Cd Audio Encoding

[cae758]

Is it normal for Toast 9 to encode cd tracks when adding to the window?

 

Recently, I've been using Toast 7.1.3 to encode all my music onto my iPod, because it allows me to encode AAC in true Variable Bit Rate, unlike the pseudo-VBR setting iTunes offers. I just drag the cd right onto the Toast window and the tracks start appearing one after another. Takes seconds and never takes long enough to reach double digits.

 

Since just receiving my upgrade to Toast 9 in the mail yesterday, I have immediately noticed a difference that adding cd tracks to Toast takes at least as long as the process of encoding CD to AAC does. Why is this?

 

Generally, upgrades tend to improve on applications and speed up the process, not the other way around. Is there a reason why music has to be encoded into Toast 9.0.2 just to be encoded back out again? Are the tracks being checked by Toast to confirm they're free of defects? Is there a setting I have on I don't know about I can uncheck or change to make it faster?

 

While I am asking questions, does Toast 9 have a better encoding engine than Toast 7 or are they the same? Is the quality of the encoding more dependent on the latest release of Quicktime, or is Toast responsible for the quality? Or is it my hardware?

 

Thanks in advance for any information to follow. And I apologize if this question has been asked previously: Skimming through the pages of search results (and I tried different searches), I was unable to find any relating to my topic.

[tsantee]

Are you just referring to before I do anything to the files?

 

What if I don't use any of 9's features, i.e. normalizing audio; Do 7 and 9 have the same encoding engine, or is one better than the other? Does it use Quicktime, meaning, is the encoding dependent on Quicktime? Example: If the encoding is dependent on Quicktime, then it doesn't matter whether I am using Toast 7 or 9, because the encoding will be the same either way. The only difference would be if I had encoded through Toast with Quicktime 6.3 as opposed to my present version of 7.5.

Unfortunately this requires more knowledge of the inner workings of Toast than I know. Roxio has upgraded many of the built-in encoders with Toast 9 compared with Toast 7 but I don't know if that includes the audio conversions to iPod. Toast does use Quicktime to read files and I expect it uses Quicktime for encoding for iPod. Some of Toast's updates address changes in QuickTime but I'm not aware of any reading/encoding changes needed for your purpose between the latest version of Toast 7 and Toast 9. My understanding – which could be mistaken – is that the audio export for iPod is identical with either version of Toast. What has changed is how you can now modify the audio in Toast 9 before export.

 

 

One more question: Would the import process be faster with Intel Core Duo 2 as opposed to my PPC? Yes, I realize it would be faster in general, but I mean was Toast 9 specifically designed to be run on the Intel?

The import process is as fast as your CD drive, bus speed and hard drive will allow. And yes, Toast 9 is designed to use multiple processors on Intel Macs.

 

There is no problem keeping and using earlier versions of Toast along with newer versions. Toast 9 is slower for what you want because of its need to first transfer the audio files from the CD. I'd continue using Toast 7 for your workflow.

 

[tsantee]

You say you are adding the tracks from an audio CD. Toast 9 has many features for modifying audio files that weren't in Toast 7. As a result, Toast needs to extract (not encode) the audio from the CD to the hard drive so it can use those features. For example, you may want to use normalize when importing from multiple CDs.

 

There is no encoding until you click the button to convert the tracks for iPod. So there is no difference between the quality you'll get with Toast 9 or 7 as long as you don't want any of the audio treatments available in Toast 9.

[cae758]

tsantee, thanks for your help. After posting, I decided to start reading through the threads on Toast 9 from the beginning and came across THIS thread, which you already replied in. Both answers have helped me, so thanks one more time.

 

To quote you:

So there is no difference between the quality you'll get with Toast 9 or 7 as long as you don't want any of the audio treatments available in Toast 9.

Are you just referring to before I do anything to the files?

 

What if I don't use any of 9's features, i.e. normalizing audio; Do 7 and 9 have the same encoding engine, or is one better than the other? Does it use Quicktime, meaning, is the encoding dependent on Quicktime? Example: If the encoding is dependent on Quicktime, then it doesn't matter whether I am using Toast 7 or 9, because the encoding will be the same either way. The only difference would be if I had encoded through Toast with Quicktime 6.3 as opposed to my present version of 7.5.

 

One more question: Would the import process be faster with Intel Core Duo 2 as opposed to my PPC? Yes, I realize it would be faster in general, but I mean was Toast 9 specifically designed to be run on the Intel?