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Roxio Toast 5 Titanium
Roxio Easy CO Creator 5 Platinum Edition
Trace Affex CO-Artist Inkjet CD Printer
MicroBoards Orbit 11 CD Duplicator
Rimage Producer Prostar
Toast has been my recording software of choice for about a half-decade now, and even going back to the Astarte days, its form and function have changed very little. Third- and fourth-generation upgrades added things like 80minute media support, an approximation of the Spin Doctor audio software Adaptec/Roxio includes with Deluxe editions of its Easy CD Creator software for the PC, USB support (yawn), and-in Toast 4.1 -much-welcomed, on-the-fly MP3-- to-AIFF conversion capability. I think Toast became a capable extractor of digital audio (via a supplementary application) around the time of its purchase by Adaptec.
But it's always had that small, rectangular window with the pull-down menu for CD type, and clickable buttons that take you to other windows, including "Write CD," "Check Speed," "Search" [for searching the bus if your recorder doesn't pop up automatically), and of course the "Data" or "Audio" button that takes you to a new window for dragging the files and/or folders that will comprise your new disc. Or, alternatively, if you chose Mac Volume, you'd get a choice of volumes for recording to disc.
The new Toast does all that stuff. But it also does a lot more. Toast 5 Titanium, as Roxio has dubbed the retail version of its new Mac recording software, is-like Apple itself-all about video these days. From QuickTime and iMovie support to VideoCD export to DVD output, Toast 5 teems with moving picture perks.
But that's not the first thing you notice. The first thing that hits you in Toast 5 Titanium is that Toast has shed the skin it clung to way back when, and grown a new one that's decidedly now. And that's not just stylistic hipness talking. The new interface almost feels as if it's giving you a head start, starting you one window ahead of the old version. Like a gripping page-turner that vaults you right into the moment of the narrative, enveloping you in the sights and sounds and smells of the scene at hand (except not nearly as exciting), the window you see when you start up Toast Titanium is the very window...