Toast Dvd Video Not Playing Back Properly

[tsp1965]

Hi

 

I've been using Toast in various versions for years, but am now having real difficulty getting DVD-video discs burned using Toast to play in any player in full. I'm taking TV show mpegs recorded with EyeTV, exporting them as mpegs then burning them. Typically they will be 3 60 minute TV shows or a couple of TV movies on one disk. The menus play fine, the disk starts ok and often track one is fine throughout, but tracks two and beyond deteriorate at the end of each show and often crash out beyond the 40 minute mark. Other times they suddenly behave as though they are on super-fast scan mode, showing a freeze frame, then another several minutes on and so on. This applies if playing back in Apple DVD Player, VLC, Windows Media player for a separate pc or a dvd player attached to the TV. I initially thought my superdrive was getting worn out and was burning faulty disks, so I had it replaced - the Applecare support guys said there was a drive fault so it was done under warranty - but it is still doing it. I'm on Snow Leopard and Toast 10.08. It is a 2009 MacBook Pro 17" machine with its DL superdrive. The issue seems to be that Toast is burning slightly non-compliant disks.

 

At the moment I can't trust any disk I burn in Toast and my wife is getting very p---ed off with missing the end of shows I recorded!

 

Can anyone help, please?

[tsp1965]

Update

 

I tried slowing down the burn - no good, same crash in same place. Error message from Apple DVD player attached.

Error-msg.rtf

[tsantee]

Update

 

I tried slowing down the burn - no good, same crash in same place. Error message from Apple DVD player attached.

Since the discs don't play right on anything you are correct in assuming something is wrong with the discs. Does Toast "Multiplex" or "Encode" the DVDs from the EyeTV files? If it is encoding you can go to the custom encoder settings window and choose Never Re-encode and they should multiplex in the future. That eliminates any possible issue with the videos themselves. I also suggest choosing Save as Disc Image instead of clicking the burn button and then burning the resulting .toast file using the Image File setting in the Copy window. That eliminates the possibility of the DVD authoring being the source of the problem. Now we're left with the disc burning itself. Have you tried a different brand of DVD media? I recommend Verbatim discs as having the greatest success for reliable burns.

 

If none of this fixes the issue then I'm stumped. The culprit could be the new drive itself or something else going on with your Mac. I haven't heard of your specific issue from anyone else. You can trash the Toast plist and prefs files in your User>Library>Preferences folder, reinstall Toast from a fresh download from Roxio's Software Updates page and try burning the DVD after restarting your Mac in Safe Mode. Hopefully something I've suggested will fix it.

[tsp1965]

Thanks for your very helpful ideas.

 

I already have Toast set to never reencode, so they only multiplex now. And I already use Verbatim DVD-Rs, so my mind obviously works the same way as yours!

 

I'll try the disk image route and see what happens. Then I'll try the re-install. Back in a few hours, when I have done all that.

 

Thanks again.

[tsp1965]

Thanks for your very helpful ideas.

 

I already have Toast set to never reencode, so they only multiplex now. And I already use Verbatim DVD-Rs, so my mind obviously works the same way as yours!

 

I'll try the disk image route and see what happens. Then I'll try the re-install. Back in a few hours, when I have done all that.

 

Thanks again.

 

Well now, this very interesting......

 

I made a .toast file, mounted it and played it in DVD Player - crashes in the same place. So I guess that proves it isn't the writer.

[tsantee]

Well now, this very interesting......

 

I made a .toast file, mounted it and played it in DVD Player - crashes in the same place. So I guess that proves it isn't the writer.

Very interesting. And baffling. I suggest going to macupdate.com and searching for Rember. It will do a very thorough test of your Mac's RAM just in case that is a possible cause of the issue. It could be that Toast is accessing a specific bit of RAM that is defective at a certain point. I know it sounds far fetched, but it won't hurt to check it out and I have history with Toast crashing at a specific point each time on a Mac that had some defective RAM that otherwise ran perfectly well.

[tsp1965]

In case anyone stumbles upon this in the future I have finally got to the bottom of it. I'm in the UK, London region, where we went over from a mixed analogue/digital signal to digital only. When that happened we got lots more channels, but they also seem to have changed the broadcast parameters of the stream. In particular, many channels took to broadcasting with a GOP number well over the DVD spec of 15. The GOP - or Group of Pictures - is basically the frequency with which a key frame is broadcast. My video editor (ViideoRedo for PC) defaults to outputting whatever GOP number the input file has, and it was this that Lion QT and Toast didn't like when the GOP number increased. I now output with a GOP length of 15 from VideoRedo and the problem is fixed. it takes an extra minute to do this, as a minor recode is required, but then the disks or mpegs play just fine. You can edit the cfg files for the preset output styles so that the default is a recode to GOP 15, to save you resetting it every time.

 

Hope this helps someone.