Total Newbie And Still Trying To Learn The Lingo

[karenhetzer]

I'm trying to find out why some dvd's I've burned will play on a tv's built in player and some will not. They were all burned on the same brand of discs. I can view all of them on my mac but only some on the tv?

Would that mean the discs are bad? I admit to using inexpensive HP brand, but could that many on a spool really be bad?

Could it be my mac's built in burner?

I was originally burning dvd's from idvd, but suddenly the quality of the videos were awful. I was copying quicktime movies that I had put together for instructional dvds. I thought maybe the quicktime movies had degraded? Had something happened to my burner?

So luckily I had saved all the movies in raw format so I went back to them and started over using toast (for the first time) to create the dvd's. I'm pretty sure I saved them all as disc images, but if for some reason I didn't would that make a difference in them playing on a 'player'?

Am I missing something.......at this point I'm so confused.

I'm burning on dvd+r

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

[firenhancer]

I would start by using a different brand of DVD media like Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim. If using, +R media, try using -R.

[karenhetzer]

I would start by using a different brand of DVD media like Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim. If using, +R media, try using -R.

Thank you for the reply. Just as a precaution I took my computer to Apple today just to make sure nothing was wrong with the burner itself, and it was determined the burner was fine, and it was suggested that I reinstall idvd.......so I have.

I asked the tech why when using 'toast' to burn the dvd's some of them would play on a tv's dvd player and some would not?? He said because toast burns so fast that it doesn't burn as well.......making it harder for some players to read the dvd.

 

This is my dilemma ...... when I first put these little movies together in imovie a year ago, I was planning on just having them viewed from a website so I saved them as quicktime movies for web streaming. Then I changed my mine and decided to burn them and sell them that way, I left the movies the way they were. Everything was fine up until a few weeks ago.

When my idvd starting acting up, I switched to the toast program to see what that was like. I still had all my movies saved in there raw state (from imovie) so I put them all through toast and saved them as disc images. Then I got rid of the ones I had saved as quicktime movies.......stupid me!

OK so now I'm being told that toast doesn't burn as well, and I want to be sure to have a good product, so do I go back to burning through idvd? And is there a way to do that with the movies the way they are now? Or do I have to start with the raw format again and put them all back into quicktime movies? The quality (viewing wise) of the movies are so much better (in my opinion) when burned through toast, than when they're a quicktime movie.

Any advice on whats best to do here..........please. Would switching to Verbatim really solve the fast burn issue with toast? I don't have money to experiment with.

 

[karenhetzer]

Thank you for the reply. Just as a precaution I took my computer to Apple today just to make sure nothing was wrong with the burner itself, and it was determined the burner was fine, and it was suggested that I reinstall idvd.......so I have.

I asked the tech why when using 'toast' to burn the dvd's some of them would play on a tv's dvd player and some would not?? He said because toast burns so fast that it doesn't burn as well.......making it harder for some players to read the dvd.

 

This is my dilemma ...... when I first put these little movies together in imovie a year ago, I was planning on just having them viewed from a website so I saved them as quicktime movies for web streaming. Then I changed my mine and decided to burn them and sell them that way, I left the movies the way they were. Everything was fine up until a few weeks ago.

When my idvd starting acting up, I switched to the toast program to see what that was like. I still had all my movies saved in there raw state (from imovie) so I put them all through toast and saved them as disc images. Then I got rid of the ones I had saved as quicktime movies.......stupid me!

OK so now I'm being told that toast doesn't burn as well, and I want to be sure to have a good product, so do I go back to burning through idvd? And is there a way to do that with the movies the way they are now? Or do I have to start with the raw format again and put them all back into quicktime movies? The quality (viewing wise) of the movies are so much better (in my opinion) when burned through toast, than when they're a quicktime movie.

Any advice on whats best to do here..........please. Would switching to Verbatim really solve the fast burn issue with toast? I don't have money to experiment with.

 

 

 

OK........I'm exploring the toast help section and I can see I don't know what I'm doing. I was assuming that saving all my little movies as disc images actually made them movies.

Can somebody please tell me what I'm doing wrong. I see now that there is a way to change formats and export into idvd, but I'm clueless

 

[karenhetzer]

Still reading and I think I figured out what I had to do. I've got one exporting in quicktime format as I speak.

[tsantee]

Still reading and I think I figured out what I had to do. I've got one exporting in quicktime format as I speak.

It's hard to know what you're doing wrong because I unclear about the specific stops you're taking in Toast.

 

The comment from the Apple guy should have been "I don't know" because his comment is nonsense. It is true that burning at high speeds can make a disc less reliable, but it is the drive and how its firmware is tuned to the blank media that determines the fastest speeds. Toast just feeds what the drive says it's ready to receive. You can choose to have Toast slow down the burn speed. After the disc is inserted go to the Recorder Settings window. Where the speed is "Best" (which means whatever is fastest) choose a slower speed. You may not be able to burn slower than 4X on most DVD media.

 

A part of your original problem could be using DVD+R media. DVD-R media is more accepted by DVD players than is DVD+R although that difference only applies with players that are more than, say, a half dozen years old.

 

I'm assuming you used the Toast Video window and chose Video DVD as the format when you saved as a disc image. You burn the disc image using the Image File setting in the Copy window. If you want to add titles from different disc images to create a new compilation DVD I can tell you how to do that.

 

Video DVD players require the disc to be burned in UDF format. This is the format Toast created when you made your disc image in the Video window. Note that burning data discs in Mac & PC format (in the Data window) won't result in a UDF-formatted DVD. Video DVD players also require there to be a VIDEO_TS folder at the top level of the DVD.

 

Let us know if you need more help.

[karenhetzer]

It's hard to know what you're doing wrong because I unclear about the specific stops you're taking in Toast.

 

The comment from the Apple guy should have been "I don't know" because his comment is nonsense. It is true that burning at high speeds can make a disc less reliable, but it is the drive and how its firmware is tuned to the blank media that determines the fastest speeds. Toast just feeds what the drive says it's ready to receive. You can choose to have Toast slow down the burn speed. After the disc is inserted go to the Recorder Settings window. Where the speed is "Best" (which means whatever is fastest) choose a slower speed. You may not be able to burn slower than 4X on most DVD media.

 

A part of your original problem could be using DVD+R media. DVD-R media is more accepted by DVD players than is DVD+R although that difference only applies with players that are more than, say, a half dozen years old.

 

I'm assuming you used the Toast Video window and chose Video DVD as the format when you saved as a disc image. You burn the disc image using the Image File setting in the Copy window. If you want to add titles from different disc images to create a new compilation DVD I can tell you how to do that.

 

 

Video DVD players require the disc to be burned in UDF format. This is the format Toast created when you made your disc image in the Video window. Note that burning data discs in Mac & PC format (in the Data window) won't result in a UDF-formatted DVD. Video DVD players also require there to be a VIDEO_TS folder at the top level of the DVD.

 

Let us know if you need more help.

Thank you for this information. I will try burning at a slower speed and see if that does anything.......reformatting just one of my projects to Quicktime took over 4 hours! And I have 9 of them to do.

If nothing improves then I will purchase some DVD-R and try that.

If this gives any further insight to the problem. I was emailed yesterday by someone who purchased the set of DVD's and he said although they all played, a few of them only appeared in black and white??

 

"Video DVD players also require there to be a VIDEO_TS folder at the top level of the DVD."

Is this VIDEO_TS folder automatically created when I made the disc image? I don't understand what this is. I made it a whole year without having to know all this stuff.........my brain hurts.

 

ALSO......to go back to how this all started......when I was burning my quicktime movies using idvd everything was fine for over a year. And it was suddenly (not gradually) that the videos images were so blurry you could not watch them properly. I had always use the memorex dvds with no problem. So my first reaction was maybe the dvd's themselves were flawed, so having little money I bought some HP brand dvds but got the same results. This is why I thought it was the dvd burner, but apparently not, because when I started burning using toast I can see the videos just fine when played on my computer.

I guess my question is...do Quicktime movies breakdown after a while?? What could have caused this sudden breakdown in quality??

 

Edited September 11, 2008 by karenhetzer

[tsantee]

Memorex discs are one of the poor-quality brands. You can read user reports on the discs you are using by inserting a blank disc and choosing Disc Info in Toast's Recorder menu. There you'll see a hotlink. Click on it to go to a Web site where users submit reports on specific media.

 

The formulations and available burn speeds on DVD media are continuing to change, yet your drive hasn't had its firmware updated to keep up with those changes. Apple is poor about updating the firmware on its drives but it does do it sometimes. What may have happened in your case is that you bought some newer discs that were manufactured using a different formulation than the ones you were previously using.

 

I suggest trying some Verbatim DVDs. I know that OfficeMax sells those in my town.

[karenhetzer]

Memorex discs are one of the poor-quality brands. You can read user reports on the discs you are using by inserting a blank disc and choosing Disc Info in Toast's Recorder menu. There you'll see a hotlink. Click on it to go to a Web site where users submit reports on specific media.

 

The formulations and available burn speeds on DVD media are continuing to change, yet your drive hasn't had its firmware updated to keep up with those changes. Apple is poor about updating the firmware on its drives but it does do it sometimes. What may have happened in your case is that you bought some newer discs that were manufactured using a different formulation than the ones you were previously using.

 

I suggest trying some Verbatim DVDs. I know that OfficeMax sells those in my town.

 

 

OK..........I haven't money to buy Verbatim DVDs yet, so I tried burning on the slower speed you recommended, and that along with the reinstall seem to have enabled me to burn some successfully. However, every once in awhile I get this message:

The drive reported an error

Sense Key=Hardware Error

Sense Code=0x03

 

And the program stops and the disc will not easily eject?

 

Can you tell me what this means please. Thanks :-)

 

OK.......I take it all back. The ones I burned yesterday worked. Only one of the few I burned today worked. Keep in mind they all play fine on my mac. If you're going to recommend switching to -R, the guy at the Apple store did burn two copies on Sony DVD-R from my computer so I tried playing them on a friends player and they would not work either.

So is it the burner, or did I not save all my videos in the proper format? I honestly don't remember what I did.....I thought I had saved them all as disc images, maybe I didn't? Or why would one be ok and several others not?

 

Edited September 13, 2008 by karenhetzer

[karenhetzer]

Could it be as simple as that?! I'm still struggling to read and learn all about using toast cause I love how fast it is. So in my wanderings I decided to check the preference pane.......and there it was.......PAL was checked instead of NTSC.

I made the correction, burned a disc, and ran over to my friends house/dvd player.......AND IT PLAYED!! (But I'm burning more just to be sure :-)

It also explains why before....some worked and others didn't. I remember be prompted a couple of times, 'are you sure you want NTSC?' But I wasn't asked that with all of them.......so some worked and some didn't? At least this is what I think has happened.

[karenhetzer]

nope.......not that easy. Three of the movies will burn properly, but now I'm getting 'incompatible format' error messages on all the rest?

What should I be looking at?

[tsantee]

nope.......not that easy. Three of the movies will burn properly, but now I'm getting 'incompatible format' error messages on all the rest?

What should I be looking at?

"Incompatible format" on a DVD player probably means that a PAL video DVD is being played on an NTSC DVD player. Most PAL DVD players can play either format. There are a few NTSC players that can play PAL DVDs but those are very uncommon.

 

I'm presuming you are in the U.S. or other country that has NTSC. My understanding is you are using disc images created by Toast as your source for the videos that you are wanting to put on new DVDs. Since you inadvertently made some of those DVDs as PAL format you need to do the following steps to convert the PAL to NTSC:

 

1. Choose DVD video as the format in the Toast Video window (and have preferences set to NTSC).

2. Mount the .toast image file.

3. Choose DVD with the top button of the Toast Media Browser. When something appears you can drag it to the Video window and Toast will extract the MPEG 2 video files from the mounted disc image.

4. You can add videos from other mounted disc images in the same way. Clicking the button that's below "DVD" lets you access specific titles or chapters within titles if you don't want everything extracted from the DVD.

5. Set up the menu the way you want. You can click on the thumbnail image and scroll to select a different frame for your menu button image.

6. Choose Save as Disc Image. If some of the videos are PAL format Toast will ask if you really want to change to NTSC. Click okay.

7. When this is done you will have a NTSC-formatted disc image to burn to DVD.

 

P.S. It's been awhile since I used Toast 7. I'm presuming it has a Media Browser window.

Edited September 14, 2008 by tsantee

[karenhetzer]

"Incompatible format" on a DVD player probably means that a PAL video DVD is being played on an NTSC DVD player. Most PAL DVD players can play either format. There are a few NTSC players that can play PAL DVDs but those are very uncommon.

 

I'm presuming you are in the U.S. or other country that has NTSC. My understanding is you are using disc images created by Toast as your source for the videos that you are wanting to put on new DVDs. Since you inadvertently made some of those DVDs as PAL format you need to do the following steps to convert the PAL to NTSC:

 

1. Choose DVD video as the format in the Toast Video window (and have preferences set to NTSC).

2. Mount the .toast image file.

3. Choose DVD with the top button of the Toast Media Browser. When something appears you can drag it to the Video window and Toast will extract the MPEG 2 video files from the mounted disc image.

4. You can add videos from other mounted disc images in the same way. Clicking the button that's below "DVD" lets you access specific titles or chapters within titles if you don't want everything extracted from the DVD.

5. Set up the menu the way you want. You can click on the thumbnail image and scroll to select a different frame for your menu button image.

6. Choose Save as Disc Image. If some of the videos are PAL format Toast will ask if you really want to change to NTSC. Click okay.

7. When this is done you will have a NTSC-formatted disc image to burn to DVD.

 

P.S. It's been awhile since I used Toast 7. I'm presuming it has a Media Browser window.

 

 

OK.....thanks so much. It was successful with one but now the next one I'm trying to do is acting differently. When I drag it into the video window, it doesn't extract. Instead the window fills up with the 'chapters' of my movie. I know its still in PAL format cause I discovered you can see that when you hold the mouse over the sections of the movie in that media box on the left.

So what's happening here?

 

O! Is it because I had the menu open on the left side instead of dragging the main title to the window?

Edited September 14, 2008 by karenhetzer

[karenhetzer]

Another question......will I have to go through these steps every time I open a disc to burn in the future??

[tsantee]

OK.....thanks so much. It was successful with one but now the next one I'm trying to do is acting differently. When I drag it into the video window, it doesn't extract. Instead the window fills up with the 'chapters' of my movie. I know its still in PAL format cause I discovered you can see that when you hold the mouse over the sections of the movie in that media box on the left.

So what's happening here?

 

O! Is it because I had the menu open on the left side instead of dragging the main title to the window?

If you are seeing chapters in the Media Browser you've gone one level too deep. Click the button that is just below the "DVD" button and choose a higher level so you only get the titles. And easy way is to go to the highest level and just double-click on what appears in the browser window. That will cause the DVD's titles to appear.

 

You only need to do this when:

1) You need to convert the format from PAL to NTSC or,

2) You want to make a DVD from videos in existing video DVDs (or VIDEO_TS folders) and want Toast to create a menu, or

3) You want to extract individual chapters from a DVD as separate movies such as creating video clips from a music DVD.

[karenhetzer]

Just wanted to say thank you to tsantee for walking me through this. After following the step by step instructions and switching to -R dvds, I'm now happily burning dvds and haven't gotten one error message :-)

Thank you tsantee.