Hello fellow Mac users,

I have (and use) Toast Titanium 5 for Mac. So far, I've mostly burned Audio CD's. I have burned a couple of Video CD's and man, does that take forever. I have some .mpg, .mpeg, .avi, .mov (<----- fixes of some of the .avi's). I want to put some of these on a Video CD.

Now, Toast needs to encode them which is what takes forever. Do any of you know of another program or way to get them onto a Video CD faster?

Thanks for any input.

Bummer...

Thanks, Peerless.

No, of course you didn't waste my time. I don't think Nero has a Mac version. I think I looked at them for something...

I have .mpg and .avi. Both need to be encoded which is what takes forever. It's like 10 minutes for 1 minute of video. It's too bad it can't be like .mp3's ~ quick! Oh well. Maybe someday... For now, I'll just have to start one at night and let it go. Or when I'm going to be away from the computer for a while ~ a LONG while!

Thanks, bpmax, for the research and reply. I'll just have to use what I've got!


Peerless -

Yeah! Really, really long cables! My TV is nowhere near my computer. Although, I do have the ATI Video Player, so that I could watch TV on the computer and the main reason was to hook my VCR to the computer so that I could (try to) convert some VHS movies to CD, but again, that takes a long time. I first have to record the video and then it again has to be encoded in order to burn to disc.

Blah Blah Blah - I'm rambling now...

Anyway, hooking the computer up to the TV is not really an option.

I'll work with what I've got and hope for something quicker in the near future... C'mon techies!!!

Well you could get a new fast computer, but in place in that there's a few things you could try. I don't think a single one of these suggestions will make a big difference but doing everything you can should cut some time off encoding. First you want the source data optimized. Defrag the disk the movies are on to ensure that the file in is one big chunk and is quicker to read. Next, you want the drive your movies are on to be as fast as possible. If you have multiple drives you can test for the fastest one.

Now the connection between the source (video) and the destination, the CD. It would be ideal if your hard drive and burner were on the same bus (ATA, SCSI, FireWire, etc.). That way the data doesn't have to jump too far and get slowed down. Also, internal buses are generally faster than external buses so it would help if the source and target are physically inside your computer.

The burner application may have buffer settings to increase to give a fuller supply of encoded data. Through software you can give Toast more memory, quit other applications and trim active extensions.

Thanks, efield.

I have a G4 dual 450 processor. I think that's pretty fast. I have two internal hard drives. One is the original 20 (or 30) GB. Don't know the speed off the top of my head. The new one is 40 GB, 7200 RPM. I have an external Yamaha CD burner connected by firewire. Burning doesn't take much time. Just the encoding of video. I have defragged my disks. (Optimized with Disk Warrior. I think that's the same thing.)

I really appreciate the input. I'm not really looking to save a few minutes, I'm looking to save a few hours... But, oh well... Maybe in the future it'll be faster.

nero was made for mac. until a few months ago the main website actually stated a new mac version would be forthcoming. i just checked and noticed there is no longer any mention of a mac version anywhere on the site.

if you search a bit you'll find 2 diff mac versions of nero. there's a ver 1.1.7 and a ver 1.5.8 floating around diff places.

i have tried to get nero to burn vcd's on numerous occassions with little success. it was painfully slow, completely tied up the comp and usually failed the burn at the very end. i would not recommend it. dedicate a comp to running ASTARTE M.Pack and you'll be better off. then just drag to toast

just try Mediacleaner it´s the fastest way i konow !