Questions about Roxio Toast 20

Had a chance to try a couple of other things. Of the two other 4K authoring titles I found, one only worked in Windows. The other did work, but it was worse than Toast. It didn't crash, but it had even fewer controls and did dumb things like breaking every single chapter marker it found into a separate video that ran only as long as the next chapter marker.

Went back to Toast 20. As long as I used Classic mode, I could create a 4K disk no problem. And it automatically picked up the chapter markers in the source MP4s, without making a chapter page. But the color didn't hold, even though the clips are already in the Rec. 709 color space and MP4 encoding. All three shorts clips I used had the saturation boosted.

Most annoying, I couldn't stop Toast from re-encoding the clips, even though I specifically chose Never.

During output, it encodes each clip anyway.

What doesn't it like? I haven't figured it out yet. I tried using Apple ProRes out of DaVinci Resolve so Toast at least had an actual reason to encode the clips. But the color came out exactly the same as somewhat oversaturated.

Maybe it doesn't like that my MP4s are H.265. I'll try H.264 next and see what it does. And whatever else I can think of until it just copies the clips into the BDMV folder (as Adobe's Encore did) instead of re-encoding it.

But at least I have a tool that works, if I need to make a Blu-ray disk. Otherwise, I'll just keep using MP4s.

Since Toast 11 is nine versions back, I normally wouldn't even consider buying it. You list 10.14 in your tag line, so that Mac just qualifies for Toast 20:

• Requires macOS 10.14 (64-bit), macOS 10.15, macOS 11.0, macOS Monterey 12.0, macOS Ventura 13.3 or macOS Sonoma

I had the Adobe Master Collection for years. Mostly for the purpose of being able to handle anything a client sent me for prepress work (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat Pro). But since I had them, I also used Premiere Pro, Encore and other titles mostly for my own use.

As I'm guessing you know, the CS6 suite was the last to include Encore, and the entire thing became useless after Mojave when only 64 bit apps would be supported. Then we got M series Macs to replace our Intel 2018 minis and the CS6 suite became totally unusable. Sold all of my older boxed Adobe software on eBay and transferred the licenses to the new owner.

I'm getting to a point. 🙂 I mostly let the CS6 suite and Encore go because it wouldn't do a resolution higher than 1920 x 1080 HD, and I wanted to be able to do 4K.

I've had versions of Toast for years, but never used it to assemble any videos. I did that all in CS6 and used Encore to output final VIDEO_TS folders for DVDs, and BDMV folders for Blu-ray. All Toast was for was to burn the completed folders to disk.

I searched for quite a while to find authoring software like Encore that would do 4K video. It is out there, but is crazy expensive as it's targeted to video production studios. We're talking 3 to 5 grand for the software.

If you check the sales figures of DVDs and Blu-ray disks, you'll see it's down, way down from even 5 years ago. Yes, you can still buy disks for just about anything you can think of, but that's only because it's worth a studio's time to create these disks for the millions of set top players still out there, and not everyone has access to high speed internet, or the internet at all to stream TV shows and movies. Otherwise, they wouldn't bother and streaming would be your only choice.

So, what to do? I went with the flow and stopped creating disks altogether. I started with the free version of DaVinci Resolve and made a 4K test video, output as an MP4. Dropped that onto a flash drive and plugged it into our Sony UHD Blu-ray player. It worked perfectly. No physical disk necessary.

I now do everything as MP4 and don't miss making disks at all. Anyone who wants a copy of a video I've made can just hand me a flash drive to put it on.

I also sprung for the full version of DaVinci Resolve to unlock all of the features. The extra nice thing about Resolve is you only have to buy it once. There are no update or upgrade fees. Once you have it, you keep upgrading for free on your original license. Will they do this forever? Can't say, and it was a bit hard to believe when I read in multiple forums they did that. But when version 19 came out, yup, I upgraded from 18.x to 19.x for no charge.

Well, I don't if I could even do any useful testing for you in Toast 20. It works great for what I normally use it for, which is burning data disks. But video? What a freaking disaster!

This is typical of anything Corel gets its hands on:

1. Add a bunch of features and release a new version as quickly as possible after acquiring a title.
2. Never fix any bugs.
3. Come out with a new version with more "features" shoveled in.
4. Never fix any previous bugs, or any new ones introduced.
5. Keep repeating steps 3 and 4.

I tried, really tried to create a DVD or Blu-ray movie disk. Toast 20 bombed out every time when it was a minute or less into producing my simple layout to disk.

If I use the Classic editor, all you can do is drop images or videos in, and that's what you get. A series of whatever you dropped in with no transitions. No ability to add chapter markers. About all you can do is adjust the run time of still images. It works and will burn a disk, but that's hardly authoring.

In the newer mode, you can set up various selections and add chapter markers - if you can figure out their obtuse layouts. I tried:

1. Dropping in my exported MP4 from DaVinci Resolve.
2. Dropping in an export as an Apple MOV file.
3. Dropping in still images (they have to be JPG or PNG, and under 5 MB in size)
4. Reinstalling Toast 20 from scratch and trying again.

It didn't matter how I tried to build a disk in the advanced layout mode, the app would crash in less than a minute. Starting up into Safe Mode was no better. I had hoped the crashing had something to do with other apps I had running, or daemons and such that load in a normal startup. But no, even in Safe Mode, Toast crashes as quickly as a squirrel trying to drive a semi.

Assembling videos

…because I've archived those files as blu-ray compliant. No encoding is necessary, just assembling.

You already have these done, but was any of the original source actually in HD? Such as, direct digital conversions from the original film? Old footage like that (at least originally) was converted from film to SD, 540 x 480. Making Blu-ray HD out of them is only blurring the footage by scaling it up to 1280 x 720, 1920 x 1080 or higher.

QLab: Ouch! $1199 for a fixed license. I'd need to get some serious paid use out of the app before I would even consider it. DaVince Resolve Studio is only $295. And it easily competes with Adobe and Avid. Assembly, color grading, audio editing, Fusion (motion effects) and output, all in one app.

The friends turn up and it's just like in a cinema.

I don't quite get what you mean. If you're referring to a typical DVD or Blu-ray disk that has buttons for Play, Special Features, or other common video disk choices, I don't see how that has anything to do with going to a cinema/theatre. You get no such choices there. They run whatever they want in any order they want. Usually (nowadays) a slew of ads, followed by a slew of previews, and finally, the movie you paid and showed up for.

You can't assume everyone knows what an Oppo is. I looked up the name and it points to this Chinese company, who do not make any type of video set-top player.

As far as stutter with an MP4? That all depends on the quality of your set-top box. I always use high bit rates on my MP4s, and our Sony UBP-X700 has no trouble at all playing back the videos I create from a USB stick. I did put one on Blu-ray data disk, which is inherently slower than USB, and it still kept up with the decoding.

Mickey Mouse

So, for two reasons, mp4s and computers are not for me. There is always the hassle of the presentation looking mickey-mouse (all that computer junk appearing), or the playback is problematic. I've been there. I've tried it. It doesn't work. I want the feel of being in a cinema.

Now you're using reasons that aren't important. There is no "computer junk" on a USB. All our player shows is the names of any folders I created on the USB stick, and then the names of the videos within the folders. So I have to navigate a couple of items on screen first with the Sony set-top's remote. So what? Will the audience die in the 15 seconds it takes me to choose a video? I'm pretty sure that won't happen.

And do you need M4V? The only difference between M4V and MP4 is Apple's M4V format allows for DRM protection, if you want to use it. Otherwise, they're both MP4 encoding.

It does depend on the brand of player, but ours goes in its own once started. In your example of newsreels, shorts, cigarette ads, and home movies, I could put them in a folder on the USB drive like this:

1 Newsreels.mp4

2 Shorts.mp4

3 Ads.mp4

4 Feature film.mp4

By putting a number at the beginning of the file names I can control the order they will play in. I would select the newsreels video first and let it play. From there, our Sony deck just keeps going without any interaction necessary and will play the other three without stopping, and with no interruption in between. All four will play in a continuous, unbroken manner.

And yes, I can add chapter markers anywhere I want in the timeline while building a video in DaVince Resolve. Still testing to see if the Sony player picks them up.

I'm hoping someone who uses Toast 20 for blu-rays can run a few tests for me.

I have Toast 20. It would be very surprising if there's anything it can't do that Toast 11 can. If anything, there would be more features. I've just never really looked as I don't use it for authoring.

I've been trying to keep my testing stupid simple, but when using the advanced authoring tools, the app bombs out shortly after the progress bar appears.

However! While the newer layout part tries, the idea isn't really about trying to edit and author at the same time in Toast. You can't do any transitions, grading or anything else. So the best method that would work would be to create all of your MP4s ahead of time (the same as using Media Encoder in the Adobe suite) out of your editor before you even start to author anything. Blu-ray is MP4 anyway, so it shouldn't have to re-encode anything before burning the disk. Anyway, then use the Classic layout option to author a disk and bring in your various, pre-built MP4s. I'll test that tomorrow in Toast 20.

I should go into my account and install version 19 to test that. I also spent some time looking up other authoring apps for the Mac. 95% of them only do DVDs. Of those that will also author Blu-ray (besides Toast), they only support up to 1920 x 1080. But I did find one that will do 4K authoring for $90. I'm going to download the trial tomorrow to see how well it works.

If you're feeling rich, there's Scenarist. They don't show the price online, but last I read, it's $30,000. And that's just the authoring app. Oh, and you need a PC. No Mac version.

For any serious videos I usually import my file into iMovie, edit and then export out the file then into Toast to burn to DVD. I do some straight from camera file to Toast for some on my simple videos for my own use. Nothing too complicated so usually have no issues. That being said I have used Toast (various versions) over the years and have had some issues.

Well, there's a deal breaker. I just figured out (by playing back a completed disk in VLC) that Toast is knocking everything down to 1920 x 1080 HD, without telling you it's doing that. That explains the re-encoding.

Their site says Toast will do 4K, but looking around at other forums, many people confirm that no, it doesn't. You end up with HD rather than UHD.

I've actually put quite a bit of info about Toast 20 in this topic. Basically, it's horrible - if you're trying to use the Updated (as they call it) authoring panel.

I've also mentioned trying other apps, and they are, quite simply, worse or only have Windows versions.

Today, I tested doing an output to a folder with Toast 20 instead of to disk to see if that's why it was crashing. But no, just as before, it bombs right at 55% progress every single time. Classic works, but has its own issue of insisting on encoding MP4 clips even if you specifically choose Never under the Reencoding drop down menu.

Since Toast 20 can't do 4K, I also created a new MP4 clip in HD 1920 x 1080 to see if bringing in a 4K clip was why the Updated authoring output was crashing. Still no difference. Crashes at 55%.

But, when I have time, I'll see how many of the questions I can answer in your other topic.

Interesting. I have Toast 19 and no issues making and burning DVD's including Blu-Ray but perhaps you are doing more advanced actions that I do not do.