Burning with Toast 7.1 & Visual Hub............

[spoona]

Hi all firstly what a great forum,all i have needed in the past has been on here,it is a superb reference point for myself and i'm sure many others.

I have an issue i am trying to resolve in the burning process.

I Have an AVI file that i have converted to an .ISO using the excellent visual hub application,this makes a .ISO with a Video_TS folder it in which i can drop into the "Burn DVD from Video_TS folder" option in toast 7.

Once i converted the file,i previewed the conversion in quicktime and in VLC,and they both are perfect with no pixelation,but when i burned the .ISO in Toast 7.1 to a DVD-R(they are a recommended brand,and friend of mine uses them on his windows system with no such problems)and play them back on my standalone DVD player,the video is pixelated and a bit choppy,dont get me wrong,it is no alot and isnt hugely pixelated so you cant watch it,but it is noticeable to me anyway,but the quality isnt bad,i'm just wondering if there is a way to eliminate this and make the quality on the standalone player the same as the Quicktime & VLC quality in the preview?

I have tried tweaking the settings a little bit,but i rather leave alone as i dont want to keep making coasters!

Many Thanks,
James.

[terryj]

ok, two things stick out here:

1. You had an AVi you made into an ISO using Visual Hub.
The ISO contained a Video TS folder.

How big is the VIDEO_TS folder? if you perform a cmd (apple) -i
on it, in the finder, how many GB is the folder?
If it is more than 4.37GB, Toast may have tried to Compress it
when you tried the Burn from VIDEO_TS option.
Recompressing an already established VIDEO_TS
would cause the symptoms you described.

2. What does the output look like if you
just took the VIDEO_TS folder,
and instead of Burn from VIDEO_TS, you chose
Data--> DVD(UDF), created NEW Disc, and dragged
and dropped the VIDEO_TS folder in that window
and burned it to disc?
This way, Toast will NOT re-encode ANYTHING,
just attempt to burn the folder straight to DISC.

IF the size of the VIDEO_TS folder is too big,
Toast will tell you here.

[spoona]

Hi Terry thanks for reply.

File size is 3.25GB,so i dont think that is the issue.

Also the making another TS_FOLDER and burning it under data tab yields the same results,i think i need to adjust my Toast settings any ideas what the best settings are to eliminate this?


I am watching the DVD on a widescreen HD TV also,does that make a difference?i guess there will be some pixelation as the previews are on smaller screens so you dont really notice it,but i have searched a few forums as this should make much difference,as long as your burn settings are correct.

Any ideas?

James.

[terryj]

now we're getting into differences in 480i and 1080i
which yes can cause some distortion.
Also, unless your original intention was to burn the file
in HD at 1080i, and you did so on a nice expensive
1080i disc and burner, then using your mac,
and in toast 7,
the best you'll get is 480i, SD video.
see here.

I am going on a limb here and assuming you encoded and set
the flags necessary for widescreen playback of the DVD in your build. You don't mention "Squishing" as an issue, which
had you NOT set the flags, that would be a sign of that defect.

Since the disc plays fine on standard def computer equiptment,
the next step would be to playback the disc on a SD setup
and see if it yields the same results (average DVD Player, analog tv).

If it plays back fine, the burned disc, on SD equiptment,
then you can rule out the disc, the encode, and Toast.
If so, then you can narrow it down to your setup..either your
DVD player is the culprit, or more than likely the tv which is
trying to re-interpolate 480i up to 1080i and is having not
a good time at it?

Also you didn't really say, but if you playback full screen
in QT or VLC,
is the playback perfect with no pixelation?
if so, then you can probably rule out your encode,
and won't need to perform the SD test I mentioned,
and concentrate on getting your tv settings to do
a better job with its upconverting from 480i to 1080i.
I don't have an HD TV yet, so I can't get into that whole
aspect of helping you, but more than likely someone will chime in.

[albloom]

I understand that HD TVs have a setting to show
a "regular" program without pixilation. Check the
TV's manual.

[live4ever]

I Have an AVI file that i have converted to an .ISO using the excellent visual hub application,this makes a .ISO with a Video_TS folder it in which i can drop into the "Burn DVD from Video_TS folder" option in toast 7.

You should be using the image tab in Toast - select the image file or drag and drop - then burn.