Why didn't somebody warn me about Toast?
 

Because of skipping problems with Capty DVD (the software included when you buy the LaCie external DVD burner), I purchased Toast 6 for the Mac. The skipping went away but I discovered that chapters can only be set at fixed time intervals from 1 to 10 minutes or automatically at scene breaks. In other words, you can't set chapters at specific points. This really is ridiculous. In a half hour video, I can have over 100 scene breaks where I might only want 1 or 2 chapter markers. And setting them at time intervals seems pointless. The viewer would skip to a scene 10 minutes down the line? In the middle of a scene? Can anyone help with a suggestion other than spending $500 for DVD Studio Pro?

I'm not into the Mac or that software, but that is a common
thing with the cheaper authoring packages. Rediculous, yes.
Solveable with your current package: problably not.

My boo boo. Toast recognizes chapter markers set in iDVD. The problem is that "chapters" are nowhere to be found in the Toast manual and an e mail that notified me of the feature came quite some time after my inquiry. So this is a nice feature - however, you can't set any buttons for the chapters so the user won't know what is being skipped to until the skipping.

Toast sells for $100 and DVD Studio Pro for $500. It would be nice for something inbetween, say DVD Studio Express. Apple did this with Final Cut Express listing for $300 instead of $1000 for Final Cut Pro.

DVD Studio Pro used to be $999 just a few months ago. It is really a bargain at $500. iDVD and the 3rd party software that compliments it is expected to fill the gap.

I recommend having DVD Studio Pro AND Toast. DVD Studio Pro to author the DVD to how you want it to be etc etc etc, and Toast to actually burn the disc(s). I've had much better results with Toast made discs than with DVDSP made discs. Toast just rocks all around anyway.

Ted, in what way particularly is Toast better than DVDSP? What do you mean by "much better results"? Better video quality, faster burning?

No and no. The video is the same quality and it burns at the same speed, maybe even slower if you choose to burn at 1x. I've witnessed greater compatibility with DVDs burned at 1x vs those at 2x in the same players with the same brand of blank media. I am not in any huge ass freaking hurry to get my DVD, so I don't mind burning it at 1x. Of course with the "Now Now NOW!" attitude that is so prevelant in today's society, people seem to want to burn as quickly as possible as often as possible.

Also, DVDSP really misses the ball when it comes to DVD-RW. If you don't have Toast, you're screwed. Toast can quickly erase the disc and rewrite to it when you are going through many testing cycles (in this case, speed is cool since it is not a final product). Toast can erase a DVD-RW in about a minute with no loss of quality vs the super-long erasing method. You can also include JACKET_P picture files when burning with Toast.

It is important to note that Toast is strictly an optical media burning program, not a DVD authoring program.

Ted, maybe you want to use better media? DVDs made by Ritek and Taiyo Yuden have good reputations (they don't coaster).
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/archive/t172496.html

No, in my experience Ted is right. Toast does a better job of burning DVD's than DVD SP. It is not media related.