Problems with yuvscaler (among other things)

[StevieBrutal]

Hey guys,

I've been browsing these forums for the past few days and have noticed that many have been coming across the same error as me only their situations seem completely different. Here's all the information about my situation:

I am trying to encode .AVI files (DivX) to mpeg2 for burning on to a DVD via Toast 6.0 Titanium. Initially, I just tried to do everything in Toast which brought me to my original problem; the dreaded overscan issue - making my subtitles ruined in the final product. My solution was to use ffmpegX to encode and resize into an mpeg2 file (ideally allowing my to skip the sluggish encoding process that Toast offers). I use the mpeg2enc engine to do so and get this error (in the progress window as well as the terminal)

INFO: [yuvscaler] yuvscaler (version 1.7.0) is a general scaling utility for yuv frames
INFO: [yuvscaler] (C) 2001-2002 Xavier Biquard <xbiquard@free.fr>
INFO: [yuvscaler] yuvscaler -h for help, or man yuvscaler
**ERROR: [yuvscaler] Could'nt read YUV4MPEG header!
**ERROR: [mpeg2enc] Could not read YUV4MPEG2 header: system error (failed read/write)!

At first I thought this may have been a permissions problem. So I used the Disk Utility to verify/repair the permission... no dice. The file is playable in Quicktime and VLC so I assume it is not corrupt (although the header file may be I guess). When I try to use the ffmpeg engine instead, I get this error

pipe:: Error while opening file

The only encoding that seems to work is when I re-encode to mpeg4 with the new size. This doesn't help me as I just have to re-encode again in Toast back to mpeg2 making this a long, long process - Twice as long as it should be (perhaps more).

The other way I tried was to use the FFmpeg engine to encode (instead of mpeg2enc) which works - but then Toast gives me this error before it even starts writing:

Could not record the disc because there was an I/O error
Result Code = -36

which if I remember correctly is an OS error stating that it can't read one (or all) of the source files. If there is any help that Major or anyone else can offer I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance for all of your time and effort.

Relevant Specs -
Ti Pbook G4 1ghz
Mac OS X 10.3.7
Superdrive: MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-815 (Revision D101) - CD/RW DVD/RW

[major]

The above error should mean that you are using "Decode with Quicktime" but your Quicktime Player is not able to open the source file. Try to check this by opening the source file in Quicktime Player.

[StevieBrutal]

I completely overlooked the fact that I do not have the Quicktime mpeg2 playback component, as I just use VLC or mplayer to do all of my playback. It seems to work with the "Decode with Mplayer" option selected. However, I still get the same problem in Toast when I try to burn - and now im wondering if its related to the aforementioned Quicktime issue.

But anyways, thanks alot for your help major - I appreciate it.

[major]

The Toast i/o error looks more like an hardware error, unrelated to the encoding, you should perhaps test some more to determine when the error appears and when it does not.

[StevieBrutal]

Turns out that I upgrading Toast to 6.0.9 solved my problem. However, Toast was always trying to reencode my streams despite the fact they were DVD compatible. In turn, Im just using Sizzle to author the DVD image after encoding the streams with FFmpegX; and subsequently burning the image with Toast. This actually is actually an amicable resolution as Sizzle allows me alot more control over the flow of the DVD.

Thanks again major - Im gonna keep testing with Toast 6.0 and check the console log so others who have this issue may have an actual resolution. Ill post any relevant findings here.