Review: Roxio Toast 8 media management

All Apple Mac computers come with basic software for burning CDs and DVDs. They also include Apple’s iDVD program, which creates slick menus for home DVDs.

However, Roxio’s Toast has earned a strong following amongst Mac users by providing a wide range of additional features in the disc-writing sphere.

Roxio Toast 8 is a fairly major upgrade, kicking off with new look that will come as a shock to existing users who have gotten used to Toast’s distinctive yet simple interface. However, it works well and features, such as the floating Browser palette, make it easier to quickly add music, video and other files to your projects.

Other new disc-creation features include the ability to trim songs, add fades and crossfades and adjust audio effects such as reverb and pitch controls. Roxio has also thrown in an additional program called Discover for designing and printing CD and DVD labels.

Toast 8 can now export video in a variety of formats. What's more, there are automatic options for compressing video files for an iPod or Portable Playstation. More technically inclined users can also convert files into increasingly popular formats such as DivX and Ogg Vorbis. It also supports Blu-ray for writing discs up to 50GB.

We also like the ability to grab a bunch of video clips and quickly create your own DVD compilations.

Our only complaint – as with previous versions of Toast – is that the poor manual, which tends to simply list features without properly explaining how they work.

Still, there’s no doubt that Toast 8 is a good upgrade and will certainly earn its keep if you like to create your own music and video compilation discs.

Also consider
Apple iLife 06
Packed with features, supremely easy to use and excellent value for money, iLife 06 is the best version yet of Apple's home creative suite

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