Can You Create DVD using Toast 7 and PixeDV Files?

[Surfmaster]

Hi Everyone:

I have an ADS Instant DVD for Mac box and I don't really like their DVD creation software called CaptyDVD. Is it possible to simply use the PixeDV software to digitize my non-copy-protected VHS tapes and then import the PixeDV files into Toast 7 and then use Toast 7 to create chapter markers and menus? Has anyone tried this and how is Toast 7's encoding quality in the final DVD? (I recall Toast 6's encoding quality to be less than desirable, especially when trying to encoding DVDs with iMovie files.) Thanks in advance for your comments.

[macuser25]

I think the ADS box captures directly into MPEG... which should be fine to use with Toast 7. You can drag/drop your captured video into Toast and choose the Custom Encoding settings and set them to Ignore - which will not re-encode your video.

BTW - Toast 7 has a brand new encoder from MainConcept - which makes what some people say is the best software based encoder on Mac and PC. Macwelt magazine benchmarked the Toast 7 encoder and gave it higher marks than iDVD on both speed and quality.

[Surfmaster]

Thanks for your reply.

Does anyone know whether, in Toast 7, you can add chapter markers exactly where you want them instead of at five- or 10-minute intervals? Thanks.

[Frobozz]

I have the ADS unit, CaptyDVD and Toast 7. You can use the MPEGs captured with PixeDV with Toast, but you should first use the MPEG cutter in PixeDV to cut off the last second of the MPEG. I haven't tried it with Toast 7, but I had to do that with Toast 6 or I would get an error when Toast reached the end of the file.

With Toast 7 you probably will get chapter markers added every 5 minutes. There is no way in Toast 7 to specify where the chapter marks go.

But there is a trick you can do using CaptyDVD. Set the specific chapter markers in CaptyDVD and choose the VIDEO_TS option for authoring your project and save it (or move it) to the desktop. Use the DVD option in the Toast 7 Media Browser to extract the video into the Toast Video window. Toast now will author a new DVD using the chapter markers that you placed in CaptyDVD.