It’s been a little over a year since Roxio released Toast 8 Titanium, a well-regarded CD/DVD application that proved to be quite versatile, offering plenty of features for CD and DVD creators. With the release of Toast 9 Titanium, Roxio has set an ambitious goal: to outdo its own product, without adding bloat or trivial features.
I’m pleased to report that Roxio succeeded. Toast 9 Titanium took an already good product and wrapped a more intuitive user interface around it; then, for good measure, it threw in new features that will please Mac users from casual to professional.
Toast 9 Titanium - Installation
Toast 9 Titanium ships with six applications, all of which are loaded into the Toast 9 Titanium folder the installer creates in your Applications folder.
By using a new folder, Roxio allows Toast 9 Titanium and earlier versions of Toast to co-exist, at least as far as I have seen in my testing. I was even able to launch Toast 8 and Toast 9 at the same time, although I don’t recommend attempting to use them concurrently.
The one surprising oversight is that the installer fails to copy the Toast 9 Titanium documentation folder from the CD or disk image to the Mac. Before you eject the installation CD, take a moment to manually copy the documentation folder to the Toast 9 Titanium folder. If you forget to copy the documentation folder, you can still access the documentation from any Toast application’s Help menu, but I prefer to read a standalone PDF.
Roxio deposits six applications into the Toast 9 Titanium folder: Toast Titanium, Streamer, CD Spin Doctor, Disc Cover 2 RE, DiscCatalogMaker RE, and Get Backup RE. New with this version, Streamer is an application that lets you use your wired or wireless network to stream video from your Mac to other Macs and PCs, or even an iPhone or iPod Touch. You can also stream video over the Internet, which means you can watch a show stored on your Mac from a remote location. Also new in this version is Get Backup RE, a basic but well-designed backup application.
Toast 9 Titanium - First Impressions
Toast 9 is a collection of six different products, but the core application is Toast itself. When you launch Toast 9, a familiar yet nicely updated window opens. The three-pane interface is still here, but it has been refined with better organization and functionality.
The Category sections were moved to the top of the project pane, and now include five choices: Data, Audio, Video, Copy, and Convert, which may be one of the best new features. The Project Type list, which sits just below the Category sections, changes depending on the category you select. The options for a project are clearly outlined below the project type.
The largest pane is the Content area, where you drag and drop the data, audio, or video files you want Toast to work on. At the bottom is the Recording area, which supplies information about your CD/DVD writer and its current status, and houses the control for starting the burn process.
Overall, the changes are subtle, but they go a long way toward making Toast easier to navigate. The drab gray interface of previous versions of Toast has been invigorated with touches of color that accent the functions of the interface. Roxio resisted the temptation to add color just because everyone else is doing it. Instead, the changes were driven by improved functionality, and were well thought out.
Toast 9 Titanium - Convert
One of the newest features in Toast 9 is the Convert category. Borrowing functionality from Roxio’s Popcorn application, Toast is now able to perform video and audio conversions to a large selection of file types and formats.
As you might expect, Toast can convert video for use on Apple TV, iPhones, video iPods, and the iPod Touch. But, less predictably, it also has presets for Sony’s PSP and PlayStation 3, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360. If you want to convert a movie for viewing on your smartphone, Toast can convert it to the native formats used by BlackBerry, Palm, Treo, and generic 3G phones. It can also convert video for streaming; more on that later.
While having preset conversion formats is nice, Toast can also convert to specific file types, including DV (the format used in iMovie and Final Cut), HDV, DivX, MPEG-4, and QuickTime Movie.
Toast 9 can also convert audio files to various formats, but for some reason it lacks the ability to preset the file type you wish to convert to, and instead requires you to select the format at the time of conversion. Not a big deal, but I can’t help but wonder why there’s a lack of consistency between converting video and audio formats.
The Convert feature can also perform batch conversions. You can add multiple files to the Content pane, and Toast will obligingly convert each one for you.
Toast 9 Titanium - Recording Area
I have to say, I was happy to see the recording size indicator changed from the gauge that wrapped around the Record button in previous versions of Toast. Now there’s a true size gauge that runs linearly along the bottom of the Toast window. The size gauge now displays the total space a project will take up, and the amount of remaining space on a blank disk. You can also set the blank disk type or destination file size.
The Recording area has been further enhanced by combining all recording functions into one area, including the selected recorder status, recording options, disk type selector, the Record button, and my favorite, Save as Disc Image, which is now a button in the Recording area, rather than a menu item. It’s odd that Roxio added a Save as Disc Image button to the Recording area, but left the Save as Bin/Cue option in the menu. I’ve never used this option, but for the sake of consistency, I would have expected both options to be added as buttons. Perhaps Roxio decided to leave that particular refinement for the next version.
