[live4lax364]

hey, ive searched for a while, and learned a little bit about Toast and a .avi file. i was just wondering if there is any "preferred" format for Toast to burn to a DVD-R? It seems that when i use a .avi file, the encode takes absolutely forever. I was thinking that if i converted the file to maybe a __________ format, my encode would move along alot faster. Is there a general format for all DVD players? This way would my encodes in Toast be alot faster?


P.S.-Macbook 13" 2GHz Intel core 2 duo, 2GB RAM (if that helps?)


-Thanks!

[hab]

MPEG-2 is the standard DVD format. Toast will still multiplex the file but it will go very fast on your C2D machine.

[mduell]

If you want to play it on set-top players, author the disk at DVD Video (which requires MPEG2 encoding).

[live4lax364]

So what your saying is that if i re-encode the actual file to MPEG-2, then the Toast Encoding will go alot quicker?

[mduell]

The time it takes for Toast to encode as MPEG2 will probably be about the same regardless of the input format. I'd go with the highest quality input format you have so the transcoding Toast does has a minimal impact on quality.

[live4lax364]

Thanks, but theres really no way to speed up the encode? how about a Video_TS folder Versus a .avi file or another format like mp4 or MPEG-2? Is there any difference in that?

[mduell]

To play in a set-top DVD player, you need a VIDEO_TS folder containing properly formatted MPEG2-PS files with the appropriate support files. Toast is able to create that folder for you from a variety of input sources, but that process takes time. If you can provide a VIDEO_TS folder with all the necessary files inside it, then you can skip the transcoding step and just tell Toast to burn a video DVD from that folder.

Buy a faster machine or better software to speed up the encoding.

[live4lax364]

Thanks for all your help!