ITWire

At one time, Toast was an almost essential utility for Mac owners who needed to burn more than the occasional DC or DVD. But successive improvements to Mac OS X and the iLife applications meant the need for Toast has faded.



Toast 11 Titanium still burns discs, but the balance of the package is shifting towards converting video for various devices and services. Predefined export profiles cover AppleTV, iPad, iPhone, iPod, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and more.

Whether you're burning a disc or exporting files, Toast program provides convenient access to your iTunes and iPhoto libraries, plus common video locations (including iMovie projects, the Movies folder and the EyeTV library). The range of file formats has expanded to include Flash and MKV.

The program includes the ability to edit out portions of video clips and set chapter markers, fade audio tracks in and out and apply audio effects.
There's a fair selection of DVD menu styles, but I can get excited by any of them.

I find Toast particularly useful for burning Internet videos onto DVD so they can be watched on a TV. That's redundant if your TV, Blu-ray player or other associated device already has Internet capabilities, but if you're a little behind the home entertainment curve it's a handy capability to have. On the subject of TV, Toast integrates neatly with EyeTV.

There's more to Toast, so please read on.