I first started using Roxio Toast when the version was 3. It came with an external drive that I bought. Roxio Toast is one of the most widely used Mac titles. It’s constantly updated. So what’s new in Toast 9?






To beginning with…

When you first launch Roxio Toast 9 Titanium, you may notice that the design of the application window hasn’t changed much. Let’s take a good look at Screenshot 01. There are 5 buttons at the top left corner of the window. And one of them is new. The software developer has added a new project type called Convert. Click on any of the project types, and you will notice that each option has an info button. Actually, it’s not a button. So you don’t have to press anything. If you just place your Mouse over i, the description of the option will appear. (See Screenshot 02.)

Screenshot 01

Screenshot 02

Screenshot 03

Data

The only new option that we find under Data is ‘Avoid splitting files when spanning.’ (See Screenshot 03.) The PDF user’s guide doesn’t explain exactly what it does. It seems that Toast will not split each of individual files into parts across different discs.






Audio

There is noting new.






Video

Video has several new features, and we have plenty to talk about. When you open Video for the first time, you will only see 4 options. (See Screenshot 04.) Go to Preferences > General to add options for Blu-ray and HD DVD. (See Screenshot 05.) Okay. I’ve skipped legacy formats (VCD & SVCD). Now, I have 8 options. (See Screenshot 06.) DVD-Video, Blu-ray Video, HD DVD Video VIDEO_TS Folders…

Screenshot 04

Screenshot 05

Screenshot 06

Here is an easy way of understanding what’s going on under Video. Take a look at Screenshot 07. The options with a red arrow to the left accepts videos and graphic files in any acceptable format. For example, I dropped 3 videos and one JPEG file as shown in Screenshot 08. A graphic files will turn into a slideshow, and you can change its duration. (See Screenshot 09.) How about the ones with a yellow arrow? Drop a TS folder, but not any TS folder. You cannot drop a Video_TS folder in BDMV Folder or HVDVD_TS Folder because the format of Video_TS folders is DVD. You can only drop TS folders for Blu-ray in BDMV Folder. The same is true for HVDVD_TS Folder, where you can only drop HVDVD_TS folders.

Screenshot 07

Screenshot 08

Screenshot 09

Okay. Let’s go back to the top. Clicking on DVD-Video, I don’t see many changes inside the Options box. Actually, they have added a video quality slider at the bottom, right? And Toast 9 has 32 menu styles while Toast 8 has only 10 menu styles. (See Screenshot 10.) These 32 menu styles are all new.

Screenshot 10

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Screenshot 12

Clicking on More, you don’t see a change under Disc. (See Screenshot 11.) Menus has small changes. (See Screenshot 12.) Seeing Screenshot 13, how about Encoding? Under Video Format, there is a drop-down menu. DVD only supports MPEG-2 compression. But Blu-ray Video and and HD DVD Video both add another option for the format drop-down menu.

Screenshot 13

Screenshot 14

Screenshot 15

Okay. Next, let’s look at Blu-ray Video and HD DVD Video. The only difference between DVD-Video and Blu-ray Video/HD DVD Video is the video format. As shown in Screenshot 15 and 16, you can choose MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) besides MPEG-2 for Blu-ray Video/HD DVD Video.

Screenshot 16

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Screenshot 18

Next… We know what VIDEO_TS Folders is because Toast 7 and 8 has this option. But what is VIDEO_TS Compilation? As shown in Screenshot 17, its description says “Compile multiple existing VIDEO_TS folders and burn to a single DVD-Video disc.” Okay, does that mean VIDEO_TS Folders only lets us import one TS folder? No. Take a look at Screenshot 18. You can import multiple TS folders. The important part is “a single DVD-Video disc.” The difference is simple. If I clicked on Save As Disc Image in Screenshot 18, I would eventually end up with two images because there are 2 TS folders in the window. (See Screenshot 19.) But if I clicked on the button as shown in Screenshot 20, I would only have one disc image. (See Screenshot 21.) So if you choose VIDEO_TS Compilation, whether you put 1 or 2 TS folders, all TS folders will be compressed into one. By the way, in the case of VIDEO_TS Compilation as shown in Screenshot 20, the whole process took about 25 minutes.

Screenshot 19

Screenshot 20

Screenshot 21

Things look a little complicated if I open DVD_VIVDEO.toast (VIDEO_TS Compilation). There are 13 VOB files inside Video_TS folder. (See Screenshot 22.) VTS_01_1.VOB and VTS_01_2.VOB belong to the first Video_TS, and VTS_06_1.VOB and VTS_06_2.VOB belong to the second Video_TS. If I play this DVD, then… Umm… There’s a problem. Unlike DVD-Video, Blu-ray Video, HD DVD Video and DivX Disc where you can pick a menu style for scene screenshots, you can’t have a menu for choosing a video under VIDEO_TS Compilation. I played DVD_VIVDEO with VLC Media Player. (See Screenshot 23.) If you choose VIDEO_TS Compilation and have multiple TS folders, you won’t get a DVD menu from any of the TS folders. So if you press the Play button, any of the movies, trailers, or FBI warning can start. And it’s not even easy to go to the 2nd video. You can end up wasting time by randomizing yourself between trailers and chapters from video 1.

Screenshot 22

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Screenshot 24

Finally, let’s talk about the last option, which is titled DivX Disc. Again, you can put videos in any acceptable format. Acceptable video formats for DVD-Video, Blu-ray Video, HD DVD Video and DivX Disc include AVI, MOV, M2V, MPEG, VOB and more. As an example, I put a small QuickTime video (MOV) as shown in Screenshot 24. You can change video settings by clicking on the button labeled DivX at the bottom. Let me put another video. As shown in Screenshot 25, the button is grayed out, which implies that you can only compress one video at a time.

Screenshot 25

Screenshot 26

Screenshot 27

There are a couple of strange aspects about DivX. The resolution of the original video is 900 x 675 pixels. But DivX doesn’t accept this size and change it to 900 x 674 pixels. (See Screenshot 26.) If I click on Advanced Settings and try to change the resolution to 900 x 675 pixels (See Screenshot 27.)… DivX will put it back to 900 x 674. Anyway, after clicking on Save As Disc Image at the bottom of the screen to compress the video in DivX, you will be asked to name a disc. (See Screenshot 28.) Finally, if I open the compressed video with QuickTime… I get a yellow horizontal line at the top. (See Screenshot 29.) No, it doesn’t come from the original video.

Screenshot 28

Screenshot 29

To be continued…






Roxio Toast 9 Titanium is a product of Roxio, a division of Sonic Solutions.






References:

Mac Software Review: Roxio Toast 9 Titanium – Part 2
Roxio Toast Titanium 8 Quick Overview
Mac Software Review: Roxio Toast Titanium 8

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