Using Toast to burn DVD

Should I invest in purchasing Toast 9 to burn my standard DVDs? So many people keep talking about using Toast to burn the disc instead of using iDVD...is there a reason for this?

iDVD and Toast take very different approaches to serve users' desires in making video DVDs. iDVD has wonderful motion menus with sound while Toast has basic still, silent menus. iDVD is very limited in the video formats it can use for the source while Toast accepts a broad variety of video formats. iDVD only authors with uncompressed PCM audio while Toast can author with compressed Dolby Digital AC-3 audio which can leave more space for a higher video bit rate. Toast also has custom encoding settings whereas iDVD doesn't let you modify its settings.
What this means is Toast can't compare to iDVD and iDVD can't compare to Toast depending on what the user wants to have in a video DVD. Of course Toast does a lot more than create video DVDs.
If iDVD is meeting your needs then I'd say you don't need Toast for that purpose, but may want it anyway for other reasons. If you are finding iDVD too limited or too much work then I recommend Toast (or Popcorn 3) to give you more options.
As a disclaimer, I very rarely use iDVD because I usually don't have need for its menus, I prefer AC-3 audio on my DVDs and the source for many of my projects are existing MPEG 2 videos that would need to be re-encoded for use in iDVD. So I'm biased toward Toast. It doesn't mean I think Toast is "better"; just better for my needs.

Similar Messages

Is it better to export an iMovie project as QT and use Toast to burn a DVD for general use or to export to iDVD and burn VD from there? Why?

Is it better to export an iMovie project as QT and use Toast to burn a DVD for general use - or to export iMovie project to iDVD and burn DVD from there? Why?

Toast probably maintains better quality if you are just doing simple conversion direct from your camera straight into Toast and then to DVD. There's a lot less transcoding steps and loss of quality in that direct to DVD disk creation in Toast. However, having said that,...There's good arguments probably for both.
What I've seen promoted most often (as most people don't have Toast or aren't motivated to buy it) is to Share to Media Browser (choose the Large size option) and then from inside iDVD click the Media Button and the Movies button to find the project under the iMovie star icon in the Media Browser window. Drag that project into your iDVD project and burn the disk.

Using Toast to burn iDVD projects

I am a new user to mac and I need basic answers. I have iDVD 5.01 and know how to create a disc image. I don't have a superdrive, but I have an external burner which came with Toast Lite software. Although some people have said that they can burn directly to their external drive from iDVD I have had no such luck. I have created the disc image, but now I don't know what to do from there. Do I need to upgrade to Toast Titanium in order to burn my image onto a dvd. I tried to burn a disc image onto a DVD-R drive but the disc would not play on neither my computer nor my DVD player. I can open the Video_TS folder on the DVD player on the computer and it plays fine, but I need to know the steps to take to burn a proper DVD. I have only had my computer for a short time and it is my first experience with a mac so I need all the help I can get.

Hi Emily,
We kind of misuse the "disk image" a lot here. We should have said "disk image file". When you "Save As Disk Image" in iDVD, you are actually creating a "file" for the disk image. When you burn using Toast or Disk Utility, you want to select the "file", I believe the icon on the desktop you are referring to is the "mounted virtual disk" of the disk image file. Am I confusing you even more ?? As I said in my earlier post. if you use Toast, use Copy, NOT Data tab. then select disk image and select the the "disk image file", NOT the icon. Similarly, in the Apple article, use "disk image file", NOT the icon on the desktop.

Alternatives to Toast for burning DVDs

I have been using Toast for many years with mixed success. Each upgrade seems to hog more resources and sometimes freezes (needing a forced quit). I have tried system maintenance (permissions, scripts, trashing prefences etc) but cannot get it to be reliable.
So ... any recommendations for alternatives. I would like to burn DVDs with EyeTV recordings as well as Apple TV files.

What version do you have?
I have not had any issues with 10.x standard - the red box, not the blue box.
If you have 10, I know there's a couple of updates for 10.6.x compatibility.
OS X itself will burn data DVDs, but they will not be cross platform.
If you are talking video DVDs, and for whatever reason, you can't get your source video into iMovie, try this (free for a few more days) utility
http://www.winxdvd.com/giveaway/
It converts nearly any format to any other format(so far, I've used it for wmv, avi, and flv to HD .mov) import the to iMovie, then export to iDVD, and burn your video.

Exporting MiniDV (SD) Projects to hard drive from iMOVIE & then use them to burn DVDs

I am trying to export all my MiniDv files I have already uploaded to iMovie creating multiple projects. I wanted to export the best quality movie possible that is also great for burning DVDs. I have been using h.264, but haven't much success. Should I be using mpeg4 (h.264) or Quicktime (h.264)? Also, the bite rates have been throwing me off as well. I have tried 5000 kbits/sec and that was so so. I went down from there to 3000 to 2000 and it got worse. I am currently trying out 20,000 kbits/sec as we speak. I also selected CD/DVD-RAM in the export settings over Download & Stream. Not sure if that makes much of a difference?
Most of the MiniDV tapes are standard SD (4:3), but a few are SD wide screen.
I would love to get a master setting to use, so I am not worrying if the quility of the export will come out ok!
I have 50, so time is an essence. This can take me a long time to get through all the tapes.
**** I am NOT using these export files to edit. Just to view
Thanks,
Jason

Just to be clear on this.(Yes I know that AppleMan has already asked this question above)
Are you just wanting to transfer what is on your Tape onto DVD without adding any Titles, transitions etc etc?
In other words when you watch the DVD you want it to be identical to watching the MiniDV tape with nothing added or removed or adjusted ?
If this IS the case then try this.
Via Finder navigate to the required iMovie Event Folder.
In this folder you should see either --- " iMovie Movie Cache" OR " iMovie Cache" OR both.
Now in these folders you should see " Cache - 25 .mov " or " Cache.mov " respectively.
Open iDVD and drag either one of these in.
If you want to put more than one Event on the DVD then drag the other Cache-25.mov or Cache.mov from the other Events in.
Select in iDVD Preferences > Projects > Encoding = Professional Quality for up to 2 hours video including menu on single sided .
This will be much better than exporting to h.264 and quicker.
Also I don't think that the Single Field Processing "debate " comes into this workflow, could be wrong????

Is there any way to get around having to use iDVD to burn DVD?

Is there any way to get around having to use iDVD to export FCE to DVD?
I've been trying to burn a FCE2 sequence to DVD. A friend of mine told me all I had to do was put a blank DVD in, click on the icon on the desk top, export the sequence to Quicktime and drag the QT sequennce into the DVD icon and click burn.
Well something happened! But there's nothing on the DVD!! What am I doing wrong? I loathe iDVD. i don't want to author. I just want to burn the project on a DVD. Please advise. Thanks.
Chuck
iMAC 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4 Mac OS X (10.3.1)
iMAC 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4 Mac OS X (10.3.1)

If you export a sequence at full resolution to can burn it onto a DVD as a data DVD, but this is for transportation purposes only. At full resolution the DVD, especially as it fills up, will not have sufficient throughput to sustain good playback of the material. That's why the material is encoded into MPEG-2 for DVD authoring. If you want to make a DVD for set-top playback it has to be authored to include the DVD format structure. There is no way around that. If you don't like iDVD, take a look at Final Cut Studio, you might prefer DVD Studio Pro. Or you might what to look at Roxio's Toast. It has basic authoring capabilities. Personally I don't think direct playback hardware solutions (except for seriously expensive ones) produce acceptable quality, but that's just me.

Used utilities to burn dvd but its too big 5.5gb and dvd-r is only 4.7gb

this is all new to me so bear with me! ( and i thought macs were idiot proof!
have burnt dvd using utilities it was 5.5gb but the disc i want to burn to is only dvd-r @4.7gb how do i get it onto a dvd to play on my tv/dvd player, (do i need to get a double sided dvd-r, will that help?)

At least three options i see here:
1. Roxio Toast fit to disc or
2. Try an alternate DL DVD-R media like:
3. or break your project into 2 separate iDvd projects and use the above. (do not confuse the above media with DL which is entirely different media).

Using Handbrake to burn DVD movie to iTunes to sync to iTouch

What steps do you take to burn a DVD movie to iMac iTunes so you can sync it when iTouch is hooked to it?

Burning is creating a CD/DVD as when you burn the disc with the laser.
RIP is getting the stuff off a CD/DVD.
It is illegal to RIP DVDs to your computer (even if you purchased the DVD), therefore cannot be discussed in these forums.

How can I increase the resolution of a picture used in the burned DVD?

My version is Elements 10 and I have always had a problem when making the main menu that included a picture. Even if the picture is 12 MPixels it appears as if is less then 1 MPixels.

VideoEditor
From what you wrote, you are not targeting the resolution of the DVD-VIDEO on DVD disc that you are producing in Premiere Elements. Rather you are targeting the disc menus that are applied to a given project destined for DVD-VIDEO on DVD . Difference.
What you get in the disc menus (main and scene) traces back to the creation of .psd files in Premiere Elements folders on the computer hard drive hard drive. There 3 different .psd sets for each theme. One "s" for standard, "w" for widescreen, and "hd" for high definition. Whether you are in NTSC or PAL, "s" and "w" have a frame size of 720 x 576, and "hd" 1440 x 1080.
The choices (what you see) for "hd" and non "hd" menus in the disc menus section of the program is determined by the project preset. If you have a "hd" project, you will get some "hd" choices mixed with non hd choices. When you pick one of the non hd choices, believe it or not, the program may give you the "s" 4:3 version of the .psd and not the "w" version. The details can be overwhelming.
Bottom line:
You can set the resolution of your main menu inserts as high as you want, however you may crash the feature and or program and still not achieve better clarify/sharpness for the image in Disc Menu Preview or in playback of the final product. For the inserts, you can scale them to fit the insert space if black borders. Some buttons can be scaled to a larger size, of course within the limits of the total space provided and only if you do not create overlapping of the buttons.
Please review and if you need clarification on anything written, please do not hesitate to ask.
Thanks.
ATR

Burning error when using toast

i am using leopard 10.5.5 and using toast 9.0.2 with the hd plugin.
i am getting an error when trying to burn a dvd, i have created a file in an animation program, taken it into final cut pro, edited what i wanted, then exported it as 1080i50. the file plays no problem in quicktime on my laptop, but i need to put it on DVD. opening up toast, it goes into the prog window, encodes the file but then i get an error, -50, can not burn DVD.
does anyone know of this problem, or maybe has any ideas on what i can do to work out the problem?
cheers
bret

Bruce Etnyre wrote:
His first sentence states the OP is using 10.5.5 and apparently has not updated the profile.
sure confused me
I occasionally get errors when using Toast to burn DVD’s. I found quitting other applications during the burn eliminated the errors. Not the optimal solution, but it couldn’t hurt to try.
I think he is referring to HD DVDs per his first sentence, but it's not clear to me.
It could be anything from a bad blank to a flaky optical writer to, as you mention, other software running. I usually turn all my apps off when burning DVDs. Mail, Safari, Firefix, etc., although on fast machine like this one it probably does not matter.
On the other hand, when I burn a R/W DVD or CD, I ignore these things and just computer as usual.

DVD MENU, burn using TOAST

Has anyone tried this, building a menu using DVDSP, after you build your menu -- you have 2 folders, Video TS, Audio TS. Do you have to burn your DVD using burner inside DVDSP? Or can I drag those TS folders into TOAST and burn it there. If so, where do I drag these files? Data? or Video?
Appreciate your time and suggestions...
KChen

KChen:
I'm a little confused about what you mean with "DVD
MENU" . . . but the answer is yes, you can use Toast
to burn your <b<disc</b>.
In Toast 7 go to Data and choose format DVD-ROM
UDF. NAme your disc and drag both VIDEO_TS and
AUDIO_TS folder inside. Burn.
Another approach is creating a disc image of
your build in DVDSP and use that img file in Toast or
OSX Disk Utility. You can find here a complete
tutorial about Creating Disc Image in DVDSP (from
www.kenstone.net site).
Hope it helps !
Alberto
Dear Silal:
You know how DVDSP allows you to build your menu with a nice template and navigation buttons. When you burn DVD using Toast, it only gives you one button.
So my question is, how do you use that nice menu layout that DVDSP offers, and then using Toast to burn your disc. Do you always have to open DVDSP to burn your disc? Or can you use Toast to burn your disc and keeping it stored away so everytime you want to make a copy, all you have to do is use Toast.
The second part of my question, if I want to burn my disc using toast with the template built from DVDSP, do I burn it by dragging in the TS folders into DATA or VIDEO in Toast.
I hope this is clearer, and I appreciate any suggestions, I'm very new at doing this.
Many thanks!!!
KChen

Cannot burn DVD (using iDVD, and iMac G5 with Superdrive)

Hi. I'm trying to burn an iMovie onto a DVD-R (16x). I have an iMac G5 w/ Superdrive (PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-K04F). I have plenty of available disc space. iDVD goes through the entire burn process, then at the very end it spits out the disc with these errors:
The recording device reported the error #8: No additional sense information. (0x00, 0x00.)
The recording device reported the media error: Power calibration area error. (0x73, 0x03.)
Can someone PLEASE help me? What am I doing wrong?
THANK YOU!

Could be the brand of media you are using. Most users here find the most reliable to be Verbatim DVD-R.
Also, try burning at a lower speed.
Using 16x DVD media is fine - in fact it is difficult to buy any other - but there is a consensus in the Apple Support Forums that a slower burn is a better burn and that the most reliable brands are Verbatim, Maxell and Fuji, all DVD-R, burned at 2x or 4x (slow burns are better burns!). I always use Toast for burning.
I generally use Verbatim and when I can't get those, Fuji, and have never had a coaster from either.
Plenty of coasters in the early days from Sony, TDK and a few others.
The term "Best" means the fastest speed that the drive told Toast it can write to a specific disc. The drive's firmware and info on the disc decide what speed burns are available. When you press the speed setting button in Toast (after inserting a disc) you'll likely see some speeds in italics and some in bold face. The ones in bold face are supported by that media on that drive. The fastest one is what Toast calls Best.
Audio CDs in particular should be burned at the lowest supported speed.
Verification is a good indicator the disc is burned okay. However, other DVD players can still have problems with the disc. Media problems with various drives is not uncommon. Slower burning may reduce the chance of those problems, and is one of the reasons why RW (read/write) media is always rated slower than DVD-R.
There are some interesting facts here:
http://www.osta.org/technology/dvdqa/dvdqa4.htm and here:
http://www.osta.org/technology/dvdqa/dvdqa4.htm
But many will tell you that the 'slower burn is best' theory is outdated. Who really knows? At the end of the day, if your home-made DVD was verified by Toast and will play anywhere on anybody's DVD player, then that is the result we are all after!

What format shiould i burn dvd in to play in blueray player? Using MacX DVD Ripper Pro and Handbrake

what format should i burn dvd in to play in blueray player? Using MacX DVD Ripper Pro and Handbrake

MacX DVD Ripper Pro and Handbrake
Neither is suitable for burning DVDs or BluRay media. They are DVD rippers/converters, not DVD authoring tools. Handbrake doesn't produce any format suitable for DVD Authoring. And while MacDVD Ripper can create .mov files even that's not a guarantee the file can be used for DVD authoring. You need DVD Authoring software like Roxio Toast to burn DVDs or BluRay disks.
Most BluRay players can play both standard def DVDs and high def BluRay disks. Which kind do you want to burn? And what exactly is your source media (video) that you want to burn?
And if you want to burn BluRay disks, you need a BluRay burner.

Problems burning DVD from iDVD disc image

I'm burning a disc image onto a DVD using Toast and can't seem to get the disc to automatically start or be read by either my home DVD player or my Powerbook G4 (through DVD player). I'm a little unclear if I burn the .img folder onto the DVD, the mounted drive containing the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS files, or the AUDIO_TS, VIDEO_TS files themselves. I've tried all of these and none have worked, which made me think that it was something wrong with my DVDproj file from whence the disc image was made.
Do I have to have something in the box labeled "Drag content here to automatically play when disc is inserted" in teh MapView? I'd prefer it to just bring up the DVD menu.
Thanks!

Pre edit:
Suggest you create a disc image and then burn the DVD. File/Save as Disc Image...
This will isolate any encoding/burning issues you may encounter. Once the disc image is created, double-click the .img and burn the virtual disc that should appear on your desktop, using Toast to burn the DVD. Disk Utility to burn the .img file. Usually, you can select a burning speed in Disk Utility.
There are variations to this process based on which OS X you are using...
Open Disk Utility (in Utilities folder in Applications folder), click on the virtual disc (maybe the .img) in the left-hand window. Click the Burn icon. A new window should drop down and your SuperDrive tray will open after clicking the Burn icon. Insert a recordable DVD. (Verbatim DVD-R preferred by me.) Click the Close button. Wait. Select a burn speed. If you hold your mouse cursor over the pop-up it says: "Select a slower speed to work around burn failures," so select 4x or slower for best results. Then click the Burn button.
-->If the virtual disk selection won't allow you to click the Burn icon, use the .img file instead. This may have changed in 10.3.9 and did change in Tiger.
Also, you can use DVD Player to play the virtual disk to check your iDVD project before burning to DVD. Launch DVD Player. File/Open VIDEO_TS (Open DVD Media... in Player 4.6). Find the VIDEO_TS folder and open that. (The audio folder is for DVD-Audio disks.)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93006

Getting error message when burning DVD

I keep getting an error message when I try to burn my DVD in iDVD 08. I have imported the movie in quicktime format from iMovie HD and everything works fine until I go to burn the project. I renders everything else but when it get to the movie it has an error and cancels the burn.

Suggestion: Not a bad idea to test the disc image with apple's dvd player app prior to burning.
Click Here
I prefer to use Toast for burning an image to Dvd-R (verbatim at 4x or slower for best results).
Click Here
Not my personal favorite choice ... however it is possible to burn thru apple's disc utility like this:
Click Here:
Hope these help but if not just come on back.
Disclaimer: Apple does not necessarily endorse any suggestions, solutions, or third-party software / products that may be mentioned in this topic. Apple encourages you to first seek a solution at Apple Support. The following links are provided as is, with no guarantee of the effectiveness or reliability of the information. Apple does not guarantee that these links will be maintained or functional at any given time. Use the information above at your own discretion.

Using Toast to burn DVD

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