Image File Not Recognized

[DrDanDDS]

I just upgraded my Toast 10 Titanium to Toast 11 Titanium and also downloaded the Blu-Ray HD plug in.

I have a new Mac Mini quad core i7 with 16 gigs of RAM, and an external USB3.0 LG 14X BluRay writer.

I sometimes copy TV shows using EyeTV or my DVR that my cable company provides, and want to archive them on BluRay.

My first attempt involved a couple of Christmas movies I had recorded using EyeTV. EyeTV will export to Toast seamlessly either an m4p file or Quicktime movie in HD.

I understand that it's a good idea to have Toast create an Image file first, then burn from that in case something goes wrong...so that's what I did. I named the 2 movies I planned to put on a single BluRay disc as "Christmas Movies". The resultant file as seen in Finder is labeled "Christmas Movies.toast".....and the label beneath the name in Finder is "Master Image File".

 

For whatever reason.....when I tried to drag and drop this Image file that Toast created back into Toast so I could burn the BluRay disc....I get an error message telling me it's an unrecognized format! How is that possible?

 

I tried a work around by switching from the "Video" tab up top to "Copy". That screen accepted the image file, and sure enough....it burned the disc for me. However......the menu screens were okay.....but when you selected either movie.....there was sound but NO video. Obviously something didn't work.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Dan

[tsantee]

A Toast disc image file can only be added to the Copy window or to the Convert window. So that part of your issue is not a defect. You can preview the mounted disc image by using Roxio Video Player which is in the Toast Extras window. If it doesn't show any video, either, then something didn't go right with the encoding.

 

You are making this a bit harder than it needs to be. The programs captured by EyeTV are already in MPEG 2 format so they don't need to be converted before adding to Toast. I suggest doing any editing with EyeTV. When done, launch Toast and go to the Video tab of the Toast Media Browser. There you should see the EyeTV Library. Select the video in the browser and add it to the main Toast window. Click the options button to access Toast's custom encoder settings window. In that window choose Never Re-encode. Now, when you click the burn button or choose Save as Disc Image you should see Toast report that it is multiplexing (not encoding) the video. I'm confident you'll see picture and hear sound when it is done.

[DrDanDDS]

Thanks tsantee,

This helps. I did edit out the commercials in EyeTV.....but that creates 8 segments of the movie....instead of just one file. When I transfer that into Toast....it creates 8 separate movies on the menu that way. For DVD's, that was fine because only one movie would fit anyway....and I skipped the menu altogether.

But for BluRay....I can get TWO movies on a single disc....and would like to use the menu option with Toast. I wish there was some way to merge those 8 segments into a single movie file within Toast so it only shows up in the menu it creates as one movie. I had to merge those 8 segments using iMovie, then export it back to Toast so it was just "one movie" file. I did that for both movies.....and the menu looks great! I even picked out a scene from each film I like for the preview window on the menu screen. But as I said.....the sound is there....but no video.

 

I'll try mounting the image file and preview it as you suggested and see if there's any video. I suspect the image file is faulty somehow.

 

Thanks again...

[tsantee]

I don't know how you got multiple segments from editing your movie. In EyeTV choose Edit from the window that appears after clicking the button that has the gear on it. An editing window opens where you mark the start and end points of segments you want removed. When you complete this EyeTV writes a new file that is minus those segments. But it is just one movie file and that's what Toast sees when selecting EyeTV in Toast's media browser. Maybe you double-clicked on the movie in the Toast Media Browser so that Toast displayed the individual chapters in the movie. The chapters were created by your edits. If that is the case you want a level too deep. Don't double click on the movie at the top level of the media browser. Just select it and add it to Toast.

 

Another approach is to first export the movie from EyeTV. Use the Export... command and select Elementary Streams as the format. Then drag the resulting .m2v file from the Finder into the Toast Video window. Toast will either automatically merge it with the .ac3 file or will ask you to locate it. The approach avoids a problem that sometimes happens when Toast hangs during multiplexing of an EyeTV video.

 

I don't know why you're having the problem with no video. As I noted, on the Mac you need to use Roxio Video Player to view your Toast-made Blu-ray disc or mounted disc image. If it plays there but not on your standalone Blu-ray player then I don't what to suggest.

[APD]

I bought and installed Toast 11, and the Blu-Ray Plug-in on my iMAC with 4 GB of RAM and a 3.06 GHz Intel Core2 Dou processor. Running OSX 10.6.8. I made a HD movie from home video and used Toast 11 to save it as a disk image. I wanted to be able to preview the results, especially the menu set up before burning to a Blu-Ray DVD.

 

I could not find a way to play the disk image. I found this topic and tried to play the disk image with Roxio Video Player. The player would not recognize the disk image file as playable (it’s greyed out). Why should that be?

 

In desperation, I burned a Blu-Ray disk from the disk image file. I can play the disk using Roxio Video Player, but it doesn’t seem to have controls to access and move about in the menu. And, the movement in the video is jerky. So, so far, Roxio Video Player seems useless to me.

 

The Blu-Ray DVD plays fine on my TV via my Blu-Ray Disk Player.

 

Have others been able to use Roxio Video Player to view disk images and test the menu functions? If so, any ideas why I am having this problem?

[tsantee]

I bought and installed Toast 11, and the Blu-Ray Plug-in on my iMAC with 4 GB of RAM and a 3.06 GHz Intel Core2 Dou processor. Running OSX 10.6.8. I made a HD movie from home video and used Toast 11 to save it as a disk image. I wanted to be able to preview the results, especially the menu set up before burning to a Blu-Ray DVD.

 

I could not find a way to play the disk image. I found this topic and tried to play the disk image with Roxio Video Player. The player would not recognize the disk image file as playable (it’s greyed out). Why should that be?

 

In desperation, I burned a Blu-Ray disk from the disk image file. I can play the disk using Roxio Video Player, but it doesn’t seem to have controls to access and move about in the menu. And, the movement in the video is jerky. So, so far, Roxio Video Player seems useless to me.

 

The Blu-Ray DVD plays fine on my TV via my Blu-Ray Disk Player.

 

Have others been able to use Roxio Video Player to view disk images and test the menu functions? If so, any ideas why I am having this problem?

You must mount the disc image before Roxio Video Player can play what is inside it. It can be mounted by either control-clicking on it in the Finder and choosing Mount It from the contextual menu, by choosing Mount Disc Image in Toast's Utilities menu or by selecting the disc image when Image File is chosen in the Toast Copy window. The video can be choppy on some Macs if the graphics processor is not real powerful. In that case, reduce the size of the player window. There is an icon near the bottom of the player window that lets you select different video titles contained in the disc image (or on the Blu-ray disc). The last "title" will display how the menu looks but the menu will not be active.

[DrDanDDS]

I don't know how you got multiple segments from editing your movie. In EyeTV choose Edit from the window that appears after clicking the button that has the gear on it. An editing window opens where you mark the start and end points of segments you want removed. When you complete this EyeTV writes a new file that is minus those segments. But it is just one movie file and that's what Toast sees when selecting EyeTV in Toast's media browser. Maybe you double-clicked on the movie in the Toast Media Browser so that Toast displayed the individual chapters in the movie. The chapters were created by your edits. If that is the case you want a level too deep. Don't double click on the movie at the top level of the media browser. Just select it and add it to Toast.

 

Another approach is to first export the movie from EyeTV. Use the Export... command and select Elementary Streams as the format. Then drag the resulting .m2v file from the Finder into the Toast Video window. Toast will either automatically merge it with the .ac3 file or will ask you to locate it. The approach avoids a problem that sometimes happens when Toast hangs during multiplexing of an EyeTV video.

 

I don't know why you're having the problem with no video. As I noted, on the Mac you need to use Roxio Video Player to view your Toast-made Blu-ray disc or mounted disc image. If it plays there but not on your standalone Blu-ray player then I don't what to suggest.

Hi Tsantee,

I got the multiple segments because I did not realize you could create multiple markers. I would mark off each segment and then export that clip back into EyeTV...minus the commercials. Thus I ended up with about 8 segments for the average Hallmark Christmas movie. I feel foolish now! I didn't realize I could continue click the marker button at the bottom and get several sets of markers. I figured out I could mark the commercial segments, them click on "Compact"...and EyeTV will remove those segments (the commercials)....and leave me with just the movie in a single file. That will save me loads of time since I was using iMovie to stitch together all 8 of those segments and then having to export that file back to Toast.

BTW...I mounted the image file using Roxio player and both video AND sound are fine. No menu on is shown via the Roxio player .....but I guess that only happens when you actually burn the disc.

Now since I know the image file is okay.....the question is why did the disc I burned have no video? The only images that showed were on the menu screen...but once you selected the movie.....all I got was a black screen with audio.

 

Dan

[tsantee]

Hi Tsantee,

I got the multiple segments because I did not realize you could create multiple markers. I would mark off each segment and then export that clip back into EyeTV...minus the commercials. Thus I ended up with about 8 segments for the average Hallmark Christmas movie. I feel foolish now! I didn't realize I could continue click the marker button at the bottom and get several sets of markers. I figured out I could mark the commercial segments, them click on "Compact"...and EyeTV will remove those segments (the commercials)....and leave me with just the movie in a single file. That will save me loads of time since I was using iMovie to stitch together all 8 of those segments and then having to export that file back to Toast.

BTW...I mounted the image file using Roxio player and both video AND sound are fine. No menu on is shown via the Roxio player .....but I guess that only happens when you actually burn the disc.

Now since I know the image file is okay.....the question is why did the disc I burned have no video? The only images that showed were on the menu screen...but once you selected the movie.....all I got was a black screen with audio.

 

Dan

We're getting closer. Glad you found the trick for making multiple edits in EyeTV. You can see how the menu looks using Roxio Video Player by selecting the last title in the popup menu that appears when clicking an icon near the lower right of the player's control bar. The menu isn't operable. Knowing where to find that popup is important because it lets you view multiple titles you have on the disc or disc image.

 

The Blu-ray player's problem displaying the video is a hard one to guess. Make sure the player has its latest firmware update. When Toast burned your earlier Blu-ray disc it may have used MPEG 4 video encoding. With the workflow of using EyeTV videos directly and "multiplexing" rather than "encoding" you'll have an MPEG 2 video. Maybe that will take care of it. Maybe using a different brand of blank disc will help. I don't know.

[DrDanDDS]

We're getting closer. Glad you found the trick for making multiple edits in EyeTV. You can see how the menu looks using Roxio Video Player by selecting the last title in the popup menu that appears when clicking an icon near the lower right of the player's control bar. The menu isn't operable. Knowing where to find that popup is important because it lets you view multiple titles you have on the disc or disc image.

 

The Blu-ray player's problem displaying the video is a hard one to guess. Make sure the player has its latest firmware update. When Toast burned your earlier Blu-ray disc it may have used MPEG 4 video encoding. With the workflow of using EyeTV videos directly and "multiplexing" rather than "encoding" you'll have an MPEG 2 video. Maybe that will take care of it. Maybe using a different brand of blank disc will help. I don't know.

Tsantee,

The mystery just became a little bit clearer. I just tried my BluRay disc on a different player in my home and it WORKS on that one (a Sony). The first player I tried it on was a Panasonic (that had audio but no video). So evidently it was in fact a good disc that was burned that first time....it's just funny about which player it gets played on. It also worked on the Roxio Video Player.