Making a Toast "DVD Video" Disc

[albloom]

I'm attempting to make a Toast "DVD Video" from a bunch of different
files. I've learned that certain file types aren't rejected even if
Toast can't deal with them -- PowerPoint, for example, just causes
Toast (9.0.2) to spin its wheels forever. I've standardized the video
files as MOV and the slide show files as JPG. Toast is making modest
progress. Very naughtywording modest.

I know that my G4 867/DP (1.25gb memory) lacks the horsepower for
serious video processing. I wonder if I could preprocess the source
files into something that Toast doesn't need to chew on for so long.

I have a suspicion that VIDEO_TS folders would pass through Toast
like grass through a goose. That certainly went quickly in my one
attempt to put a three-disc TV series DVD onto two discs -- extracting
each episode as a VIDEO_TS via DTOX then dragging them into Toast's
DVD Video window and burning to a DL.

Many of y'all have a LOT more experience in this sort of thing than
I do. Would it be worthwhile to convert the videos into VIDEO_TS or
other form? Is there a better way to insert a slide show than as a
folder full of JPGs?

I would very much appreciate the benefit of your wisdom.

[pixel zombie]

toast is very slow and unreliable for converting video files, use visualhub or mpeg2works to convert them to mpeg2 format..not sure hot to handle a powerpoint file...

[Frobozz]

So your goal is for you and others to be able watch these movies and slide shows on TV using a DVD player. In that case what you're doing now makes the most sense. It takes time to encode the videos and JPEGs to MPEG format. When that's finished Toast authors a VIDEO_TS folder which it then burns to the DVD. It won't save you any time to have a different application creating the VIDEO_TS folder.

What does save time is starting with MPEG 2 format for your videos. For instance you can do this with an MPEG-based Camcorder, a standalone DVD recorder or an EyeTV 250+. But since your videos are already in a different format you just have to bear with the time it takes to encode them to MPEG 2 for video DVD.

As for the JPEG images. If you rescaled them to 640x480 resolution before adding them to Toast then Toast wouldn't need to do the rescaling as well as the encoding.

Alternatively, many DVD players can play folders of JPEG images as slide shows without having to do any encoding at all. In this case you would add the JPEGs to a folder in the Toast Data window (choosing DVD Rom (UDF) as the format) and tell Toast to add data content when clicking the burn button in the Video window. Before you do this I suggest burning a CD of some JPEGs using the ISO 9660 format to see how it looks to you. If you put high resolution images it will take the DVD player a long time to rescale them to the resolution it displays to TV. Be sure to keep the resolution fairly low.

I look forward to your next questions as I'm sure I didn't really settle anything with this post.

[albloom]

Hmm. I swear I wrote you two a nice long thank-you note yesterday.
Either I inadvertently said something naughty or my mind continues
to function imperfectly.

Anyway, I did convert the new features (I'm adding material to an
existing DVD) to MPEG-2 as y'all suggested. I left the small slide shows
as folders for Toast to deal with.

My problem of the moment is that the later videos are quite choppy
when played from a Toast disk image. It's as if Toast only dealt with
every fifth frame or so. Disconcerting. Yes, Toast 9 says there is
available space on a standard DVD (not much, mind). I'm trying
dropping a video and seeing if the choppiness moves further back.
That'd tell me if Toast is lying about the disk space utilization.

Thanks (again?) for your help.

[Frobozz]

What are the specs of your source .mov files that ended up choppy when played from the disc image? Are you saying you used something other than Toast to create the MPEG 2 files? If so, did Toast multiplex or encode them? What did you use to encode the MPEG 2 files? I always let Toast do this unless they already were in that format. I disagree with pixelzombie's assessment of Toast's encoding quality and reliability because Toast 7 and beyond uses a well-regarded MPEG encoder.

As for available space, this is a matter of how much length (in time) the videos are. The slide shows don't take up much space. If the videos are at least one hour then the disc will be mostly full when Toast is doing the MPEG encoding. The same will be true if the videos are about 3 hours because Toast lowers the bit rate to fit the video to the disc. If Toast isn't doing the MPEG encoding then the size of your source files in MB or GB determines what fits on the disc.

[albloom]

The stuff I pre-converted shows as merely MPEG-2 Muxed in
QuickTime. They came from MPEG Streamclip "export." They
played fine by themselves. I think I'll just bite the bullet and
feed the original MOV's to Toast. And check back tomorrow.

I'll see what happens. Thanks again for your help.