it will hang. If you de-select this, it manages to encode it with no problem (until the write protection error I get at the end of the encoding, but I think that may either be space on my hard drive or outdated firmware on my LaCie external firewire hard drive - I am checking that now, but have to let it go through the encoding process again). I am also encoding this time with the video coming direct from EyeTV (the same one that used to hang with the high-speed first pass encoding whether it was in EyeTV or exported).

 

Has anyone managed to get Toast to encode with a high speed first pass on DivX two-pass encoding?

I only spent a short time on this but I think you are correct that selecting the high-speed first pass causes Toast to stall rather than encode DivX. I'm using NTSC that were encoded by my EyeTV 250 which is different from what you're using.

 

On my system I found using the EyeTV software to export to DivX was faster than using Toast. It also defaults to the 4:3 640x480 format needed to keep the picture from getting stretched whereas Toast defaults to 720x480 which results in people having fat heads. What's odd is this is with a 720x480 source video. I have learned that selecting multiple videos in the Toast window and then creating custom DivX export settings in Toast will apply those custom settings to each of the videos.

 

As for your needing to export from EyeTV as separate streams in order to select the correct soundtrack, you also may be able to select the desired soundtrack when multiple audio tracks are in a muxed MPEG file by selecting the title in Toast and clicking the Edit button. You should see the selected audio is in a button that can be clicked for choosing an alternate track.

[tsantee]

I get Toast either quitting part way through an encode (though it is not re-encoding the actual streams - they are all original MPEG streams, they are just being re-muxed - from TVEye) or it just stops part way through the encoding (when encoding DivX from similar source files). I gave up burning straight to DVD from the source material since the quit will give me a coaster. I also find that starting again will often get it to work with no other changes (or if it quits again, it will be after a different percentage complete). The first type of error will leave the percentage complete visible on the screen but stalled until I switch to Toast and then it quits. The second type (for DivX) will just sit there at the same percentage for hours unless I "stop" it. I have had it stop on the same material at 55%, then 3% then 2%. After some stops, the DivX settings are no longer available without restarting Toast. I haven't yet managed to fully encode a DivX disc (I am only doing one as a test, but it has never got all the way through the encoding). I don't know what causes the stops, but it happened before and after the upgrade of Toast, and before and after my upgrade of the system software.

If TVeye is the same as EyeTV have you tried using its option to export to DivX?

 

What's odd about your experience is that the failure doesn't happen at the same point each time. Otherwise I'd say that Toast is stalling on a flaw in the MPEG (such as dropped frames). It still may be an issue with those MPEGs though. If you have a non-encrypted DVD available try using the Toast Media Browser to extract an MPEG from it and go through your process. Does that work?

 

If you have MPEG Streamclip try using its Fix Timecode Breaks command on a problem MPEG file and choose Convert to MPEG to resave it. Does that work with Toast?

[Atlantic]

Toast will crash if the MPEG standard doesn't match the one it wants. It doesn't cope well with time code breaks, and some older MPEG-2 files aren't great for it either. In all these cases, I have only seen Toast crash out of the encoding process. It normally gets "stuck" when there is something wrong with the settings, such as the encoding method. If Toast crashes out, sometimes it is just because it crashed, and a second or third attempt will succeed (I have seen this on G4 and Intel machines). If the data is encoded incorrectly, using MPEG Streamclip may be able to tidy up the MPEG files (use the Batch List function in Streamclip to do several at once and it should also fix time code breaks) so that Toast can use them. I still have a set of files I cannot burn to DVD (even forcing Toast not to re-encode, running them through Streamclip, fixing time code breaks) though they all come from the same source. I am just trying those files again having run them through Streamclip a bit differently to see if that works.

 

At the end of the day, Toast is far less stable than it used to be, though it can achieve more than it used to. I got a Toast upgrade to make it more convenient to make DVDs, and in many cases it is, but in a few cases it is a real pain to work out. We have also waited months since the original release for the fixes to come along to avoid these issues. I have offered to provide files that do not work properly, but no-one from Roxio has come back to me about getting them. Hopefully they already have copies of files they are already using to fix these multiple issues. Error messages are frustrating (using codes instead of understandable text and no indication of which source file may have caused the problem or what it might have been). And its ability to "forget things" (background photos of menus, changing pictures by itself in the disc labelling software) after you save and re-open them are a nuisance. But at the end of the day, I do still use the software, even though I have looked for alternatives, since when it works, it is the best I have found.

[azflackman]

Toast 8 gets "Hung Up" while attempting to encode video. It does not go beyond about 30% done. Anyone else see this problem?

Yes. Mine shuts the MAC down and effectively aborts the encoding

[tsantee]

What settings are being used in Toast? What is the format of the source video? Is there plenty of hard drive space available on the drive where the Converted Items folder is located? Does the hanging occur with all video files or just with a certain one? If the source video is from a VIDEO_TS folder was the Media Browser used to extract the MPEG or was the VOB added directly to the Video window? I haven't a clue what you are doing that led to Toast hanging.

[Atlantic]

I haven't checked the video settings. I am encoding from an anamorphic source and I told Toast not to change the aspect ratio. There are apparently a whole load of settings to change aspect and crop the picture in Toast, though.

 

The edit button is a basic part of exporting almost anything from EyeTV, maybe because I didn't realise how many programmes have two soundtracks when broadcast through terrestrial digital. I have, so far, always been able to spot the commentary track since it is in mono and the main broadcast is in stereo, but Toast doesn't seem to know which is the "main" track that would have been selected by EyeTV during playback, and I can't work out what makes it pick up one or the other (I have to check every programme I transfer one at a time after passing over from EyeTV; fortunately you can go to next and previous programme after pressing edit in Toast). This also seems to be one of the issues that causes Toast to mis-calculate the final disk usage (it discards one audio track, but includes it in the size of the disk - it also seems to do the same with the standard subtitle files in Europe that are never close captioned, they go through teletext, and it appears to include the size of these but also discards them so the final disk is a lot smaller than the size expected by Toast when doing a DVD).

 

Anyway, it would be useful if Toast could warn or ask about multiple audio tracks, or at least be able to pick up the default the same way that EyeTV does. I am not sure what it thinks about disk space usage with DivX, though I know it gets it wrong with DVDs.

[DeeDee]

To add to this list of unhappy Toast 8.01 users attempting to create a DVD with Toast.

 

I am attempting to take HD material from Eye TV (410) and encode to DVD (PAL). This has worked fine in the past (albeit slowly) with Toast 7. Having upgraded to Toast 8 and then to 8.01 it now fails as described by others in this post, having taken 3 hours on an Intel core2 Duo to get to the point of failure.

 

To be specific I am going through the two part stage of (1) "Save as disc image" before (2) burning the DVD.

It completes the long encoding phase (100% complete), which for a 1hr 55m recording (6.6Gb) takes 3 hours before the final stage where it sticks at 0% complete and then simply dies taking one back to the original start point in Toast. No error messages, nothing.

 

I have tried using MPEG Streamclip as recommended by others all to no avail.

 

Very frustrating - should I go back to Toast 7 or what?

 

DD

[tsantee]

To add to this list of unhappy Toast 8.01 users attempting to create a DVD with Toast.

 

I am attempting to take HD material from Eye TV (410) and encode to DVD (PAL). This has worked fine in the past (albeit slowly) with Toast 7. Having upgraded to Toast 8 and then to 8.01 it now fails as described by others in this post, having taken 3 hours on an Intel core2 Duo to get to the point of failure.

 

To be specific I am going through the two part stage of (1) "Save as disc image" before (2) burning the DVD.

It completes the long encoding phase (100% complete), which for a 1hr 55m recording (6.6Gb) takes 3 hours before the final stage where it sticks at 0% complete and then simply dies taking one back to the original start point in Toast. No error messages, nothing.

 

I have tried using MPEG Streamclip as recommended by others all to no avail.

 

Very frustrating - should I go back to Toast 7 or what?

 

DD

Since it finishes the encoding stage you should have an .m2v and .ac3 file in the Roxio Converted Items folder. Try dragging the .m2v file to the Video window. Toast will ask for the corresponding audio file. Set up the menu as you want and try Save as Disc Image again. Does this work.

 

Naturally this shouldn't be necessary but I'm curious if it makes any difference.