FCP X to DVD or BD problem via Toast Titanium 11

[John Nantz]

I've been having a heck of a problem trying to burn a DVD or BD via Toast 11, and I'm talking really basic stuff here.

System: Mac Pro 1,1 2.66 GHz with video card upgrade, OS 10.7.5 Lion, FCPX 10.0.6, Toast 11 (current update) with Blu-ray plug-in.

1. Disk Image
Researched creating a Disk Image of the Project and found what seemed like a good step-by-step procedure at Ripple Training but it is for the earlier version of FCPX, not ".6" because the menu has changed. (Arrrrrgh!). File>New>Blank Disk Image no longer exists. Question: Where did it go? Deleted? Apple doesn't want anyone to burn to a DVD or BD?

2. Tried burning to a BD in FCPX but can't figure out how to do it.

3. Got Toast Titanium 11 and can't figure out how to import my Project into Toast partly because I don't know what the rendered file is saved as. I've imported the clips and burned a DVD with them but they naturally don't have all the titles and transitions that the edited project has.

Can anyone help me with just getting a Project into Toast? Once there I think burning a BD shouldn't be that bad.

For what it's worth, Corel/Roxio has got to have the worst support available. Also, I printed appropriate pages of the "Toast Titanium 11 User Guide" so references to any pages there works.

One more thing: Should mention that the primary reason for doing a Disk Image was to burn the DVD or BD so, for the moment, if there is a workflow to get to the end result without creating a Disk Image than that's okay because I can save learning about that process for another day.

[William Hohauser]

Have you tried to save your project as a master file in Share? That will give you a simple QuickTime to drop into Toast. I haven't tried it recently but the previous versions of FCPX allowed me to make disc images of DVDs or BDs by choosing that option where the optical drives are listed when you export to DVD or BD.

[Craig Seeman]

Unless you've changed the Project settings it would usually export as ProRes 422.
You do know you can check an exported file in Quicktime X Window/Show Movie Inspector don't you?

I'm not sure what the issue is with exporting (Sharing) to Blu-ray in FCPX 10.0.6. File/Share/Add Destination then add Blu-ray. What's going wrong?

[John Nantz]

Update:

After reading the posts I tried finding out more about disk images and saving as a Master File. I had read something earlier (before my original post) about some cautions, I think, with regard to one or the other, or both. Something like "can't be undone" and one or two other things. However, I couldn't find where I read that.

In the meantime (work on this is slow due to life interruptions) I made backups of the Event and Project folders on both computers and backed up FCPX on one computer. After that, it was easy to bring FCPX up to the newest update 10.0.7. So that's where I am now, both computers have ".7" and I re-rendered a number of video files.

The next step is .... to figure out what the next step is. I have probably videos in various stages of editing that need burning and archiving but I'd really like to package a group of the early ones and put them on a disk then delete all their files. To do this the disk would really need a menu and I've never done that before so that's another thing to learn. Things that I need to learn include:

1. how to reset the resolution on a video. I've got one that was shot at 1440CBR and the file properties show it's resolution is something in the 400 range (~480?). It has some still photos incorporated in the edit. One of my early videos (and I presume others but haven't checked) has this problem so this is holding me up with going to the next step.

2. how to make a menu,

3. then how to burn a group of videos with a menu on a disk with Toast. I've burned one disk with some video clips but never a video with titles, transitions, etc. using Toast. I've burned disks with videos without Toast.

Because there are a number of more recent videos that I really need to get started on, what I'd like to do is get a bunch of the old ones done, finished, and .... off .... my ..... computer! As expeditiously as possible.

As for the Master File and Disk Image, I'd still like to learn about these but I'd really like to get some of this "junk" off the computer. Pardon my calling it that, it's just that I'm getting tired of looking at it.

the "simple QuickTime and drop it into Toast" sounds very appealing, though.

As for "what's going wrong" ... I wish I knew. That's one of the things I've got to work on.
______________________________

Edit: Bingo! Think I figured out the solution to my first problem. To change the Project Properties resolution, go to the Project Properties window and in the lower right corner there is a little wrench. Clicked on that and another window opens up. In it one can change the resolution.

It's likely that I had a low setting on the original export so that it would have a small file on Vimeo so the upload time would be less. In any event, now I can get videos on the same DVD or BR to have the same resolution, assuming of course, that the original file will allow me to do that.

Edit #2: Dragging the Project file from Finder into Toast doesn't work. Dragging the entire Project floder into Toast doesn't work either. Looks like I'm into trying to figure out QuickTime, Master File, Disk Image, or something like that. Isn't learning fun???

[John Nantz]

Another update; you might call this Edit #3:

Wa-hoo! Let me re-phrase that. WA-HOO!

Exported (saved) three video files to the desktop then imported them into Toast, created a DVD disk menu with a disk title and individual Project titles, then burned the whole thing to a DVD in 16:9 format. Played it back on the computer and on the Sony DVD/BD player and, quality-wise (resolution) on a big-screen TV, the videos looked really good.

After watching the videos, though, I can see where there are places that need further editing. There are areas where the volume needs to be kicked up a bit and a few pictures that were imported into the timeline that probably need a couple more seconds of time.

In the future I'll have to find a way to equalize the volume throughout the DVD so that one video isn't much different from the next.

The quality setting was at 1080i for all the Projects.

One problem: The menu controls don't function quite like it should on either the computer or the TV. At least it seems to be consistently different from what I'd like. One should be able to press "Menu" and get the DVD menu but instead it goes to the beginning of the Project. Maybe that's the way it should be, I don't know. This is a never-ending job of figuring out how to get everything to work right.

Hopefully in another month I'll look back on this and it'll be "old hat."

[Bill Tsolakidis]

You know this reminds me of when I first started burning DVDs. I must have wasted an entire cake of DVDs on trial and error. And this time I'm half way through an 25 pack of BD-Rs. I cant get them to work properly.

I've got a 27" iMac mid-2011, 3.4 GHz i7 with 16GB RAM and 2GB GPU. FCPX 10.0.7 flies on OSX 10.8.2

My workflow shooting 1080p footage at 29.97 fps importing the AVCHD, H.264 Codecs

Editing the 1.5 hour long project at about 22GB on my timeline and then Share exporting to a Blu-ray, with my Samsung SE-506BB, and a blank TDK BD-R waiting in the drive.

The result was an error saying there isnt enough space on my boot volume. Although there are over 500GB available on my Macintosh HD.

I then tried creating an image (4 hours of rendering) saving it to the desktop and burning it with my registered copy of Toast 11, popped it in my LG BP125 set top Bluray player....and it just spits out the disc. When I play it on my external Samsung drive (above) with this "Blu-Ray Player" from the app store its as if there is not enough cache on the drive to handle the data..... ;( its choppy

I also updated the drivers on my Samsung drive.

What to do??????

[Bill Tsolakidis]

--Just burned a 2:38 minute clip to a Blu-ray directly out of the share menu in FCPX from the same mentioned project. Burn complete. But the DVD doesn't work in my LG BP125. Harry Potter that I bought works fine.

[William Hohauser]

Make sure your computer doesn't go to sleep during the process. I have found that some of the processes involved in the burning of BRs or DVDs do not register with the Energy Saver preferences and the computer will go to sleep. This can be controlled in the System Preferences menu.

Try exporting a full ProRes file out of FCPX and importing it into Toast and let Toast render and burn the BR. This might take a long time. If this doesn't work then there is something wrong with your BlueRay burner. If it does work then there is something wrong with your install of FCPX.

A couple of questions: how much RAM do you have installed and are you burning to quality BlueRay blanks?

[Bill Davis]

i had a client requrest DVDs for their trade show yesterday. They ordered 4 of them. I tried to reason with them, but he woman in charge was adamant that that's what she needed for their trade show and wouldn't listen to anything else.

So I shrugged and dug up some dusty DVD banks took the 20 minutes to burn them directly out of the FCP-X Share menu. Rooted around more and found some plastic cases and padded mailers - and had Linda drive them to Fed-EX where she spent about $60 of the clients money to overnight them to the location where they'll be used early next week.

While she was driving to Fed-EX, I emailed my contact at the show. While chatting with him, I uploaded the original file to my Vimeo Pro account, the guy who's actually showing the videos at the trade show got to select between 3 resolutions, downloaded the file - tested it on his computer - and confirmed he's good to go.

I suspect he had the finished video work in hand and was checking it off his "to do" list about the time Linda was pulling up at the Fed Ex office three miles from my studio.

DVDs as a video distribution media is technologically DEAD. But it's truly amazing just how many people can't accept that yet.

They CONSUME video on Netflix, or YouTube, or via iTMS, or all day long via direct download on their computers - but somehow get stuck and think that the ONLY way to deploy it for business it is to burn it to plastic.

It's just so amazingly weird.