Problem with Roxio Toast Titanium v10.0.8

[onosy]

I'm currently using Roxio Toast Titanium v10.0.8 on OS X v10.6.5. I also have perian installed for codecs. Everything was working fine about three months ago when it came to burning XviD and DivX movies, and then all of a sudden, it stopped working. Now, whenever I drag a file with the XviD (mainly, DivX also won't work) into the DVD burn field, it says "codec not supported (XviD) I reinstalled perian AND toast, and I'm still having the same issue. Very frustrating indeed . If anyone would be able to help, I would GREATLY appreciate it. Cheers.

[Case]

Could it be that you have other DivX/XviD components installed besides Perian? The Perian people recommend against it, as it may prevent QuickTime from using Perian, as the other component may be loaded (or tried to) instead, even if they other component doesn't actually help QuickTime decoding your XviD file, for compatibility reasons (e.g. component too old, or some XviD option not supported).

Do you have QuickTime 7 installed besides QuickTime X? Not sure if Perian/Toast needs it, but it wouldn't hurt and may add functionality.

[onosy]

I've got QuickTime v10, also VLC. The weirdest part of all of this is that with QuickTime, VLC, and whatever else I've got installed, I didn't have problems before. Then, one day, BAM; no more compatibility. This is also my first MacBook, been a Windows guy my whole life, so I'm still learning when it comes to all of the "underlayings" of the computer. But I've done everything I can; uninstalling and re-installing both perian and Toast, so I've pretty much got my hands in the air at this point.

EDIT: Is there another time-efficient and well-rounded converting/authoring/burning program that someone might recommend for Snow Leopard? I love Toast because of the timeliness and functionality, but at this point I would have no problem switching to something else as long as it meant I got to burn friggin' movies.

EDIT 2: I just installed QuickTime 7, no changes

[Case]

Toast uses QuickTime for (XviD) AVI decoding. So you might try to test the AVI by opening it in QuickTime. (Just playing a few seconds would satisfy this test.) It should give the same result (it can handle it, or it can't), but if the result is different from Toast, then that may be a clue for problem solving.

If many users has this issue, I think I would have read about about it. So at this time I still think your issue is not general, and thus solvable.

There are other apps for converting to DVD and/or burning, although many not as "polished" and feature-rich as Toast. In contrast with Toast, the other apps use different conversion engines (mostly ffmpeg), and often hook into Mac OS build-in burning functionality. One example is an app simply called "Burn".

[onosy]

I tried "testing" and low and behold, quicktime would not open the file. What step should I take now? And funny you say that, I downloaded "Burn" earlier tonight as an alternative, but I still would like to get Toast fixed.

[Case]

low and behold, quicktime would not open the file.

This means that at this time there is no indication that there is anything wrong with Toast.

Please post the content of your /Library/QuickTime and ~/Library/QuickTime folders (if present). Maybe there's something odd or conflicting in there.

[onosy]

Well, I started messing around with the Perian preferences, and uninstalling and reinstalling seemed to have fix that issue, so everything works with Toast the way it used to now. My new issue is after Toast converts and proceeds to the burn phase, it's reporting "Medium Drive Errors" or something to that effect, I'll try it again and post the actual full message. I don't believe there's anything wrong with my actual drive, because I can burn audio CD's fine with iTunes still. The only variable in the equation is I'm using DVD+R vs. DVD-R's. I'm going home to South Fla. for christmas tomorrow, and there's a Mac store at the mall, so unless changing my media to -R fixes the issue, I'll head to the Genius Bar and see what those dudes can figure out.

[Case]

Everything works with Toast the way it used to now.

I'm glad to hear that issue is fixed now.

My new issue is after Toast converts and proceeds to the burn phase, it's reporting "Medium Drive Errors" or something to that effect.

1/ It may be a good idea to save as disk image first, so you don't have to go through the encoding process again on a second try at burning.
2/ Errors about the medium is exactly that: the blank disc isn't accepted. It could be a bad disc type (don't think so), or a bad disc in the batch (it happens), or the writing speed isn't good (to high?).

I don't believe there's anything wrong with my actual drive, because I can burn audio CD's fine with iTunes still.

Writing to CD-R or DVD-R are two quite separate processes for an optical drive. That is, successfully writing to CD-R doesn't say anything about the ability to write to DVD-R/DVD+R.

The only variable in the equation is I'm using DVD+R vs. DVD-R's

The 15" MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz models (both T9400 (Late 2008) and P8700 (Mid 2009)) all have the same 8X DL "SuperDrive" that supports both DVD-R and DVD+R. While the drive supports both types of discs, that doesn't mean every brand is liked the same. Perhaps get some statistically more reliable discs, like Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim (Verbatim AZO, not the Verbatim Life Series).

[onosy]

Now that you mention it, I remember having this issue a few months ago before the whole codec issue, and slowing the drive down did seem to fix it IIRC. I'll try slowing that down, and see if that changes. Thanks for all your help man, you've been great.

[thasco]

I had the same problem with avi files and toast and i just switched to the app Burn and it does the job toast did except its free. Try it.