Roxio Toast
| Company type | Software |
|---|---|
| Industry | Optical disc authoring, Media transcoding |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Founder | Greg Kerr |
| Fate | Acquired by Adaptec in 1997, then transferred to Roxio |
Area served | macOS users |
Key people | Greg Kerr (founder), Markus Fest (developer) |
| Products | Toast software application (Toast Titanium) |
| Owner | Roxio (subsidiary of Adaptec) |
Toast is a software application designed for optical disc authoring and media transcoding on macOS. Its title is a play on the term "burn," which refers to the process of inscribing data onto optical discs using a laser.
Although disc burning capabilities exist natively within Mac OS X, Toast provides users with advanced options and additional functionalities, including recovery tools for corrupted discs, media cataloging, and compatibility with audio and video formats unsupported by QuickTime, such as FLAC and Ogg Vorbis.
History
Developed in 1993 by Greg Kerr, who was then CEO of Astarte, Toast’s programming was handled by Markus Fest through outsourced development. In 1997, both the software and its development team were acquired by Adaptec, which subsequently transferred ownership to its subsidiary, Roxio.
The final version compatible with System 7 running on 68k processors was Toast 4. With the release of version 5, the product was renamed "Toast Titanium" and integrated with Toast DVD, expanding functionality to include burning of Video CDs and DVDs. Version 6 introduced enhancements such as MPEG-2 encoding and DVD authoring capabilities that allowed users to create DVDs containing videos or photos complete with navigational menus—supporting external DVD burners in contrast to Apple's iDVD. The "ToastAnywhere" feature enabled disc burning over a network using Apple's Rendezvous protocol. Additional improvements included file compression and encryption prior to disc burning.
Toast 6 Titanium also bundled Roxio’s CD Spin Doctor 2 software, which provided audio noise reduction capabilities.
In January 2007, Roxio launched Toast 8 Titanium, which added new features including integration with TiVoToGo and support for burning Blu-ray discs.
Features
Among the primary capabilities of Toast 6 are the creation of DVDs featuring videos or photo slideshows with interactive menus and buttons; ToastAnywhere, which utilizes Apple’s Bonjour protocol to facilitate disc burning from other Macs within the same local network; file compression combined with 128-bit encryption before writing to disc; compatibility with all audio and video codecs supported by QuickTime; an enhanced user interface; and the "Motion Pictures" function that allows users to produce slideshows incorporating panning, zooming effects, transitions, and background soundtracks.
Reception
In a 2003 review by Macworld, Toast was described as the "venerable" leader and dominant choice among Mac disc-burning applications.