Roxio Toast 8 Titanium (Mac)

• Copy your audio CDs, movies and DVDs.
• Take your favorite TV shows to go, with easy TiVoToGo transfers
• Blu-ray Disc Support: Burn up to 50 GB - 12,500 music tracks, or 50,000 photos, or 4 hours of raw HD video.
• Restore and recover files from scratched or damaged discs while copying.
• Create DJ-style audio CDs with the same pro-quality audio features previously found in Roxio Jam.

Toast has always been the best burning software on the Mac and this version is no exception. I had skipped over version 7 and wasn't sure about getting version 8 since I had the impression that much of what Toast does is already built into the Mac. Boy was I wrong. What comes with the OS, iTunes and iDVD barely scratches what Toast 8 can do. There's a reason why people continue to recommend this as a must have app on the Mac it's gone way beyond burning of CDs and DVDs.

Likes:

* Data Spanning a must have for EVERYONE if you have files that are too big to fit onto a CD or a DVD (and it's really pretty easy to have this now... think video files or your iTunes library) Toast splits them and burns a piece onto every disc.... and you can take those discs to any Mac or PC to use them.

* Burn Catalog this is cool it keeps track of the contents of your discs so you can see what's on them even when the discs aren't in the computer anymore. I love this one...

* Music DVD puts 1000 songs on a regular DVD so you can play it in your home theater system and see menus and album info while the song is playing.

* Photo Disc my wife loves this one... makes great looking photo disc slideshows to send to PC users

* EyeTV I use EyeTV to get TV shows onto the Mac and this is THE ONLY way to burn DVDs of your recorded show and it's fast.

* DIVX I like to download DiVX files but iDVD can't turn them into DVDs but this Toast can

* DVD copying Roxio put all of the other product Popcorn into Toast so if you want to copy DVDs or convert DVDs for iPod... don't get Popcorn get this.

* Labeler I like to make case inserts of the DVDs I burn and this labeler in Toast is really top notch.

* Printed manual YES you read this right, it comes with a printed user guide... how cool is that?!

Dislikes:

* New look I'm not such a huge fan of the "new and improved" UI... I was used to the old one in Toast 6 and it will take some time to get used to the new... I guess that the price you pay for progress.

Overall I'm really happy with this purchase. There aren't too many other apps you need to use the Mac, but this is one of them I think. If you've recently switched from a PC to the Mac and you're looking for a burning program this is the one to get.

Buy Roxio Toast 8 Titanium (Mac) Now

Toast 8 Titanium is a worthwhile upgrade for the program. The GUI for the program has changed somewhat. Significantly enough that you'll notice. But not so much that there would be a learning curve to get around when using it. The whole thing is pretty much plug-n-play. If you're familiar with Toast 7, this will be a snap for you. If not, everything is fairly well spelled out, if not obvious for a mid-level Mac user. If you can do drag and drop functions, you can use Toast 8.

One of the big selling points for this program is the integration of TiVoToGo capabilities. This has been elusive to Mac users up until now. For many, it will still be elusive. What you will find out upon installation is that it will work with properly equipped Series 2 or Series 3 boxes. However, it will not work with DirecTv supplied TiVo units. Also, you should be aware that not all TiVo units have their USB ports enabled. Thus causing an issue with connecting to your existing network. There are work-arounds for these issues. But using them may void the waranty on your TiVo.

Overall, I'm happy with the purchase. The program works faster on my Intel iMac than Toast 7. But I still wish the TiVoToGo would work in my home.

Read Best Reviews of Roxio Toast 8 Titanium (Mac) Here

Toast 8, just does what I need. I bought Toast because I needed support for a new DVD burner that neither the basic OS (10.4) nor my slightly old version of iDVD would support. It offers easy to understand interface that I've come to expect from a first class Mac app (and have found lacking in Disk Copy). Toast burns my dual layer DVDs just fine. It burns everything else I've thrown at it just fine as well. It also solved a problem that I had just accepted before. When making backups for remote storage, it seamlessly spans multiple CDs and DVDs. It tells me how many disks I'm going to need before I get started. It guides me through the entire process.

One of the bundled apps that I didn't expect to use is Deja Vu, the backup/mirroring/etc. Utility. I have several shareware backup utilities and was reasonably happy with them. I've found however, that they cannot compare with Deja Vu for flexibility, power and ease of use. It has become the new backup standard at my house.

There is a ton of other capabilities in this package that I just haven't gotten to use yet but I an extremely pleased with this package and would not hesitate to recommend it to other users.

Want Roxio Toast 8 Titanium (Mac) Discount?

This is another product that I wish Amazon would allow us to give half (1/2) stars because I would rate the Toast 8 at four and one half stars as opposed to a perfect five.

For someone to give a product 5 stars, it is presupposed that the product is outstanding with no unrealistic flaws. There a few that you should be aware of. First of all...

Toast 8 is a bundled software package. Until now, it was just the premiere cd/dvd burning software for the Mac. Period. And, it is still the most economical and best multi-platform burning software for the Mac, only this time

Roxio has decided to combine several little add-ons to make Toast 8 a more attractive buy. Indeed, it does. We've used earlier editions of Toast in various functions such as in providing the local print shop with our files for advertising and promotional material for our theatre. Never a problem. We've used Toast to back up files on the harddrive and archived them. Never a problem. Making crisp clean copies of audio cd's, excellent, except in the version we had, one could not go back to I-Tunes to burn files once Toast was installed. It seemed as if Toast "bogarted" the cd-burning ability from I-Tunes.

Toast 8*

The cd/ dvd functions, excellent as always. But, you're (we're) now able to use I-Tunes to burn files we have on file without having to go to Toast. Great. Roxio kept a perfect software in tact.

CD Spindoctor*

Unless I'm wrong, but I think Roxio has used their "PC" name for the Mac-version of their audio filtering software "Jam". That created just a little confusion, they should have just said "Jam," because they marketed it as being included in Toast 8. With that being said, you should know that THERE ARE NO INSTRUCTIONS FOR ANY OF THE OTHER FREE SOFTWARE INCLUDED EXCEPT FOR THE ORIGINAL TOAST SOFTWARE. The booklet that comes in the box has instructions for only the cd burning, Toast. If you're not familiar with the other software like I was "CD Spin Doctor ("Jam"), Disc Cover Re, Disc Catalog, Motion Picture HD or TiVo to Go, then you'll have to find instructions on-line. Spindoctor/ "Jam" is excellent for what it does. I've used several times to restore and back-up old cassettes that I worried would break. This particular software used to come as a stand-alone software about 6 months after the latest version of Toast would appear, bringing the combined cost of Toast and Jam to about $150. It's now free! (I spoke to a rep. at Roxio concerning some directions on using Spindoctor and she told me afterwards that Roxio was discontinuing "Jam" and decided on adding it to Toast.)

Spindoctor instructions-you'll need to have in addition to the audio device (ie, turntable/cassette deck) an RCA 1/8 audio input jack. The 1/8" input goes directly into the MacBook/ PowerBook or MacPro etc. jack. The red and white (right and left) channels goes into the "Line Out" of the audio device. Once you open Spin D, you'll have to decide if you want to record from the computer's internal mic's or the input module. Unless you're recording a discussion in the room, I'd suggest the input. Once you do that, you'll notice in the bottom section, right, the time remaining on the computer's harddrive for recording. *It doesn't give you the file saving option yet, as it automatically saves it as an uncompressed WAV file.

After you've done your recording, you'll have to engage the "wand" device to see the spectrum. Spin will automatically break the recording into sections. You'll move the triangle to the spot where you'd like to make some adjustments. Correspondingly, you'd have to look to the bottom where the numbers correspond to the colored sections, if you would. Hitting delete removes that section of the audio file. Beware... when editing, only the audio in the colored (red, yellow, blue, etc) will be transfered to Toast for burning and/ or I-Tunes for storage. It's not always easy to determine what's been deleted as the background is a pale grey.

When finished, you can either add equalizer enhancements (a small tab in the upper right-hand corner) or send to Toast and or/ I-Tunes. There's a box in spin that says "Path". This is important, because if you want to delete the uncompressed WAV file, you'll need this information to find it to delete once you've archive the uncompressed to cd/dvd and the compressed file in I-Tunes. Both, you'll have to engage from the drop-down menu.

*Disc Cover RE-You can use this, if you have a disc that allows for burning images on the top.

*Disc Catalogue-This is great if you'd like to know what you've burned and when, but it won't tell you where the file is if you've followed the Path and deleted the original file.

*I haven't used Tivo-to-Go, but a friend said the resolution left something to be desired.

With the exception of the lack of supporting instructions for the free, bundled software. This is absolute worth upgrading to. If nothing else than for software that you'd probably buy separately.

I recently encountered a problem with the purchase of Toast 8 Titanium and have had problems with Roxio in the past. Well, things appear to be changing. I had the pleasure of dealing with a caring Roxio employee who took care of my problem in an efficient, effective and extremely friendly manner. After some discussion with this person, I came away with the feeling that things are changing for the better. My experience could not have been better.

I still think that Toast is one of the best pieces of software ever written for Macintosh. I especially like the new feature in version 8, the ability to create CDs of photos that one can give to friends and family. The recipient can play a slideshow on either PC or Mac with no need for any additional software, not even Toast. This feature, alone, is worth the upgrade to me. A great piece of software, and a company that looks to me like it will be providing first rate customer service.