Opinions on Toast (1 Viewer)

Is Toast the best program to burn DVDs on a Mac? Do you guys recommend another program? Thanks

Jonathan,

I think TOAST beats most every program I have ever seen
(Roxio, Nero) for burning CDs and DVDs. For sheer simplicity
it can't be beat. Highly reliable.

That being said, I noticed a bug in Leopard that has been reported
elsewhere.

There are DVD-Rs that I have burnt with data using Toast that
no longer mount under Leopard. Insert the disc and Leopard thinks
it is a blank.

At first I thought it was the brand of disc I was using (TDK) but
doing a GOOGLE search this morning I find it is something related
to Leopard. Even a co-worker recently complained to me that a
disc I burned for him a few weeks ago was not mounting.

I don't blame TOAST for this as I know it burned and immediately
mounted afterwards, but this issue with Leopard not recognizing
burned media is really frustrating. Wonder if anyone else is having
this same issue.

click here for reference

Thanks for the feedback. Amazon has it for $50 today and I was thinking about picking it up. Buying a Mac has become a disease.

I have now purchased a iMac, Time Capsule, BT mouse, .mac account, iWork, 4gigs of ram, Fushion and now Toast. And I love every second of it.

For $50 I would jump on TOAST. Make sure
it is version 9 (I think Titanium).

Yes, Mac is a disease.

I used to use Toast under system 9. Now I simply use the finder to burn discs; that's simple, easy and free!

What does Toast offer that system 10 doesn't?

Yeah it's version 9. I was surprised that they had it maked down so low.

Dragon Burn is also excellent, but the UI is simple compared to Toast.

NTI Dragon Burn quickly and easily begin producing audio, data, mixed-mode CDs, and DVDs

I don't know how anyone survives without Toast, but I've heard nasty rumors that they do. Hopefully you went ahead and got it.

My only complaints against Toast is poor integration with included applications (e.g., Disc Cover) and frequent and expensive upgrade.

Phil,

Have not tried those additional applications though I trust that
information to be spot on. I also see that upgrades tend to be
very expensive.

However, you gotta love the drag and drop function of Toast. You
just slide the file into the window and that's it. Additionally, I can
drag any AVI file into the window and have it encode it to a DVD.

I think you get what you pay for, and at $50, you actually get more.

Jonathan, I hope you bought it as the price jumped back to $82.99.

Toast is as valuable to me for its integration with my TiVo as it is with its disc burning capabilities. There's no easier way to move programs from my TiVo and onto my iPhone than with Toast.

I use toast a lot as well and strongly recommend it to my friends as they switch over to using Mac's.

Yep. I ordered it Saturday and it should be here tomorrow.

"However, you gotta love the drag and drop function of Toast."

Like I said in my first post in this thread, you can do this through the System 10 finder. Why do you need Toast?

OSX lets you burn, but that's just about it. Toast does so much stuff it is almost impossible to believe it. It can work with video files, create menus, burn in every format known to man, create hybrid discs for basically any OS, create audio compilations, with cross fades if you want. It will convert NTSC to PAL and reverse. The list is almost endless.

As far as the extra apps it comes with, those aren't actually designed to work seamlessly with Toast (except Spin Doctor) but are just shareware apps with related features.

As far as the upgrades, this is both good and bad. You don't get much of a break, but there is no time limit. I only upgrade every other major change, which gives me about 4 years for about $50. Not bad at all.

Don,

I echo the opinions above.

First, I had no idea Finder burns discs. However, without even
trying it, it would seem obvious to me that Toast does a whole lot
more.

I have been taking AVI files and dragging them to Toast where
it encodes them to PAL or NTSC complete with a menu that I can
customize. Can Finder do that?

I'm not knocking your suggestion of using Finder to burn as it may
be the perfect solution for someone who just needs to do that. For
others that want a complete converting, creating and burning solution
you need to turn to third party software.

Thanks for the responses, guys. I was wondering because Jonathan only asked about burning DVDs on his Mac; he didn't mention needing these extra features.

Don,

You were in the right here. He didn't ask about the extra
features but I would not doubt he would want them.