Mac's Timely Toast of the Town

Titanium version 6 is Apple's best-known application for burning CDs and DVDs

It's version 6, it's available from Roxio and it's only compatible with Mac OS X and later. Folks, here's Toast Titanium, version 6 obviously, one of the best-known applications for the Mac.
Included in either a complete or lite version in almost every Apple computer equipped with CD-RW or DVD-RW, for years Toast has been the unofficial standard used for burning CDs or DVDs for machines made in Cupertino.
Even though Titanium 6 builds upon its previous edition, it marks a significant change in regards to support, as it is only compatible with Apple's most recent operation system, Mac OS X.
The user interface, including cosmetic changes, will be very familiar to anyone who's used Toast before. Small refinements have no substantial impact on how the application operates or its ease of use.
However, the new interface hides several new features that will make a lot of people happy.
Besides the already familiar baseline application features of Data or Audio Burning, CD cloning and DVD/VCD Creation, there are some major new features such as:
Plug & Burn(tm) - Effortlessly turns your DV camcorder footage into a Video CD, Super Video CD, or DVD. Plug in the camera and a weekend's worth of video becomes a finished disc, automatically.
ToastAnywhere(tm) - Share CD or DVD burners across a network or the Internet with other Toast 6 Titanium users. A single burner can now serve an entire home or office.
Motion Pictures - Turn your still photos into stunning movies complete with Hollywood-style pan and zoom motion effects, cross fades, and soundtracks. Create an exciting cinematic experience with ease.
Deja Vu - Back up, protect, and secure your precious data. Schedule regular automatic back-ups, so you have the peace of mind that your files and folders are always safe and available.
Toast It(tm) - Save time by burning your files and folders directly from the desktop with a single-click, pop-up menu. Now Toast is available immediately, whenever you need it.
New features aside, improvements have been made also in other parts of the application, such as CD Spin Doctor 2, a must have utility to digitize your vinyl records and tapes, or record live audio performances.
The same goes for reducing noise, pops and clicks, enhancing the sound with built-in filters, or adding your own 3rd party VST effects.
Drag & drop any QuickTime audio files or iTunes tracks into Toast's Universal Audio Converter to create perfect audio or enhanced audio CDs. The design utility for personalized disc labels, case covers, and inserts has also been updated.
In general the new functions integrate perfectly with the application, saving user time and resources. If the contextual menu allows users to create CDs or DVDs merely by selecting the desired folder or file, ToastAnywhere allows them to share networked CD- or DVD-burners (whether on one's computer or not) instead of spending money for purchasing additional devices.
Déjà Vu also represents a small but important novelty, marking Roxio's entry in the backup market. After setting preferences, in a matter of a few seconds Déjà Vu allows users to save data onto CD or DVD or to perform remote backups to WebDAV, AFP, NFS and SMB servers, synchronizing files.
The application could benefit from some additional refinement, possibly following in the steps of Apple's own utility that enables users to save a list of standard components such as one's email, documents, or bookmarks, without necessarily knowing where the corresponding folders reside. For new users this could be vital.
Other tiny but very welcome improvements are the possibility of omitting from newly created CDs the famous DS-Store files of Mac OS X and the elimination (at least judging from our tests) of a defect of the previous version that could ruin CDs because of buffer problems.
Other interesting features, such as Plug & Burn and Motion Pictures, make little sense as default applications included in new Apple computers/OS already do a better job. From the graphic standpoint, the retouches to the user interface are quite pleasing.
Toast Titanium 6 is undoubtedly an interesting product, and the software package integrates smoothly with the Digital Lifestyle concept promoted by Apple, forming the link that was missing for concrete usage of iApplications.

Publication Date: 2003-10-19
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3251