[MacDV] Re: More than 90 minutes

[Preston]

I looked at Roxio.com for the answer to your 90min question and found nothing.
But I did read this from another thread (Re: Burn DVDs using iMovie3, 
2 Macs, and Panther) that I think answers your question. Nothing DV 
over 90min can be done in Toast6.
-Preston
-----------------------------------

Just for gits and shiggles, I created a burnable image with Toast 6
shortly after I got it. I wanted to compare the results with those
achieved using other tools (iDVD, ffmpegX, Sizzle, etc).

Toast's menu structure is pretty simplistic -- pretty much what you get
with a standalone DVD-R unit like the Panasonic: 3 buttons per screen,
up to three lines of text for each button. Additionally, there are only
two encodings: Standard and High -- essentially the 90 minute and 60
minute CBR encodings found in iDVD, respectively.

If you don't need a menu structure, ffmpegX is the clear choice for me.
I just feed it the reference movie, choose the DVD preset, make any
tweaks I want such as one- or two-pass VBR, and let it rip. Out the
other end comes a DVD img file, all set for burning with Toast.

For a menu structure, Sizzle gives you some options. It isn't nearly as
easy to use as iDVD, nor as capable, but it's pretty decent for
"non-motion" menus. The downside here is that you still need a MPEG-2
encoder to create the input files Sizzle will work with. Sizzle also
produces image files all set to burn with Toast.

Suffice it to say that I bit the bullet and purchased a copy of DVD
Studio Pro 2. Simple stuff where length isn't an issue still gets done
in iDVD3. Movies that don't need a menu structure get done with ffmpegX
and Toast. More advanced projects (more than 90 minutes, for example,
with menus) get DVDSP.

I just don't want to pound nails with a screwdriver or use a hammer on
screws ;)

By the way, all of the above gets done on a 15" iMac 800 with
SuperDrive, so I sacrificed some speed to put the money into software.

-- 
Dennis R. Cohen