EXTREMEMLY slow burn speeds

[PoohSwim2]

Hello -

 

I just recently purchased a Sony DRX-830UL-T and am now starting to try to burn movie DVD's. I connected the drive to my laptop using a firewire 400 connection. I'm using Sony DVD+R rated at 16x which is supported by the drive. However, when I try and burn a movie it takes almost 3 hours to burn. I have NOTHING else running. I have a Powerbook G4 running OS 10.4.10. Any ideas? I've updated to Toast Titanium 8.0.1 and that didn't seem to help the burn time either.

 

I've tried 2 different DVD brands and still no luck. I know burns shouldn't take this long, but I can't figure out how to fix it. HELP!!

[New (but old) Toaster]

I just tested with a 42-minute video captured in the 2-hour setting with my EyeTV 250. I chose Save as Disc Image instead of actually burning a disc. The multiplexing stage took 2 minutes and 37 seconds on my 2 Ghz G5 iMac.

 

I captured my 49-minute video in the 90-minute setting (instead of the 2-hour setting) with EyeTV 250. Surely this can't account for such a wide differential in multiplexing times, or can it? I did everything over again, but saved as a disc image this time. I experienced the same, or worse, multiplexing time---29 minutes plus.

 

By the way, I'm using a 2.1 Ghz G5 iMac so our hardware seems comparable.

 

Too late to experiment more tonight. I'll be in touch when I've tried a few other things. I appreciate your help with this problem.

 

P.S. That's a nice Austin Healey. I had a couple of Triumph Spitfires back in the 1960s. Fun to drive them.

[New (but old) Toaster]

Hello -

 

I just recently purchased a Sony DRX-830UL-T and am now starting to try to burn movie DVD's. I connected the drive to my laptop using a firewire 400 connection. I'm using Sony DVD+R rated at 16x which is supported by the drive. However, when I try and burn a movie it takes almost 3 hours to burn. I have NOTHING else running. I have a Powerbook G4 running OS 10.4.10. Any ideas? I've updated to Toast Titanium 8.0.1 and that didn't seem to help the burn time either.

 

I've tried 2 different DVD brands and still no luck. I know burns shouldn't take this long, but I can't figure out how to fix it. HELP!!

 

I've had a similar problem with slow burning of DVDs. Toast 8.0.1 running in OS 10.4.8 on an iMac G5 is taking 2.5 hours to burn a 49-minute TV program I captured to my Mac via Elgato Eye TV 250. I'm new to both the Eye TV 250 and Toast 8.0.1, so I wonder if I'm missing something I should be doing (besides dragging the file from Eye TV into Toast and clicking the burn button). The DVD gets burned and plays just fine; I just don't understand why it takes two and one-half hours to do it! Or is this just par for the course with Toast? Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks.

[tsantee]

I've had a similar problem with slow burning of DVDs. Toast 8.0.1 running in OS 10.4.8 on an iMac G5 is taking 2.5 hours to burn a 49-minute TV program I captured to my Mac via Elgato Eye TV 250. I'm new to both the Eye TV 250 and Toast 8.0.1, so I wonder if I'm missing something I should be doing (besides dragging the file from Eye TV into Toast and clicking the burn button). The DVD gets burned and plays just fine; I just don't understand why it takes two and one-half hours to do it! Or is this just par for the course with Toast? Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks.

If Toast reports it is encoding instead of multiplexing after you click the big button then you should go to the Toast Custom Encoder window and choose Never next to Re-encoding. The custom encoder window is accessible by clicking the More button on the lower left part of the Toast window, clicking the Encoding button and then clicking Custom.

[tsantee]

I tried again with a 47-minute video captured at the 90-minute setting. Multiplexing took 2 minutes 20 seconds. The entire process to the completion of the disc image file was 7 minutes 25 seconds.

[Kewl]

Is it the actual burn that's slow or some pre-burn process?

 

If there's some video re-encoding going on, the "burn" (re-encoding + burning) will be long.

[PoohSwim2]

All I know is that I tried burning a dual layer disc and I left it overnight with nothing else running on my computer, and it had not budged an inch (seemingly) when I woke up in the morning. I know its not my drive because hooking it up to a PC and using Nero works. I guess that is what I am going ot have to do from now on. Stupid toast....

[tsantee]

All I know is that I tried burning a dual layer disc and I left it overnight with nothing else running on my computer, and it had not budged an inch (seemingly) when I woke up in the morning. I know its not my drive because hooking it up to a PC and using Nero works. I guess that is what I am going ot have to do from now on. Stupid toast....

A couple things I do whenever burning to dual-layer media:

1. I choose Save as Disc Image from the Toast file menu and then burn the disc image file to the media using the Image File setting in the Copy window.

2. I only use Verbatim DVD+R DL media because other brands often fail, especially if you are using a Mac Superdrive.

 

If the DVD you were trying to burn required encoding before burning it is possible that Toast was unable to wake up the drive at the point where the burning was supposed to begin.

[New (but old) Toaster]

Thanks for the reply, tsantee.

 

After I press the red button, Toast tells me it is multiplexing (not re-encoding). It then proceeds to multiplex for about 40 minutes. It then switches to "writing" (burning) for one hour and 45 minutes. Hence, my estimated total of two hours and 30 minutes to record a 49-minute TV program to DVD using Toast.

 

Is this simply the time it takes to do this, or should it take far less time? And, if it should take less time, what steps can I take to help it do so?

[tsantee]

Thanks for the reply, tsantee.

 

After I press the red button, Toast tells me it is multiplexing (not re-encoding). It then proceeds to multiplex for about 40 minutes. It then switches to "writing" (burning) for one hour and 45 minutes. Hence, my estimated total of two hours and 30 minutes to record a 49-minute TV program to DVD using Toast.

 

Is this simply the time it takes to do this, or should it take far less time? And, if it should take less time, what steps can I take to help it do so?

Something is wrong. Multiplexing is fast. The whole thing should take just a few minutes. I suggest trashing the Toast plist and prefs files in your User>Library>Preferences folder and then trashing and reinstalling the Toast application (using Toast 8.0.1). If you have DiskWarrior, run that to see if the System needs any repair.

 

I had Toast work very slow one time. I shut down my G5 iMac, waited a few minutes and then restarted. The problem never returned. So you might try that first.

[tsantee]

Yesterday I experienced the extremely slow multiplexing using either Toast 8 or Popcorn 3 on my G5 iMac with a 2:23:00 MPEG file encoded by my EyeTV250. The multiplexing took many hours and the writing of the disc image proceeded so slowly that I aborted the effort. Thinking that something was wrong with my Mac I did all the troubleshooting and repair actions but nothing made any difference.

 

Then I tried an MPEG 2 file extracted from my Pioneer standalone DVD recorder and everything zipped along quickly. So it is the EyeTV MPEG that is dragging Toast to a crawl.

 

Next I had EyeTV export the MPEG both as a Program Stream and as Elementary Streams. The Program stream export was slow but the Elementary stream export seemed normal. I tested each one with Toast and they both proceeded through the multiplexing and disc image stage at the normal speed. The Elementary Stream was a little faster multiplexing with Toast.

 

So if anyone encounters very slow multiplexing using an EyeTV file I suggest using the EyeTV application to export that file as an Elementary stream. To use an Elementary stream with Toast just drag the .m2v file to the Toast Video window. Toast will automatically add the audio stream.

[hermie54]

I'm having a similar problem... Suddenly my internal LaCie NEC 3530AW won't burn properly anymore. All the recorder settings pop up in a flash and everything looks normal, but both "for real" and in simulation mode it won't go any faster then 4x. Intermittend as well. Max speed for data DVD on this drive is 16x. To me it looks like for some reason data can't be sent to the drive correctly anymore.

 

No idea why, but could it be a System or Security update that is causing this behaviour? Nope, I don't think the drive is broken (I already replaced a perfectly good drive for what later turned out to be the Retrospect 2 GB PPC memory bug - still not fixed).

 

Anyway, copying to my other internal HD and external Pocket Drive works normal and burning to my external LaCie goes fine, too. I'm rather puzzled at the moment...

 

Have fun, Hermie

[New (but old) Toaster]

Something is wrong. Multiplexing is fast. The whole thing should take just a few minutes. I suggest trashing the Toast plist and prefs files in your User>Library>Preferences folder and then trashing and reinstalling the Toast application (using Toast 8.0.1). If you have DiskWarrior, run that to see if the System needs any repair.

 

I had Toast work very slow one time. I shut down my G5 iMac, waited a few minutes and then restarted. The problem never returned. So you might try that first.

 

Thanks again, tsantee.

 

I tried the shutdown/restart procedure you recommended with some success. Multiplexing time was reduced to 23 minutes and writing time went down to 55 minutes. So, total time to make this DVD (same TV program) went down from 2.5 hours to 1 hour 18 minutes; about twice as fast.

 

Based on your experience, is this about how long the process should take?

[tsantee]

Thanks again, tsantee.

 

I tried the shutdown/restart procedure you recommended with some success. Multiplexing time was reduced to 23 minutes and writing time went down to 55 minutes. So, total time to make this DVD (same TV program) went down from 2.5 hours to 1 hour 18 minutes; about twice as fast.

 

Based on your experience, is this about how long the process should take?

I just tested with a 42-minute video captured in the 2-hour setting with my EyeTV 250. I chose Save as Disc Image instead of actually burning a disc. The multiplexing stage took 2 minutes and 37 seconds on my 2 Ghz G5 iMac.