Roxio will release Toast 7 this week. This is the latest version of their CD mastering package — I still have my copy of Toast 4 from a few years back, but this new version has a number of new features. Most of the new functions concern DVDs — you can now write to several different formats including music DVD (50 hours on one disc). These new functions actually sound more useful if you produce a lot of video, but as it’s a general-purpose CD/DVD authoring package there’s a lot of functionality for you audio producers too.

The emphasis on the general user runs right through Toast 7 — it even integrates with Apple’s iLife 05 “digital lifestyle” software. Roxio’s website has more details. They say: Toast 7 is the best way to save, share and enjoy a lifetime of digital music, movies and photos on CD and DVD. Burn large files across multiple discs. Compress and copy DVD movies. Add over 50 hours of music to an audio DVD — with on-screen TV menus, shuffle play, and rich Dolby Digital sound. Turn DivX files into DVDs. Create stunning multi-image HD slideshows with collages, motion effects, titles and background soundtracks. Enjoy HD playback in your living room today! Do it all with the fastest and most reliable burning software for the Mac OS — Toast.

Toast supports the most input formats of any Mac OS burning software:

• Audio — any non-protected QuickTime audio file, including AIFF, MP3, WAV, M4A, and MOV, as well as non-native formats, such as OGG, FLAC, and Dolby AC3 (2.0 and 5.1).
• Video — any QuickTime video file, including AVI, DV, MOV, MPEG1, and MPEG4, as well as non-native formats such as MPEG2, DivX, XVID, VOB, and iMovie projects.
• Image — any QuickTime image file, including BMP, GIF, JPG, PDF, PSD, PNG, and TIFF.

Toast supports the most output formats of any Mac OS burning software:

• Data — Mac only, Mac/PC easy hybrid, ISO9660, UDF, Custom Hybrid, Mac Volume
• Audio — Audio CD, Music DVD, MP3 Disc, Enhanced Audio CD, Mixed Mode CD
• Video — Video CD, Super Video CD, DVD-Video, miniDVD, DivX Disc
• Copy — CD/DVD copy, Toast/3rd party image copy, Bin/Cue copy, CD-ROM XA, CD-I
• Disc Types — CD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW double-layer, DVD-R/RW dual-layer, DVD-RAM
• Recorders — Most internal and external CD and DVD recorders, including SuperDrives

Toast supports special burn settings, such as CD-TEXT writing, Disc At Once (DAO) recording, and Buffer Underrun Prevention options. DVDs created with Toast adhere 100% to the official DVD specifications, and are tested with Hollywood standard certification tools to verify DVD player compatibility.