Compressor Creating A Movie File Bigger Than DVD-R Capacity?
 

I recently exported a 2 hr and 9 minute movie through Final Cut's Compressor, slightly padding the image and selecting the 150 Minute Best Quality option. However, the file appears to be too big and when I drop the file in Toast (along with its accompanying .ac3) a message pops up that reads "There is nothing to record, please add more data."

I have compressed and burned this project before and there has been no problem. Could it be due to the padding?

I have also tested the individual files: the sound plays from beginning to end through VLC and the movie stream plays completely in MPEG Streamclip.

Any ideas or suggestions? I'm really at a loss here...

May sound a little basic, but did you try to restart? I've had comps get a little wonky after long renders.

The size should be more than fine, of course you can just look at the file info to get the file size.

Did you try popping it in iDVD or DVDPro?

I just did a 2 hour video with the 120 min preset in compressor, but bumped up the bit rate a bit, had 7 menus, and a 7 minute special features & it all fit fine. I did have to scrap the DVD transitions to get it to fit though.

Bitrate After All
 

I'm pretty sure my problem is the bitrate actually. It seems that it may have been bumped up way too far. I'll be adjusting that and will report back if it makes any difference.

If the file was too large you wouldn't be getting the "nothing to record" error, you'd get an "oversized" error.

These types of apparent import mismatches happen often on systems that don't get routine maintenance done. Download and run all the maintenance/cleaning routines in Onyx (it's free, get the version that matches your OS version), chances are you'll be fine after that. Assuming you didn't create a file larger than the DVD-5/9 spec will hold.

Bitrate After All
 

It was the bitrate. It got bumped up while going through Compressor, making the file HUGE. I suppose that Toast just doesn't acknowledge files too large for its program. Now everything is burning just fine.

You've dropped an m2v and ac3 file directly into Toast?
I wouldn't have thought that would work to create a DVD.

I'd use those assets to make a disc image in DVDSP, then burn that to UDF data format in Toast.

Or just drag the original quicktime into Toast and let it encode for you, not the best, but it works.

Here is the problem, most likely you are using a setting that is for a DVD Dual Layer disk 8.5gigs instead of a single layer disk 4.7gigs. Within compressor there are 2 "best quality" options, one is to fit on an 8.5 gig disk and the other is for a 4.7 gig disk.

If you buy at the store the Dual Layer DVDR disk's it will burn and fit fine on it. Problem solved.