Sonic Solutions, the developer of Roxio Toast Titanium, quietly introduced Roxio Crunch 5 days ago. What is it for? Roxio Crunch is a video exporter. More specifically, it is an MP4 transcoder. Roxio Crunch allows the user to decode video (MOV, AVI, MP4, MPEG, WMV, ISO, Video_TS, DVD) and then re-encode it with a different video compressor (MPEG-4 Part 2 or Part 10) under MP4 format (.m4v). Transcoded movies are iPod and Apple TV-ready.
Let’s take a look at its main application interface quickly. Basically, it’s very simply. There are no menu tabs at the top of the window. The window interface is way simpler than that of Roxio Popcorn. And the drawer gives the user 4 options: DVD Disc, Image File, VIDEO_TS Folder, Video Files.
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Furthermore, take a look at the bottom right of the application window. If you are familiar with Toast Titanium, you have the same button on Roxio Crunch as well. But this button is actually installed for different purposes. In Toast Titanium, this button lets you configure recorder settings. In Roxio Crunch, this button lets you make export settings.
Roxio Crunch is an MP4 transcoder especially designed for iPod and Apple TV users. But it’s also flexible for other purposes. That’s because you can customize settings such as video bit rate, resolution, frame rate, keyframe, audio bit rate and sampling rate.
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By the way, there are currently 3 ways, which we know of, in which Mac users can transcode WMV movies into QuickTime/MP4 movies. You may have heard of VisualHub from Techspansion. That’s one choice. You can also use Flip4Mac to convert WMV into MOV. Another choice is use of VisualDub (freeware) and QuickTime components under Windows OS.
How about Roxio Crunch? Roxio Crunch does let you transcode WMV movies into M4V movies. And Roxio Crunch can be a VisualHub killer. That’s partly because we aren’t sure whether VisualHub uses a hacked or licensed version of WMV decoder.*
Nonetheless, Roxio Crunch has a few serious weaknesses. Since it’s designed for iPod and Apple TV uses, you can only export movies in MP4. Furthermore, Roxio Crunch has no playback function unlike Toast Titanium.
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Roxio Crunch is a product of Sonic Solutions.
* Read the first comment.
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We will explain how Roxio Crunch handles WMV files in detail in an upcoming video tutorial.