blu ray encoding

[BustedFlush]

After reading the Toast 10 manual I'm still not exactly sure how Toast makes Blu ray discs. I know Toast can do its own encoding but would I be better off doing my own converting to M2v or Mpeg 4 ? I have the program "Squeeze" which can convert my video to a compliant Blu Ray format using either one of two high def codecs; Mpeg 4 or m2v and with more control than Toast offers. What I'm not sure of is that if I do the conversion first, will Toast do it's own encoding anyway; just adding time and an extra conversion which can't help the quality. I hope this question makes sense.

[WayneH]

I've been trying to do the same thing with Compressor - to find some settings that produce a file that does not trigger re-encoding by Toast. No luck so far. Getting Toast to accept a file without triggering recoding is a challenge, and may be impossible. The only files I've had success with were the ones already encoded by Toast, the one that briefly appears in your Roxio Converted Items folder. (Being able to use that file is useful, since you can switch out the audio track at that step.)

 

Anyway, I believe some folks have been successful using other encoders but not me. One key is to be sure the settings in Toast match the settings of the file you're trying to get Toast to accept. I think one process used TSMuxer (an Intel-only utility) to actually bypass multiplexing in addition to the encoding.

 

I'm more or less resigned to being stuck with Toast's encoder. That means that the file I feed Toast should be uncompressed, so I've been exporting as AIC out of iMovie. I use the Toast encoder settings to limit the bitrate to 14 average, 17 Mbps max because I'm using a DVD instead of a true BD.