Toast 6.0.1 suddenly flaky when making DVD from VIDEO_TS folders or VOBs

[espidog]

Running Toast 6.0.1 under OSX Panther 10.3.9
Sawtooth Mobo, 1.4GHz G4, 2GB PC100 Memory
1x60Gig HDD for system
2x120Gig HDDs for video
Pioneer DVR-107D burner

For a long time now, I have been successfully compiling DVDs in Toast by dragging VIDEO_TS folders or single VOBs into the "Video" pane. Recently, though, Toast has started behaving oddly:

1) If I drag a VIDEO_TS folder in, Toast takes a long time to recognize it, then tells me that it is a video file of duration 11 hours 39 minutes and 3 seconds! It always gives this as the duration, regardless of what the folder actually contains.

2) When dragging VOBs in, all appears fine until the "encoding" stage. Encoding proceeds until it has finished processing the first VOB file, thenm the app quits.

This has made authoring DVDs from multiple files/folders completely impossible. I've tried completely uninstalling/re-installing toast (along with all its associated plist files etc), but it makes no difference.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? any ideas as to what's going on?

ESPIDOG

[Frobozz]

There have been many free updates to Toast since 6.0.1. The current is 6.1.1. You don't mention what version of QuickTime you are using. If you've updated to QuickTime 7 you must use Toast 6.1.1.

Otherwise try deleting the two Toast files in your user library preferences folder, repair permissions and clean system caches.

[espidog]

Thanks for the response, Frobozz.
To answer your question: I'm using QT 6.5.2 It's not the Pro version, so I don't have the QT MPEG2 component.

I've stuck with this version deliberately, having had my fingers burned when QT 7 came out - it trashed most of my codecs, rendering most of my video capture and processing tools dead in the water! Seems I wasn't the only one having problems, as soon afterward I found a download link on Apple's site that offered a wind-back to 6.5.2, so that's what I did, and everything started working again. Maybe I should have another go at installing QT 7. Perhaps they've ironed out the problem by now...

Thanks for the other advice, too. Alas, I've already tried deleting the toast prefs and repairing permissions etc. to no effect.

Interestingly, Toast has no problem producing a DVD from DV files. It's just VOBs and VIDEO_TS folders it can't handle.

I must confess, I do have rather a lot of other video/DVD apps & utilities on board:

DC30 Xact driver and My VCR (for my pinnacle capture card)
DivX 5.2.1 (never really use this)
Drop2DV
DVD Info X ver.1
ffmpegX 0.0.9v with latest binaries
Handbrake 0.7.0
Hyperengine AV 1.5
iMovie 4.0.1
iDVD 4.0.1
JES deinterlacer 2.7.3 (fantastic!)
JES video cleaner 1.1.1
MacTheRipper
MPEG streamclip 1.1
Moviegate 1.18
mplayer OSX 2
myDVDedit
QuickMix 1.2.1
RealOne Player 9
SimpleMovieX 2.8.1
VLC 0.8.1

I guess I just like having lots of different tools in the drawer!

ESPIDOG

[Frobozz]

You can still update to Toast 6.1.1 for free and use it with QT 6.5.2.

An alternative is to update to the current version of MPEG Streamclip and purchase the $20 QuickTime MPEG 2 component. Then you can use MPEG Streamclip to extract the MPEGs from the VOB sets in the VIDEO_TS folder. Toast will accept those extracted MPEGs better than it is accepting the VOBs.

[espidog]

Update: went the whole hog and installed QT 7.0.4 (success), removed all trace of Toast 6 and installed Toast 7. Result: problem gone away!

The only thing that bugs me now is Toast 7's awful, cheesy choice of menu styles, and the fact that I can no longer customise them by modifying the PSD files. Why? Well, I've got PhotoShop 7, and it can't read the new PSD files - it thinks they've got corrupted layers. According to the Toast 7 menu style documentation, I have to have PhotoShop 8 to do that now. Yeah, like I'm just made of money. Oh well....

[macuser25]

are people ever happy?

toast 6 - one menu style only - people complain
toast 7 - 10 menu styles or no menu option - people complain

toast 6 - no documentation for editing - people complain
toast 7 - full documentation to edit styles - people complain