Will Toast 8 convert PAL to NTSC ?

[Ken Lee]

Using Mac The Ripper, I ripped a DVD I purchased while visiting the UK.

 

I live in the USA, and didn't know about Region codes.

 

Mac The Ripper allows you to remove Region Codes, and the resulting VIDEO_TS files are on my hard drive.

 

The original DVD is also in PAL format.

 

I would like to view this DVD on my Sony DVD player, on my television.

 

Using my current Toast 6, I can try to burn to DVD, but when I specify the output as NTSC, Toast 6 forces it to PAL and proceeds automatically.

 

Will Toast 8 allow me to convert from PAL to NTSC ??

 

Thanks !

[Dmacfarl]

Forget Toast

 

Get Visual Hub.

 

Works seamlessly.

[scot.vert]

Using Mac The Ripper, I ripped a DVD I purchased while visiting the UK.

 

I live in the USA, and didn't know about Region codes.

 

Mac The Ripper allows you to remove Region Codes, and the resulting VIDEO_TS files are on my hard drive.

 

The original DVD is also in PAL format.

 

I would like to view this DVD on my Sony DVD player, on my television.

 

Using my current Toast 6, I can try to burn to DVD, but when I specify the output as NTSC, Toast 6 forces it to PAL and proceeds automatically.

 

Will Toast 8 allow me to convert from PAL to NTSC ??

 

Thanks !

 

 

Drag your video ts file to toast 8 ---export as a quicktime movie using option--Pal to ntsc. Then burn the quicktime movie in toast 8. Quick and easy with great results. Good Luck, Scot

[tsantee]

Yes. Toast 8 will transcode PAL to NTSC or vice versa. Note that you will lose the source DVD menus and Toast will author its own menus for the disc. The process starts with placing the VIDEO_TS folder on your desktop and using the Toast Media Browser to extract the MPEGs from the folder.

[Ken Lee]

Yes. Toast 8 will transcode PAL to NTSC or vice versa. Note that you will lose the source DVD menus and Toast will author its own menus for the disc. The process starts with placing the VIDEO_TS folder on your desktop and using the Toast Media Browser to extract the MPEGs from the folder.

 

Thanks so much, Maestro !

 

... and will I be able to play the resulting DVD on my standard Sony DVD player ?

 

I am using DVD-RW discs.

[tsantee]

Thanks so much, Maestro !

 

... and will I be able to play the resulting DVD on my standard Sony DVD player ?

 

I am using DVD-RW discs.

Yes, unless your DVD player has trouble reading DVD-RW discs.

[Ken Lee]

The process starts with placing the VIDEO_TS folder on your desktop and using the Toast Media Browser to extract the MPEGs from the folder.

 

Using MPEG Streamclip, I extracted the VIDEO_TS folder, and I have been able to drag it to the Toast UI. When I do so, Toast tells me that several of the files are of an unsupported type. I continue, and end up with something that looks rather odd. Please see a screen capture here: http://www.kenleegallery.com/toast.png

 

Two files appear (one of them is called "My Playlist") but neither of them looks right. I don't know if I should remove one in favor of the other - because it appears as though the audio file is of the correct duration, while the video file has a duration of 0... puzzling.

 

If I leave both files in place, then when I press the BURN button, I get prompted to convert to NTSC, which I select. But then, I get error message 9011. What is this, the 1970's... with IBM mainframe error codes ?

 

Any idea what's wrong ?

 

Alternately: I have also tried converting the file to MPEG, and then dragging the MPEG file to Toast. This results in a successful burn - and the resulting DVD actually plays on my Sony DVD player + television... but the file contains jumps and spurts: the sound no longer matches the video, and frames appear to be dropped.

 

Should I just ask for a refund ? (I have the latest update). Many thanks for your help.

[tsantee]

Any idea what's wrong ?

You dragged the VIDEO_TS folder into Toast rather than extracting the MPEGs with the Media Browser. This is done by placing the VIDEO_TS folder on the desktop. Then select DVD with the top button of the Media Browser. Go down one level with the lower button to get to the Titles level. Select the titles you want in your DVD and drag them to the Video window (with DVD video selected as the format).

 

After the extraction is complete you can proceed.

 

If the resulting DVD is having play back problems this likely is due to problems the player is having with the media. Try a different brand of media and try burning at a slow speed.

[larryp]

What kind of audio do the titles have from the source VIDEO_TS folder? It is described in the Toast window after you extract the video or in the window that appears when you hold the mouse over the title in the Media Browser. If it is PCM audio then you need to wait for the next Toast 8 update. Toast 8.0 and 8.0.1 cannot multiplex video with PCM audio without giving an error. Toast 7 doesn't have this problem and Roxio is aware of this bug.

The audio was indeed PCM, so I tried Toast 7.1.2 but with no better results. The first time I tried it I must have done something wrong because I was not prompted for conversion to NTSC and it did not convert; it wrote a PAL disk. The next time I must have done something right because it prompted me for the conversion and apparently completed it successfully. I tried saving it to a disk image first rather than waste yet another blank, and after working for awhile (I don't know how long) it quit with the error 'The file "VTS_01_1.VOB" could not be accessed. (Data fork, -2009)' When I dismissed that error I immediately got another saying, 'Couldn't complete the last command because of a Mac OS Error. Result Code = -2009' and Toast quit on me. The toast file which had been written to the Desktop was zero-length.

 

The first time I tried it I was using a VIDEO_TS folder on my desktop; the second time I used a PAL DVD which I had burned region-free. I don't think that accounted for the different results, though; I'm sure I did something else wrong to make it write the PAL disk the first time.

 

Despite all, I managed to get a usable DVD indirectly. I mentioned earlier that I had used Handbrake to save it as an MP4 and I was able to use that to burn an NTSC DVD. I don't notice any problems with the quality so perhaps that is a viable way to go.

 

Thanks for all your help. Despite having a usable DVD via the MP4 route, I'd still like to try getting a usable NTSC DVD from PAL source the way it's supposed to be done, just to see if there is any noticeable difference.

[Terry in Scotland]

This is what happened for a year as I asked on different forums about PAL to NTSC conversion, as I want to be able to send DVDs to friends in the States. Everybody has a sure-fire way, yet when you try them, (i) no audio (ii) audio drops out after a short while (iii) applications supposed to work "at just one click it will..." then require changing into Quicktime or something, and then the application won't even accept it (iv) you try, and either at the start, or half-way, or end, get half a dozen error messages and no result. I just downloaded Visualhub and guess what, it don't work seamlessly for me - I got a few minutes of video, saved to .iso, which Toast rejected.

I think I finallly cracked it, and on my machine in the UK, the result is great - no motion jerkiness, and video quality is comparable to the original except for some jaggedness in the titles. That is probably to be expected, since the process reduces the number of lines from PAL 576 to NTSC 480. Trouble is, since our UK machines play both formats without any indication whether a PAL or an NTSC disc is being played, I will not know for sure until a friend gets my first disc (in the mail) and emails me. But when dragged into Toast 8, it indicated 29 fps and the correct number of lines.

I've written it out as a step by step guide, so if you're interested in trying it Ken, private me and I'll let you have it. It's not approriate to post here, as Toast is not involved until the final burning to DVD.

[Dmacfarl]

[qI just got a new update.

 

Wil this work...we'll see.

 

A Roxio Agent has responded to your ticket! (#443483)

Thank you for contacting Roxio Technical Support

 

You can fix that with the following update : http://www.roxio.com/enu/support/toast/software_updates.html

 

Sonic Support Europe

[larryp]

I followed the instructions given to Ken Lee exactly:

 

I copied the VIDEO_TS folder to the desktop, then opened the Media Browser and set it to DVD. Navigated down and displayed three titles. (I have screen shots of all of this if they would be useful for clarification.) I dragged all three to the Toast 8 window, but one was rejected. With two titles left (both named "Desktop" I clicked the record button and got the convert dialog. I clicked "Reencode to NTSC" and the progress bar appeared. When the progress bar reached 100%, I got the dialog saying "Couldn't complete the last command because of a Mac OS Error. Result Code = 9011".

 

At the time I was tailing /var/log/system.log and /Library/Logs/Console/<uid>/console.log. No errors appeared in either -- in fact there were no entries at all pertaining to the activitiy.

 

Before reading this thread, I had tried to do this by simply dragging the files to the window, but the results were exactly the same: "Result Code = 9011".

 

After the first attempt at using the Media Browser, I tried again with only a single title, but the results were exactly the same.

 

Before even attempting the conversion to NTSC I was able to use Toast 8 to create a PAL DVD which I can play on my computer, but I would really like to get it to NTSC.

 

Any other suggestions? Are you interested in the screen shots?

[larryp]

What kind of audio do the titles have from the source VIDEO_TS folder? It is described in the Toast window after you extract the video or in the window that appears when you hold the mouse over the title in the Media Browser. If it is PCM audio then you need to wait for the next Toast 8 update. Toast 8.0 and 8.0.1 cannot multiplex video with PCM audio without giving an error. Toast 7 doesn't have this problem and Roxio is aware of this bug.

I'm at work at the moment so I can't check the audio type. I may have Toast 7 still installed; if not I may try re-installing it and giving it a try if the audio turns out to be PCM.

 

Thanks!

 

I'll let you know how it turns out.

[tsantee]

I followed the instructions given to Ken Lee exactly:

 

I copied the VIDEO_TS folder to the desktop, then opened the Media Browser and set it to DVD. Navigated down and displayed three titles. (I have screen shots of all of this if they would be useful for clarification.) I dragged all three to the Toast 8 window, but one was rejected. With two titles left (both named "Desktop" I clicked the record button and got the convert dialog. I clicked "Reencode to NTSC" and the progress bar appeared. When the progress bar reached 100%, I got the dialog saying "Couldn't complete the last command because of a Mac OS Error. Result Code = 9011".

What kind of audio do the titles have from the source VIDEO_TS folder? It is described in the Toast window after you extract the video or in the window that appears when you hold the mouse over the title in the Media Browser. If it is PCM audio then you need to wait for the next Toast 8 update. Toast 8.0 and 8.0.1 cannot multiplex video with PCM audio without giving an error. Toast 7 doesn't have this problem and Roxio is aware of this bug.

[sjkrox]

You dragged the VIDEO_TS folder into Toast rather than extracting the MPEGs with the Media Browser. This is done by placing the VIDEO_TS folder on the desktop.

The Media Browser will also find a VIDEO_TS folder located in the Movies folder. Symbolic links to the VIDEO_TS folder are followed; aliases aren't.