Digital Media Boosts CD, DVD Burning on Macs

Tech News World ^ | August 2, 2006 | Tech News World

[2Jim_Brown]

New digital media features are boosting the CD and DVD burning capabilities of Macintosh computers, and are quickly and quietly transforming the rest of the electronics landscape as well. Last week, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sonic Solutions (Nasdaq: SNIC) debuted a new technology, Toast 7 with Blu-ray Disc support, the first ever application of that kind for the Mac. The optical disc recording technology provides Mac users with the ability to store up to 50 GB of data on a Blu-ray recordable or Blu-ray rewritable disc. By Gene Koprowski

[2Jim_Brown]

New digital media features are boosting the CD and DVD burning capabilities on Macintosh computers.

[EagleUSA]

Yeah, and wait until you see what the cost is presently for these drives...ouch. Gonna be a while before the new DVD format is standardized as well. Blue Ray may not be the standard...the war is still going on.

[MaryFromMichigan]

For the ping list.

[Echo Talon]

New digital media features are boosting the CD and DVD burning capabilities on Macintosh computers.

gee I guess it wont work on a PC... /sarcasm

[Swordmaker]

Now OS X Macs plus Toast 7 equal Blue Ray PING!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[antiRepublicrat]

gee I guess it wont work on a PC... /sarcasm

It's just far easier on a Mac out of the box. A newbie can organize his video, photos and music into a DVD with little difficulty using the included software and hardware. Plus the Mac has Core Video, so all the cool transitions and stuff go amazingly fast on even a low-end Core Duo.

[Yossarian]

Before the latest High Definition DVD players hit the streets, I was in the Blu Ray camp. Now that that I've had a chance to look at both players, I'm solidly in the HD-DVD camp.

HD-DVD beats Blu Ray with:

• less mosquito noise;
• less macroblocking;
• undistorted aspect ratio;
• more movies; and
• HALF THE PRICE OF BLU-RAY!!!

So, I await reasonably priced HD-DVD burners, and a version of Toast or Mac OS X that supports burning them.

---

While we're on the subject of DVDs, iDVD has some cool templates to use, but I found something even cooler:

• Still use iDVD, but use a "plain" template.
• Install the Developer Tools, included with Mac OS X. (Apple has the installer on the OS X DVD, or in an "optional installs" folder on your hard drive if you bought your machine with 10.4 installed);
• Find "Quartz Composer" in the /Developer/Applications folder. It is an "easy-to-use" flowchart interface to all the tricks Apple's Quartz GUI can do;
• Look at Quartz Composer examples, both the ones in the Developer folder, but for amazing ones go to Japanese artist Futurismo Zugakousaku's Quartz Compositions page. Best of all, you can download the .qtz file for the animation, open it in Quartz Composer, and modify it to your heart's content!
• Once you have a Quartz Composition you like, just drag-and-drop the .qtz file into iDVD, and it will be used just like any other background movie.

By doing this, I've created DVD menus and movies that people are amazed by. And it's so simple, and with Mac OS X, free!