I'm a Mac user and need to know what software is available for converting my movie files to MPEG. I'm trying to create a full screen Video CD using Toast but get an error message saying that the file is 'too small' or 'not a multiple of 2354' Can you tell me what this means?

Thanks.

-- Clem (kleo@one.net.au), April 15, 2001

Answers

Media Cleaner 5.0 by Terran sells for around $500 and is easy to use. Also there is a cd video recorder which I have ordered but haven't recieved yet that records video in real time to cd and is MPEG 1 but the frame size is something like 352 X 240. Hopefully I know next week what quality it i

-- Carolisa (summitvideo@aol.com), April 15, 2001.

If you use iMovie, buy Toast 5 Titanium. It converts your movie to VCD compliant format and burn VCD. Cost about $99 ( $60 discounted ).

-- Kiam Oey (kiam.t.oey@yahoo.com), April 16, 2001.

I bought Toast 5 and tried making a vcd (using a Quicktime file I outputted through iMovie). The result looked like crap. Dark, with crap all over the screen. I am wondering if it's the fault of Toast's encoding ofthe quicktime into mpeg, or if it's from iMovie poorly encoding the dv source into quicktime. Unfortunately, I don't have iMovie 2 (my computer came with a Japanese version of iMovie 2, which refuses to work with the Toast extensions). Would switching to Final Cut Pro or Premiere might create a better quality quicktime or mpeg file?

-- tom c (woobby@yahoo.com), April 20, 2001.

I bought Toast Titanium to burn VCDs using iMovie 2.0.3. It worked fine for a music video, but when I burned my vacation footage, the audio went out of sync when played back on my Apex DVD player. I'm wondering if the frame rate (29.9fps) is outstripping the audio, which might be still running at 24fps. Needless to say, this stinks. I've gotten no response from Roxio on this topic. I'm planning on trying it out on a friend's DVD player. I've heard the memory in the Apex isn't enough to handle the decompression.

-- Akio (ajstribling@lycos.com), April 21, 2001.

I use Toast 5 on the Mac for making VCDs although I export form premiere (due to capture card) and then drop the file onto toast for toast to convert. I asume that teh others are exporting from iMove with the toast extension. It's worked fine for me it just take so dame long.

-- Steven Whiteley (stevewhiteley@btinternet.com), May 04, 2001.

Hi, not a contribution I'm afraid, but another call for help :)

I have a whole load of digital pictures taken with my Olympus digital camera and I would like to arrange these onto a VideoCD for playback as a slideshow/digital photoalbum on my DVD player (yes it supports VCD). I have a dual processor G4 running OS 9.04 with Toast 4.1 for CD burning. I also have an 8mm Sony TRV video camera which I can hook up to my other 'AV' Mac 9500. I would like to add video with sound and title screens to my VCD if possible, but the still images are the most important! Can anyone offer me advice or suggestions on how to go about this?

many thanx

dean.

-- Dean Heighington (deano@yesits.freeserve.co.uk), May 29, 2001.

Still with a Mac onto a VCD.

1. Start with iMovie 2. Import the images (you can import a full folder of pictures at a time). Each will default to 10 seconds in duration. 3. Add soundtrack or voice annotation 4. Save as quicktime Toast VCD. finished

-- James Field (jfield@mac.com), August 30, 2001.

Are you sure the file you used isn't protected? QuickTime can have Macrovision embedded in it, this causes the blocking the darkness is caused by the Macrovision and your encoder the files need to be cleaned with a de-interlacer. I tried some files from the internet and dicovered they had protection coding, you have to demux the file to DV and remux the sound and save it as a QuickTime movie then I used a program called Movie to Mpeg to encode. Then I used VCD Gear to fix any problems. finally I created a VCD with Toast Titanium. You can tweak the color and contrast with Adobe YUV and Color filters.

-- Vidiot. (kirkland@onemain.com), March 07, 2002.