Mac|Life burning RSS Feed

Toast 8 Titanium

Zack Stern — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 22:29:01 -0500

Toast's DVD-burning options aren't nearly as comprehensive as iDVD's, but they're great for quick burns.

Toast 8 Titanium nails all of our disc-burning needs with support for nearly every format and situation we can imagine, but it almost loses focus, including several utilities and features that you may not need. As multitalented as Toast is, we wish we could buy it with just its robust burning options.

Toast's comprehensive burning abilities are still its bread and butter. While HD-DVD burning support is forthcoming for the still-rare hardware, Toast tackles Blu-ray, dual-layer DVDs, CD-Rs, rewritable discs, and every other common disc media format. For audio discs, it burns MP3 CDs, music DVDs, audio CDs, and more. Just drag files of nearly any popular format - MP3, AAC, OGG, FLAC, WAV, and others - into its window to automatically convert them into the proper format for the disc. Protected AAC files from the iTunes Store aren't supported, but that's not Roxio's fault.

The software's video-disc formats are just as comprehensive, with the ability to burn video CDs, super video CDs, movie DVDs, and DivX discs. As with the audio discs, you just drag one of Toast's many supported formats - anything QuickTime, plus MPEG, DivX, and more - into the window, and the app formats them. WMV, however, isn't supported unless you install Flip4Mac's WMV Player Pro ($29, www.flip4mac.com). Toast even creates quick DVD movie interfaces. They lack the full gloss of iDVD or DVD Studio Pro interfaces, but don't require all the work.

If you extract the video from a movie DVD, Toast will burn it onto another disc. This process works well with uncommon or homemade DVDs that lack copy protection, but you can't use Toast to back up commercial, copy-protected DVDs. Since most movie DVDs include several layers of data, Toast can even compress the movie and its menus into a standard 4.7GB DVD while retaining much of the image quality.

Data-disc support is also robust, with the ability to burn Mac-formatted discs, hybrid discs for the Mac and PC, ISO 9660, and others. The easy-to-use interface lets you throw together quick discs within Toast, or Control-click anything in the Finder to instantly launch Toast and prepare a disc. Toast even supports multidisc spanning to save large files across more than one disc. This feature burns a small utility to reconstruct the original files, so recipients (using Mac OS X or Windows) don't need Toast installed.

Thanks to a brand-new feature, Toast now lets Mac users transfer video from a networked Series 2 TiVo. Of course, this would make much more sense as a stand-alone app. If you feel put off by spending $100 for a TiVo feature that Windows users get for free, try TiVoDecode Manager (tdm.sourceforge.net), a free application that gives your Mac access to your Series 2 TiVo's content.

One of the best features in Toast 8 is in the realm of video processing. We used it to compress and export videos to an iPod, including our TiVo's shows. Still, video exports have their limitations: TiVo files are restricted to 320 by 240 pixels and don't allow the same advanced options as other videos. And while Toast lets users trim the beginning and ending times of a video, you can't make simple cuts to the middle to remove commercials.

Toast bundles a few small utilities with limited appeal that relate to disc burning. Some of the extra features record audio, build slideshows, create disc art, catalog a disc library, and facilitate backups. They all do what they claim, but not as well as built-in or third-party tools.

The bottom line. Toast 8 Titanium's extras are only occasionally useful, but its vast support for disc burners and formats makes it easy to recommend.

COMPANY: Roxio
CONTACT: www.roxio.com
PRICE: $99.99
REQUIREMENTS: G4 or later or Intel processor, Mac OS 10.4.8 or later, recordable optical drive
Wide support for media, hardware, audio, video, and disc formats. Large burns span across discs. Video can be processed for iPod. Universal binary.
Extra utilities add little punch. WMV importing requires third-party tool. Won't back up most commercial DVD movies. Windows users get TiVoToGo for free.

DRX-830UL/T

Roman Loyola — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 21:58:34 -0500

No double-layer SuperDrive in your Mac? Now you can upgrade.

Sick and tired of waiting for dual-layer and double-layer DVD media prices to fall? The discs that hold 8.5GB of data are still pricey at about $1.50 each, but that's less than they cost three months ago, and prices continue to fall. So why not free yourself from the 4.7GB restriction of single-layer DVDs? A multiformat DVD burner like Sony's DRX-830UL/T offers the right combination of speed and price.

You never have to worry if the DRX-830UL/T can read or write to a disc, because the drive supports a vast array of CD and DVD formats, including double-layer DVD+R, dual-layer DVD-R, DVD+R/-R, and CD-R. You can connect to your Mac with either FireWire 400 or USB using the provided cables. You also get Roxio's Toast 6 Lite, a fine disc-burning app, but Roxio recently released Toast 8 Titanium, which means the bundled software is two generations behind the current version.

We tested the speed of the drive using FireWire 400 on a dual 2GHz Power Mac G4 with a single-layer SuperDrive. Predictably, the DRX-830UL/T was faster than the SuperDrive, by a wide margin. When we copied a 2GB file to a single-layer DVD+R disc, the DRX-830UL/T was 39 percent faster than the SuperDrive. When creating a music CD in iTunes, the Sony drive was 22 percent faster. Burning a 6GB video file onto a double-layer DVD+R disc took 33 minutes, which is 10 minutes faster than Sony's previous model, the DRX-820UL/T.

The bottom line. If you didn't get a double-layer SuperDrive with your Mac, the DRX-830UL/T is your chance to move up.

COMPANY: Sony
CONTACT: www.sonystyle.com
PRICE: $129.99
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.2 or later, USB or FireWire 400
Good speed. Supports a wide range of optical media.
Bundled Toast software is a couple of generations old.

DiscLabel 4.1.2

Roman Loyola — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 19:58:38 -0500

DiscLabel has more design tools than your typical disc label software.

Label your CDs and DVDs like a pro.You put a lot of effort, time, and consideration to make that music mix CD for your sweetie or BFF, so don't ruin it with a Sharpie and illegible scrawl across the top. For about $33, DiscLabel makes it easy to create professional-level labels for your discs.

You can start with one of the 68 premade templates, which use attractive designs and text, or create your own design from scratch with a blank template and your own elements. If you don't know what you want, the DiscLabel Random Design Factory feature throws together components from various templates to create new combinations of patterns and text.

DiscLabel's real power is in its editing tools. Our favorite feature is the use of layers, à la Photoshop. Layers make it easier to manage elements, and you can have as many layers as you want. However, if you have too many, it can be difficult to find the precise layer tab you need. We also like how the text tools let you import tags from your files (provided your files have such tags that you can enter in iLife - more on that in a sec) and align the text vertically, horizontally, or in a circle.

The app makes it easy to create disc labels based on your iLife content. For example, the software can tap into iTunes to create song lists from your iTunes playlists. If you're making a CD of photos, DiscLabel can create a list from an iPhoto album, or even use an image from iPhoto as the background image for your label. It can also create labels for your iDVD projects.

The bottom line. Go ahead, let your Sharpie dry out. DiscLabel is a great way to put the finishing touch on your homemade CDs and DVDs. Oh, and you can download a demo copy of DiscLabel from the MacLife.com Software Vault - just click here.

COMPANY: SmileOnMyMac
CONTACT: www.smileonmymac.com
PRICE: $32.95
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.4 or later
Easy to use. LightScribe support. Smart iLife integration. Universal binary.
Layer tabs need better organization.

GreatVideo 2.1

Roman Loyola — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 15:33:53 -0600

GreatVideo (top) and HandBrake (bottom) won't win any interface beauty pageants, but they're both very congenial.

For 80 bucks, GreatVideo makes it easy to rip videos from unprotected DVDs to your Mac. But there's a free alternative, if you don't need formatting options: HandBrake (free, handbrake.m0k.com) can rip video from protected and unprotected DVDs.

GreatVideo's advantage is that it can convert video to more than 40 formats, including H.264, DV/DVCPRO, Sorenson Video, and Cinepak. HandBrake converts only to MPEG-4 and H.264. GreatVideo also comes with ReadDVD, a handy tool that's worth the price of the whole package because it lets Mac OS 10.4 users mount UDF-formatted DVDs, commonly used in DVD camcorders and DVD set-top recorders. HandBrake doesn't provide a way to access UDF DVDs.

We took a three-minute video on an unencrypted DVD and converted it to iPod format using GreatVideo and HandBrake on a 2.33GHz 17-inch MacBook Pro. Before we started testing, HandBrake got a head start-it has Intel-native code, while GreatVideo doesn't. GreatVideo runs on Intel Macs using Rosetta, Apple's on-the-fly software translator, and that extra layer of effort affects GreatVideo's conversion speed.

HandBrake converted the movie in a blazing 2 minutes, 39 seconds. GreatVideo finished 15 minutes later. Another drawback: GreatVideo doesn't let you adjust the pixel resolution of your output, while HandBrake does.

The bottom line. GreatVideo's strengths are its multiformat support and the bundled ReadDVD tool. But if all you need is MPEG-4 or H.264, try HandBrake. It won't cost you a thing.

COMPANY: Software Architects
CONTACT: www.softarch.com
PRICE: $79.95
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.3.9 or later (ReadDVD requires Mac OS 10.4 or later), 256MB RAM, 5GB disk space, QuickTime 6 or later
Easy to use. Comes with handy ReadDVD tool that lets your Mac read DVDs from DVD video recorders and DVD camcorders. Lots of codecs to choose from.
Not a Universal binary.

Disco 1.0

Craig Grannell — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 15:16:14 -0600

Your Mac's not on fire - Disco creates virtual smoke as it burns a disc.

When it comes to optical-disc-burning software, there's Roxio's Toast ($99.99, www.roxio.com) and there's everything else. So when an affordable disc-burning app like Disco comes along, you pay attention, especially when the developers claim on their website that Disco will be "last media-burning app you'll ever need." The reality is that Disco has a ways to go: Although it offers novel features, it gets some of the basics wrong.

The inflexible, nonstandard interface is Disco's most obvious differentiator - and its biggest flaw. The transparent, smoke-colored windows make the application easy to use on the one hand, but irritating on the other. The large, helpful icons are great, but since you can't resize the window, file names longer that 25 characters can't be completely displayed. Long lists of files rapidly become tiresome to navigate because the window shows only six files at a time. Also, you can't edit file names. However, when it comes to burning media, the application performs well, offering user-friendly progress displays.

Disco offers two innovative features that aim to set it apart from its contemporaries: Discography and Spandex. Discography tracks every file on the discs you burn, providing a Spotlight-like interface to search them with. We'd like access to the entire directory of each disc, but that's a minor quibble. Spandex, a tool that automatically divides large burns across multiple discs, doesn't work as well. It can't split folders that are larger than the target media volume, and the way it organizes items is sometimes wasteful - in one of our tests, a mere 900MB of data was spread across three CD-Rs.

The bottom line. Disco needs a few improvements before it becomes the last media-burning app you'll ever need.

COMPANY: MadeBySofa
CONTACT: www.discoapp.com
PRICE: $29.95
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.4.3 or later
Automatic cataloging. Generally simple to use. Uses recent notebooks' motion sensors to warn you of potential bad burns if the computer is moving.
Inflexible, nonstandard interface. Lack of file-list editing. Spandex a disappointment.

DRX-820UL/T

Roman Loyola — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:09:52 -0500

Upgrade your Combo Drive now - right now!

Stuck with the single-layer DVD burner that came with your Mac and you want to put more than 4.7GB of data on a DVD? Stuck with a Combo drive and you can't even burn a DVD? Sony's DRX-820UL/T is an ideal upgrade - it not only burns dual-layer DVDs, but also offers a speed increase over your old internal SuperDrive or Combo drive.

The DRX-820UL/T supports a wide range of disc formats: CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD±R, double-layer DVD+R, and dual-layer DVD-R. It comes with USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 connectors, and it even bundles FireWire 400 and USB cables (yay!). The drive also comes with Roxio Toast 6 Lite - a nice application, although it's a version behind the latest one available.

To test the speed of the DRX-820UL/T, we timed how long it took to burn data to certain discs, using FireWire 400 on a dual 2GHz PowerMac G4 with a SuperDrive capable of burning single-layer DVDs. Across the board (when applicable), the DRX-820UL/T was faster than the SuperDrive. When burning a 2GB digital video file to DVD-R, DVD+R, and DVD-RW, the DRX-820UL/T was 10 percent, 36 percent, and 15 percent faster, respectively. When burning 340MB worth of photos to a CD-R, the DRX-820UL/T was 30 percent faster than the SuperDrive. It took 45 minutes to burn 6GB worth of digital video files onto a double-layer DVD+R disc.

If there's one reason to knock this speedy drive, it's the noise. When you insert a disc, you'll endure a considerable amount of fan noise. The drive eventually quiets down, though, to unnoticeable levels.

The bottom line. At this price, there's no reason why you need to stick with your old SuperDrive or Combo drive.

COMPANY: Sony
CONTACT: 800-352-7669, www.sonystyle.com
PRICE: $159.99
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 9.2 or later for FireWire 400, Mac OS 10.2 or later for USB 2.0
Excellent burning speeds.
Noisy at times.