Toast 6 Review

[bobw]

From another forum;

Just got Toast 6. This software is wicked cool.


Author:_Chupa Chupa__(Registered User)
Date:___08-29-03 12:42

For sometime now the Mac OS and the iApps has marginalized the utility of using Toast 5. So much so that I think many, including myself wondered if Toast would become another also-ran app for the Mac.

Well, I just got my copy of Toast 6, and I'm here to tell you Roxio has reinvented CD burning software with this app. At a time when many software companies choose not to rise to Apple challenge to make great apps and just bow out of the Mac market, its so great to see a program like Toast 6 come along.

The new interface is very clean and more intuititve I think than the old one. But, Toast 6 also packs in some features to justify the $70 upgrade price. I'm not going to go through them all. You can do that at Roxio's web site if you want.

However, I do want to mention the super cool CD-sharing feature. Roxio's site is less than clear about this one, but is one of the best IMHO. You can share a CD or DVD burner via Rendezvous and your wired OR 802.11b/g network. For those of us who have a iBooks or TiBooks with only ROM drives this is an outstanding feature. I just burned a CD from my CD-ROM iBook to my internal CD-R drive in my PM. Backups will be so easy from now on!

The process is only as fast as your network, so if you only have a 802.11b network you'll want to resist trying to burn large files unless you do it overnight. It does take awhile.

The other feature that is a big improvement over Toast 5 is the built-in encoding for VCDs and SVCDs. In the previous versions you had to do the encoding yourself via iMovie or a stand alone program. Toast 6 now does it all for you. One caveat though, most older DVD players (read if its not the current model) will not play SVCDs.

Toast 6 also has a back up feature, but I have yet to test it so really can't comment on how good it is. Maybe soon.

Overall, Toast 6 will well worth the upgrade price IMHO. Kudos to Roxio for not letting Apple be the only company to bring low cost apps to the Mac.

edit: fixed your title - Jason

[pwharff]

Wow, sounds exciting! Here's the site with more info:

http://www.roxio.com/en/products/toa...HBVQVMCACAYIV0

[Arden]

Roxio is such an innovative company, it's good to see they're taking an already great product and making it better. Thanks for the review, Bob, and the link, Wharff. I look forward to upgrading.

"Don't Burn It. Toast It." Hehe.

[fryke]

I hope the new 'interface tweaks' don't break the simplicity of Toast 5. Open app, drag stuff on it, click burn. I don't want some 'helper window' or even 'wizard' helping me with a 'project' I'm doing. ;-) I hate those PC CD-burning apps that do that...

What I'd love to see, though, would be "the-ultimately-cool-Toast-Dock-Icon" that would take any input per drag & drop and then open a dialogue for me, formed after the content I've dragged, i.e.:

- If I drag .mpg files onto the icon, it would analyze them and offer me the viable formats (Data Disc, VCD, SVCD, DVD-R etc.).

- If I drag .dmg's to the icon, it would just offer me to burn the image to a fitting disc.

The same, of course, for audio files etc. Only if Toast wouldn't know what the files were (or if there were several types of files) it would simply arrange them to a data disc.

[bobw]

Very simple, easy to use interface and burns much faster than ver 5.0 Just tried it.

[Arden]

Can you burn me a copy?

I'm kidding, of course...

[RPS]

I like the new feature but whoever made the interface, and with that I especially mean the burn button, should be fired. Look at it.

[Jason]

looks fine to me *shrugs*