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Provides: CD, DVD and Blu-ray disc burning; EyeTV burning and TiVoToGo transfers to DVD or iPod.

Format: Download or CD-ROM

Developer: Roxio

Minimum Requirements: G4, G5 or Intel Macintosh, Mac OS X v10.4.8, 250MB free hard disk space, QuickTime v7.1.3, and a CD, DVD or Blu-ray Disc recordable drive

Retail Price: $99.99

Availability: Out now

Version Reviewed: 8.0.1

Toast 8 Titanium is now blurry. I'm not sure why this is. Some of the GUI is very clean and quite "Tiger"-like in its appearance. And yet, for some reason, when you're setting up a disc to burn or are actually burning it, the type seems like it's been washed in a pair of pants. I mention this because there's hardly anything else wrong with Toast 8 Titanium, and I figured I'd get my main complaint out of the way early.

My thought each time I see Roxio has released another update Toast is that they're obviously now just jamming in features we don't need in an effort to continue making money off a product that reached maturity three version ago. Luckily for Roxio, new technology keeps coming along for them to add to their support list. An example this time is Blu-ray.

If your computer has a Blu-ray disc burner, Toast 8 Titanium will give you the option to write to it, taking full advantage of the 25GB storage capacity of single layer discs as well as the 50GB dual layers. That's a lot of gigs, increasing the usefulness of recordable media as a back-up solution. Blu-ray works for video, as well, of course; not just for data.

TiVo owners will be pleased to see that Toast 8 offers TiVoToGo transfers to DVD, iPod and PSP. I wasn't able to test this, as I don't have TiVo, but I was able to burn DVDs of TV shows I recorded with EyeTV. The video seemed slightly off to me on the final product, but I can't say if that was the result of Toast 8's burning or of EyeTV's conversion. Regardless, the quality was much better than that of VHS, which is currently my only other (and more complicated) method of recording TV to DVD. Also, the video file looks just fine on my 5G iPod, to which Toast 8 allows you to export video directly.

Toast 8 actually handles many video formats, saving quite a bit of exporting/conversion time. For instance, if you have an iMovie HD file you'd like to burn, Toast 8 can read the native iMovie file; no need to first export it to DVD, QuickTime, or anything else. Very, very handy, as not even iDVD can do that. To see the full list of supported video, audio, photo and image formats, visit Roxio's website and click on "File Support."

When burning DVDs, Toast 8 now allows for custom menu backgrounds. Some fairly safe options are provided, or you can drag your own image onto the interface for further customization. There are no animated menus as in iDVD, as Toast 8 focuses on usability features such as simplifying the process of both auto-playing the disc on insert and, even better, forcing continuous play of each individual video on your disc. Both options are a simple check box away from completion. It's too bad they didn't also add a loop option for those who would like to pop in the DVD and just let it play continuously, as would be used in a kiosk-type setting.

Along with video features comes a new photo archive features that allows for slideshows. Simply drag your photos into the Photo Disc window, and they're ready for burning, no conversion required. Not only does make for a good back-up option, but the photos can be played back in a slideshow when viewed on the Mac or PC, even if Toast is not installed on the computer. Unfortunately, this doesn't work on a standard DVD player (you'll need to set up the slideshow in another program, for that, but you can then use Toast 8 to burn a DVD with a slideshow on it for DVD player use). Also, the autostart feature on the computer slideshow is Windows only.

For me, though, Toast's most useful feature has always been audio CD burning. The Jam functionality is now completely built in, so features such as crossfades, trimming and (most importantly) normalizing are right there, ready to go. Audio CD burning is quick and easy, and the results are stellar. These features are also very intuitive to use, so those intimidated by the science of sound (of which I'm one) need not worry.

As with all Toast 8 Titanium elements, the interface here has been cleaned up. Most of the higher end features are accessible only after clicking the "More" button, but I recommend you do this. There, you can assign the disc and track names (if not already assigned) which can be read by CD players that offer text readouts. Also, Roxio has annoyingly see fit to turn on digital copy protection by default. You'll most likely want to shut that off. Thankfully, you can turn this off in one song then apply it to all other songs with the click of a button.

And, of course, CD Spin Doctor is still in the mix, offering improved vinyl LP and tape conversion for burning to CD or DVD, or for playing on your iPod. This feature is so great that instead of spending $14.00 on a reissued CD, I'll buy the album on its original vinyl for a quarter at the local used record store and use CD Spin Doctor to burn it. I'd cover this more, but Gary Coyne will soon be updating his 12 to 12 in 12 article, which will go into extensive detail on this process.

The great new disc catalog feature, which allows you to browse the contents of your discs even if the disc is not currently in your Macintosh, works with audio CDs you've burned to. Although not terribly helpful there (hopefully, you can remember who sang what on those CDs you've burned), it's wonderful if, like me, you've burned multiple MP3 back up CDs and need to find a particular song on one of them. Better yet, you can scan previously burned CDs to add to your catalog (or catalogs, as you can save more than one), so you can finally get organized with all those years of CD/DVD back-ups.

It seems that every time Toast is updated, I recommend it. Hopefully, you haven't been paying attention, because this is the one you need. In fact, I'd go so far as to say Roxio can't possibly improve upon this in future versions, but I'm sure they'll find a way...even if they need to make things blurry to do it.