Toast 6 -> file grows? (ReplayTV to DVD process)

[enjoylife78]

i have a movie i recorded (w/ ReplayTV) in mpeg format, supposedly ready to burn (prepared as outlined at http://motogrrl.com/replayTV/replay_to_dvd.html ). The main problem: with Toast 6, when I try to burn my 3.1gb mpeg file, it says 5.7gb are needed, and only 4.4gb available on my blank dvd. Why?

FYI, I also tried burning the same file using Toast 5.. it burned it ok, but my dvd player couldn't read it (and has no menus etc--maybe toast 5 dvds (video) can never be read by dvd players?).

Why does Toast 6 apparently need so much more room? my guess is that it's converting part of it to some much larger format (the audio perhaps, from what i've read a little of here)? that stinks--can you tell Toast 6 not to convert?

(btw i successfully burned a smaller file using Toast 6, and my DVD player read it fine, so that's good--the quality was a bit less than i was hoping for though, as the background seemed a bit 'jumpy'. whereas it looks great if I watch the mpeg on the computer, or stream the original replaytv file back to the TV).

any tips?
many thanks...

[chikanakan]

It has to be converted because Replay TV files aren't DVD compliant. They don't have the correct aspect ratio. DVD requires 720x480. Your files are probably 480x480.

[Frobozz]

Make sure you've updated to Toast 6.0.5. The original Toast 6 would re-encode the MPEG 2 files. If the MPEG2 you were trying to burn was muxed with MPEG audio, Toast should not have done anything to change its size. One thing I should note, Toast 6.0.5 has a bug where the encoding progress bar does not fill in when the source video is a muxed MPEG. The encoding is proceeding; it just looks like nothing is happening. Hopefully version 6.0.6 is coming soon. (I just read chikanakan's post above. If the MPEG 2 file is out of spec for video DVD, then Toast may need to re-encode it which it does at a minimum of 5 mbps which could be greater than the bitrate of your original MPEG 2).

Toast 5 does not author video DVDs. It can only do VCDs. I don't know what you did with Toast 5, but it wasn't authoring a DVD.

You might check into MPEG2Works. It has some nice tools for preparing Replay TV MPEGs for burning to DVD. There also may be some help there on quality issues.

[enjoylife78]

to chikanakan - thanks, but i do convert 'em, if i'm understanding right.. using ReplayTV Tools (rtvconvert) as outlined at the website i reference in my orig post (that's why it does work, as i note, with smaller files).

to Frobozz - thanks. i'll definitely try the 6.05 update, sounds like that may hopefully solve it. Will certainly look into MPEG2Works too, maybe that works better than the ReplayTV tools above. (i have both mac and pc access so that shouldn't be a problem)

[chikanakan]

Converting the files with rtvconvert and what Toast does is a little different. rtvconvert just makes the files usable. However, since the files are not in the correct resolution, Toast must re-encode the files. When this happens, depending on the length of the file it may not fit on the DVD anymore. This is what you are seeing I believe.

If you look at the info of the MPEG file in a tool like MPEG Info X you will see the size of the file, bitrate, etc. If the bitrate is over 8.2Mbps Toast will also re-encode.

[enjoylife78]

aha, thanks. weird--i don't quite get why it's in the wrong resolution, i would've thought that since it comes from the tv to begin with that it would be ok. anyway, is there a way around this re-encoding? or does every 2 hour, medium quality show/movie recorded on replaytv NOT fit on a dvd? ouch!

[chikanakan]

There isn't a way around the re-encoding in Toast. I think there are tools that will change the header on an MPEG to trick software into thinking it is the correct resolution, but I'm never tried it.

[aersloat]

Have you tried to use sizzle to author a dvd and then toast 6 to burn as data? toast does the same thing with tivo files regardless of the resolution. Although I must admit I have not tried it yet with 6.0.5 since the sizzle work flow works so well for me.