Toast is an

optical disc authoring Optical disc authoring, including CD, DVD, and Blu-ray Disc authoring, is the process of assembling source material—video, audio or other data—into the proper logical volume format to then be recorded ("burned") onto an optical di ...

and media conversion

software application Application software is any computer program that is intended for end-user use not computer operator, operating, system administration, administering or computer programming, programming the computer. An application (app, application program, sof ...

for

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

. Its name is a play on the word ''burn'', a term used for the writing of information onto a disc through the use of a laser. Discs can be burned directly through

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, but Toast provides added control over the process as well as extra features, including file recovery for damaged discs, cataloging and tracking of files burned to disc. It also provides support for audio and video formats that

QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...

does not support, such as

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software ...

and

Ogg Vorbis Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder (codec) for lossy audio compression, libvorbis. Vorbis is most common ...

History

Toast was conceived of by Greg Kerr in 1993, then CEO of

Astarte Astarte (; , ) is the Greek language, Hellenized form of the Religions of the ancient Near East, Ancient Near Eastern goddess ʿAṯtart. ʿAṯtart was the Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic equivalent of the East Semitic language ...

, who outsourced development to Markus Fest. In 1997, the product and team was purchased by

Adaptec Adaptec, Inc., was a computer storage company and remains a brand for computer storage products. The company was an independent firm from 1981 to 2010, at which point it was acquired by PMC-Sierra, which itself was later acquired by Microsemi, ...

, and later transferred to

Roxio Roxio is an American software company specializing in developing consumer digital media products. Its product line includes tools for setting up digital media projects, media conversion software and content distribution systems. The company form ...

(then a division of Adaptec). Toast 4 is the last release that can run on

System 7 System 7 (later named Mac OS 7) is the seventh major release of the classic Mac OS operating system for Macintosh computers, made by Apple Computer. It was launched on May 13, 1991, to succeed System 6 with virtual memory, personal file shari ...

with a

68k The Motorola 68000 series (also known as 680x0, m68000, m68k, or 68k) is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and w ...

CPU. With version 5, Toast was renamed "Toast Titanium" and merged with a formerly separate application, Toast DVD. Toast 5 Titanium introduced support for

Video CD Video CD (abbreviated as VCD, and also known as Compact Disc Digital Video), (not to be confused with CD Video which is a type of Laserdisc) is a home video format and the first format for distributing films on standard optical discs. The f ...

and

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

burning, which was improved in version 6 by addition of

MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods ...

encoding. Version 6 also added

DVD authoring DVD authoring is the process of creating a DVD video capable of playing on a DVD player. DVD authoring software must conform to the specifications set by the DVD Forum. DVD authoring is the second step in the process of producing finished D ...

features, enabling the creation of video and photo DVDs with menus and buttons. Unlike Apple's

iDVD iDVD is a discontinued Mac (computer), Mac application made by Apple Inc., Apple, which can be used to DVD authoring, create DVDs. iDVD lets users design DVD menus (like a main menu and chapter selection menu) and burn movies, slideshows, and ...

, it supported external DVD burners. Its "ToastAnywhere" feature let users burn discs inserted in another Mac running Toast on the local network, through Apple's

Rendezvous Rendezvous or rendez-vous may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Rendezvous'' (1923 film), a silent film adventure melodrama * ''Rendezvous'' (1930 film), a German musical directed by Carl Boese * ''Rendezvous ...

protocol. It also gained the ability to compress and encrypt files before burning them. Toast 6 Titanium included another Roxio app, CD Spin Doctor 2, which can clean noise from an audio track. Roxio announced Toast 8 Titanium in January 2007. Toast 8 Titanium added multiple features including

TiVoToGo TiVo ( ) is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi (previously by TiVo Corporation and TiVo Inc.) and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose fe ...

and

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

support.

Features

Main features of the Toast 6 are: video and photo DVDs can have menus and buttons; package includes ToastAnywhere, that uses Apple's Bonjour protocol to support burning discs from other Macs on the local network; compression and 128-bit encryption of files and folders before burning; support for all audio and video codecs supported by

; improved interface; creation of

slide show A slide show, or slideshow, is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may b ...

s with panning, zooming, transitions, and a soundtrack using the "Motion Pictures" feature.

Reception

In a 2003 review of Toast 6,

Macworld ''Macworld'' is a digital magazine and website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG. History ''Macworld'' was founded by David Bunnell and Cheryl Woodard (publishers) and Andrew Fl ...

described Toast as "venerable" and the "reigning champ" of Mac disc-burning software.

References

External links

Roxio's homepage
* Version History from Roxio *
Adaptec Toast 3.8 announcement
*

*

*

{{Disk image emulators software MacOS CD ripping software Optical disc authoring software Roxio software