[Neversoft]

Okay I am doing a school project about music videos as a form of entertainment medium (i know boring) and was wondering if you could all help me out. Because its a multimedia class I would like to use a very high resolution format. So I dug through the net and found a few 720p H.264 (all together they total about 3GB) music videos I would like to burn. The problem is my schools macs are all macpros with just a dvd drive. So here are my questions:

1. Am I able to take these videos and burn them to a regular DVD in Toast and preserve the resolution?
2. I heard that it is indeed possible but I should use a UDF format; What is that?
3. Would it work in a standard up-converting DVD player?

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

[Heyoka_Happiness]

To answer you question an UDF is a DVD-ROM Disc. But first you need an valid VIDEO_TS folder to burn. You can create one in toast but it'll compress it to fit on a standard definition DVD. You'll only be able to play that DVD on a computer.(I think)

H.264 is not an standard definition DVD codec it is an HD codec. Make sure first the DVD player you are using will in fact play an H.264 DVD. Most newer models will play H.264 along with MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, and so on. Check your specs on the DVD player.

You might have better luck with MP4 codec?
An up-converting DVD player that supports the codec (e.g. MP4) , resolution (e.g. 720p), and bit-rate (e.g. 4mbps), a high-definition cable (component, DVI, HDMI), and high-def TV (display resolution 1280x720 or greater).
.

Most standard everyday DVD players will only play MPEG-2 videos encoded to the official DVD specifications. It has nothing to do with progressive scan DVD players.

Are your videos in some kind of video editing software?

You really need an DVD authoring application.

[Neversoft]

So basically what would look the best? Should I still burn it as UDF? The files I have are H.264 so if I need to convert them will Toast do that? Its all new to me so sorry if these questions are dumb.

[Heyoka_Happiness]

No your questions aren't dumb.

H.264 is just a codec. It is used for compression.

What are your files? .MOV? .FLV?

What is the size of you clips? 640 x 480 ? 320 x 240 ?

If you can open then in quicktime and hit command>I it will give you all this information.

Toast will not convert them.

What your files are (.mov etc.) is not as important as the size (320 x 240). If they are small then they will not look very good blown up to an 720 resolution. It's much easier to go down then up in size.

What are you working on? (your computer?)

[Neversoft]

The files are .mkv and they are already at 720 resolution or a bit smaller. The ones I have are 1280x720 but two are like 1080x554. My goal is to fit them on a standard DVD which should be possible because they all total less then 4.7GB.

EDIT: I am on a 2.2 ghz Macbook pro with 128GB 8600GT.

[Heyoka_Happiness]

So all your videos are in MKV container?

Are you using VLC to view them?

[Neversoft]

No i am using quicktime but I had to download a codec (perian) for them to work.

[albloom]

Heck, Everhard, try it. Select Toast's Video/DVD-Video. Drag the flicks into
Toast's main window. Toast will tell you if it will choke on the format. Look
to the "gas gauge" around the big red button on the bottom right. It doesn't
matter how big or small the source files are. What matters is the size of the
files Toast converts them to. Do set the output to SL or DL so the "gas
gauge" represents the size of the disc you will output to.

[Heyoka_Happiness]

albloom is right you can burn it like that. Your files are only 3GB. A SD DVD is 4.3GB.

[Neversoft]

so they will preserve the resolution as well as work in most DVD players?

[Heyoka_Happiness]

Neversoft said:

so they will preserve the resolution as well as work in most DVD players?

As long as the DVD player will play H.264 movies. Thats is an codec used for blu ray DVD. Burn one and test it out on the DVD player.

You will be burn exactly what you see on the computer screen.