[besson3c]

Why do people buy Toast these days? What are its best selling points?

I haven't used it for ages, I'm just wondering what it has in features that interest people in paying for it?

[JRoDDz]

Butter? And it's yummy.

[moonmonkey]

funny.

I think people mostly use it to burn downloaded ISO's, it seems to burn better pirated disks than Disk Utility.

[besson3c]

I've never needed it for movies I've pirated, but perhaps it makes certain things easier, and it's not like pirates are too concerned about the price of Toast, they'll just pirate it

[slugslugslug]

I have version 6, and it was easier to use than iDVD for throwing a bunch of AVIs onto a video DVD, before I got a DivX-capable player. I imagine if you have a collection of random clips that aren't all in DivX, and you want to put 'em on a DVD quickly without worrying about the menus, it's pretty good for that.

Also, it's good for audio CDs if you want fine control of the duration of between track silence.

[Kenneth]

I first bought Popcorn 1.0, then Toast 7.0, and later Popcorn 2.0. That's it! I will not buy Toast 8/Popcorn 3/Crunch. In fact, my copy of Toast Titanium 7.1.2 doesn't work well under Leopard. My school used to have a volume licensing agreement with Roxio, but the hefty upgrading fee prevented us to renew the agreement.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by slugslugslug 

I have version 6, and it was easier to use than iDVD for throwing a bunch of AVIs onto a video DVD, before I got a DivX-capable player. I imagine if you have a collection of random clips that aren't all in DivX, and you want to put 'em on a DVD quickly without worrying about the menus, it's pretty good for that.

Also, it's good for audio CDs if you want fine control of the duration of between track silence.

I don't get it... If you aren't creating DVD menus, what's the difference between what you are describing and simply burning the files to your DVD through the Finder?

[slugslugslug]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I don't get it... If you aren't creating DVD menus, what's the difference between what you are describing and simply burning the files to your DVD through the Finder?

If you just burn the files to disc via the Finder, it won't play in a standard DVD player. Toast makes a DVD-video.

[Kevin]

Because of it's GUI and ease of use. It usually makes things EASIER for those that aren't in the know of how to do things any other way.

Plus like iTunes, it does alot of things in one package. (You can for example turn a avi into a DVD or SVCD etc...)

So I would say it's popular because it's an inexpensive swiss army knife of burning goodness.

Having said that, I am wondering why such a thing was asked? You interested in buying Toast besson?

I mean there IS a webpage with ALL it's features listed on the site..........

Originally Posted by slugslugslug 

Also, it's good for audio CDs if you want fine control of the duration of between track silence.

Indeed. I use this feature on my LIVE CDs.

[Sijmen]

I use Toast(6) to mount .dmg's as discs when I want to play a game without the actual disc inserted. I don't do much burning, so I haven't got much experience with that.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Sijmen 

I use Toast(6) to mount .dmg's as discs when I want to play a game without the actual disc inserted. I don't do much burning, so I haven't got much experience with that.

Yeah that too. Because Apple's built in one doesn't work that way for some reason..

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by slugslugslug 

If you just burn the files to disc via the Finder, it won't play in a standard DVD player. Toast makes a DVD-video.

I figured as much, but I guess I'm getting confused between this and another thread because I thought we were talking about not re-encoding these files as DVD/MPEG2 files, but simply archiving them as is to DVD.

[Kevin]

I was hoping 10.5 would have burning features that let me get rid of Toast, and not have to buy it. But alas it did not.

Not that I mind, They make a solid product.

[Kenneth]

What's the alternative of Roxio Toast? I went to the Toast 8 forum and users reported problems under 10.5.x.

[besson3c]

There are several alternatives. What do you want to do, specifically?

[alex_kac]

Originally Posted by Sijmen 

I use Toast(6) to mount .dmg's as discs when I want to play a game without the actual disc inserted. I don't do much burning, so I haven't got much experience with that.

Which games? The ones I've tried don't work. And yes, these are all my games I bought and play currently - I'd just prefer to do so without the DVD in there.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by alex_kac 

Which games? The ones I've tried don't work. And yes, these are all my games I bought and play currently - I'd just prefer to do so without the DVD in there.

What happens if you type in:

hdiutil attach /path/to/dmgfile ?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

There are several alternatives. What do you want to do, specifically?

There are several alternatives to do each thing in separate Apps. There is not several alternatives that do it all, and well as Toast. I was hoping for Apple's disk image client to put a end to that. But it's not there yet.

[himself]

I've noticed that Toast allows burning to discs at full speed (56x for CDs, 16x for DVDs), while the Finder/Disk Utility does not. Not only that, you can choose specific disc formats that Disk Utility does not (Mac/PC hybrid discs, custom hybrid discs, UDF, ISO 9660, and others). You can choose to burn discs as HFS standard or extended, you can choose the disc view (icon, list, or column), and Toast 8 supports burning to Blu-ray discs. There is plenty more, but like Kevin said, you'd be better off reading the Roxio website if you're really interested in knowing more about the features that make Toast an attractive app.

[Kevin]

I think this is just another one of besson's pages to enlighten us that are in the dark!

Multiple free disk CLI clients!

None of which work as smoothly or intuitively like Toast.

Most of us here know what's all out there and what we can do for free and what we can't. I simply choose the easiest and most efficient way of doing things. And that isn't using a CLI for me.

Having said that, If besson's reason for posting this was purely to find out what features Toast has. Wouldn't have been better just to go here?

Roxio Toast 8 Titanium - CD & DVD Burning - Features

I mean after all, they would know better than we would as to what their product does.

[Kenneth]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

There are several alternatives. What do you want to do, specifically?

Pretty much the ability to compress and burn UDF format DVDs.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Kenneth 

Pretty much the ability to compress and burn UDF format DVDs.

To compress DL DVD down to single layer you can use DVD2One, ffmpeg, or k9copy if you have access to a Linux box (the latter works really well and is free).

mkisofs will create a DVD image out of your VIDEO_TS folder, and the OS X burning tools work fine. You can play ISO images in some players, and you can point the OS X DVD player at a VIDEO_TS folder.

I'm actually doing more ripping and burning on Linux because the tools there are generally better and free (and my burner is much faster than my Superdrive), but I used to get by on the Mac too without Toast.

[- - e r i k - -]

Looks like Kevin was spot on with that assessment.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Looks like Kevin was spot on with that assessment.

Which is what? If pretty point and clicky is what you want, DVD2One fits this criteria, no?

[alex_kac]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

What happens if you type in:

hdiutil attach /path/to/dmgfile ?

Last time I tried - didn't work for me. Does it for you? And for what game?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by alex_kac 

Last time I tried - didn't work for me. Does it for you? And for what game?

I haven't tried it with a game, it was just a stab in the dark...

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Which is what? If pretty point and clicky is what you want, DVD2One fits this criteria, no?

DVD2One does one minuscule feature of Toast

[besson3c]

Erik: I think we are talking past each other. I've gotten my answer from my original question: people buy Toast for the gestalt. There is no one thing that Toast will do that nothing else will (with the possible exception of making a DVD out of video files, I haven't investigated this on the Mac side - tovid works on the Linux side).

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

To compress DL DVD down to single layer you can use DVD2One, ffmpeg, or k9copy if you have access to a Linux box (the latter works really well and is free).

mkisofs will create a DVD image out of your VIDEO_TS folder, and the OS X burning tools work fine. You can play ISO images in some players, and you can point the OS X DVD player at a VIDEO_TS folder.

I'm actually doing more ripping and burning on Linux because the tools there are generally better and free (and my burner is much faster than my Superdrive), but I used to get by on the Mac too without Toast.

Ok, but what does this have to do with your OP?

I bet someone that this thread would turn into a "I can do it on Linux "better" and don't need toast like you people because I am r33t"

And it looks as if I was right.

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Looks like Kevin was spot on with that assessment.

To be fair, I don't have powers of ESP. It was just that obvious.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Erik: I think we are talking past each other. I've gotten my answer from my original question: people buy Toast for the gestalt.

People gave you MANY reasons why they bought Toast. I don't remember that being specifically one anyone pointed out. We know you are all about open source free software. But for the most part, Applications like toast are just slicker, and over all better built for the end user. And not many people want to deal with a CLI.

You get way you pay, or do not pay for.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Which is what? If pretty point and clicky is what you want, DVD2One fits this criteria, no?

You mean this DVD2One?

DVD2One v2.1.3

Operating Systems: Win2k/ Win98/ WinME/ WinNT/ WinXP

Don't know why a Mac user wouldn't want it...

[Chuckit]

Probably this DVD2one.

[Kevin]

I wouldnt say it was as slick as Toast



WTF is up with the arrow buttons? Looks like a Java app.



And Toast looks more like a Leopard App, and seems to have nicely thought out GUI. DVD2One seems to have a Windows like GUI.

And for $40 it's not that much cheaper than Toast.

Like I said, you get what you pay for. With Toast you also get 4 other applications with it.

• Disc Cover RE
• CD Spin Doctor
• Motion Pictures HD
• DiscCatalogMaker RE

So I'd say the extra $30 you spend on Toast is well worth it.

And I'm a frugal person.

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

DVD2One does one minuscule feature of Toast

Oh, nevermind then. Over HALF the price of Toast, and it only does one thing that Toast does..

Yeah I wanna buy that.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I've gotten my answer from my original question: people buy Toast for the gestalt.

That's like saying people buy cars for the gestalt, because they could always walk.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

That's like saying people buy cars for the gestalt, because they could always walk.

Huh? I'm not following your analog...

If memory serves me, there used to be a time where you literally did need Toast to do some (useful) things. I was just wondering if this was still the case.

If a mod wishes to close this thread, that's cool with me. I think we've gotten everything out of this thread that we ever will.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

If memory serves me, there used to be a time where you literally did need Toast to do some (useful) things. I was just wondering if this was still the case.

Yes it's still the case. For the Mac, if you are doing any serious burning Toast is really the only logical choice. Not that it's a bad one. Toast does what it does really well. And is worth the price of the cost.

How you came up with "I've gotten my answer from my original question: people buy Toast for the gestalt." from what ANYONE in here said is beyond me. That simply isn't the case, nor did anyone say anything in that matter that would imply such a thing. I think that is basically what TETENAL was trying to say.

And I am not sure what Linux or the programs for it had to do with this thread, but ok.

[Kenneth]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

And for $40 it's not that much cheaper than Toast.

It's 40 dollars in Euro, which makes it US$59. I agree, Toast can do more than DVD2One at a better price. I'm curious about the US$15 ffmpegX.

Looks like I'm gonna get into the Roxio game again. MacMall has it for $38 (after $20 mail-in rebate)

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by Kenneth 

It's 40 dollars in Euro, which makes it US$59.

40 dollars in Euro are 26.88 Euro.

[Big Mac]

He meant 40 Euro Dollars.

[TETENAL]

And what currency is that supposed to be?

[besson3c]

Since this thread is still active and has served its original purpose, how about a digression...

I wish it were easier to port X11-based open source stuff to OS X. It's annoying to have to pay money for little utilities on the Mac that do relatively mundane things (e.g. transcode a DVD, backup, etc.) when there are many free OSS tools that will get the job done, and where I'm content to use whatever GUI is available to me for this task for the rare occasion I need what the utility offers.

I'm not really sure if it is due to the version of GCC that is a part of the OS X developer tools, some other aspect of the BSD subsystem, the compiler options used by Macports/Fink, or whether many of these problems have been corrected since I've last tried, but I used to get a lot of build errors that I generally don't bother with building stuff in OS X anymore to run under X11.

If there was a better way to bridge this gap, that would also be nice for the developers of popular open source tools that have Mac ports (e.g. VLC, OpenOffice, VirtualBox, Handbrake, etc.) so that they wouldn't have to devote as much resources for a Mac specific port. Of course, where possible a Mac port is generally better, but sometimes these ports lag behind their originals, or don't exist at all. My point is that it would be nice to have the option to run their X11 versions and be ensured that they would build in these cases....

[MacosNerd]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Since this thread is still active and has served its original purpose, how about a digression...

Why not create a new thread. Most people will probably stop visiting this thread because the conversation has run its course and you'll not get the general feedback to your observation.

wish it were easier to port X11-based open source stuff to OS X. It's annoying to have to pay money for little utilities on the Mac that do relatively mundane things (e.g. transcode a DVD, backup, etc.) when there are many free OSS tools that will get the job done, and where I'm content to use whatever GUI is available to me for this task for the rare occasion I need what the utility offers.

Now stop the presses - I agree with you

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Since this thread is still active and has served its original purpose, how about a digression...

What original purpose was that? The "gestalt" answer you gave was "slightly" off.

I wish it were easier to port X11-based open source stuff to OS X. It's annoying to have to pay money for little utilities on the Mac that do relatively mundane things (e.g. transcode a DVD, backup, etc.) when there are many free OSS tools that will get the job done, and where I'm content to use whatever GUI is available to me for this task for the rare occasion I need what the utility offers.

Well you don't fall under what normal Mac users look for, or are catered to it seems. Maybe you should put together a team that has it's only goal with this in mind.

But I'd have started a new topic on it......

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

Why not create a new thread. Most people will probably stop visiting this thread because the conversation has run its course and you'll not get the general feedback to your observation.

I might do just that...

Now stop the presses - I agree with you

Cool, nice to be agreed with!

For the record, I'm not against these assortment of $20-40 utilities from existing, it's just that owning a Mac can become expensive when you need to shell out this kind of money for a little utility you may desperately need to only run once or twice, or configure and leave running in the background transparently, or whatever...

I understand the draw to having a nice GUI, but even after spending the money on one of these aforementioned utilities there is no guarantee that they will continue to work reliably on the back-end.

Given that often a healthy amount of the work on the back-end and a variable amount of work on the front end are often already done in the form of these Linux apps, all I'm saying is that it would be nice to be able to tap into this when desired without the compilation/installation headaches.

If the bridge between X11 Linux and X11 OS X was a little narrower, perhaps people would be more interested to contributing to projects like Fink or MacPorts. If these were to approach the robustness and reliability of apt-get or FreeBSD ports, there would not only be more port maintainers but also package maintainers - the latter for people that want to forgo compilation and having to have XCode installed and all that.

With these pieces in place, this would make OS X Server far stronger of a product for people that want to run open source services on Server - especially if Apple were to put their own weight behind this project.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

And what currency is that supposed to be?

Meaning Euros. Americans used to refer to European "dollars" generically before the Euro, and some people may revert to that usage.

[olePigeon]

Maybe China will sell a Mac version of Mero, their premier copying software that's almost identical to Nero.

[Kevin]

If Toast had a crummy GUI i'd still buy it just for the fact that it does everything i need in one package, and does it well. No manuals needed read, nothing. Toast is on most Mac users hard-drives that do more than casual burning for a reason. Not to mention it's a lot faster and less hassle. Anyone that can really afford a Mac can afford Toast if they need those tools. Roxio has supported Apple with Toast even when it wasn't cool to support Apple. I give them credit where credit is do.

And until a better solution comes out, I will probably continue to use it. As of now, there is no better solution for disk burning on OS X than Toast.

[Kenneth]

I tried Toast 8 Titanium at the local Apple Store. The new UI is really nice compared to the previous version. I should get a copy of version 8 later this afternoon.

[Gankdawg]

I've always had Toast for burning movies that I'd converted with DVD2OneX. I have Toast 5 which doesn't convert TS_Video folders to the proper size for burning. It sounds like from the above discussion that Toast now does that? I've always used the 3 step process -- MTR, DVD2OneX, Toast.

[- - e r i k - -]

Yeah, toast does everything for you. Except rip DVDs with copy protection that is

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Yeah, toast does everything for you. Except rip DVDs with copy protection that is

Well you can't really expect them to support that. But there are other things that do that, that cost nothing.

[Kenneth]

It's sad that Toast 8 doesn't utilize all the cores on the Mac Pro during video converting.