[Ole O]

I'm new to this forum; hope I'm in the right area! I have iMac Intel V10.4.11. Do not plan to upgrade to Leopard at this time. I burn up to 50 DVDs each of home movies using iMovie and iDVD. Is there a Roxio product (Toast 9 ?) that is better to use than burning with the Apple product that came with the computer?
If so, what are the advantages? Thanks.

[tsantee]

If you like iDVD's cool-looking menus then stick with it. Toast has basic menus but encodes Dolby Digital AC-3 audio instead of iDVD's uncompressed PCM audio. The reason that matters is audio can take up a lot of space on a DVD forcing the video to be more highly compressed (lower quality) when movies exceed one hour in length. Dolby Digital audio is compressed to allow more space for higher-quality video on longer movies.

If all you're looking for is an alternative to making video DVDs of home movies then that probably isn't reason enough to buy Toast. Toast is like the Swiss Army Knife that does countless things. Making video DVDs from iMovie is just one of them.

[Ole O]

If you like iDVD's cool-looking menus then stick with it. Toast has basic menus but encodes Dolby Digital AC-3 audio instead of iDVD's uncompressed PCM audio. The reason that matters is audio can take up a lot of space on a DVD forcing the video to be more highly compressed (lower quality) when movies exceed one hour in length. Dolby Digital audio is compressed to allow more space for higher-quality video on longer movies.

If all you're looking for is an alternative to making video DVDs of home movies then that probably isn't reason enough to buy Toast. Toast is like the Swiss Army Knife that does countless things. Making video DVDs from iMovie is just one of them.

Thanks for explaining those things to me. iDVD has been working OK; movies are 60 min or under. Thought maybe Toast might burn them quicker.

[tsantee]

Thanks for explaining those things to me. iDVD has been working OK; movies are 60 min or under. Thought maybe Toast might burn them quicker.

I don't believe the time to encode, author and burn the disc will be much different with Toast. If you want to make video DVDs from video files not recognized by (or imported to) iMovie then Toast will save you headaches and time.

[Ole O]

I don't believe the time to encode, author and burn the disc will be much different with Toast. If you want to make video DVDs from video files not recognized by (or imported to) iMovie then Toast will save you headaches and time.

Thanks much!