[live4lax364]

Hey, i just got Toast 8 titanium, I'm burning my first dvd with it. I used Handbrake to put a dvd video onto my external hard drive using slow deinterlacing, 2500 bitrate for a normal preset.(w/ anamorphic.). When it was done in Handbrake, i put the 1.87gb video file into Toast 8 under DVD video. I'm using a Macbook with 2ghz intel core 2 duo and 2 gb or ram with 10.5.2. Im also using an external superdrive w/ DL dvd's.(I dont know if the dual layer media or the external drive would make a difference for Toast 8 titanium's encoding time or not.) As i was encoding, on the Best quality for Toast, and best write speed, the encoding was taking an incredibly long time. I timed it actually, it came out to be 6 minutes for every 1 percent. This would come to about a 12 hour encode. Is this normal for the quality i am burning or the media and hardware I'm using? Just curious, its a lot of time for one dvd.

p.s.- Is there a preset in Toast or Handbrake that will change size to fit any screen or projector without losing quality? i put a dvd i burned with Handbrake and Toast into the player, and it lost quality and still wouldn't fit to the full or even widescreen? Am i doing something wrong? or am i just dumb?

[hab]

You need to reexamine your workflow - the short answer is that you do not use HandBrake to create DVDs. DVDs are MPEG-2. My guess is that you are using HandBrake to encode the DVD to MPEG-4(H.264). Then, it appears you use Toast to make the DVD which will have to reencode the MPEG-4 video back to MPEG-2 - that is what takes the time as well as result in poor quality due to the encoding reencoding steps. Simpler and much faster to use MacTheRipper and then Toast the DVD directly (using the Video-TS folder as the source).

[live4lax364]

by using the Video-Ts folder as the source, i get the whole video, including audio? previews and menu's dont really matter either, but if I use the Video Ts folder as the source in Mac The Ripper, i will get an MPEG-2 video file, which will have better quality, the whole video, with sound? and it will encode in Toast 8 alot faster?

win win situation, is this all true?

[silver]

Yup your workflow doesn't sound right. So if I read right, your trying to make a copy of a DVD?

If that's what your trying to do use these steps for a very good copy with all the menus and right video:

1. Rip DVD with MacTheRipper. (get the one on the boards here)

2. If you want to fit the output of MacTheRipper onto 1 SL DVD then you'll have to use DVD2OneX to shrink to size. If you plan on burning a DL DVD then forgo DVD2OneX.

3. You can set up DVD2OneX to burn the output for you, or have it save a image file. If you don't burn with DVD2OneX then just take the resulting image file into Toast, make sure your in the Copy section-image file.

4. Wait for Toast to finish then play in your stand alone DVD player.

With this workflow I can rip and burn a complete DVD(Menus and all) in about 20 to 30 minutes.


Cheers

[live4lax364]

Originally Posted by silver 

1. Rip DVD with MacTheRipper. (get the one on the boards here)

I must have misunderstood, but is there a link on the forum for a correct or better version of Mac the Ripper? I have Mac The Ripper version 2.6.6? Is this fine?

--Thanks

[live4lax364]

I ran my DVD through Mac The Ripper, and it gave me a folder of my dvd containing:
1.autorun.inf
2.a folder named "config"
3.DVD SPECIAL FEATURES.exe
4. a folder named "JACKET_P"
5.and a "VIDEO_TS" FOLDER

i tried to select this folder in the copy section under "disc image" in Toast 8. I dont have a problem with size. I couldnt figure out how to actually burn this to dvd?


P.S.-how's the quality of MacTheRipper? is it almost identical to the DVD, a litte bit worse? or what? comments please.

[silver]

Sorry about the mix up earlier. Yes the quality is the same, the quality does go down when you use DVD2OneX as it has to compress the video to fit on 1 SL Disc. You can find DVD2OneX at Macupdate.com.

Remember the size of the file from MacTheRipper is going to be the same size as the Original file so if the Original is 7+ gigs then the output file from MacTheRipper will be the same and can only be burned to a DL Disc.

Again Toast doesn't do everything you'll have to use a few software to:

1. Rip file.
2. Compress file(for SL Disc).
3. Burn file.

What you should be asking is if the quality is the same after DVD2OneX and the answer is no, there's no way you can compress 7+gigs to fit on a SL Disc without losing quality, what will happen is that you'll end up with a DVD that's a grade or 2 lower than DVD quality.


Cheers

[silver]

By the way if your using Toast 9, then there's a known problem when trying to burn a VIDEO_TS folder. Roxio has been informed on the issue and said that this will be fixed in the next update to Toast 9.

Not to sure if Toast 8 is effected by the VIDEO_TS problem.

Also if you should be just dragging your VIDEO_TS folder to the VIDEO_TS section in the DVD tab in Toast not the whole folder with the AUDIO_TS, JACKET_P and other stuff. Just the VIDEO_TS folder.


Cheers

[live4lax364]

Alright, so i went to Toast 8. I then went to the Video section and then the DVD section. I dragged just my VIDEO_TS folder in, and it said, "10 files are in an unsupported format and cannot be imported." I then checked the running time on the DVD and the files all together in Toast 8. I was missing about 40 minutes of video. Do you think i ripped it wrong? Am i burning it in the wrong section?

--Thanks

[silver]

Your almost there.

There could be a problem with the files MacTheRipper made for you. Try to re-rip it again.

Also what version of MacTheRipper are you using? also are you on Leopard? if so you might wan't to upgrade to Toast 8.0.3 as earlier versions didn't work well with Leopard.

[DewD]

All you need to drag into the Toast 7/8/9 window is the Video_TS folder. That's it. No .exe files , Jackets, Extras or whatever
The Audio _TS is usually superfluous , too and will be created anyway ( with 0 bytes).

By the way , Toast does a fine job of automatically compressing larger ripped video files to fit on single layer standard disks. No need for DVD2One or the hideously expensive one-trick pony DVDRemaster. It does take a while, though ...maybe half an hour to transcode down to 4.5 GB from a 7 Gb MTR rip. I always recommend that the Mac doing this not be running any other applications at the time...just let it do its video burn thing solo since it takes a lot of processor to code video, and don't be tempted to confuse your Mac. I have two G4 Macs and can always free up one to be the Toast-er while I'm working away on the other. In fact , I invested in a cheap old "retired" eMac 1Ghz and got an OtherWorldComputing external FireWire 20X DVD burner ( Pioneer 112 drive inside) for less than $ 100.00 to pretty much do video burns. Very cost effective

Finally , I've been using a version of Mac the Ripper that's version 3.0 , not v 2.x
It's never failed to rip any DVD I loaded into it . Never.
I can't remember where I got it, though.

[live4lax364]

Im using MacTheRipper 2.6.6, and ill look at the Toast 8 update. Ill get back to you if there's any change.

[live4lax364]

I updated to Toast 8 Titanium v. 8.0.4. This went well, i dragged the VIDEO_TS folder into the dvd video section of Toast, and they all went in fine. until i tried to burn it, then it gave me a message that said: "The TV standard is currently set to PAL, but all your content is in NTSC format. Do you want to write an NTSC disc or re-encode all content to PAL? ---Re-encode can take a long time, but it may be required for the disc to play on your PAL DVD player."

and this is where i got stumped, was the formatting in my MacTheRipper rip?


Any help here?

--Thanks

[silver]

All DVD's come in either NTSC(for USA,Japan,Canada) or PAL(standard for the rest of the world). Some DVD players can play both. Are you trying to burn a PAL disc or NTSC one?

Also note that you can change the TV standard in the Toast preference under Audio & Video. Try that and see what happens.

[live4lax364]

I dont know the difference between PAL and NTSC. But I could try to find out what my dvd player(s) can play. ill get back to you soon.

[live4lax364]

Ok, i looked up 2 of my most used DVD players, and i used the find feature in safari on specifications, overview, features and such, and i couldnt find anything relating to PAL or NTSC on the websites. I even browsed them myself and couldnt find too much. Would your next suggestion be to just try burning a DVD without re-encoding to test it? and if that doesnt work should i try re-encoding? or what?


DVD players:

[URL="http://www.onkyousa.com/model.cfm?m=DV-SP404&class=DVD&p=i"[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langI d=-1&productId=11038348"[/URL]


I dont know if that helps, but those are the dvd players. Ill let you know if anything changes.

[live4lax364]

I tried to just record the dvd in NTSC format, it started "multiplexing" the first chapter, or "VTS_01" and when it finished that step, it gave me this message.

"Could not record the disc because of a Mac OS X error. Error code=-39"

and stopped. Do you think re-encoding would work? and if so, whats the point in using MacTheRipper and that whole new process if it would still have to be re-ripped? Any advice?

--Thanks

[live4lax364]

Nevermind, i figured it out, Turns out i was burning the VIDEO_TS folder in the "DVD video" section of Toast 8. I noticed there was a "VIDEO_TS Folder" section, and thought id try it, and it worked great! but now i know to use MacTheRipper for faster rips. Thanks!