Roxio's Toast 6.0 has you burning quality music, movies and data onto your VCDs , SVCDs and DVDs in quick time order. In addition, your photographs can also can be burned into Roxio'sToast folders for slideshows.
Toast's interface is divided into four functions: Data, Audio, Video and Copy. Noted were significant additions to the Macintosh CD/DVD Burning Software.
Major new features
Plug & Burn
Turns your DV (Digital Video) camcorder footage into a Video CD, Super Video CD, or DVD. Plug in your camera and your video becomes a finished disc.
ToastAnywhere
You can share CD or DVD burners across a network. You connect Toast 6 Titanium for your users on the Internet. Your single DVD/CD burner can now serve an entire home or office.
Motion Pictures
Turn your still photos into media shows using pan and zoom motion effects, cross fades, and soundtracks. Now you can create an exciting motion picture with ease.
Deja Vu
Back-up, protect, and secure your precious data. You can schedule regular automatic back ups.
Toast It
Burn directly from the desktop with a single-click pop-up menu. Toast 6.0 is available immediately for burning your CDs or DVDs.
Working with Roxio's Toast 6.0
I use QuickTime Pro for editing my movies with sound clips. Toast's CD Spin Doctor 2.0 allows me to bring in sound from my turntable's LP (Long Playing) records. CD Spin Doctor 2.0 takes out the hisses and jumps from the LP records. I then import the LP records' AAF sounds into QuickTime Pro and lay down the new sound track. I appreciate CD Spin Doctor 2.0 utility that makes it easier for me to digitize LP records and cassettes. Within Toast's Audio tab, QuickTime formats (AAC, AIFF, MP3, WAV) is easily converted when you burn your audio CDs.
Toast Motion Pictures give you the opportunity to bring in your photos and create "movie motion." Then, you can save them as QuickTime movies.
You can make several movies to SVCD (Super Video CD) and with Roxio Toast you can burn the SVCDs. Each SVCD screen shows three photo buttons with right-hand arrows. I have already saved nine QuickTime movies to an SVCD disk.
Roxio's Toast Rules
The standard rates for burning: High VCD with 60 min., SVCD with 20 min. and DVD for 60 min. My computer projects dictate which Toast selection that I use.
Burning Mac/Window CDs are excellent for QuickTime movies, PDFs (Portable Document Format), text documents and photographs. This works well for items that will be used on Mac and Windows platforms.
Super VCDs. What works for me is using SVCD exclusively for QuickTime movies that play on most new DVD players. The quality is fair to good on standard CD burners.
I can burn my movies from good to better quality when using my new Pioneer DVD burner. You can use large size photos to capture quality photos for editing in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.
DVD. Quality blank DVDs for DVD-R cost about $1.50 per DVD. The viewing quality is excellent and looks great on DVD players hooked to large screen televisions. Also, I can play my one-time recorded DVD-R in my computer's DVD/CD drive.
Pro Reaction
Roxio's Web site provides an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and a searchable database of support articles. Toast's hard copy manual is informative and has good illustrations. Toast is intuitive and easy to use. It pays to study the Toast manualand learn the expert qualities of Roxio's Toast.
I appreciate the new compression and 128-bit encryption options for Mac computer DVDs and CDs. Also, Toast can import footage directly from your DV camcorder with the simple Plug and Burn feature. Toast handles the hard, tedious work of importing, converting, and encoding content for burning to CDs or DVDs.
Con Reaction
Toast burning is slow on Mac G3 computers and can take all night for copying my DVD movies. Recommend a Mac G4 or G5 computer for faster Toast burning.
Final Reaction
The $99.00 price gives you the ability to make quality CDs, SVCDs and DVDs. The Roxio Toast program is an excellent buy for your computer dollar. System Requirements: Toast 6.0 runs only in OS X 10.2 or greater.
Paul Gerstenbluth is President of the ARIE Foundation and is a Macintosh consultant. The ARIE Foundation's mission is to provide VA hospitalized patients with hobby materials and Powerbooks that help in their stay and recovery.
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