New Mac user burning ques

[efoto]

I just ordered a 12"SD that should be here tomorrow D) and I was just wondering what the differences between the burning software that comes with the PB are compared with some third party setup like Nero or Roxio?

On my PC I use Nero 6 and that works fine everything I need to do (no DVD burner in PC). Does the included iDVD have software to burn regular music CDs and DVDs or is something like Roxio Toast required for that?

Thanks in advance, eager to get started computing the easier way.

 

[stoid]

There is burn software built right into the OS, if you put in a blank CD/DVD it asks you what you want to do, i.e. mount, load in iTunes, load in iDVD. If you mount it, it creates a disk image that you copy files to just like any other external disc, and when you eject it, it burns the disc.

Personally though I prefer Toast for my disk burning needs.

 

[efoto]

Personally though I prefer Toast for my disk burning needs.

What about Toast makes you prefer it? I just purchased a new PB so I don't have a ton of money left over, so I will probably stick with built-in stuff if it does the job....but how is Toast worth the $80? (probably not the best price, just referenced off the website)

 

[wordmunger]

Toast is faster than the built-in burner. It also allows you to save CD configurations, if you need to burn the same/similar disks multiple times. There are other differences, but for day-to-day stuff, Apple's software is fine.

 

[Norouzi]

Personally, I use Toast for buring data disks, for music I stick with iTunes, I've never had a problem with it. Toast is definatily faster at burning data disks, pluss I burn Video CD's and other types of media that the OS Burning software dosen't do. For me Toast is a necesity, for you it dosen't sound like it. In the future you may need it, but I'd say for now you'll be fine with the basics.

 

[3-22]

What about Toast makes you prefer it? I just purchased a new PB so I don't have a ton of money left over, so I will probably stick with built-in stuff if it does the job....but how is Toast worth the $80? (probably not the best price, just referenced off the website)

Toast gives you a lot more options for the media. It can covert movies to other formats, let's you specify details on the file system, etc. You may never need them. Try the built in support... It might suffice for your purposes, and you have iDVD and iTunes "burning" options too.

 

[3-22]

What about Toast makes you prefer it? I just purchased a new PB so I don't have a ton of money left over, so I will probably stick with built-in stuff if it does the job....but how is Toast worth the $80? (probably not the best price, just referenced off the website)

Toast gives you a lot more options for the media. It can covert movies to other formats, let's you specify details on the file system, etc. You may never need them. Try the built in support... It might suffice for your purposes, and you have iDVD and iTunes "burning" options too.

EDIT: I dupped some how?!

 

[mkrishnan]

...if you need to burn the same/similar disks multiple times.

This is the one major thing to be aware of that Panther, at least, does *not* deal well with. The only way to burn multisession directly out of the OS is to make a disk image and then burn it with Disk Utility, which is a bit of a nuisance. I was kinda annoyed when I found out about it, and when I was doing searches about it, I guess a lot of people complained about this when Panther first came out and then the issue died.

Along the same lines, AFAIK, there isn't really a built in way to treat an optical disk like a hard drive, like some programs on PC (and probably Mac) that let you basically drag and drop files to the CDR/etc, have them instantly written, and then keep updating the file table as they go to incorporate the new files or the overwrites of existing files. Obviously it isn't an exactly efficient way to use an optical disk, but it is on occasion quite useful....

I don't suppose there's any hope for Tiger to be better about this.....

 

[Bear]

Mac OS X (plus iLife for some types of burning) pretty much comes with what most people need for burning CDs and DVDs.

In several years of using Macs, I have not felt a need to buy Toast. It all depends on what you are doing.