Burning Dvds From Tivo Recordings Using Toast 11

[randomcoolzip]

I just got a TiVo to replace an old generic DVR that had died. I have been able to use Toast 11 Titanium to transfer TiVo recordings to My MacBook which runs OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard). Something strange has started to happen, though: I find that when I burn my transferred TiVo recordings of "Downton Abbey", they take up about twice as much space on the DVD (according to Toast) as the .tivo files do when transferred to my hard drive. The practical effect of this is that I cannot burn a show longer than 1 hour. This is a problem because some of the "Downton Abbey" shows are 2 hours long.

 

I tried changing the video quality to "good", but that had no effect on Toast's estimate of DVD space consumption.

 

In fact, Toast sometimes seems to not recalculate the DVD space consumption if I remove shows from the list of things to be burned.

 

This is Toast Titanium 11.1 I am using, so I think I have the latest.

 

I'm wondering if there is some conversion process to convert .tivo format to another format for burning, and if there is any way to adjust parameters of that conversion to take up less space. For example, I do not need Dolby Digital sound and would happily scrap that if it would save space.

[tsantee]

It may be that the Toast preference or plist file needs to be replaced. That usually is the issue when Toast miscalculates. They are replaced by trashing them from the user>Library>Preferences folder and relaunching Toast.

 

If that doesn't solve the issue you can choose Save as Disc Image instead of clicking the burn button. Toast likely will create a disc image that fits the single-layer disc which you can then burn to disc using the Image File setting in the Toast Copy window.

 

If your TiVo capture is from a standard-definition channel then you can turn on Never Re-encode in the Toast custom encoder settings window which will save you both time and disc space when Toast creates the disc image or burns the disc.