Seriously?! Why Won't My Burned Dvds Play?

[Mom2Boys]

Please forgive me for I am not an advanced user.

 

I have a Mac, external blu-ray DVD burner, Toast 11 Titanium and the Blu-Ray plugin. I purchased the Toast products via online download and installed and registered them. I naively burned a bunch of dvds (both HD and Blu-Ray) without first confirming that they play in my blu-ray player.

 

I did not receive any errors while burning and the disc shows content. But I cannot get any of them to play. I tried using the external blu-ray on my mac and my stand alone blu-ray player. The stand alone says I haven't inserted a disc. The Mac shows the disc and the content, but nothing that can be "played" or even attempts to play when double-clicking.

 

In order to burn the discs I opened Toast Titanium and chose the type of disc I wanted to burn (either HD or blu-ray). Then I dragged and dropped the .mov files, confirmed the type of disc at the bottom, named the disc at the top, and clicked burn. It took forever to burn, but then said it was done and I ejected the discs. The discs physically show something burned on the back so I figured I was "all good". My mistake!

 

What else should I have done as I can't figure it out even after researching as it seems like I did everything correctly.

 

Thank you in advance,

Sara

[Derek Dean]

Howdy Mom2Boys, and welcome to the forum,

First, sorry to hear that you're having problems. I've only had Toast 11 for about 6 months, so I'm no expert.... but I've been burning DVDs for about 10 years. My first guess is that you're trying to burn some type of copyrighted movie, and generally, Toast won't do that.

 

However, as with most new programs, I've found it's important to start slowly and learn the quirks of the program first, then, as you gain familiarity with how it operates you can pick up speed.

 

In case you didn't see it, you can open the Toast User's Manual .pdf file, found under the Help menu at the top left of the screen. Lots of good info there that will get you up and running quickly.

 

Now, how to proceed. First, don't waste any more discs. Try a SHORT movie to start with. Import it into Toast just as you have been doing, and get it ready to burn, but instead of pressing the BURN button, go to the FILE menu at the top left of the screen and select "Burn as Disc Image". This will save a file on your computer that acts EXACTLY like a DVD, which means you have to Mount it to view it (which you do using the "Mount Disc Image" command found under the Utilities menu at the top of the screen. Once it's mounted, you can view it using either the Apple DVD utility or the Roxio player included with Toast (found under the Extras Menu). Be sure and UNMOUNT the Disc Image after viewing it (use the eject button at the top right of the screen or eject it from the finder window).

 

After you've gotten the disc image to work correctly, you can move onto burning an actual disc. You do this by opening Toast and the selecting COPY (instead of Video) and then Image File. Then drag the Disc image into Toast and click the Burn (or Copy) Button. Personally, I always burn my first DVD onto a DVD-RW (rewriteable DVD), that way I can check and see that it's working properly in my DVD player first. Then if it's ok, I'll move on to burning a regular DVD-R. I use the same process for Blu-ray discs.

 

It may seem like a lot of work, but I've never wasted a disc, and I haven't had any trouble with Toast so far. It's a finicky program that demands you do everything just right, but once you do, it makes great DVDs and Blu-rays.

 

Hopefully, some of the other folks here will chime in with even better advice. Good luck.

[Mom2Boys]

Thank you Derek. When I get my will back up I will try what you suggested.

 

I am trying to burn home movies from a video camera after the files have been saved onto an external hard drive.

[Derek Dean]

Ok, Sara. Remember, just start with a short piece, maybe a few minutes. That way you can hone the process without waiting for a lot of converting and stuff. Then, when you've got it dialed and working, you can move onto the bigger projects. Personally, I've found Toast to be a very nice program, with lots of great features, and once you get used to it I'm sure you'll be burning those home movies with ease. Let us know how it's going.