avi to dvd with toast 7

[mumadad]

just got toast 7. i previously posted about converting avi files to dvd using toast 6. what i wanted to know was how to do it without making say 700mb of avi into a massive amount of vob.

is there some way of maintaining the small size? like for example i have loads of south park averaging 150mb per episode (avis/mpegs), but using toast 6 i could only fit 3 on to one dvd after encoding.

I seem to recall one of the answers to my previous post metioned that toast 7 should be able to do this. and sizzle, which is freeware, can do this with mpegs if not avis.

also can somebody explain to me if divx is significant within this, and if so what it is? THANKS.

[Frobozz]

The reason your videos are so small in size is because they are probably Divx encoded. There are a few DVD players now that can play Divx discs. Also, Toast 7 can encode other video to Divx. So if you want small file size with decent quality, stick with Divx and get a Divx-capable DVD player.

Standard DVD players need the video to be within the video DVD spec. You can read this spec by clicking the What is DVD link at the top left of this page. While you're there, look up Divx in the Glossary.

Unlike Toast 6, Toast 7 will let you set your own video and audio encoding settings for converting your Divx videos to standard MPEG 1 or 2 as well as compressed AC-3 audio. This way you can fit more on a disc.

In addition, you can choose Save as Disc Image instead of clicking the burn button. This way you can save an image file as large as about 8.5 GB. Then use Toast's compression feature to shrink that image file to burn on a single-layer DVD.

Obviously the more you cram onto a disc and the more the video is compressed the lower the picture quality will be. You'll have to do some trials to see what limits are acceptable to you.

I don't recommend choosing Best instead of Better Quality. That takes about twice as long to encode and any picture quality difference probably won't be worth it to you.

[mumadad]

thanks very much