AVI to DVD: ffmpegx vs Toast 7, and menu style editing

[broaddd]

I have been converting 3-4 45m TV episodes from .avi to a DVD with simple menu as follows:
- encode with ffmpegx mpeg2enc, at 3000 or 3700kbps depending on whether it's 3 or 4 episodes.
- drop the resulting .mpgs into Toast 6 and burn with simple menu (sometimes I edit the menu's background image by editing the internal Toast resources - I'm surprised someone hasn't made this easier to do yet).

I had a few questions people might like to comment on:
1. Is there any reason to choose mpeg2enc of ffmpeg encoding, or vice versa? What settings in the 'options tab' are suggested for the different modes?
2. For a stereo source, is there any reason to choose more than 192kbps if encoding to Dolby Digital Stereo? Does ffmpegx convert stereo to surround with much success?
4. Has anyone found much quality difference between Toast 7 encoding with the MainConcept codec, and ffmpegx?
5. Or any tips on editing the Toast 7 internal menu styles in Photoshop?

I've found one advantage of encoding in Toast 7 is that it's easy to encode one portion of the avi (eg. to skip end credits), and easier to select a frame from the avi to use as the menu button (selecting frames from .mpgs is very jumpy). In my preliminary experiment, I couldn't get it to encode more than 3x 45m episodes onto one DVD-R though; even when setting the bitrates very low.

Most of the Toast 7 menus are very ugly (edit: ok, maybe just fussy), especially the borders around buttons, which are repeated in the often cluttered video scene selection menus. Corporate and Snapshot are the least offensive (edit: fussy) layouts, and so I've mainly been editing Snapshot with my own background images and placement of text and buttons. But really, I guess you could just start from scratch as long as you keep the same order of layers.

The menu creation system is inflexible in some ways. Eg. if you burn 3 episodes, it will only create a menu with 2 on one screen and 1 on another screen; rather than all 3 on one screen. To get around this, I dropped in a fourth 1second avi so it would use the 4-item menu template; and edited the template so the fourth button doesn't show up at all. Crude, but effective

I'm still experimenting, but it doesn't seem that you can drop more menu styles .psd files into Toast 7 and have them turn up in the drop down menu. And if you edit one .psd file and save it over another .psd file; it still has the name of the first in the dropdown menu.

Cheers,
Bruce

[macuser25]

Maybe Roxio has designed Toast for a different type of user than yourself?

FFMPEG is not for everyone - in fact... it's not for most people... Toast 7 adds an encoder from what many people think is the best software encoder company on Mac or PC, and exposes the settings in a way that mere mortals can understand.

The menu styles are an improvement from version 6 (which only offered one style and no other options) and include some unique Mac features like the slideshow index and the shuffle option for slideshows. [BTW - here's a link to all the styles so people can see thumbnails... yes I know the page is in Spanish... scroll down....http://www.macuarium.com/cms/macu/noticias/toast-7-ya-llega.html]

The fact that Toast makes choices for you - like, if I include only 3 assets on a disc, then put 2 on one screen and one on the other - many people may find actually helpful. Toast does the work for me, so I don't have to. It's always been like that - and that's the reason why I like it - I can just drag/drop in my videos and click that red button and Toast does everything else for me.

Have you tried to make a DVD with iDVD lately - it's a TON of work... all that customization is nice to have, but it takes forever even on a fast machine to lay everything out, and then forget those stupid motion menus - they take forever to render now and for what? for the 10 seconds you spend looking at a menu vs. the hours you spend looking at the video.

I'll take Toast's video quality over iDVD any day - and the Dolby settings to cram on more video any day as well.

Anyway... last point about the menu styles... for those that do want to customize them I like the fact that they are standard PSD files. iDVDs monstrosities are complex bundles of assets - Toast's are pretty straightforward and work for VCD and SVCD as well.

I've discovered that you can change the title by editing the comment field inside, and you can place them in the bundle in the Toast DVD Menu Styles folder.

I'd be curious to see what other's think.

[Mauserman]

I totally agree.

I use ffmpegx often, but not allways with sucsess. But i would lie if i claim to understand half of what i do in ffmpegx.

[Frobozz]

Bruce, it sounds like you have a lot of know-how and are better able to tell us the answers to those questions. Enjoy your experimenting because Toast 7 gives you lots of different settings to try.

I don't know the maximum amount of video that Toast will encode to a single-layer DVD using the custom bit-rate settings, but if you can't get all you want on a disc, do this:
Choose Save as Disc Image. This will write an image file intended for DL media. Then use Toast 7's compression feature in the Copy window to fit your image file to a single-layer disc.

I've done this with a 2 hour 23 minute movie I recorded on two VR-mode DVD-RW discs on my standalone recorder. Toast 7 let me burn both halves of the movie to one single-layer disc. It looks great.

I chuckled reading your comments about Toast 7's menus. I often read complaints about how Toast 6's menu is too plain. Now you think Toast 7's multiple menu options aren't plain enough. It's a good thing you have Photoshop to fix it the way you like.

[broaddd]

Thanks everyone for the replies, particularly the brilliant suggestion to save as a disc image if over 4.4gb and then use Toast 7 to compress a little more!

I didn't really make my view clear that underneath the comments I think Toast 7 is a great product, and a great improvement on Toast 6.

My remaining wishes would be a little more flexibility in how many video buttons appear on each menu page, and a slightly easier way to edit and integrate your own basic menu styles.

Look forward to more comments, particularly on those questions 1-5

[broaddd]

I've discovered that you can change the title by editing the comment field inside

How do you get to the comment field?

It's a pity that Toast makes things a little _too_ simple, and not always in an entirely logical way

I mean, why give you the option to drop extra languages if copying the main feature, but not the whole DVD? Oh well.

Cheers.

[Frobozz]

I mean, why give you the option to drop extra languages if copying the main feature, but not the whole DVD? Oh well.

Cheers.

When you choose the whole DVD you also get the full menu that includes any menu settings to change the audio. If Toast 7 or Popcorn let you strip some of the audio tracks you could have menu options that don't work. I'm guessing that's why the option to remove those tracks is not offered with the whole DVD compression.

[macuser25]

frobozz is probably right... if you did this you'd have broken menus... then... say a year from now you went to play the disc, forgot that you had done this, and you'd be thinking... jeez... popcorn and toast burned bad DVDs!

[broaddd]

Just a little update: I've tried using Toast 7 to encode 2 high quality 45m avi files to DVD-Video, at both Automatic-Best Quality setting, and some custom settings. The quality always seems rather blocky compared to my previous encodings done with ffmpegx. Do other people find that Toast 7 encoding isn't as good as ffmpegx? or am I missing something?

Cheers!

[havema-1]

> 1. Is there any reason to choose mpeg2enc of ffmpeg encoding, or vice versa? What settings in the 'options tab' are suggested for the different modes?

In the past I have used mpeg2enc via MediaPipe (RIP?) because it seemed that no other mpeg2enc GUI variant could output interlaced MPEG2. MPEG2Works outputs interlaced material only via its Half-D1 preset but even then the field dominance seems to be wrong.

Lately I discovered that ffmpegX's ffmpeg-option could output interlaced MPEG2, too. But strangely the mpeg2enc-option outputs only progressive video no matter what. Or please tell me I'm missing something.

(BTW, why does everybody seem to prefer to convert their smooth interlaced video into jerky progressive video -- that gives me headache .

BTW2, who makes the MPEG encoder in Toast 7? Are there any comparisons which include it?

[Case]

BTW2, who makes the MPEG encoder in Toast 7?

This was mentioned in a previous post.

[Iceman67]

I saw that Roxio sells new Templates for burning dvds in Toast 7, but I have not seen anyone create their own Toast 7 template posted anywhere. has anyone made any headway. My complaint w/the current Toast 7 Templates is that you cannot choose how many buttons (one for each video) will be on the Main page. I've heard that you can edit them on Photoshop and replace them. Anyone have any luck?

[chikanakan]

Toast Themes Style Guide

http://boards.support.roxio.com/roxio/board/message?board.id=toast_7_t&message.id=2185...le+guide#M2185

[MovingParts]

I've discovered that you can change the title by editing the comment field inside

How do you get to the comment field?

It's a pity that Toast makes things a little _too_ simple, and not always in an entirely logical way

I mean, why give you the option to drop extra languages if copying the main feature, but not the whole DVD? Oh well.

Cheers.

Yes, how do I get to the field and where (in what folder) are the pictures of Toast that I am ought to open in Photoshop? Is the process reversable or can I just add my custom menue-picture to it?

PS: I know this is an old thread, but since those people know it, why shouldn't I ask them?

[usually_quiet]

PS: I know this is an old thread, but since those people know it, why shouldn't I ask them?

Because they are no longer active here? Case is of course still active, but I looked at the post history for two other participants in this thread. One has not posted since 2006 and another has not posted since 2007. Another good reason to avoid grave-robbing.

[Case]

Yes, how do I get to the field

This old thread was on Toast v7. Toast is now on v14. A lot has changed, including the menu styling files. I don't know which comment field the poster was talking about. I can assume it probably relates to the XMP meta data in photoshop files (Menu File > File Info).

and where (in what folder) are the pictures of Toast that I am ought to open in Photoshop?

/Library/Application Support/Roxio/Toast Menu Styles/ That folder has all but the default style.
I have done some customisation of styles in the distant past, but I couldn't get it to work on later versions (maybe I didn't do the XMP meta data). There is no public documentation on how to do it right. These PSD files are fairly complex. Many layers for all possible items and options and such.

Is the process reversable

You should experiment on a copy of a file, so that the original is kept in tact.

or can I just add my custom menue-picture to it?

The latest versions of Toast (v10 and up I think?) allow any image to be your background image on the menu page, regardless of chosen theme. You can drag-and-drop a JPG image onto the chosen style in the UI of Toast. Not a hack, but a documented feature.

[MovingParts]

+1