There have been many examples of good applications gone bad as they tried to add more and more features. Sometimes, in order to update an application and sell a new version number, it’s easy to water down a good program with feature-bloat. I am happy to tell you that Roxio did not fall into the above scenario with Toast. Although Toast 8 has increased it’s list of features, it’s done so without a single “bloating” issue.
First, the suggested retail price is $99, $79.00 with a rebate, and $58.49 on Amazon. But what new features do you get with the new Toast 8? Toast has implemented all the burning and conversion features in Jam and Popcorn. It now has TiVo and EyeTV integration, disc cataloging, and disk spanning. Then we can’t forget about the new, improved, user interface. There are more minor improvements, but these are the ones that will make you want to upgrade more then any others.
Let’s take a quick look at these new features and how they’ll improve your Mac experience. The first thing I noticed is the improved user interface. Roxio did away with all the drawers and added a floating window that changes sizes and looks as you move through your tasks. Along with the spotlight type search in the floating window, you now have more information given to you and less confusion in finding it. Overall, the new interface is just more “Mac-Like”.
Then for us TiVo owners, Toast finally has given us what TiVo never did, a method to transfer TiVo recordings to our Macs and then burn it on DVD or use it in iTunes and our iPods with video. It works with EyeTV also. You receive the correct episode, show title and description in iTunes. Although the video size is less then ideal for TV’s, the end result is great for iPods and iTunes. I like the feature that allows you to transfer all the shows in a series, like a TiVo season pass for Toast.
I think we all know what Disc spanning and Disc Cataloging is, and I think we’re all happy to see both of these features are finally including in Toast. Now you can automatically catalog and browse the contents of your discs, even when the discs are no longer in the Mac. With Disc spanning you can safely backup massive video files or your iTunes library, and easily access on any Mac or Windows PC. These two features go together like peanut butter and jelly. Also, when Blu-ray drives make their way into our lives, Toast supports them. You’ll be able to store up to 12,500 music tracks, 50,000 photos, or 4 hours of HD video on a single 50 GB Blu-ray Disc. Toast Dynamic Writing lets you use your Blu-ray Disc recorder like a giant hard disk drive – drag and drop directly onto the disc icon to add or remove files.
Some of the other things that Toast 8 allow you to do:
* Easily share your photos with friends and family with the new Toast Photo Disc. Store thousands of pictures at full resolution on a standard format disc for any Mac, PC, or photo finishing kiosk.
* Create great sounding audio CD mixes with features from Roxio’s Jam software – smooth DJ-style crossfades, sound enhancing Audio Unit filters, and automatic level adjustment.
* Backup an entire 9 GB DVD to a standard 4.7 GB DVD disc. Fit-to-DVD compression uses all available disc space to maximize video quality.
* Go back to the future, and bring your classic LPs and tapes into the digital age. The CD Spin Doctor Assistant guides you step-by-step through everything from setting up the equipment, to recording, to splitting the audio into tracks and adding song information.
There are other features and improvements over the previous versions, but the most important aspect of Toast 8 in my opinion, is that Roxio has given us a new version without the bloat. Toast 8 is a definite improvement, and for most of you reading this blog, it’s a good reason to upgrade. I like it and I recommend it.
