Toast problem

[JGebauer]

I just edited a couple of recorded TV shows (recorded with a Philips DVD recorder) with MPEG Streamclip, then converted them to MPEG and stuck them in Toast to burn them back on DVD.

The MPEGs are 1.59 GB and 2.2 GB and should fit neatly on the DVD.

When I ask Toast to burn, it muxes the MPEGs (although they are already muxed, why is this necessary?), and then reports that they are too big to fit on one DVD. This is strange, as the unedited shows came from the same DVD, and I only cut out ads, so they are now smaller than before.

It seems to me that Toast calculates wrong sizes, is this a known problem?

Johannes

[alph]

This could be it:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=261334

http://boards.support.roxio.com/roxio/board/message?board.id=0000020&message.id=11967#M11967

Regards,
Alph

[JGebauer]

Thanks, this is bad news. I really think it is a bug, because there is no more data than before, nothing is being reencoded. As I understand it, multiplexing just combines Video and Audio in one file, no?

If anyone knows a solution I'd love to hear about it. Will Sizzle do a better job?

Johannes

[DeadLily]

Toast should let you build a disk image of any size. (I've done this.) You can then feed the resulting VIDEO_TS file into DVD2OneX and slim it down just enough to fit on one disk. At the sizes you have, it probably won't affect quality that much.

[JGebauer]

Sort of a little pointless - the whole idea is to make this fast and easy, and the extra step and the waiting time involved make it too much hassle to bother.

[DeadLily]

"Pointless", I suppose, except that you end up with something you can use.

But, whatever.

[SoCal]

Use Toast data DVD-ROM (UDF) instead of video. This simplifies things greatly.

[JGebauer]

Yes, but I am trying to do an MPEG file, not a Video_TS folder. It has to be made into a Video_TS folder. What do you use for that?

[pixeljammedia]

Try demuxing as headed m2v and ac3/mp2 in MPEG Streamclip first. Doing this allows me to drag the m2v files into Toast without them re-encoding, I don't know if the stand-alone recorder mpegs are valid, however.

[JGebauer]

That doesn't help, same result.

BTW Toast is not _reencoding_ it is only remuxing. Why it inflates the data by so much I don't know, it must be writing lots of zeros somewhere.

[Frobozz]

This problem seemed to appear with Toast 6.0.9. If you use version 6.0.3 to 6.0.7 the file size should not grow when multiplexing existing MPEGs. The explanation at Toast's forum is that changes were made in 6.0.9 to improve playback compatibility, but it is puzzling how the file size changes so much when nothing is being re-encoded.

[pixeljammedia]

You could always create a VIDEO_TS using DVDImager, Sizzle, MovieGate, MPEG2 Works, or FFMPEG X. Then burn that under the Data UDF tab in Toast.

[chikanakan]

Prior to Toast 6.0.9, Toast was not correctly multiplexing the files with AC3 or MPEG audio. This was causing MEI verification errors and resulting in DVD's that are not as compatible, sync problems, phase errors and all the other good stuff that comes with multiplexing. Toast 6.0.9 fixed that problem. Fixing the problem requires that the streams be padded so that they match up correctly.

You can use 6.0.7 and have a DVD that is not multiplexed correctly (much like you get with sizzle DVD. Sizzle DVD have thousands of MPEG and multiplexing errors in it's VIDEO_TS output) or you can use 6.0.9 and have a DVD that is compliant, compatible, and less chance of audio sync issues.

[alph]

Since my posting on the Toast forum at Roxio I've been thinking about this issue, and it dawned on me that if Toast is indeed improving compatibility then that means this extra data is standardising the mpegs in some way. To test this I decided to use 3 different encoders and let Toast author them and compare the differences the re-multiplexing would have.

Original: 5 minute avi mpeg4/mp3 38.7 megs

The mp3 was transcoded to ac3 once and used in all tests. In previous tests using ac3 or mp2 sound genereated the same results so the video is solely in question

Toast, ffmpeg, and mpeg2enc encoders were tested. The avi was converted to mpeg2 using the 3 encoders, copies of the a3 were renamed so Toast would associate the sound to the 3 videos, and the video tab in toast was used to author a DVD to see what effect the re-multiplexing would have.

Results:
Values are: original encode, toast re-multiplex, percentage size increase
Toast 155.5 megs 164.1 megs 5.53%
ffmpeg 159.2 megs 177.4 megs 11.43%
mpeg2enc 136.7 megs 145.1 megs 6.14%

(The ffmpeg result is consistent with my previous tests. I use ffmpeg often for speed)

Analysis;
-it's normal that Toast would see it's own output as being the best
-ffmpeg is not even a constant bit-rate encoder so it stands to reason it's output would need the most "fixing" to ensure compatibility. ffmpeg output typically causes video stalling and stuttering on old standalone DVD players. If i still had my old one, I'd be curious to test and see if Toast 6.0.9 actually manages to make ffmpeg output play through on that old player.
-mpeg2enc is known for it's constant bit-rate and compatibility. It seems Toast's encoder is even better. Although the visual quality seemed a bit lower, Toast is far faster than mpeg2enc.

Conclusion:
The more constant and standard the encoder the less Toast increases the size of the authored video.

Ok, now I'm satisfied :O)

Regards