Burning Dvd Video

[closencounter]

I've been burning video to DVD using Toast 8, but noticing that the image quality is much more pixilated once burned than it was when playing through my computer's DVDplayer.

I have been dragging my video files into TOAST in mp4 format, but would I see a quality improvement if I burned a different video file format (such as MOV, VOB, MP2, etc.)?

If anyone can offer some suggestions I would be very grateful!

[gaper1]

it all depends on the resolution of your video files. You could use a mp4 file with high resolution and it should look good on your DVD. Do you know what's resolution of the mp4 files you used before?

[closencounter]

it all depends on the resolution of your video files. You could use a mp4 file with high resolution and it should look good on your DVD. Do you know what's resolution of the mp4 files you used before?

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply!!!

 

No, I don't know the original resolution of my video files. Do you know how I can find that out?

 

I did notice that in Toast's Encoding Options that there are settings for both Average and Maximum Bit Rate Mbps. Would this effect the resolution of Toast's output upon burning to DVD? (Please forgive me if that sounds like a stupid question.)

 

Do you know whether another video file type is preferrable to mp4?

[tsantee]

What is the format of your video before it became mp4? There typically is no reason to convert video to mp4 before using it in Toast to make a video DVD. By the way the resolution of a video added to Toast appears with the title in the Toast window.

[closencounter]

What is the format of your video before it became mp4? There typically is no reason to convert video to mp4 before using it in Toast to make a video DVD. By the way the resolution of a video added to Toast appears with the title in the Toast window.

 

 

The original formats I've used have been VOB, AVI and MOV. I've then converted them to mp4, but only arbitrarily (not really knowing what the differences are between the various formats).

 

 

And about the resolution of my video clip to be burned...I've pasted a screen shot from the Toast window so that you can see the fps and xvid amounts. What do you think?

 

 

[tsantee]

With the exception of VOBs you can just drag those source videos to the Toast video window without converting them to MP4. Your current process involves multiple re-encodings which is reducing quality (and wasting time). As for VOBs, if they are still in the VIDEO_TS folder then you can place the VIDEO_TS folder on the desktop, choose DVD with the top button of the Media browser, double click on what appears in the browser window and drag the titles you want to the Video window (with DVD video selected as the format). Toast extracts the MPEG video files from the VIDEO_TS. These should work for making a new video DVD without any re-encoding; just multiplexing which goes quickly and has zero affect on picture quality.

 

As for Toast's MPEG encoder settings, choosing Automatic and highest quality typically gets the right results. You can use the custom encoder settings window to increase the average bit rate but I'd leave the maximum no higher than 8 mbps. Turning on Half-Pel doubles the encoding time but increases quality especially in scenes that have a lot of motion.

 

You should develop the practice of choosing Save as Disc Image so you can preview the result in DVD Player before burning to disc. When the disc image is finished, select it with the Image File setting in the Copy window. The disc image will be mounted which should automatically launch DVD Player. If you are happy with the results you can burn the disc image file from the Copy window.

 

Another tip is to change the Toast Preferences for when the Converted Items folder is emptied. You may not want it emptied automatically when Toast quits because you may want to save a project and return to it later. If the converted items folder gets emptied then encoding has to start from the beginning when you decide to resume working on your project.