Hello, Does anyone know if Toast will accept any MPEG files besides ones made with Astarte M.Pack software? Is there a shareware program that will convert Quicktime to MPEG that Toast will accept? There must be some Mac software to do this for under $4

-- mike (clemgraph@aol.com), January 28, 2000

Answers

Unfortunately I don't have an answer to that question, but I'm also desperately looking for a posibility to burn a Quicktime MPEG File to Video CD. In my opinion, M.Pack delivers very poor quality MPEG-1 Files. I tried Media Cleaner 4.0 with the MPEG-1 CD setting (using the Heuris MPEG codec), an the MPEG file had much better quality, but I also don't know how to write that file to a Video CD (toast doesn't accept it).

-- keeluu (keeluu@yahoo.de), March 18, 2000.

I don't think a shareware exists for Mac, but there is a Canadian company that sells a package that encodes to MPEG-1 from Quicktime and includes VCD authoring -- all for $250. But you have to buy a CDRW drive from their short list; and their CDRW drives are all SCSI. The product is called InternetDisc Macintosh Personal Version. They;'re at:

http://www.netviewdisc.com/authoring.html

On another page of the same website, they list just a VCD authoring program if you already have MPEG-1; BUT, that webpage is "Under Construction" and doesn't give any price. It's here:

http://www.netviewdisc.com/software.html

I haven't used these, but they look interesting. If anyone has used them, please let us know what you think.

-- Harry (maxchef123@yahoo.com), March 26, 2000.

Mike -

You can buy a PC cheaper than it would cost to buy the software on a Mac. Media Cleaner should be able to do it, but it can't unless you buy something from Terran called Heuris MPEG Power Professional. Retail $499-$1,499 depending on what you want to do.

For all you Media Cleaner users who seem perplexed by Toast incompatibilities, I found the answer on page 233 of the Media Cleaner manual.

"In order for MPEG streams to be accepted by Adaptec Toast, certain non-standard information needs to be added to the file." Ouch.

-- shayne (shayneb@home.com), April 17, 2000.

Cleaner 5 (formerly Media Cleaner 4) can create VCD files for Toast. This is from Page 217 of the Cleaner 5 PDF Manual.

Adaptec Toast support for Video CD (Mac OS only) In order for MPEG streams to be accepted by Adaptec Toast to create a Video CD, certain non-standard information must be added to the MPEG file. To make files intended for inclusion on a Video CD being authored with Toast, check the Compatible with Toast Video CD option in the Output tab of the Advanced Settings window. NOTE: The additional information required by Toast is not part of the MPEG specification. Do not use this feature unless you intend to author a Video CD with Toast.

-- Marc Schmittroth (cyberfactory@geocities.com), November 08, 2000.

Thank the Saints for this ice storm. I'm so burned that I was cruising the board for some info.

I have been using Cleaner to make mpegs cause I like the quality better than M.Pack. and I wanted to try using the mpegs for VCDs (I'd been using M.Pack and they are decent). and I was thinking that it is impossible.

But it sounds like maybe it isn't. I have v5 and I'm going to try this when I finish loading the Christmas footage of my daughter (2 years old, what a riot).

-- Arcadia (ufolover@swbell.net), December 26, 2000.

Hey, adaptec toast is being produced by a new compant called Roxio, they have a new version of toast in the making its called titanium, i managed to get a hold of it and its not gunna be out for a year or so, it works perfect, and best of all it burns any type of mpeg stream as a vcd, you can encode to mpeg with almost any program and it will accept the file, it also comes with a plugin for quicktime and imovie to convert any file type to vcd compliant file, if you want this software e mail me at yem_34@yahoo.com and ill send it to u.

-- JW (yem_34@hotmail.com), January 30, 2001.