Toast 10 Titanium imports video direct from most AVCHD and DV camcorders, while Easy VHS to DVD for Mac digitizes video from analog camcorders and VCRs. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to capture digital video with Toast. For analog video, see our separate tutorial on capturing with Easy VHS to DVD.

AVCHD Camcorder Import

You can import video clips from your AVCHD camcorder in two ways. If you just want to archive your clips to disc so you can erase and reuse the storage in your camcorder, choose "AVCHD Archive" under the Video project tab. Then attach your camcorder to your Mac. With most AVCHD camcorders this means connecting it via a USB cable and turning it on in playback mode. (You may also need to make some selections on your camcorder screen. See your camcorder's manual for full instructions on how to put it in the right mode for communication with your Mac.)

Once your camcorder is connected properly, it will show in the project window, and Toast will tell you how much space it will take to burn to disc. You can choose CD, DVD or Blu-ray discs for archiving. Toast will span multiple discs if needed. Finally, click the Burn button, and your video will be captured to disc for use in your future projects.

Burning an AVCHD Archive disc.

The other way to capture clips from your AVCHD camcorder is to import them directly into your video project. First, connect your camcorder as described above. Then choose DVD-Video or Blu-ray Video under the Video project tab, and open the Media Browser from the Window menu. Your camcorder will show as "AVCHD" in the Media Browser menu. Select the clips you'd like to import, and drag them to the project window. Now you're all set to create projects such as DVD and Blu-ray discs that can be played back in your set-top Blu-ray player.

Importing AVCHD clips into a video project.

Similarly, if you'd like to convert your videos for playback on your iPhone or iPod, or upload them to YouTube, simply drag your AVCHD files from the Media Browser into the Convert>Video Files project window instead. For YouTube, choose the "MPEG-4 Player" device type in the Player setup dialog. The resulting MPEG-4 files can be uploaded directly to YouTube in your Web browser.

DV Camcorder Import

When importing from DV camcorders, use Toast's handy Plug & Burn feature, which lets you quickly create DVDs or disc images of your video clips for archiving or use in other projects. You can import an entire tape at once, or a portion of it. After importing, you can immediately start recording your disc, or add other video or slideshows from your hard disk before recording.

To import with Plug & Burn, start a new DVD-Video or Blu-ray Video project. If you will want to burn your disc immediately after capturing, also choose your DVD options at this time, such as menu styles and encoding quality, from the bottom left of the Toast window. Next, connect your DV camcorder as directed by the manufacturer (typically via FireWire) and set it to playback mode. In a few seconds, a camcorder icon will appear in the Content area.

Connecting your DV camcorder.

Use the camera controls in the Toast window, or on your camcorder, to fast-forward or rewind to the point where you want to begin recording. Now, click the Import button. The Plug & Burn options dialog box will appear, where you can choose to record the entire tape, or a certain number of minutes. You can also give the clip a name, and rewind the tape if necessary.

Finally, you can select whether to import and then record immediately, or just import. Choose Import if you want to record more clips or add video from other sources to your project.

Choosing Plug & Burn options.

If you chose to record immediately, you'll also be prompted to insert a blank disc, and you can leave the project unattended until it's done, making it easy to archive your DV tapes to disc. If you chose to Import only, the finished clip will appear in the Toast project window, where you can trim it if needed, and use it in your video projects.

The finished clip, ready to use in Toast video projects

The sharing options are endless, too. Invite friends and family to watch your shows on your personal Roxio Web page, embed your shows on your blog or on other sites like Facebook and MySpace, burn your shows to a DVD, even podcast your favorites and watch them on your mobile device of choice! Your shows can be as private or as public as you like.

Basic PhotoShows are free to create and share. However, a Premium PhotoShow account brings many benefits like video support, hundreds more custom styles, music and artwork, and the ability to create PhotoShows offline, using the matching desktop software.

So how does it all work? The best way to learn is simply to create a PhotoShow! Here, we'll go through the process on PhotoShow.com.

Getting Started with Roxio PhotoShow

To begin your PhotoShow, simply click the button labeled "Start Your PhotoShow Now," which brings you to the first step: adding your photos.

At this point, click the Sign In button at upper right, if you aren't signed in already. Or click Sign Up to create a new account. Now click the Add Photos button so you can upload your pictures. You can select as many files as you like at one time; just hold down the Control key (or Command key on the Mac) to select additional photos in the same folder.

Continue adding photos until you have everything you need. You can import photos from Facebook, Flickr, and Shutterfly, too. If you have a Premium account, you can also select video clips from your camcorder to upload.

Customizing Your PhotoShow

Now the fun begins! You'll be asked to enter a title for your PhotoShow, as well as a creator and "star(s)." These credits will be shown at both the beginning and end of your show. Be as whimsical or serious as you like, depending on the subject matter. Then default PhotoShow styles will be applied, and you'll see a preview of your PhotoShow. At this point, you pick an overall Style for your show, such as Father's Day, Graduation, Summer, and more. Here, we've picked Photo Cards, a fun theme that works well with many types of photos.

Another excellent general-purpose style is Pan & Zoom, also known as the "Ken Burns" style, which he used to great effect in his Civil War series. You can quickly preview your show with any number of styles to see what is best for you. You can also customize the timing for each slide, if desired, letting some slides stay onscreen longer than others.

With the basic style down, it's time to add some background music (notice that we're simply following the tabs at the top from left to right -- although you can select tabs in any order). We chose a free track from John Lee Hooker, but with a Premium account, you can also choose any DRM-free MP3 track from your own music collection.

Next, we'll arrange the photos and videos in the order that we want them to appear by dragging them around. Note the camcorder icon on the last thumbnail. This signifies a video clip.

Moving on down the line, we come to the Captions tab. Captions can be added in any style or size of text, and positioned independently anywhere on your image. This makes it easy to customize captions for each slide. Captions are where you can get really funny and creative, bringing your photos alive for your viewers.

The fun doesn't stop there: you can also add speech bubbles, more titles, stickers, and borders. Stickers are basically animated graphics, in tons of fun shapes and themes. You'll find everything from hopping Easter bunnies to scary pumpkins in the sticker library.

Sharing Your Show

You can continue to play with your show and add or change elements. But we're finished, so we'll click the Done button and start sharing! There are four basic sharing options: you can email a link to view your show to friends and family; post the show to your Web page or blog; purchase your show on DVD; and even broadcast it to cable TV with certain providers. With a Premium account, you can also save your show to your hard drive in MP4 format, for viewing on your iPod or other portable player.

When your recipients click the link in the PhotoShow email, they'll be brought to the PhotoShow site to view the show. If they don't already have an account, they'll be prompted to create one, since an account is needed to preserve the privacy of your shows. At that point viewers can also do things like buy photo prints or a DVD of the show, or download it for viewing on a portable media player, depending on whether they have a standard or Premium account.

We hope that's given you a taste of how easy it easy to make a PhotoShow! You can also upload photos directly from your iPhone with the PhotoShow iPhone app, or use the PhotoShow Uploaders on BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phones. It's never been easier to share your adventures securely and privately.

Using iMovie and Toast you can also edit your recordings, add titles and transitions, and create projects combining analog footage with that from digital camcorders.

Easy VHS to DVD for Mac includes the hardware and software you need to capture and convert almost any analog video. The video capture hardware is a small USB stick with connections for both composite and S-video sources. Simply install the software, plug in the USB stick and connect your VCR or camcorder, and you're ready to start transferring your tapes.

The program is not just for tapes. Here are some common analog video sources you can capture with Easy VHS to DVD for Mac:

• VHS tapes from your VCR
• Analog camcorder output (VHS, S-VHS, 8mm or Hi-8)
• The composite or S-video output from your TV (when viewing live standard-definition channels)

Easy VHS to DVD for Mac is also perfect for recording shows from standard-definition DVRs that don't have PC transfer capabilities. Otherwise your shows are trapped forever in the DVR. (If you're lucky enough to have a networked TiVo, you can send shows to your Mac with TiVo Transfer, then burn them with Toast. TiVo Transfer is included with Toast 10 Titanium.)

Here's how to get started with Easy VHS to DVD for Mac:

Step 1: Capture Video to Your Mac

After you've installed the software and plugged the USB device into your Mac, open Easy VHS to DVD. You'll see the following screen:

The Easy VHS to DVD for Mac Introduction window.

Here you enter some quick information about your video: name, approximate length, and desired recording quality. The approximate length is not binding -- you can start/stop your recording at any time -- it just helps to determine the disk space that will be required for your recording. For example, if you have an hour-long video, and choose 90 minutes and high quality, the program will tell you that you'll need about 4GB of hard disk space.

In the next screen, you'll select your source video (composite or S-video) and check that it is playing correctly in the preview window. If not, make sure you have connected to a set of analog output jacks on your VCR or camcorder (input jacks look the same, but will not work), and that all plugs are tight.

Connecting and checking your video source.

Now it's time to check the audio. Make sure you can hear it through your Mac's speakers or headphones, and that the green lights are blinking in the preview window. If you have no audio, check that the red and white RCA cables are plugged into output jacks on your VCR or camcorder. If you'd like to mute the audio, and only capture video, you can do that too, by clicking the mute button at the upper left corner of the video window.

Checking your audio source.

Now it's time to start recording! Cue up your video again to the beginning, and click the red record button to start capturing. If you'd like to automatically stop recording after the amount of time you specified at the beginning (90 minutes in this example), check the box at the bottom. Leave it unchecked to stop the recording manually by pressing the button again.

Starting the recording.

When the recording is finished, it will be saved to your Movies folder with the name you gave it at the beginning of the project, and you'll see the following output options:

Easy VHS to DVD for Mac output options.

You can burn your recording to DVD with Toast, send it to iMovie for editing, or save it to QuickTime Player format. You can also go back and capture more videos. QuickTime Player output will be saved to the Easy VHS to DVD folder (inside your Movies folder) in MPEG4 format, and can be dropped right into iTunes for playback on your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV.

For YouTube, it's even easier, the capture files saved to your Easy VHS to DVD folder can be uploaded directly, no additional conversion necessary. Just sign into your account in your Web browser and click the Upload button. Then select the desired capture files in Easy VHS to DVD folder.

We'll go ahead and burn our recording to DVD with Toast Basic (which is included in the Easy VHS to DVD package).

Step 2: Burn the Recording to DVD

Now that you've digitized your video, it's time to burn it to DVD. When you click the "Send to Toast" button, Toast will open with the DVD project type selected and your video already in the project window, as below.

Burning to DVD with Toast.

At lower left, you'll see options for customizing your DVD, such as Menu Styles and whether your disc will start to play automatically on insertion. Click the More button to do things like change the Menu title of your DVD.

You can also add more videos to your DVD project using the Add button (the bar at the bottom will tell you how much space you have left on your disc, whether single or dual-layer). Finally, you can trim your videos and set the menu button title and thumbnail picture by clicking on the Edit button next to each video in the project window.

When you've got your disc set up the way you want it, click the Burn button at lower right and you're all done.

When you've got your disc set up the way you want it, click the Burn button at lower right and you're all done.

You can clean up music you've digitized from your aging vinyl and tapes with Toast's CD Spin Doctor application. Or massage the audio tracks from your video recordings, eliminating wind and background noise to make your dialog loud and clear.

Virtually any type of background noise can be scrubbed out quickly and easily with SoundSoap, leaving you with clean, crisp audio that sounds like you remember it—or maybe even better!

Step-by-Step: Cleaning Audio Files with SoundSoap

1. Get Started

To begin, launch SoundSoap SE from your Application folder. Then open the file you want to clean up from the File menu, such as a recording made by CD Spin Doctor. The file can be in almost any standard digital audio or video format, including QuickTime, DV (camcorder format), AVI, WAV, AIFF, MP3, MP4 (AAC) and more.

Choosing the audio or video file you want to clean.

2. Get a noise education

You're ready to start cleaning now, but first, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the different types of noise typical of sound recordings, since each one will be tackled by a different tool in SoundSoap.

The four major types are: Broadband Noise, such as tape hiss and air-conditioner noise; Hum, typically associated with faulty or ungrounded electrical circuits and power lines; Rumble, a low-frequency noise like that from a turntable motor; and Clicks & Crackles, which are commonly found in recordings made from scratched or dirty vinyl records.

To learn more about these noise types and how to identify them, see Chapter 3 of the SoundSoap 2.2 User Guide (downloadable here).

3. Remove Click & Crackle

In the SoundSoap window, you'll be working from left to right to clean up your recording. While the various tools can be applied in any order and combination, it's best to remove certain types of noise before others. Background noise before hum, for example. And clicks and crackles first of all, since they are usually easily identifiable as abrupt peaks in waveforms.

The big "Wash Window" in the middle is a visual representation of your sound file. Red represents noise, and blue represents the desired audio. In general, the bluer it gets, the better (although your ears are the true judge). You'll see the bands move and change as you play back your file and work the noise controls.

To begin, make sure the Broadband Noise filter is off using the button at middle left. Next, start playing your audio file using the controls at the bottom. Now gradually raise the "Remove Click & Crackle" slider just enough to reduce the clicks without affecting the rest of your recording. Run through the recording a couple times to make sure of your choice. Note that this tool mainly applies to LP and tape transfers. If you are editing a video soundtrack, you can probably skip Click & Crackle, unless there was some unusual background noise.

Adjusting the Click & Crackle slider.

4. Reduce Broadband Noise

Now let's move on to the broadband noise-reduction tool, something you'll probably want to apply to every sound file, whether from an LP or videotape. Broadband noise is the most common type of noise you'll find in videotapes, and cleaning it can make a huge difference to your sound quality. If you're recording outside on a windy day, in a moving car, or inside with a fan, refrigerator or air conditioner in the background, broadband noise reduction will help voices come to the fore and make your audio listenable.

First, find a location in the sound file that is silent except for the background, a couple seconds, if possible. This will often be at the beginning or end of an LP or tape transfer. Move the playback head to that point and pause. Then click the "Learn Noise" button in the center of the window and start playback. SoundSoap will analyze the broadband frequencies causing the noise, and clean them automatically.

Clicking the "Learn Noise" button before turning on broadband noise reduction.

5. Adjust the Noise Tuner Knob

Now click the "noise only" button, and start playing your file from the beginning. If you hear anything BUT noise (voices or music), turn the Noise Tuner knob on the left slowly counterclockwise until you hear JUST the unwanted noise. This is to adjust the frequencies that noise reduction is applied to, to make sure it doesn't take away sounds you want along with the noise.

Clicking the "noise only" button to check noise tuning.

6. Adjust the Noise Reduction Knob

Next, adjust the Noise Reduction knob on the right. Turn the Broadband mode button to On and start playback again. This time, turn the Noise Reduction knob the minimum necessary to remove the background noise. If the material being cleaned is dialog, also click the Preserve Voice button at the left. This filter will automatically remove sounds outside of the range of human voices. Now you've finished cleaning broadband noise. Notice how the Wash Window, formerly mostly red, is now turning blue?

Adjusting the noise reduction level.

7. Remove Hum & Rumble

If you are cleaning a file digitized from an LP or tape and you know you have hum or rumble (not typically found in video), you can remove them with the buttons at lower left. Click the 50Hz or 60Hz buttons to remove hum (50Hz is for Europe, which has 50Hz power, while 60Hz is for the US and other 60Hz power countries), and the "Remove Rumble" button to remove turntable rumble. Be sure to listen to your recording after applying each tool, to make sure it has the desired effect. Finally, click the Apply button to save all your noise reduction settings thus far. (Don't worry, your original file will not be altered.)

Clicking the Remove Rumble button.

8. Enhance your recording

You've now cleaned the noise out of your audio file, but SoundSoap has one more goodie for you, the Enhance feature. This slider at far right enhances the tones in degraded sources like LPs and tapes. It's great for music tracks that sound washed out. Start playing your cleaned file, and move the slider up and down until you find a pleasing balance. Now click Apply again, and choose Save As from the file menu to save your work to a new file, leaving your original untouched.

Adjusting the tone enhancement slider.

9. Use your cleaned file

Now that you're all done, you can use your sparkling clean audio file in your music or video project. Just import it into Toast, iTunes or iMovie as you would any other audio file. You'll be amazed at the difference!

10. Just for fun

Want to see what a cleaned sound file looks like, compared to the original? Open your pre- and post-SoundSoap files in Toast's CD Spin Doctor and check out the waveforms. You should be able to clearly see the difference, especially i areas of silence.]]> tag:blog.roxio.com,2008:/myroxio//5.198 2009-03-13T21:31:37Z 2009-03-16T14:56:31Z

Need a soundtrack for a family vacation or road trip? Unlock your family's musical past by converting old LPs and tapes to MP3, then create mix discs or iPod playlists customized for everyone on your list. All you need is Toast 10 and a turntable. You can dig up your old one, or borrow one from a friend. The process is quick and painless.

Toast 10 makes it easy to get great results with its CD Spin Doctor app. Even better, once you've made your recording, you can put away those LPs, preventing further wear and tear, and preserving them for future generations. You can also go on to make CD and DVD compilations of your musical memories -- perfect for family reunions, anniversaries and birthdays -- even combining them with tracks from digital sources like CDs or Internet radio (which Toast 10 can now automatically capture from your Web browser!). This article shows you how, step by step.

One note before we start. If the LP or cassette you want to transfer to CD has been published on CD, you may want to buy the CD rather than make a copy. This is not for copyright reasons -- you are perfectly within your rights to make a CD copy of an album you already own for personal use. The fact is that a commercial CD will likely be far better quality than copying an LP or tape to CD, even with a top-notch turntable. That said, if you have records that were never issued as CDs, or family audiotapes you want to preserve, transferring these analog sources to CDs makes perfect sense, and Toast 10 makes it simple.

Step 1: Use a Clean Source

When digitizing an analog audio signal it's important to make sure you get the best signal into the computer before recording. While Toast's CD Spin Doctor has clean-up filters, they should be viewed as secondary. Make sure that you wipe your LPs (with a soft, lint-free cloth or record brush). If you have a lot of material to record, you might also consider replacing the needle in your turntable if you can't remember the last time you did so. Similarly, make sure your cassette deck heads are clean, and that you engage the same noise-reduction technology (Dolby B or C, etc) used when the tape was recorded. Not all decks support all technologies.

Step 2: Connect Things Up

Depending upon whether you have a record or cassette, you will have to use a slightly different technique to connect your sound source to your computer. For tapes and other line-level audio sources, including TVs, VCRs, DVD players, stereo receivers, and MP3 players, you should ideally use a player that has line-out jacks (usually two RCA plugs), and connect these jacks to the line-in minijack of your Mac. (If your Mac doesn't have an audio input jack, you will need to buy a third-party USB audio interface.) If your portable tape player lacks line-out jacks, you can also use a headphone output; though this will require more work in adjusting levels (see Step 3).

If you're recording from an LP, you'll likely need to run it through a receiver or amplifier with a "phono preamp" first because most turntables put out a signal that is much lower than a standard line signal. Connecting this directly to the computer will not work. Most home receivers and amplifiers have a special input for connecting the turntable. You then use the line-out from the amplifier (often labeled tape out) to the line-in of your Mac. If you don't have a receiver with a phono input, you can buy dedicated phono pre-amps at electronics hobby stores. Finally, there are newer USB turntables that provide a direct USB input to your Mac. These are the easiest to connect.

Step 3: Choose Recording Input and Adjust Levels

Now you're ready to begin recording! Open CD Spin Doctor, select New Recording, and click the Continue button. You'll first see a diagram summarizing our connection tips above, then you'll be prompted to choose an input device (choose Line In or USB depending on your equipment). If things are hooked up correctly, you'll see the input level meter light up, and you can also monitor the source using speakers or headphones.

Choosing your input source.

Next, you'll adjust your audio input level, or gain. Setting the correct input volume is very important. When recording, you want to get as high a level as possible without "clipping." If this happens, the audio may be noticeably distorted. To adjust the level, watch the two bars in the middle of the recording window as you are playing the loudest passage in your source. Adjust the gain slider so that the bars stay in the green portion, and go into the yellow only at the peaks, avoiding the red region altogether (where clipping occurs). Note that if you have used the headphone connection of a tape recorder or amplifier as your source, you can also adjust the volume on your tape deck or amp. For best results, the output from the source and the Spin Doctor input slider should both be set about halfway. (If you are using a USB input, the gain slider will be fixed and you can skip to the next step.)

Adjusting input levels.

While you're checking levels (using quality headphones or external speakers if possible), also check for hum -- you may need to ground your source deck. Most turntables come with a special ground wire for this purpose. Also make sure that the computer and source equipment are plugged into the same power strip, and that power cables and sound cables are not bunched together. Keep sound cables away from CRTs, televisions and other sources of electronic noise.

Once you've adjusted the input level, you'll choose a recording quality: CD, DVD, or DVD High Quality. Choose as appropriate depending on what type of disc you want to make, and continue.

Choose CD recording quality.

Finally, it's time to press the record button! Cue up your source to the beginning, press the record button in Spin Doctor, and then start your source. Don't worry about recording blank space at the beginning; you can remove that later. Make sure you have enough disk space before starting, though. CD audio is uncompressed, and runs about 10MB per minute (or 600MB per hour). Spin Doctor cleverly tells you exactly how much recording time you have available. You can either stop the recording manually, or tell it to automatically stop after a given amount of time, which is handy for unattended recording.

Making the recording.

Step 4: Identify Tracks and Clean Things Up

Once you've made your recording, it will appear as a single waveform in the Spin Doctor main window, where you can edit it and apply filters like noise reduction. If you have recorded an entire LP or tape with multiple tracks, the first thing to do is divide up the tracks. Spin Doctor can do this for you automatically. Simply click the Auto-define Tracks magic wand at the top. This will define tracks based on passages of silence in the recording. You can set the sensitivity and other parameters in the CD Spin Doctor Preferences dialog. You can also set Spin Doctor to automatically define tracks after every recording, which is the default.

Next, click the Identify button at the top to automatically retrieve artist and track names from the GraceNote online database. It works amazingly well. We were only able to stump the database a few times. The Info button at top right lets you view and edit track data.

Editing track information.

Finally, click the Filters button at top right. Here, you'll find noise reduction, sound enhancement and EQ filters that you can apply to your entire file, or selected tracks. Keep Noise Reducer settings as low as possible to reduce noise without muting the overall sound too much. It's often useful to test noise reduction settings on a quiet passage (such as the spaces between songs) where noise is easily distinguished.

Applying noise filters.

The Sound Enhancer filters let you adjust the dynamics of a recording. This is particularly useful for restoring some dynamic range to tape recordings as well as MP3s created with low bit rates. Why is this necessary? Compression (as with MP3 encoding) tends to make highs not as high and lows not as low. Similarly, tapes often don't have the dynamic range found in records and CDs due to a lower signal-to-noise ratio. The Sound Enhancer manipulates the signal to expand the differences again (you can think of it like increasing contrast in a photographic image).

Step 5: More on Defining Tracks

CD Spin Doctor's Auto-define Tracks feature analyzes the recording, looking for quiet passages, and splits tracks automatically. If it doesn't match the original tracks correctly, you can manually define the tracks in one of two methods: click-and-drag (left Track Mode button), and single-click (right Track Mode button) In click-and-drag mode, you define a track by clicking on the lower waveform where you want the track to begin, dragging to the right, and then releasing the mouse button where you want the track to end. Your newly created track is displayed on the timeline as a colored rectangle and appears in the track list just below the waveform. This method is also useful for snipping off unwanted portions at the beginning or end of your tracks. Note that the entire selection must be outside of any existing tracks.

In single-click mode, the first track automatically starts at the beginning of the recording and ends at the point where you click the lower waveform. Clicking again defines the end point of your next track, which will begin right after the previous one. This method is the easiest when you don't need to trim tracks.

Note that the track list is separate from the sound file you digitized. You can have two tracks that use the same portion of your audio track. You can also delete tracks from the track list. By selecting only the regions with sound when you define tracks, you also eliminate any silence at the beginning, and the gaps between songs. The gaps will be added back when you burn your audio CD. Toast automatically puts in 2-second pauses, but you can customize them.

Step 6: Burn or Export Your Recordings

Once you have defined your tracks, simply select the ones you want to transfer and press the Toast or iTunes button at top right. Toast or iTunes will be launched and the track(s) you selected added to the Toast Audio CD project list or your iTunes library. In Toast, you can then adjust the gaps between tracks and complete your CD setup before burning. You can also drag tracks from Spin Doctor to Toast, and combine them with digital tracks from other sources.

When combining tracks from multiple sources, try the Normalize Track function found in the Disc menu. Normalizing all tracks on a CD helps equalize the volume of tracks taken from different sources, which can be annoyingly loud or soft. (However, normalization should not be used as a substitute for setting levels correctly during recording. Once a sound is distorted or clipped, you can't restore it.)

Now it's time to press the Burn button! You've just made the best possible recording of your LPs and tapes. Don't forget to transfer that beautiful album cover art to your new CD too. Toast 10 Titanium includes Disc Cover 2 RE, which makes it easy to create perfect labels and covers.

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With Streamer, you won't need to use up any of your precious phone storage space, and you can have access to a much wider variety of shows and movies than you could ever fit on a portable player. Even better, you can stream any type of video that Toast can handle: your latest home movies, EyeTV recordings, and shows transferred from your networked TiVo DVR via TiVoToGo.

You'll need a high-speed Internet connection at both ends (such as Wi-Fi or 3G cellular), but once videos are added to the Streamer content list, they are available for remote viewing at any time. Non-H.264 video will automatically be converted by Toast. You can even have TiVo shows automatically transferred via TiVoToGo and added to the Streamer list as soon as they are recorded! You could pay big bucks for special streaming hardware to view your TV shows remotely, or you can get it all free with Toast!

Setting Up Streamer

The first time you use Streamer, you'll need to set it up with a user name and password. Assuming your router is UPnP or NAT-PMP enabled (as both the AirPort Extreme and Express are), it will be configured automatically. Otherwise take note of the TCP port number given under the Advanced heading and open that port on your router for the computer you intend to stream from.

The Streamer setup screen.

Once you've created your account, the Streamer window will open. Choose Preferences under the Streamer menu to configure a few key settings, such as whether you want Streamer to launch every time you log in to your computer, and whether you'd like to start the Streamer server automatically on launch. If you want to be able to stream videos on demand to your iPhone, iPod Touch or laptop on the go, we recommend checking these two boxes so that Streamer is always at the ready. (You'll also need to leave your computer on, of course.)

The Streamer Preferences window.

The Advanced tab under Preferences allows you to set the streaming video quality (which should depend on the upload speed of your connection -- higher speeds are capable of streaming higher quality video). The maximum data rates allowed are: Low (about 330Kbps), Medium (about 550Kbps), and High (about 760Kbps) quality. Trying to send a high data rate stream over a low rate connection will result in broken up or failed streaming, so be sure to test and adjust your stream as necessary. Choose low or medium quality for viewing over iPhone 3G connections. High quality is usually fine for Wi-Fi connections. Also note the Mail preferences tab, which lets you set an email address to be notified automatically when new videos are added to your Streamer list.

Streamer Advanced Preferences.

Adding Videos to Streamer

Now that you have Streamer all set up, it's time to add videos to your streaming list. There are two ways to do this. The first way is add them directly to Streamer by dragging and dropping files to the Streamer window or clicking the Add Video button to select them. You can do this for QuickTime files with a QuickTime extension (such as .mov), as well as EyeTV and TiVo files. If any conversion is needed (to adjust the data rate, for example), it will be handled automatically by Toast. For other video formats, such as DV and AVCHD camcorder files, you'll need to drag them into Toast first, then use the Convert project tab to send them to Streamer (simply choose Streamer as the playback format at bottom left of the Toast window).

Converting video files in Toast to send to Streamer.

Once the files have been converted, they will appear in your Streamer list. You can click on any video to play a preview, if desired.

The Streamer list shows the files available for streaming.

Next, click the button to "Start streaming" if not already started. You will see a green light at the bottom of the window when the server is running, and the URL to use to access your videos remotely. Make note of this URL, which is of the form: http://streamer.roxio.com/username

Playing Back Streamer Clips

Now that the prep work is done, it's time to play back your videos! From your Mac or PC, enter the Streamer URL in your Web browser. (Be sure you are using a Wi-Fi or other fast Internet connection.) You'll get a login page that asks for the password you entered when you created your account. After entering the password, you'll see the Streamer list.

Logging into Streamer from a remote browser.

Choose a video, then click to play it back. The video will open using the QuickTime player. (Be sure to install QuickTime on your Windows PC, if you haven't already. If you have iTunes on your PC, you also have QuickTime.)

Playing Streamer videos.

On your iPhone or iPod Touch playback is even easier, thanks to the free native Streamer app for Wi-Fi. After you've downloaded and installed the app, on first launch it will ask for your user ID and password. From then on you can simply launch the app from the Home screen, and you will be automatically logged in and taken directly to your Streamer list. (Note that if you only have a 3G connection on your iPhone, rather than Wi-Fi, you can use the Web URL streaming method above in Safari instead of the Streamer app. EDGE connections are too slow for Streamer.)

The Streamer iPhone app.

To browse available shows, simply use your finger to scroll down the list. Buttons at the top of the screen let you switch between viewing by title and date. You can also tap on Search and have search results presented as you enter characters. Multiple episodes of the same show will be grouped automatically into a virtual folder, reducing clutter. Tapping a folder name brings up a list of all the episodes inside.

Once you’ve found the show you want to watch, tap on it and you’ll be shown a synopsis of the episode. Finally, click the play button located at bottom right and your video should begin playing in a few seconds. While your video is being played, you can review the show synopsis by tapping the screen.

Playing Streamer videos on the iPhone.

Setting Up Automatic Transfers of TiVo Shows

That's all there is to it! Once you have Streamer set up, it's easy to add more videos. If you have a TiVo and use TiVoToGo, also take advantage of the ability to automatically send new recordings to Streamer. First, open TiVo Transfer (in the Toast Extras menu). Then select a television show that appears on your DVR and click the "Create Auto Transfer" button at bottom right. This will automatically transfer all new recordings of the selected show to your Mac.

Next, Open the TiVo Transfer Preferences and enable "Automatically export transferred TiVo recordings to Toast." Finally, open Toast Preferences and select the Audio & Video tab. At the bottom of this tab you will see an option called "Default for Automatic TiVo Exports." Click on the Change button and select Streamer, then click OK. All your automatic TiVo transfers will now be exported to Streamer immediately for viewing anywhere in the world you have a fast Internet connection!

1. Bring in Your DVD

Open Toast and click on the Convert tab, then select the Video Files project type. Add a non-encrypted DVD disc or DVD-Video folder (VIDEO_TS folder) to your project by dragging it into the Toast window.

Bringing your DVD into Toast.

2. Open the Toast Video Editor

Now open the Toast Video Editor by clicking on the Extract button on the right of your DVD movie. The editing window will open up showing the video with a timeline at the bottom.

The Toast Video Editor window.

3. Select Your Clips

The Toast Video Editor includes a pair of in/out markers on the far left and right of the timeline. Drag these to mark the beginning and ending points of a clip you want to extract. If you want to extract another segment from the same video, first move the cursor above the timeline to a point outside the original selection, then click the marker button centered below the timeline to add an additional set of in/out markers.

Selecting DVD clips in the Toast Video Editor.

Repeat the process for each segment you want to select. You can move, clear or invert your markers at any time if you change your mind or make a mistake. Finally save your changes by choosing "Close Editor" from the View menu.

Use the Clear All and Invert Markers options at lower right to change your selections if needed.

4. Convert & Export Your Clips

Now that you've marked your desired clips, all that's left is to convert and export them. Click the big red Convert button at bottom right, and a dialog box will open where you can select output options.

Video output conversion options.

First choose the device or format you want to save to, such as iPhone or QuickTime movie. Then select a quality level (we recommend using the default options for your output device). Finally, choose a destination for your video, such as iTunes, your Movies folder, or the Desktop. Click the Convert button, and you're done!

Now enjoy your DVD clips on your portable player, upload them to the Web, or use them in your other video projects, including iMovies.

• High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in for burning and converting video from your HD camcorder;
• LightZone™ for visual photo editing;
• FotoMagico™ for creating high-definition slideshows;
• SoundSoap™ SE for audio noise reduction and enhancement; and the
• Sonicfire Pro® for movie soundtrack creation;

Read on to learn more about each of these programs.

High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-In

The High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in, which lets you edit, burn and convert HD video content from AVCHD camcorders and EyeTV recordings, is an extra cost option in Toast 10, but comes standard with Toast 10 Pro. With the Plug-in, you can burn your home movies or EyeTV recordings onto DVDs and Blu-ray Discs for playback on any standard Blu-ray set-top box or PlayStation® 3 game console. You don't even need a pricey Blu-ray recorder to burn high-definition DVDs, so you can get the full benefit of your high-def camcorder and HDTV with the DVD burner you already have.

If you do have a Blu-ray recorder, the High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in is indispensable for creating Blu-ray movie discs on the Mac. It supports both AVCHD and HDV camcorder sources, and lets you archive AVCHD camcorder video to disc in one easy step.

The Plug-in also allows you to edit your high-def videos, and crop out unwanted portions using a simple timeline interface. You can burn the results to disc using 20 new HD menu themes, or convert them for playback on your iPod, iPhone, Apple TV or portable player. Take your EyeTV shows and home movies on the road!

Editing high-def AVCHD video in Toast 10 (click to enlarge).

LightZone

This Macworld Editor's Choice award-winning photo editor is an essential tool for digital camera enthusiasts. Sophisticated features like zone mapping and relight yield professional quality light and color balance, and all operations are live -- no waiting for effects to render, as with other programs. What you see is what you get. All operations are non-destructive, too, so you'll never have to worry about your original files. LightZone is the perfect complement to Aperture and iPhoto, which have only basic editing tools.

Here are a few of the things you can do with LightZone:

• Edit RAW format images, to take advantage of today's high-end cameras;
• Perform advanced selection and masking, so you can apply filters and effects to just the right portion of your photo;
• Work with unlimited layers, for unlimited creativity;
• Perform batch processing tasks on multiple files and folders at once, for huge time savings; and

The LightZone editor showing the Relight and Spot tools (click to enlarge).

FotoMagico

The slideshow features in iPhoto are great, but when you want more control over things like transitions, music and special effects, it's time to take a step up to FotoMagico. FotoMagico turns your pictures into spellbinding stories and presents them in high definition -- taking full advantage of all those megapixels in your new digital camera. Innovative text, transition and alignment tools ensure astonishing results. With Toast 10 Pro, you can also burn your high-def slideshow to DVD or Blu-ray Disc for easy viewing, send them to your portable player, or convert them for emailing or publishing on your website.

Creating a high-def slideshow with FotoMagico (click to enlarge).

SoundSoap SE

Want your sound recordings and LP transfers to sound as good as the originals? Use SoundSoap SE to remove all types of unwanted sounds from digital audio files: hiss, room noise, rumble, electrical hum, clicks and crackles. You can clean up music you've digitized from your aging vinyl and tapes with CD SpinDoctor's Recording Assistant. Or massage the audio tracks from your videos, eliminating wind and background noise to make your dialog loud and clear. Virtually any type of background noise can be scrubbed out quickly and easily with SoundSoap, leaving you with clean, crisp audio that sounds like you remember it.

Cleaning up noise from analog recordings with SoundSoap SE.

Even better, SoundSoap SE is very simple to use, just bring in your recording, then tweak your audio using the buttons and sliders. You can preview the results both sonically and visually, making it easy to get great results.

Sonicfire Pro

Want to set the right mood for your home videos? Create a Hollywood-style soundtrack with Sonicfire Pro. Music and sound effects can turn a ho-hum video into a riveting thriller or an uplifting story, but few of us have the ability to record our own backing tracks. That's where Sonicfire comes in.

For example, using Sonicfire, you could create a soundtrack for a wedding highlight video that includes selected dialog like the wedding vows and reception toasts, as well as a unified background music theme, where otherwise there would be no continuity (not to mention poor recording quality).

Creating a wedding video soundtrack with Sonicfire Pro (click to enlarge).

You can tweak Sonicfire tracks to match the length, mood, and theme of your video. A huge library of professionally produced music in styles ranging from classical to hip-hop ensure you can create the perfect soundtrack without knowing how to read a note.

Give yourself an extreme media makeover with Creator 2009 and Windows Vista. There's no pain involved! Creator 2009 integrates neatly with Vista's powerful playback and management features, making it simple and easy to import, edit, enjoy and share all types of media. Here are just a few examples of how Creator 2009 enhances Vista's media capabilities (click on the links for more information and tutorials):

Video

With Creator 2009, you can import video from all the latest camcorders, including high-definition AVCHD and HDV models. Even transfer your old analog video too! Once captured, you can transform your video into Hollywood-style productions in minutes with CineMagic, or use VideoWave's powerful timeline editor to get it exactly the way you want it.

Once edited, share your movies over your home network using Windows Media Player 11, part of Windows Vista. Play them on other PCs, or send them to your Xbox 360 or Windows Media Center Extender for viewing on your big-screen TV.

Creating a DVD (click to enlarge).

To share with family and friends, burn a DVD or Blu-ray Disc with Creator, in either standard or high-definition. Or convert your movies for playback on your smartphone or portable media player. With Creator's handy SyncIt! gadget, you can drag-and-drop to convert video and send it to your player right from the Vista desktop! SyncIt! works with photos and music too.

Music

Creator and Vista are the perfect musical duo as well. Windows Media Player 11's powerful music library can handle literally millions of tracks without missing a beat, and lets you organize and enjoy music from all sources, include online stores, CDs, and downloads. Key features include the ability to sync your collection across multiple PCs, identify unlabeled tracks, find and display album art, and create intelligent Shuffle playlists from your favorite albums. You can even play back your tracks from any PC on your network.

DVD Music Discs.

With Creator 2009, you can also convert your old LPs and tapes to digital, create DVD Music Discs that hold hundreds of tracks and artwork (perfect for parties!), convert CD audiobooks for listening on your portable player, make professionally beatmatched music mixes, capture streaming audio from almost any online source, and use your tunes as soundtracks for slideshows and videos.

Photo

Vista and Creator 2009 can also tame your photo collection. Use Vista to automatically import photos from your camera and display them in the Windows Photo Gallery. Then automatically share them with family and friends over the Internet using Windows Live, or view them on your TV with your Xbox 360 or Media Center Extender. By adding tags, labels and comments to pictures and clips in Windows Photo Gallery, you can get your library organized and make it easy to find that special photo using the handy integrated search feature.

Roxio PhotoShow

Then do more with your photos with Creator 2009: edit and enhance them with PhotoSuite, create sweeping panoramas, make greeting cards and calendars, create amazing slideshows, send them to your portable player, and, perhaps most important of all, safeguard your precious memories by backing them up onto CDs and DVDs.

Together, Creator 2009 and Windows Vista let you share and enjoy your media everywhere: on your PC, TV, portable player, cellphone, game console and the Web.

Easy VHS to DVD includes both the hardware and software you need to capture and convert almost any analog video. The video capture hardware is a small USB stick with connections for both composite and S-video sources. The editing and burning software is based on the top-rated Roxio Creator suite, so you know it's polished and easy to use. Simply plug in the USB stick, then install the software, and you're ready to start transferring your tapes.

The program is not just for tapes, though. Here are some common analog video sources you can capture with Easy VHS to DVD:

• VHS tapes from your VCR
• Analog camcorder output (VHS, S-VHS, 8mm or Hi-8)
• The composite or S-video output from your TV (when viewing live standard-definition channels)

Easy VHS to DVD is also perfect for recording shows from standard-definition DVRs that don't have PC transfer capabilities. Otherwise your shows are trapped forever in the DVR. (If you're lucky enough to have a networked TiVo, see our tutorial on burning TiVo shows with Creator here.)

Here's how to get started with Easy VHS to DVD:

Step 1: Capture Video to Your PC

After you've plugged in the USB device and installed the software, connect your source to the USB stick using a composite or S-video cable. Now open Easy VHS to DVD. You'll see the following Home screen:

The Easy VHS to DVD Home screen.

The Home screen gives you various options for common tasks. To transfer tapes to DVD, you can choose either "Plug & Burn," or "Capture Video." Plug & Burn is for when you want to go directly from tape to DVD as quickly as possible, without editing the video or saving it to your hard disk. It only takes a little longer than playing back your video to complete the burn, and is the fastest way to transfer a large number of tapes.

To use Plug & Burn, you simply insert a blank DVD, choose a menu style and title if desired, a quality level (1 hour of high-quality video will fit on a single-layer DVD, 2 hours on a dual-layer disc), and start capturing direct to DVD. You can capture multiple pieces of video, up to the capacity of the disc, then click "Finish" to finalize the burn. That's all there is to it!

Transferring a video to DVD with Plug & Burn. (Click to enlarge.)

If you want to do more with your recordings, such as edit them, upload them to YouTube, or convert them for playback on your iPod or PSP, it's best to use the Capture Video option, which saves your recordings to hard disk for subsequent use in all types of projects, including burning DVDs. This option also allows you to select other digital formats than MPEG-2 (the DVD format), such as AVI and VCD. It takes longer to transfer a tape to DVD with Capture Video, since capturing and burning are separate processes, but if you have the hard disk space, and think you might want to do more with your video than just burn a DVD, the extra time is worth it.

Choosing "Capture Video" from the Home screen brings up the Media Import window, as shown below. The first task is to select your video capture device from the drop-down menu. (If your PC has a built-in webcam, that will usually be the first device in the list.)

Selecting your video capture device. (Click to enlarge.)

After you select your USB stick, you'll see a preview window of the video currently being played on your source (VCR, camcorder, TV or DVR). (You may need to choose either Composite or S-video from the Input menu if you don't see a picture.) Before you click the Capture button to start recording to hard disk, choose a format (such as DV, DVD HQ, DVD SP, DVD LP or VCD). If you want to edit your video in VideoWave or CineMagic, choose DV. If you only want to burn DVDs, we recommend recording in DVD HQ format for top quality if you have the disk space (Media Import will tell you how much space you have available). Otherwise you can choose one of the more-compressed (lesser-quality) DVD options, such as DVD SP and LP. You can fit about 1 hour of HQ, 1.5 hours of SP, or 2 hours of LP video on a single-layer DVD. Dual-layer discs hold twice as much.

Setting up your recording. (Click to enlarge.)

Other options to choose include a capture length (so you can record unattended), a title for the recording, and video enhancements like contrast and brightness. Now click the Capture button to start recording. You'll see the progress of the recording in the Status area. When it's done, the finished video will be saved to your Videos folder (or whatever destination folder you selected), and will show up in the thumbnail list at right. Keep recording videos in this manner until you have all the material you need for your project.

The finished recording in the movie list. (Click to enlarge.)

Step 2: Burn the Recording to DVD

Now that you've digitized all your videos, it's time to burn them to DVD. Go back to the Home screen, and choose "Create DVDs." This will start the MyDVD application, which is a full-featured DVD authoring package.

Starting up MyDVD and selecting a project type. (Click to enlarge.)

MyDVD will first ask you to select a project type, such as a standard DVD with menus, or a DVD without menus that starts playing automatically when you insert it in your player. Next, add your recordings to your project by clicking the Add Movie button and selecting them from the browser. Add as many movies as you need for your project. They will appear in a list at lower left.

Adding the recorded movie to the DVD project. (Click to enlarge.)

If desired, you can now customize your DVD with menu styles, titles, backgrounds and chapter markers. See our MyDVD tutorial for more on what you can do with MyDVD. Once you've gotten the DVD the way you want it, press the Burn button at top right.

Burning the DVD.

In the Burn dialog box, you can choose your recording speed if desired, and enter a label for the disc. You can also save to an Image File on your hard disk, which is useful if you may want to burn additional copies of the disc later, or prefer play it back from your hard disk or media server.

Step 3: Do More with Your Recordings

Capturing video and burning it to DVD only scratches the surface of Easy VHS to DVD's capabilities. Once you've captured videos to your hard disk, you can also do things like:

• Trim and cut out unwanted portions from your recordings.
• Add titles, transition, soundtracks and more in VideoWave, the full-featured video editing program included with Easy VHS to DVD.
• Convert them for viewing on your iPod, iPhone, PSP, or other portable player
• Post them to YouTube
• Share them online on your own secure Web page with Roxio PhotoShow.

Finally, Easy VHS to DVD also includes disc label creation software, as well as the popular LP & Tape Assistant program for digitizing analog audio. Once you've converted all your old analog video and audio to digital, you'll never go back!

If you've got an iPhone, iPod, AVCHD camcorder or TiVo, listen to audiobooks, or frequently play YouTube videos, read on to see what Toast 10 can do for you!

Capture & Convert Web Video

Ever wish you could save YouTube or other Flash-based streaming Web video to your hard disk for offline playback? Or wanted to put YouTube clips on your iPod, PSP or other portable player? Now you can, with Toast 10's Web video capture feature.

To start, open Toast, click the Convert tab, and choose the Video Files project type. Next, open the Media Browser by clicking on the icon at top right, or selecting it from the Window menu. Finally, select "Web video" from the drop-down list of media types. Now Toast is all ready to capture.

Preparing to capture Web video (click to enlarge).

To start capturing video, simply open your Web browser and play the video you want to record. Toast will automatically capture it for you, and then add it to the Media Browser Web video list. Continue playing and capturing as many clips as you like. Below, we've captured several YouTube clips.

Captured clips displayed in the Media Browser (click to enlarge).

Now drag the clips to the project window to convert them to the desired playback format (the Flash-format captures will not be saved after you quit Toast, so be sure to convert them first). Click the Record button, and you'll be prompted to select your playback device and quality level. You can save the converted videos directly to iTunes if you like, or to a folder. We've opted to send our videos to iTunes below, so we can transfer them to an iPhone.

Sending captured video to iTunes.

Now you can preserve and enjoy your favorite YouTube videos anywhere, without an Internet connection!

Back Up AVCHD Camcorders in One Step

If you have an AVCHD camcorder, this feature alone is worth the upgrade to Toast 10. AVCHD is the most widely used HD camcorder format, and also great for burning high-def DVDs and Blu-ray Discs that you can play in your set-top DVD player, such as a Sony PlayStation 3. But AVCHD camcorders record to on-board hard drives or memory cards that typically hold only a few hours of video, so they need to be emptied frequently. All that HD video can quickly overwhelm even the biggest hard drive, however, so it's best to save the raw footage to DVDs or Blu-ray Discs for archival purposes. Toast 10 makes it one-step easy.

To create an AVCHD Archive disc, click the Video tab and choose the AVCHD Archive project. Then connect your camcorder via USB and make sure it is set to playback mode. You may also want to plug the camcorder into an AC outlet to make sure the battery doesn't die during the transfer. (Some camcorders require this for computer connections.) Once connected, the camera should be available in the drop-down list at the top of the Project window. In the screen below, it is called "No Name," which is the default name of the memory card in many Canon AVCHD camcorders.

Creating an archive of the contents of an AVCHD camcorder's flash drive (click to enlarge).

Next, choose the type of disc you are going to archive to (such as DVD, DVD-DL or Blu-ray) from the menu at bottom right. If the contents of the camera won't fit on one disc, Toast will automatically split it into multiple discs. Also check the box at lower left to "Save Video Preview in Movies Folder." This is an incredibly useful feature that creates video "thumbnails" so you can keep a virtual index of all your archived videos on your main hard drive. That way you won't have to hunt through a pile of discs to find a particular clip.

Finally, click the Burn button, and your camcorder will be at the ready to record more video!

Convert CD Audiobooks for iPod/iPhone

Who needs a Kindle when you have an iPod or other portable music player? iTunes, iPod and iPhone have custom features for playing back audiobooks, such as chapter skipping, pause/resume and book cover art, using the special iTunes .m4b audiobook file format. But converting CD or MP3 audiobooks to iTunes audiobooks used to be difficult and inconvenient. The new Audiobook CD conversion feature in Toast 10 makes the process easy, and even keeps the chapters and bookmarks that would be lost with a manual transfer.

To convert an Audiobook CD to iTunes audiobook format, open Toast 10 and select the Convert tab, then choose the Audiobook project type. Insert your CD, and click the Record button. Toast will convert the Audiobook and send it to iTunes. Sync to your iPod or iPhone, and you'll have the ultimate portable audiobook player!

Converting CD audiobooks to iTunes audiobook format (click to enlarge).

Stream Videos from Mac to TiVo

Toast has been able to transfer shows from your networked TiVo to your Mac for years now. But in Toast 10, we've added the capability to copy and stream videos back from your Mac to your TiVo! Now you can view those home movies you transferred from your digital camcorder on the big screen easily. Here's how:

First, open Mac2TiVo in the Toast 10 applications folder. You'll be prompted to enter your TiVo Media Access Key in order to authorize file transfers. (The Media Access Key is available in the Messages & Settings>Account System Information area of TiVo Central.) You'll only need to do this once. Now simply drag video folders to the Mac2TiVo window, and they will be converted to the necessary format automatically. Finally, click the "Start Server" button to send the videos to the Now Playing list on your TiVo.

Streaming video using the Mac2TiVo application.

Choose from 20 New Menu Styles

Just purchased an HD camcorder? Toast 10 now has 20 new standard and high-definition menu styles to choose from for DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. With Toast 10 and the HD/BD Plug-in, you can burn high-def video onto standard DVDs that will play right in your set-top Blu-ray player, so you don't need to buy an expensive Blu-ray burner for shorter videos.

Toast 10 has 20 new menu styles for both standard and high-definition discs.

We hope we've whetted your appetite for Toast 10 with these five must-have features. Look for more in-depth coverage of Toast 10 and Toast 10 Pro in future Hot Topics articles.

The USB Video Capture hardware integrates seamlessly with the various programs in Creator 2009. It consists of a small USB stick with connections for both composite and S-video sources. Simply install the driver software and plug in the USB stick when prompted, and you're ready to start transferring your tapes.

USB Video Capture is not just for tapes, though. Here are some common analog video sources you can record using the device:

• VHS tapes from your VCR
• Analog camcorder output (VHS, S-VHS, 8mm or Hi-8)
• The composite or S-video output from your TV (when viewing live standard-definition channels)

USB Video Capture is also perfect for recording shows from standard-definition DVRs that don't have PC transfer capabilities. Otherwise your shows are trapped forever in the DVR. (If you're lucky enough to have a networked TiVo, see our tutorial on burning TiVo shows with Creator here.)

Here's how to get started with USB Video Capture and Creator 2009:

Step 1: Capture Video to Your PC

After you've installed the capture device, connect your analog source to the USB stick using a composite or S-video cable. Now open Creator, and choose the Video-Movies tab. You'll see the following list of tasks:

The Creator 2009 Video-Movies task list. (Click to enlarge.)

To transfer tapes to DVD, you can choose either "Plug & Burn" or "Capture Video" under the Import heading. Plug & Burn is best for when you want to go directly from tape to DVD as quickly as possible, without editing the video or saving it to your hard disk. It only takes a little longer than playing back your video to complete the burn, and is the fastest way to transfer a large number of tapes.

To use Plug & Burn, you simply insert a blank DVD, choose a menu style and title if desired, a quality level (1 hour of high-quality video will fit on a single-layer DVD, 2 hours on a dual-layer disc), and start capturing direct to DVD. You can capture multiple pieces of video, up to the capacity of the disc, then click "Finish" to finalize the burn. That's all there is to it!

Transferring a video to DVD with Plug & Burn. (Click to enlarge.)

If you want to do more with your recordings, such as edit them, upload them to YouTube, or convert them for playback on your iPod or PSP, it's best to use the Capture Video option, which saves your recordings to hard disk for subsequent use in all types of projects, including burning DVDs. This option also allows you to select other digital formats than MPEG-2 (the DVD format), such as AVI and VCD. It takes longer to transfer a tape to DVD with Capture Video, since capturing and burning are separate processes, but if you have the hard disk space, and think you might want to do more with your video than just burn a DVD, the extra time is worth it.

Choosing "Capture Video" from the Video-Movies screen brings up the Media Import application, as shown below. The first task is to select your video capture device from the drop-down menu. (If your PC has a built-in webcam, that will usually be the first device in the list.)

Selecting your video capture device. (Click to enlarge.)

After you select your USB stick, you'll see a preview window of the video currently being played on your source (VCR, camcorder, TV or DVR). (You may need to choose either Composite or S-video from the Input menu if you don't see a picture.) Before you click the Capture button to start recording to hard disk, choose a format (such as DV, DVD HQ, DVD SP, DVD LP or VCD). If you want to edit your video in VideoWave or CineMagic, choose DV. If you only want to burn DVDs, we recommend recording in DVD HQ format for top quality if you have the disk space (Media Import will tell you how much space you have available). Otherwise you can choose one of the more-compressed (lesser-quality) options, such as DVD SP and LP. You can fit about 1 hour of HQ, 1.5 hours of SP, or 2 hours of LP video on a single-layer DVD. Dual-layer discs hold twice as much.

Setting up your recording. (Click to enlarge.)

Other options to choose include a capture length (so you can record unattended), a title for the recording, and video enhancements like contrast and brightness. Now click the Capture button to start recording. You'll see the progress of the recording in the Status area. When it's done, the finished video will be saved to your Videos folder (or whatever destination folder you selected), and will show up in the thumbnail list at right. Keep recording videos in this manner until you have all the material you need for your project.

The finished recording in the movie list. (Click to enlarge.)

Step 2: Burn the Recording to DVD

Now that you've digitized all your videos, it's time to burn them to DVD. Go back to the Video-Movies screen, and choose "Create DVDs-Advanced." This will start the MyDVD application, which is a full-featured DVD authoring package.

Starting up MyDVD and selecting a project type. (Click to enlarge.)

MyDVD will first ask you to select a project type, such as a standard DVD with menus, or a DVD without menus that starts playing automatically when you insert it in your player. Next, add your recordings to your project by clicking the Add Movie button and selecting them from the browser. Add as many movies as you need for your project. They will appear in a list at lower left.

Adding the recorded movie to the DVD project. (Click to enlarge.)

If desired, you can now customize your DVD with menu styles, titles, backgrounds and chapter markers. See our MyDVD tutorial for more on what you can do with MyDVD. Once you've gotten the DVD the way you want it, press the Burn button at top right.

Burning the DVD.

In the Burn dialog box, you can choose your recording speed if desired, and enter a label for the disc. You can also save to an Image File on your hard disk, which is useful if you may want to burn additional copies of the disc later, or prefer play it back from your hard disk or media server.

Step 3: Do More with Your Recordings

Capturing video and burning it to DVD only scratches the surface of Creator 2009's capabilities. Once you've captured videos to your hard disk, you can also do things like:

• Trim and cut out unwanted portions from your recordings.
• Add titles, transition, soundtracks and more in VideoWave, the full-featured video editing program included with Creator.
• Convert them for viewing on your iPod, iPhone, PSP, or other portable player
• Post them to YouTube
• Share them online on your own secure Web page with Roxio PhotoShow.

Finally, Creator 2009 also includes disc label creation software, as well as the popular LP & Tape Assistant program for digitizing analog audio. Once you've converted all your old analog video and audio to digital, you'll never go back!

BackOnTrack can schedule backups of selected data, or one-time backups of entire drives, and create disaster recovery discs that boot your computer while you restore from your backup. Backups can be made to CD, DVD or Blu-ray Disc, or to external or network drives. For total protection, first create a disaster recovery set, then perform regular scheduled backups of your data files.

Here's how to get protected:

Create a Disaster Recovery Set

First, open BackOnTrack by choosing "Backup Drive" from the Roxio Home screen Data-Copy tab.

Choosing "Backup Drive" from the Creator 2009 Data-Copy tab.

You'll be taken directly to the Backup Drive task in BackOnTrack. Select "Disaster Recovery Set" from the drop-down menu at the top, and choose a destination for the set, such as an external or networked hard drive, or a DVD recorder.

Creating a BackOnTrack Disaster Recovery Set (click to enlarge).

Now click the Record button at bottom right. If you chose DVDs (or Blu-ray Discs if you have a Blu-ray recorder and the Creator HD/BD Plug-in), you'll be prompted to insert as many discs as needed to complete the project. One of the discs will be an emergency boot disc. The others will contain the entire contents of your hard drive, including the system, so you can restore the full drive if necessary. Perform a new full drive backup every so often to keep up with major changes to your system and applications. If disaster strikes and you need to restore your drive, insert the recovery disc and then follow the on-screen directions.

Schedule Regular Backups

Now that you have your full disaster recovery set tucked away, also schedule regular backups of your working files like documents, email, music, photos and video. These will take much less space than the full drive backup. Network or external drives are perfect for scheduled backups since they can run unattended. If you want use DVD or Blu-ray Discs, you'll need to be present to insert them at backup time, or make sure a blank disc is in your drive.

To schedule regular backups, choose the File Backup task in BackOnTrack, then select the folder or types of files you want to backup. Also select a frequency (daily, weekly or monthly), and choose the destination drive from the menu at the bottom of the window. Then click Save to save your backup project. Note that BackOnTrack will not overwrite existing files at your destination, so you may want to use two rotating backup discs or drives, and erase the older backup each time.

Starting a System Restore operation (click to enlarge).

To save space, or make sure noone can read your backup files, you can also compress and/or encrypt your file backups. Click the Advanced button to set these options. If you choose to encrypt your backups, be sure to store the password in a safe place. Your data will not be accessible without it.

Compression and encryption options for File Backup projects.

Restoring Files

To restore files from your scheduled backups, first find the backup file (which will have a .sib extension), and double-click on it. BackOnTrack will then launch, with the Restore Drive project selected. To perform a selective restore, switch to the Restore Selected Files project and follow the directions. If your Back Up Drive project is saved on a set of discs, the catalog for that backup set is contained on the last disc in the set. The Restore Selected Files project will ask you to insert this disc so it can find the files or folders you want to restore.

Now that you've seen how easy it is to get protected with BackOnTrack, make a New Year's resolution to backup regularly!

• First, Toast 10 includes Get Backup 2 RE, a powerful, yet easy-to-use utility that helps you schedule automatic backups of selected files and folders to a local hard drive, a network volume, or to a blank CD, DVD or Blu-ray Disc.
• Second, Get Backup lets you automatically synchronize folders between two machines, so you'll always be up-to-date.
• Finally, for everyday quick backups, you can just drag and drop files and folders into a Toast Data project window and press the Record button to burn them to a CD, DVD or Blu-ray Disc, or save them to an image file on your hard drive. (Blu-ray recording requires the High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-In.)

With any method, you can also use Toast 10 Titanium's unique ToastAnywhere feature to burn CDs, DVDs and BDs to networked recorders, a perfect solution for sharing an expensive Blu-ray recorder among multiple Macs. Below, we'll show you how to use each of these powerful backup tools.

Using Get Backup

Using Get Backup 2 RE, you can back up any number of files or folders manually at the click of a button, or automatically on a scheduled basis. To get started, just open Get Backup from the Toast folder. You'll be presented with the following window:

The main Get Backup window.

To create a backup project, simply add the files and/or folders you want to back up to the list on the right by clicking the "+" button at middle left. You can also click the handy icons at top to add some common folders. Your screen should now look something like this:

The Get Backup window showing various folders in a backup project.

At this point you could simply click the blue backup button to start burning. But first, hit the Properties button at middle right and take a look at the options. Here you can choose the destination for your backup, such as a DVD, external hard disk, or even a network drive, as well as the backup method: full, incremental, or versioned (where old versions of files are not deleted when changed). You can also choose to have your data compressed, which greatly reduces space needs (Get Backup uses the standard TAR file format for archives and GZIP format for compression, so backups can easily be opened by other utilities). Finally, you can set your backup to perform on a regular schedule (more on this below).

Setting the destination and format for your backup.

Scheduling Backups

To schedule a backup so that it runs automatically, click the Schedule button at the bottom of the Properties window, then select a daily, weekly or monthly interval, and a time of day.

To make sure your backup runs even if the program is not open, you also need to open Get Backup Preferences and check the boxes for "Enable Schedule" and "Use Agent" at top right. With these boxes checked, a background agent will launch the utility at the appointed time and begin the backup process.

Setting Get Backup Preferences.

Note that you don't have to have Get Backup open for scheduled backups to take place, but they may not occur if your machine is sleeping/hibernating. You can change your Energy Saver system preferences to prevent this from happening.

Synchronized Backups

Clicking the double arrows in the top right corner of the Get Backup window takes you into folder synchronization mode, where you can set up sync jobs on a daily, weekly or monthly schedule.

Creating a synchronized folder.

To set up your sync job, simply choose the two target folders using the buttons at the top. The contents of the folder will then appear in the list below, and you can click the blue button to perform the sync. Also choose the direction of syncing using the drop-down arrows in between the two targets. You can sync in one direction (keeping the source folder unchanged), or two-way.

Scheduling your synchronized folder.

To schedule folder syncing, click the Properties button. You'll see options for daily, weekly and monthly syncs. As with backup jobs, you should make sure that the User Agent is turned on in the Preferences window.

Finally, note that you can set up multiple backup and synchronization projects with individual schedules for each. Just click the New Project tab at the bottom of the window to start a new

Using ToastAnywhere

Toast 10 Titanium's ToastAnywhere feature lets you share CD and DVD recorders over a network (or the Internet), so you can back up even if you don't have a CD or DVD recorder connected to your Mac. It's a perfect solution for small offices, schools, and home networks to share expensive resources like Blu-ray recorders.

Here's how it works: both the sending and receiving computers need Toast 10 Titanium installed, and the receiving computer must turn on "ToastAnywhere Recorder Sharing" in the Toast 10 Preferences to share their recorder with other Toast 10 users on the network.

From there, the process is simple. As the sender, you set up the disc you want to burn in Toast just like you normally would, then select the shared recorder from the pop-up list when you click the Recorder Options button. To access a recorder on the Internet, choose "Other Shared Recorder," then enter the IP address of the remote machine (you may also need to adjust firewall and port settings). Finally, click the red Record button.

Share your DVD or Blu-ray recorder over a network by turning on the ToastAnywhere feature in the Toast Preferences window.

That's it. The person sharing their recorder will be prompted to insert a blank disc, and Toast will then record your content to disc over the network. Of course, Toast must be also be open on the remote machine.

Now that you know how to use Toast 10 Titanium to back up and synchronize your precious media files, you can keep those New Year's resolutions!

SonicFire's unique mood-mapping technology lets you automatically generate music that follows the action in your videos, getting softer, louder or more intense to fit your script. Want the music to lower behind your dialog? No problem, just add a mood point. You can add sound effects too, using the powerful multi-track editor.

In this tutorial, we'll be editing a soundtrack for a wedding video created with CineMagic (another program in the Creator suite). It's about 5.5 minutes long, and includes highlights like the walk down the aisle, the exchange of vows, and scenes from the reception. We decided to create a whole new soundtrack for several reasons. First, while there was music in the church and reception, it didn't record very well. Second, since our edited video only included snippets of each scene, there was no continuity in the music. Finally, the clips from the reception had a lot of crowd noise.

All these problems are typical of home video editing. In these situations, it's best and easiest to simply toss out the audio (except for key dialog or musical performances), and then add your own backing track. Here, the only bits of dialog we'll be keeping are the wedding vows and best man's toast. Around that, we'll add a soundtrack specially generated by SonicFire to match the length, mood and theme of our video.

Step 1: Import Your Video

To start, choose SonicFire Pro from the Windows Start menu (in the SmartSound folder). The program will open to a blank project. Next, import the video you want to create a soundtrack for, by clicking the "Choose Video" button at lower left. Ideally, your movie should be completely finished except for the audio, since you will be matching the soundtrack precisely to various points in the video. If you later make changes to your video that affect the length or key points in the action, you'll probably also have to go back and regenerate the soundtrack.

Importing a movie into SonicFire Pro. (Click to enlarge.)

You can import your video in many popular formats, including AVI, MOV, MPEG-1 and WMV. If you have DV or AVCHD-format video from a digital camcorder, first use the Video Copy & Convert tool (found under the Video-Movies tab on the Creator home screen or in the Roxio Applications folder in the Start menu) to convert it to one of the supported formats.

If you have to convert your video, don't worry, you can still use the original high-quality video in your finished production; SonicFire simply employs the imported video as a reference guide for producing the soundtrack, which you will add back to your original video later in VideoWave.

While our wedding video was originally shot in DV, the edited version was created in CineMagic and saved in MPEG format, so we were able to import it directly without conversion. After import, your video will appear in the bottom right pane of the SonicFire window, and you can play it back at any time to locate particular points in your video and see how the soundtrack syncs up to the action.

Step 2: Select Your Main Background Music

Now comes the fun part, choosing music from the vast SmartSound libraries. A set of "Core Foundations" tracks come with SonicFire Pro, covering a wide range of styles. These will be all most home users need for occasional editing, especially since they can be supplemented with music from your own audio CDs.

But to take advantage of the full power of SonicFire Pro, such as ability to generate music that changes in mood and intensity along with your video and matches the length of every scene perfectly, you'll want to explore the full SmartSound library. To preview and choose music for your soundtrack, click the Maestro button at top right.

Opening the SonicFire Maestro tool. (Click to enlarge.)

Now the Maestro window will pop up. Here you can browse around the SmartSound library, and listen to previews of all tracks available in the online store right from the program. If you find one you want to use, you can buy it individually, or as part of a set. The style and keyword search tools help narrow down your options. For our wedding video we wanted classical music that was uplifting. After listening to a few options, we chose Handel's Pavane. As well as fitting the wedding theme, Pavane has the added attraction of being a multi-layer track (indicated by the 3-line icon next to it), which means you can change the mood of the track over time. We wanted to have different moods for the church and reception scenes.

Choosing music via the Maestro window.

Adding the Original Soundtrack

While the SmartSound music would be used throughout, in place of the original church and reception music, we wanted to keep the actual spoken wedding vows. So we chose the "Import Video's Audio" tool at bottom left to bring it into our project.

Importing the audio track from your video. (Click to enlarge.)

The track then appears in a list of available audio at bottom right, and you can send it to the timeline by selecting it and clicking the Insert button as shown.

Sending tracks to the timeline. (Click to enlarge.)

Now that we have all our source music placed on the timeline, it's time to customize it. You could add yet more tracks, such as your own CD audio files or additional SmartSound music via the Maestro. One piece of music was enough for our 5-minute video. For longer videos, you might want different pieces of music for different scenes.

Customizing Your Soundtrack

The first step in customizing your SonicFire soundtrack is deciding where the key points are, such as where you want moods to change, where you want to use original dialog, and where you want to switch to new music tracks. Move the video playback head along the timeline to each of these points, then click the "Add Marker" button at top to mark them. The markers will then make it easy to select key portions of the soundtrack for customization.

Changing moods between the church and reception was our first task. We selected the Pavane Mood Map, and a list of possible moods appeared in the Properties pane at right. To begin, the mood is set as "Full," with all instruments playing. We wanted a sparser sound for the church, so we moved changed it to Woodwinds. Then we moved the play head to the marker we set earlier for the start of the reception, clicked the Mood Map button at left to signal a change of mood, and chose "Full" for the remaining section of the music. We could have tweaked it even further, with changes at more points along the way, such as when the cake was being cut, or the bride was entering the church. For a longer video, we would have. You can change moods as often as you like.

Changing moods. (Click to enlarge.)

The next task was to crop off all of our original audio save for the wedding vows. We simply dragged the ends of the WeddingAudio.wav track to the two markers we set earlier indicating the start and end of the vows. Then we played with the crossfade and fade-in/out tools at right until we got things sounding the way we wanted them. You can also change the volume of any track throughout the timeline by clicking the volume button next to the track name at left. This was useful in reducing the volume of the music while the dialog was playing.

Editing the dialog track. (Click to enlarge.)

We were pretty happy with our wedding video at that point, but also wanted to explore another SonicFire feature: Variations. Variations are different versions of the same piece of music that can be placed back to back in longer pieces to provide variety (as opposed to repetitive sound loops). You can also use them somewhat like moods, to give a slightly different feel to your soundtrack. After listening to the options, we decided to go with a different variation than the original, called "Wonder."

Choosing musical variations. (Click to enlarge.)

You could continue tweaking your video score with imported CD audio tracks, sound effects, and more. For the truly musically inclined, SonicFire Pro also has a slew of advanced features not mentioned here, such as the Razor tool and Smart Blocks, which let you break down SmartSound music into its basic components and rearrange them at will.

We'll stop here, however, and export our soundtrack. Depending on your project, you can simply export audio and video together, in one complete movie file, or export the soundtrack alone, to be added to the video later in VideoWave. Here, since our video is already in one of SonicFire's supported formats, we chose to simply output the video and audio together.

Exporting the finished movie with soundtrack.

Now that you the basic of SonicFire Pro scoring, give it a try! Take any home video and see how easily you can enhance it with audio. You'll be amazed at the results!

The answer is to use TiVo Desktop and Roxio Creator 2009 to transfer shows from your networked TiVo to your computer, DVD, or portable player, freeing up precious space on your DVR for new recordings. You can archive all your favorite shows to DVD, and even edit out unwanted portions before burning. Or you can convert your TiVo files for transfer to iPods, iPhones, PSPs and other portable players, so you can view them anywhere. Creator does the all the conversion automatically, and can sync your shows straight to iTunes or your portable device.

Even better, you can also send photos and videos back to your TiVo for playback on the big screen. This feature is perfect for home movie viewing. And it all works with both standard and high-definition video, so you can make high-def DVDs and Blu-ray Discs out of HD TiVo recordings, or send movies from your HD camcorder to your HD TiVo in full 16:9 format. (High-definition also requires the Creator 2009 High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-In, available separately or as part of Creator 2009 Ultimate.)

Here's how to start making the most of your TiVo:

Transfer Shows to Your PC

The first step is to download and install TiVo Desktop, if you haven't already, and then use it to transfer shows from your networked TiVo to your PC. TiVo Desktop can be found on the TiVo site here.

Next, open up TiVo Desktop. At first, the window will be empty, since you haven't transferred any shows yet. Once you've copied shows over, they will appear in the "Now Playing" list. Below is the main TiVo Desktop window after transferring a few programs.

The TiVo Desktop "Now Playing" List. (Click to enlarge.)

To transfer a new show to your PC, simply click the "Pick Recordings to Transfer" button at top left, and then select the appropriate items from the list that appears. You can transfer multiple shows at once, and also set up automatic transfers (top middle button), a real convenience. For example, you can have specific season passes sent to your PC every week, so you can then burn them to DVD or copy them to your iPod.

Picking TiVo recordings to transfer to PC.

Here's the Now Playing window again, this time showing a new program in the process of being transferred. Note the display of the time remaining at top right.

Transferring a TiVo recording. (Click to enlarge.)

Burning Shows to DVD or Blu-ray Disc

Now that you've used TiVo Desktop to transfer programs to your PC, it's time to switch over to Creator 2009 so you can edit, burn or convert them. First, we'll show you how to archive a show to DVD or Blu-ray. To start, open the Creator 2009 home screen, click the Video-Movies tab, then select "Create DVDs - Advanced" under the Create heading, which will then open the MyDVD program. You can also open MyDVD directly from the Roxio Creator Applications folder in the Programs menu.

The Creator 2009 home screen.

Next, click the Add New Movie button, and navigate to the TiVo Recordings folder, which holds all the shows you've transferred to your PC. Select one or more movies to use in your DVD project.

Selecting TiVo shows to burn. (Click to enlarge.)

The movie(s) will then show up in a list at the bottom left of the the MyDVD window, as shown below.

TiVo show in the MyDVD project window. (Click to enlarge.)

At this point, if you like, you can customize your DVD with menu themes and chapters, and also select the type of disc you want to burn, such as DVD or Blu-ray. We have a complete tutorial on using MyDVD here. For a simple DVD, however, you can just go ahead and press the Burn button (at top right). The show will first be encoded, and then written to disc.

Burning the TiVo show to DVD.

Burning TiVo recordings to DVD or Blu-ray Disc is a great way to make the most of your DVR, by building up a video library you can view anywhere, and freeing up space on your TiVo's hard disk.

Sending Shows to Your Portable Player

As you may have guessed from the DVD burning tutorial above, Creator 2009 is able to work with the shows in the TiVo Recordings folder just like any other videos. This means you can also edit them with VideoWave (including cutting out unwanted segments), combine TiVo shows with other video material in your projects, and convert them for viewing on your iPod, iPhone, PSP or other portable player.

To convert shows for playback on your portable device, go back to the Creator 2009 home screen shown above, and this time select "Copy and Convert DVD-Video" under the Edit and Transfer heading. The Roxio Video Copy & Convert tool will open. Click the Video Compilation tab, then the Add Movies button. Just as in our DVD tutorial above, a media selection window will open where you can pick the TiVo recordings you want to transfer.

After you've added all the shows you want to convert to the list at bottom left, choose your output format in the box at right. We have chosen iPhone here, which automatically sets the correct encoding options for the conversion. Then click the Copy button at top, and the transfer will start. You can send your files direct to iTunes, or save them to disc for later syncing with your portable player.

Converting TiVo shows for iPhone viewing. (Click to enlarge.)

Now that you know the basics of working with TiVo recordings in Creator, try some fancier tricks, like combining TV footage and home movies in VideoWave for fun effects, or editing home movies to upload back to your TiVo. It's fun and easy!

Converting a movie, TV show or home video into a format that will look good on your iPod or iPhone is a fine art, as is creating top-quality streaming files for Apple TV. The compression process needs to be tuned for each type of video source and playback device, which can involve a bewildering array of technical parameters. But you don't need to be a digital video guru to get your home movies onto your iPod, or your DVDs onto your Apple TV. All you need is Roxio Crunch for Mac.

Roxio Crunch reduces the entire process to three easy steps, and does all the heavy lifting for you. You simply choose the video source files to convert (in nearly any format), select output presets optimized for your device, then go! Multiple video files can be processed in one batch, making it simple to move entire movie libraries to your new Apple TV, iPhone or iPod Touch.

You can even take unencrypted DVDs and Video_TS folders and select just the movie tracks you want to convert (skipping the extra features and foreign languages), which can save huge amounts of valuable drive space. After converting, Crunch drops your videos right into iTunes for automatic synchronization to your device. Here's how to do it:

Getting Started with Crunch

Roxio Crunch can convert most common types of digital video files for use on your Apple TV, video iPod, or iPhone, including:
* DVD-Video discs created with Toast, iDVD, or DVD Studio Pro
* Commercial DVD-Video discs that are not copy-protected or encrypted
* DVD-Video image files or VIDEO_TS folders from your hard disk
* Native QuickTime video formats, such as DV, AVI, MOV, and MPEG-4
* Other non-QuickTime video formats, such as MPEG-2 and DivX

The basic process is very simple. Just choose a video type from the source drawer on the left, drag your file(s) to the content window on the right, then click the red Convert button at bottom right. You will then be presented with a Player Setup dialog. You can drag as many video files as you like, to perform a batch conversion.

Crunch conversion options.

The easiest way to use Crunch is to select your device (Apple TV, iPod or iPhone), along with the Automatic quality setting and output to iTunes. Those three settings will do everything automagically for you. If you want to be sure of top quality output, you can choose the Highest setting, or select Custom to set your own compression parameters. The Automatic setting will balance quality and file size, depending on the output device.

Output quality level selection.

Customizing Quality Levels

While most users will be happy with the automatic presets, advanced users can delve into Crunch's custom compression options. Separate options are available for video and music. Available parameters will depend on your output device (you can choose image sizes from 160x120 all the way up to 1920x1080 for Apple TV, for example, but only up to 320x240 for iPod).

Customizing Crunch compression options.

Crunching DVDs & Image Files

Converting DVDs, Video_TS folders and Disc Image files gives you the added option of selecting particular video tracks to compress. This is a big advantage when converting DVDs with lots of extras like trailers, director's cuts, foreign languages, and extra scenes. Omitting the extras conserves scarce disk space on your iPod or iPhone. By default, the main video and audio are included, as in the following Video_TS folder. Pressing the Options... button brings up a track selector.

Converting a DVD Video_TS folder.

In the track selector, first click the Video drop-down menu. Choose All to include all videos, or main to include the single longest running video. Custom lets you select individual videos. Under the Audio menu, the primary audio is automatically selected for each video. If you select Custom as your Video choice, you can choose a different audio option for each video, such as a director's annotation or foreign language. Note that videos converted for portable players can only have one audio track and do not contain subtitles or menus. Multi-channel audio tracks will also be downsampled to two channels.

Selecting DVD video and audio tracks.

Sending Videos to Your Player

If you selected iTunes as your destination, your videos can be automatically or manually synched to your device from there. If you saved your compressed videos elsewhere, you can drag and drop them into iTunes, or transfer them to other players that support MPEG-4 or H.264 video, such as the Sony PSP and many new smartphones.

We hope this article shows how easy it is to take all your videos to go, or even to convert an entire video library for viewing on your new iPhone or Apple TV. Now it's Crunch time!

Most Creator owners have probably used PhotoSuite to perform common tasks like rotate and crop pictures for printing and remove red-eye. Perhaps you've even taken advantage of the handy AutoFix tool to correct exposure problems. But there's a whole new world of photo enhancement awaiting you with a little exploration of PhotoSuite's more advanced features. Tools like cloning, dust removal, special effects, smart edge detection and masking can make your pictures come alive.

Here's a quick tour of some of our favorite PhotoSuite tools, which are accessible by clicking one of the three tabs at the top left of the editing window, then choosing the appropriate task.

Masking & Cutouts

If there's one key area you should master, it's masking. Masking is the process of isolating and cutting out an area of a photo, which can then be used alone or in combination with other tools and photos to produce virtually any result you can imagine.

With masking, a person or object is typically separated from an uninteresting background, and then placed on a new background or used alone. The toucan in the photo below could be isolated using the Mask/Cutout Edge Tracing tool, or using the Mask/Cutout by Color tool. The first lets you trace the outline of an object with a series of clicks around it, while the second lets you select a relatively uniform background by clicking areas of like color around it. Cutout by Color works great for an object set against a blue sky or white wall, for example.

Here, we're using the Mask/Cutout by Shape tool (found under the Change Objects tab) to put a frame around our cutout subject, which will make a nice portrait for printing or use on a greeting card. The slider at the bottom of the tool window determines the amount of "feathering" of the frame edge. Here, we've used quite a bit of feathering to give it an old-fashioned look.

Using PhotoSuite's Mask/Cutout by Shape tool to create an oval frame.

Once you've got the mask the way you want it, simply click "Create Cutout" and choose to create a new object or save it to a file (depending on what you want to do with it). You can use the finished cutout in all sort of projects, from collages to calendars.

The finished cutout.

Cloning & Stamping

The Clone Brush is another handy tool under the Change Object tab that is surprisingly easy to use once you try it. With the Clone Brush you can copy (clone) a portion of a photo elsewhere in the image, using a variable-size brush to "paint" it on. Here, we're going to give this lonely humpback whale a companion.

To use the Clone Brush, you simply select the tool, then click in a corner of the object you want to clone to set the "start point." Then you brush it directly into the area where you want to duplicate it. As you brush, you'll see the object beginning to appear; simply keep brushing until you have as much of it cloned as you like. You can do this as many times as you want in one picture. So you could fill a night sky with cloned fireworks or stars, for example.

Using the Clone Brush to give this humpback whale a diving partner.

Special Effects & Clip Art

A myriad of special effects can be found under the Enhance menu. Here, we're starting with a tranquil forest scene, and would like to deepen its mystery.

Our starting forest scene.

Clicking on the Special Effects tool (under the Enhance tab) brings up dozens of possible effects, from color variations to painterly effects to warping. Here we've chosen to warm the colors in our image to give the desired feeling of being in an enchanted forest.

Using the Special Effects tool to warm the colors in an image.

In this alternate take, we've use the Charcoal Special Effect to give the scene an almost snowy look, then planted a snowman with a road sign taken from the built-in clip art collection, also accessible under the Enhance tab. We could then add text to the sign saying "Grandma's House" or "Santa's Workshop" with "Add or Edit Text" tool.

Creator and PhotoSuite come with a huge collection of clip art, like the snowman above.

Framing Your Masterpieces

Frames are great ways to enhance photos for greeting cards or other print projects, and PhotoSuite makes it a snap to add them. You simply select the Frames tool from under the Enhance tab, then select from the large number of options. The frame is automatically put around your photo. There's also a companion Mat tool, for the full framing effect.

Applying a picture frame in PhotoSuite.

Removing Dust & Scratches

If you scan in a lot of old photos and slides, the Dust and Scratches tools, found under the Fix menu, will be your best friends. Each does just what it sounds like, removing dust or scratches from your photo automatically. You can control the degree of removal using sliders. More removal will necessarily soften your photo somewhat, so try to use the minimum necessary.

Using PhotoSuite's Dust removal tool.

Fixing Mobile Phone Photos

Finally, if you have a cameraphone, PhotoSuite's Mobile Photo Doctor tool is indispensible for correcting these often washed out or too-dark images.

A photo taken with a Treo cameraphone before fixing in PhotoSuite.

One click on the Mobile Photo Doctor, and color and contrast are restored to this image.

The picture after using PhotoSuite's Mobile Photo Doctor.

Getting Started: Adding Content

The first task is to bring your video clips into the computer, if you haven't already. Use your video camera's transfer software, or use Creator's Media Import utility (found in the Roxio Home screen under Video>Import>Capture Video) to capture clips automatically. CineMagic can handle all major Windows video file formats, so don't worry about that for now. Once you have your clips ready, as well as any still photos you might want to mix in with the video, it's time to start. Choose Edit Video Automatically from the Video task list on the Roxio Home screen, and the CineMagic Assistant will open:

Adding video clips to a CineMagic project.

Step one is to Add Content by bringing in the video clips and photos you want to use in your movie. Just click the Add Video/Photos button, and select your media files from the browser. They will appear in the viewer at right, where you can also play any clip to preview it by clicking the little arrow in the corner. Tip: Number your clips if you want CineMagic to keep them in a particular order. Here, we are creating a wedding video, and want our scenes in sequential order.

Next, click on the Select Scenes button, and you'll see a list of all the distinct scenes that appear in your clips. If there are any that you definitely want to appear in the movie, click the box at lower left of the thumbnails to add a checkmark. Also select any you DON'T want to appear by double-clicking to add a red "X." Any remaining scenes may or may not be used, depending on the length and style of movie you choose later on. Click the Preview button to play a selected scene.

Selecting scenes to use in your video.

Clicking OK brings you back to the CineMagic window, where it's time to add background audio to your project. You can choose to add an audio track, such as a CD track or MP3 file, or use SmartSound audio to create custom "mood" music that fits your video length precisely.

Selecting background audio for a CineMagic project.

We chose to use SmartSound audio, so were presented with additional options. With SmartSound, you first select a style of music, such as Blues, Jazz, Latin or Classical, then a title, and then variations on that theme, depending on the mood you want to project in your video. For our wedding video, set mostly in a church, we selected Classical>Handel Air Piano>Memories. You can also specify a length for your music.

Adding custom SmartSound background audio.

Customizing Your Movie

Just a few more decisions now, you're almost there! Click Next to go to Step 2, where CineMagic lets you customize your movie by choosing a style, such as Party, Sports, Theater, Travel or Wedding. You'll also choose a duration for your movie, or whether you want it to fit precisely to the background audio you've already selected. For our wedding video, we chose to have CineMagic keep the clips in sequential order, and entered a title for the video: "Liz & Dave, June 2003." At this point, you can preview the entire movie, and then go back and change things if you like.

Customizing your CineMagic movie.

That's all there is to making the movie. Now it's time to Save & Share it! There are several options for sharing, including Burn to Disc, Share Online, and Create Video File.

Saving & Sharing your CineMagic movie.

We chose to Create Video File, so we could put the movie on a portable player in the AVC/H.264 format supported by the iPhone, iPod Touch, Sony PSP and others. A dialog box of options will pop up. Select the format and quality level you want. (The higher the quality, the bigger the file.)

Saving & Sharing options.

You can save multiple versions of the video for different purposes, such as for playback on your HDTV and iPod. Rendering the movie will take some time, but it goes surprisingly fast. For a typical short video, take a coffee break, and it will probably be done when you come back! Then be sure to send it to all your friends!

The final rendering.

Creating a Greeting Card

To create your own unique cards for holidays, birthdays, graduations, and other special occasions, choose the Photo tab on the Roxio Home screen, then double-click on "Create Projects." You'll be presented with a list of possible project types and templates for each.

Select Cards, then browse through the various styles for the one that fits your occasion. The cards can also be used as party invitations. All are fully customizable with your own pictures, text, background artwork, font styles, and more.

Choosing a card style in Creator's Photo Project Assistant.

When you've made your selection, click the Next button to got to Step 2 and personalize your card.

Editing a greeting card.

Now comes the fun part! Double-click the photo on your card, then replaced the picture on this holiday card with your own (a baby Santa in our example). You can also replace the background artwork with another photo if you like.

Customizing the front of the card with your own picture and text.

Next, customize the inside of the card. Click on the "Inside Right" button to view the text placeholder, select it, and then type your own text in the box at left. We changed the text color to red to match the holiday theme. That's all we did to this card. You can also change the font size and style using the tools at the top, or customize the inside left and back of the card with additional photos and text.

Customizing the inside of the card.

Printing Your Card

Now it's time to print! First, however, be sure to save your card project, in case you want to print more copies later. Then click the Print button. (You may also want to email the card to some recipients, click the Email button for that.)

Printing and saving your finished card.

In the Print Settings box, examine your card to be sure it's positioned properly on the page, then select the printer you want to use, and the number of copies. Now press the Print button to print the first side of the paper. (We recommend high quality photo card stock, which you can find in most big office supply stores.) Next, turn the paper over and reinsert it into your printer in the proper direction, and print the inside of the card. Do a single test page first to be sure you have the orientation correct and that the card folds properly. Finally, use a paper cutter (or ruler and x-acto knife) to trim the edges of your cards. Enjoy!

Customizing the print settings.

Creating a Photo Calendar

While making your own greeting cards is quick and easy, if you really want to impress people, give them a customized calendar that they can use every day. To start, open the Photo Project Assistant again, and select Calendars instead of Cards. Choose the template that comes closest to your ideal, and click Next.

Choosing a calendar template.

Now replace the various calendar placeholders with your own pictures and text, as you did with the greeting cards. Also choose a start date for your calendar. Again, you can customize any of the page elements, and change fonts, styles and colors. Finally, save and print your project, and let the compliments roll in!

Customizing your calendar project.

Creator 2009 makes it easy to get great results with its LP & Tape Assistant. Even better, once you've made your recording, you can put away those LPs, preventing further wear and tear, and preserving them for future generations. You can also go on to make CD and DVD compilations of your musical memories--perfect for holiday reunions, anniversaries and birthdays--even combining them with tracks from digital sources like CDs or Internet radio. This article shows you how, step by step.

One note before we start. If the LP or cassette you want to transfer to CD has been published on CD, you may want to buy the CD rather than make a copy. This is not for copyright reasons--you are perfectly within your rights to make a CD copy of an album you already own for personal use. The fact is that a commercial CD will likely be far better quality than any copy you can make yourself, even with a top-notch turntable and sound card. That said, if you have records that were never issued as CDs, or family audiotapes you want to preserve, transferring these analog sources to CDs makes perfect sense, and Creator 2009 makes it simple.

Step 1: Use a Clean Source

When digitizing an analog audio signal it's important to make sure you get the best signal into the computer before recording. While Creator has a noise cleanup tool, this should be viewed as a secondary cleaning. Wipe your LPs with a lint-free anti-static cloth or record brush. If you have a lot of material to record, you might also consider replacing the needle in your turntable if you can't remember the last time you did so. Similarly, make sure your cassette deck heads are clean, and that you engage the same noise-reduction technology (Dolby B or C, etc) used when the tape was recorded. Not all decks support all technologies.

Step 2: Connect Things Up

Depending upon whether you have a record or cassette, you may have to use a different technique to connect your sound source to your computer. For tapes and other line-level audio sources, including TVs, VCRs, DVD players, stereo receivers, and MP3 players, you should ideally use a player that has line-out jacks (usually two RCA plugs), and connect these jacks to the line-in minijack of your PC's sound card. If your portable tape player lacks line-out jacks, you can also use a headphone output; though this will require more work in adjusting levels (see Step 3).

If you're recording from an LP, you'll likely need to run it through a receiver or amplifier with a "phono preamp" first because most turntables put out a signal that is much lower than a standard line signal. Connecting this directly to the computer will not work. Many home receivers and amplifiers have a special phono input for connecting the turntable. You then connect the line-out from the amplifier (often labeled tape out) to the line-in of your PC. In most cases you'll need a cable with dual RCA male plugs on one end to plug into your source deck, and a stereo male mini-plug on the other to connect to your computer. Finally, there are newer USB turntables that provide a direct USB input to your computer. These are the easiest to connect.

Step 3: Choose Recording Input and Adjust Levels

Now you're ready to begin recording! Choose "Digitize LPs and Tapes" from the Roxio Home Music-Audio task list. The LP & Tape Assistant will open, and you'll see a Recording window with options for selecting your audio input and adjusting the recording level. Click the "Recording Setup Guide" button for detailed instructions on choosing the correct input device and setting the level.

Setting the correct recording level is very important. You want to get as high a level as possible without "clipping," which can cause distortion. If the recording meters go into the red zone, sound is being clipped and you should readjust your recording level. Note that if you have used the headphone connection of a tape recorder or amplifier as your source, you can also adjust the volume on your tape deck or amp.

Setting the recording input and level. Note that the level does not go into the red (clipping) zone.

Now, start playing a song and listen to it come through your computer. Use quality headphones or external speakers if possible. Check for hum--you may need to ground your source deck (all turntables come with a special ground wire for this purpose). Also make sure that the computer and source equipment are plugged into the same power strip, and that power cables and sound cables are not bunched together. Keep sound cables away from CRTs, televisions and other sources of electronic noise.

Once you've got a clean sound source coming through, it's time to start recording! Cue your source to the beginning, press the red Record button, then start your source playing. Don't worry about recording blank space at the beginning; you can remove that later. Make sure you have enough disk space before starting, though. The Assistant tells you how much recording time you have available.

By default, the LP & Tape Assistant automatically separates tracks whenever a period of silence is encountered. To adjust the sensitivity, click the Advanced Options button. Here, you can also limit recording time to a given number of minutes (handy for unattended recording), mute system sounds, and specify the file format and quality of the recording (CD quality is the default).

The finished recording of a single album side, automatically split into tracks.

Step 4: Identifying and Enhancing Your Tracks

Now click the Next button at bottom right to go to Step 2 of the Assistant. Here you'll get a chance to identify and enhance your recordings. You can correct track splits, edit out unwanted bits at the beginnings or ends of tracks, and use filters to clean up and improve sound quality. You can also automatically identify the artist, album and song names!

Trimming the recorded tracks.

After you've adjusted the track separators to trim your tracks (use the zoom buttons at top right to get a close-up look, then drag the separator arrows left or right), click the Tags button to identify your tracks automatically. The Edit Audio Tags window will then open, and you can edit the results.

Identifying your tracks and editing audio tags.

Finally, checking the Clean box will reduce noise on all your tracks, while Enhance will improve the dynamic range, especially important for tape sources. Click the Clean and Enhance buttons to choose filtering options. You can also fade each track in and out by a variable length of time, and preview the results using the playback controls at lower right.

Cleaning your recordings.

Step 5: Burn or Export Your Recordings

Once you're satisfied with your new recordings, it's time to burn them to disc or send them to your music player! To burn a CD, select the tracks you'd like to include, put them in order, and click the Burn Audio CD button. Be sure to click the checkboxes to add CD-Text info to your Audio CD, and to maximize track volumes (which will equalize the volume levels of tracks from different LPs). Or use the Export Tracks buttone to export your recordings in other formats, such as AAC or MP3 for use in your iPod or other portable audio player.

Burning your CD.

Finally, you can choose to send the tracks to Creator's Sound Editor for further tweaking, or to the Music Disc Creator for making MP3 CDs and DVD Music Discs. Sending your new recordings to the Music Disc Creator also lets you combine them with tracks from other sources, such as songs ripped from CD or downloaded from the Web.

So dust off those albums and start recording! Don't forget to also transfer that beautiful cover art to your new CD, with the included Label Creator software.

Assuming you already have Toast 9 or Popcorn 3, all you need to do is add one of the Elgato EyeTV tuners, such as the EyeTV 250 Plus and EyeTV Hybrid USB stick to turn your Mac into a HD DVR. Whichever way you go, Toast and Popcorn make it easy to save the programs you've captured on your Mac to DVD, or export them to your iPhone, iPod, Apple TV or other media player.

Elgato EyeTV Hybrid USB stick.

The EyeTV tuners do a lot more than just record video to hard disk, however. The software interacts with the free TitanTV online program guide to schedule recordings, and maintains a list of past recordings stored on your hard disk, so you can use it like you would a regular HD DVR, but without the monthly fees. It even lets you pause live TV, skip commercials, and enjoy instant replays. Since most newer Macs, and many older ones, have video output capabilities, you can plug the output from your Mac into a TV set (including HDTVs), and use your Mac's remote control (or your iPhone with the Remote app) to watch or record video from the comfort of your couch in full high-definition!

Both tuners can record over-the-air broadcasts in standard or high-definition, as well as cable or satellite signals using the set-top converter box supplied by your provider to change channels, and then plugging the output from the converter into the EyeTV, which should be tuned to channel 3 or 4, depending on your service. (Unscrambled Clear QAM cable channels don't require a converter box.) They can also accept almost any form of standard-definition analog video, with S-Video and RCA jacks for plugging in sources like VCRs, camcorders and DVD players. The EyeTV 250 Plus also includes on-board hardware encoding to take the burden off your Mac's processor for standard definition recording. It's great for converting old tapes to digital format. (Note that for HD recording, a Dual G5 or Intel Mac is required.)

Using EyeTV

Open the EyeTV software and three windows appear: a resizable video window, a program list of all available recordings on your hard disk, and an onscreen controller (which you can use along with or in place of an infrared remote). The onscreen controller (pictured below) tells you what the current show is and how far into it you are, and provides typical fast forward/reverse/pause/record/volume/channel functions, as well as instant replay, mute, program guide, and 30-second commercial skip buttons.

The EyeTV controller.

Here's the video window, with the controller and recording information displayed. The video window can be resized as desired, or fill the screen. You can also show or hide the controller at any time.

EyeTV playing video live, with controller and recording information bar.

Step-by-Step from Video Recording to DVD

Now that you've become familiar with the features and capabilities of EyeTV, here's a step-by-step guide to burning your recorded EyeTV programs to DVD or converting them for your iPod, iPhone or other media player.

1) First, connect things up according to the EyeTV instructions, then run the EyeTV software setup program to sign up for the online program guide (so you know what you're watching, and can program future recordings). The setup process will also tune all the channels coming off your antenna or cable/satellite input. The program guide supports over-the-air, cable and satellite services.

The EyeTV program guide. Scheduled recordings are indicated by a red dot.

2) Next, choose a future show to record by clicking the red Record button that appears next to it. You can even set a show to record all season long, so you'll never miss another episode of American Idol or 24. Better yet, if you set the preference to "Start EyeTV when a device is plugged in," it will wake up your Mac from sleep to record, and even boot up your machine if it is off (with OS 10.2 or later and automatic login enabled in your Mac System Preferences)! No worries about having to leave your machine on all the time.

3) When you're done recording, the show will appear in the Recordings window, where you can select it for playback on your computer, or burn it to disc. To make a DVD or Blu-ray Disc (with a Blu-ray recorder and the Toast HD/BD Plug-in) select your recording(s) within the Toast 9 Media Browser and drag them to the Video Project window. About 2 hours of standard-definition video will fit on a DVD, or about 2 hours of high-definition video on a 25GB Blu-ray disc. Choose menu and navigation options for your disc at lower left, then press the Burn button. You can also trim out commercials from your recordings before burning, by clicking the Edit button next to each video in the Project window.

Making a DVD or Blu-ray Disc from your EyeTV recordings.

4) To convert EyeTV recordings for your mobile device or set-top player, such as your iPhone, iPod Touch or Apple TV, click the Convert Tab in the Toast window and drag in your recordings from the Media Browser as above. Again, you can trim out commercials or other unwanted portions using the Edit button next to each video.

Converting EyeTV recordings for your mobile device or set-top box.

Finally, select the format you want to convert to from the drop-down list (click the Recorder Settings icon at lower left). We chose to export for our iPhone. Then click the Burn button and your converted videos will be sent straight to iTunes!

Choosing a player format for your conversions.

Creator 2009 makes it simple to convert non-copy-protected DVDs, DVD Video_TS folders, home movie clips or downloaded videos to portable player and cell phone formats, including MPEG-4, MPEG-2, WMV, 3GP and DivX. You can even convert TV shows you’ve recorded with Windows Media Center or copied from your networked TiVo with TiVo Desktop software, and send the results directly to iTunes or sync to your mobile device.

To start, open the Creator 2009 Launcher and choose the "Copy & Convert DVD-Video" task from the Video - Movies tab (don't worry, it's not just for DVDs!). You'll see a window with two selection panes. The left pane is where you choose the source videos you want to convert, and the right pane is where you tell Creator what format you want to convert them to. Click the DVD Video Copy button if you want to copy an entire DVD, and the Video Compilation button to select portions of DVDs and/or videos already on your hard drive.

Below, we've selected a few videos from our hard drive, in various formats (a high-def TV show recorded in Windows Media Center, a downloaded DivX file and a TiVo recording), and selected iPod as the output format. To send the converted video directly to your device, choose "Portable Device/Media" as the output destination.

The Video Copy & Convert window showing output for iPod.

The total size of the converted videos is shown in the bar at the bottom of the window, so you can make sure you have enough space. If you like you can preview and trim movies in the left pane, by double-clicking on the thumbnails. This feature is great for removing unwanted portions of TV shows and other recordings. To tweak encoding parameters like frame rates and resolution, you can click the Options Summary button. However, we recommend sticking with the defaults for best compatibility.

Copying a DVD to Your Player

If you'd like to convert a full DVD or disc image file for playback on your portable device, choose the DVD Video Copy button. You'll see a window like the one below:

Copying a full DVD to your portable player.

The process is just like we illustrated above. First select your DVD source file in the left-hand pane, then your output destination and format in the right-hand pane. You can copy non-copy-protected DVD-video discs to another disc, or to your hard drive or player device. Use this feature to make backup copies of your kids' DVDs for playback in car DVD systems, or to load up your laptop with movies to watch on the plane.

Syncing to Your Portable Player

Now that you've converted your video, it's time to put it on your player. If you sent the files directly to iTunes, you can simply attach your iPod or iPhone and sync. If you have another supported device, such as a Windows Mobile smartphone or Sony PSP, you can use the Media Manager to sync your files.

The Media Manager with attached devices displayed.

To set up syncing, attach your device and select Sync Settings from the Tools menu in Media Manager if it doesn't open automatically. After that you can click the Sync button to transfer files, and use the My Devices area at bottom left to drag and drop items to be synced. See our full mobile sync tutorial here.

Using the Desktop Sync Gadget

Sometimes you just need to get that new photo or video onto your smartphone or PSP quickly. Or sync a new playlist to listen to in the car. With Creator 2009, media syncing is a snap thanks to the new SyncIt! gadget. Just drag media files onto the handy desktop gadget, and it will automatically convert and send them to your portable device.

Using the Creator 2009 SyncIt! gadget.

All supported devices that have been connected to your computer will show up in the menu, even if the device is not currently attached. There couldn't be an easier way to convert and sync your files. The Gadget works equally well with Windows XP and Windows Vista. You can keep the gadget on your desktop, or open it from the Roxio Launcher. Click the Video – Movies tab and then choose "Drag and Drop Convert" to launch SyncIt!

So next time you're hitting the road, don't leave home without your videos. Creator 2009 makes it easy to take them with you!

And while digital downloads can be fast, most are time-limited or inconveniently locked to a PC or set-top device. Why spend all that time downloading a movie only to see it expire just hours after you've watched it? Even if you purchase the movie, it will likely have to spend its entire lifetime on a hard drive.

Instead, liberate your downloads with Sonic's revolutionary new download-to-burn technology: Qflix. Qflix drives and media let you have it both ways: a burned DVD for viewing on the big screen, plus a digital copy of the movie on up to three PCs. All copies are completely legal, so you'll be able to watch your movies anywhere: at home, in the car, or on your portable player.

The Qflix platform opens a whole new world where you don't have to run to the video store or wait two days for them to come in the mail. Instead, you can burn DVDs of the latest movie releases, like Iron Man and The Spiderwick Chronicles, right from your desktop. With one download, you get a movie that can be watched instantly on your PC and burned to DVD. You'll no longer have to choose between downloads and DVDs!

So how does this magic work? There are three simple steps: First, buy a Qflix DVD burner, available from Dell and others. Your burner will come with the Roxio Venue software, which you need for the following steps. Next, open Venue and choose a movie from the CinemaNow online store. Finally, press the download & burn button. That's it!

You'll have your finished DVD in hand in about 1.5 to 2 hours, and you can even watch the movie while it downloads to your PC. With a Qflix drive, you can pick a movie when you get home from work, and your DVD will be ready for viewing on the big screen after dinner.

Getting Started

The first step towards downloading and burning your own DVDs is to install the software disc that comes with your Qflix drive. Three programs will be installed: The Roxio Venue software you'll use to choose, buy, download, burn and watch CinemaNow movies; the CinemaNow software that manages your account; and Roxio CinePlayer, the premier DVD movie playing software for your PC (so you can watch your burned discs in top quality).

Next, plug in your new Qflix drive. It's a standard CD/DVD recorder, so will install itself automatically. You should then see a popup saying that your new hardware is ready to be used. Now it's time to open Roxio Venue and choose a movie!

The Roxio Venue startup screen.

Buying Your First Movie

Choosing a movie is a breeze in Venue. You can browse through the newest releases, see the most popular downloads, search for a particular movie, or browse by genre, such as Action, Comedy, Drama, Family and Thriller.

Browsing through the Thriller genre in the CinemaNow store.

Click on a movie you are interested in to see more details about it, such as the average customer rating, directors and producers, running time, and a synopsis of the plot.

Movie details for Iron Man.

To illustrate the purchase process, we'll buy Iron Man. Click on the Buy Now button, and you'll be presented with a login/registration screen if you're not logged in already.

The CinemaNow login/registration screen.

Fill out the registration form, login, and you'll be ready to buy. Now pay for your purchase. You can use PayPal or a credit card. Once you've paid successfully, you'll see the following confirmation screen.

The movie purchase confirmation screen.

Downloading & Burning

The movie purchase confirmation screen is where the Qflix magic happens. Amazingly, you can download, burn and watch your movie all at the same time! But before burning your first movie, let's check your system first. From the Venue Tools menu, choose "Burnright System Check." This utility will automatically check to see if you have enough hard drive space, a Qflix burner attached, and an Internet connnection. Assuming everything is okay, you're good to go. If not, clear some disk space or check your connections.

Checking your system before burning.

Assuming you want to burn the movie right away, check the box to "Automatically Begin DVD Burn," then click the Download button. Venue will do the rest! You'll be prompted to insert a blank Qflix disc, if you haven't already. A couple of blank discs may come with your drive; Qflix media can also be purchased from Dell, Roxio and other sources. If you don't check the box, you can also burn your movie later at any time.

Starting the one-step download & burn process in Roxio Venue.

Once you click the Download button, you'll see a progress bar at the bottom of your screen, as well as a movie icon that shows the status of your download.

The CinemaNow Movie Library while downloading & burning.

Once the download is completed, the icon label will change to reflect whether you have burned the movie yet or not. In the example below, we downloaded Iron Man, but did not burn it immediately, so it shows "Burn Allowed" in the Library. For The Spiderwick Chronicles, we did a download & burn, so its label changes to "Already Burned." To burn Iron Man later, you simply go to My Videos, then press the Burn button next to it.

Movie Library showing movie during and after burning.

Enjoying the Show!

Now comes the payoff! Just double-click on any downloaded movie in your library to start playing it within Roxio Venue. You can even watch movies as they are being downloaded by press the Play button! The software will tell you when movies are ready to play, usually just a couple minutes after they start downloading, for near-instant movie fun. You can watch movies inside the Venue window, as shown below, or switch to full-screen mode using the controls at the top of the video pane.

Watching a CinemaNow movie with Venue.

And of course once you've burned your movie to DVD with your Qflix drive, you can also watch it on your big-screen TV, on your car DVD system, or in any standard DVD player.

Note that since the CinemaNow license allows for playing back your purchased Qflix movies on up to three PCs at a time (in addition to burning one DVD), you can install the software on additional PCs for downloading and viewing. You only need a Qflix drive on the machine you want to use for burning your purchased DVDs. Log onto your CinemaNow account online to manage which three PCs or other CinemaNow-enabled devices are authorized for viewing at any one time. When you remove a PC from the authorized list movies are not deleted, so you can reauthorize a PC without having to redownload your movies; just reinstall the software to authorize it again.

Now that you've learned how easy, powerful and flexible the Qflix system is, check out Dell's special discounts for Roxio readers on desktop and laptop systems equipped with Qflix drives and save more than $200-$265! Or take $20 off a standalone Qflix drive.

If you've watched Blu-ray movies played on an HDTV, you know how breathtaking the quality can be. There is simply no comparison between the detail you get with full 1920-by-1080 HD video and standard 720-by-480 DVD resolution. Once you've experienced it, you'll likely never go back. And now that HD camcorders and DVRs are plentiful and affordable, more people are recording their home movies and TV shows in HD too. The best consumer HD camcorders can now record at up to 1920-by-1080i, almost as good as the 1920-by-1080p (progressive scan) resolution found on commercial Blu-ray movie discs.

So how do you get your home HD recordings onto your TV screen? Blu-ray recorder prices are still very high, at least $500 or so for an external drive, and media prices range from about $15 to $50 per disc, which can add up fast. After buying that HDTV, set-top Blu-ray player and HD camcorder, there's probably not much left in the budget for an expensive Blu-ray burner as well. While prices will come down eventually, if you want to watch your HD movies NOW, the answer is as close as Creator and your DVD drive.

With Creator 2009, you can burn your HD camcorder footage onto regular DVD media, in the same format as Blu-ray video, using the DVD burner you already have. These special high-definition DVDs can be played in most Blu-ray set-top players, including the Sony PlayStation 3, and you can fit up to an hour of HD video onto a dual-layer DVD. If you are lucky enough to have a Blu-ray recorder, you can also burn hours of video on a single or dual-layer Blu-ray Disc, using Creator 2009 and its High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in (or Creator 2009 Ultimate, which includes the plug-in). Even better, Creator's MyDVD application lets you edit your HD clips using a powerful timeline editor, and author discs with fully customizable HD menus and themes.

Getting Started -- Import Your Video

To author a high-definition DVD complete with custom menus, first open Creator 2009 and select the "Create DVDs - Advanced project option under the Video - Movies tab. This will launch the MyDVD application. (You can also launch it directly from the Windows Programs menu.) The application will start by asking what type of project you want to create. Choose "AVCHD Project" if you want to put HD video on standard DVDs, or "Blu-ray Project" if you have a Blu-ray recorder and want to burn a Blu-ray Disc (unless you have more than one hour of video, a dual-layer DVD is all you need).

Choosing a project type in MyDVD.

Now it's time to import your HD video clips from your camcorder, if you haven't already. Click the Capture/Import button at top left to open the Media Import Tool. Then connect your AVCHD camcorder and set it to PC connect mode per the manufacturer's directions. When connected properly, it will show up in the device list. Select it, and you will see a list of available clips in the box at left, complete with thumbnail previews. Each clip is labeled with valuable information, such as the length, screen format, and resolution (1920x1080 or 1440x1080 for AVCHD clips). Finally, choose the clips you want to use in your project, and click the Import button at bottom. The import process will start, and the imported clips will be shown in the box at right. When you are finished importing, click the Done button to return to MyDVD.

Importing clips from an AVCHD camcorder with the Media Import tool.

Adding & Editing Your Movies

The next step is to bring your clips into your AVCHD DVD or Blu-ray project. Click the Add New Movie button at top left, and select the movies you want to use in your project from your hard disk (hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple clips at once). The movies will now appear in the project window at bottom left. Don't worry about the order for now, you can arrange things later. First, check each of your clips to see if they need trimming or removal of unwanted portions by clicking the Movies tab in the Project pane (at lower left). Choose a clip to preview it. If you want to trim the clip, or add a title or soundtrack, click the Edit Movie button at middle left to switch to editing mode.

Editing a video clip in MyDVD.

MyDVD's editing mode includes a powerful timeline editor. We won't go into all the details here, but you can do things like add titles, transitions, soundtracks and special effects, as well as basic editing. If your movies are long, you can also add chapter markers, just like those on a commercial movie disc, using the Edit Chapters button at middle left. Most home video clips are relatively short, however, so you probably won't need to do this.

Customizing Your Disc

Now that you've added all your movies and edited them as desired, it's time to customize your disc menus. First, make sure your clips are in the sequence you'd like them displayed on your menu--use the Move Up and Move Down buttons under the Movies tab to change the order. Then click "Change Menu Style" to pick a theme for your disc.

Choosing a menu theme.

You can choose from any theme, although we recommend checking the box to view the special HD themes only, which have been designed with HD's wider aspect ratio and higher resolution in mind. (If you choose a standard-definition theme, it will be stretched to the HD aspect ratio.) Next, edit the movie titles by clicking on them in the preview pane. You can change fonts and sizes as desired, and add additional text anywhere you like. Also experiment with button styles by choosing "Change Button Styles" at middle left.

Editing movie titles.

Once you've edited your menus to your satisfaction, preview your disc by clicking the Preview button near the top right. You'll be presented with a fully operational disc emulator, so you can see exactly how your disc will play in your set-top player. If you find anything you want to change, go back and fix it using MyDVD's movie editing and disc authoring tools.

Previewing your disc project.

Burning Your Disc

Now you're all done, except for burning! The bar at the bottom will show how much video you have, and whether it fits on your disc. If needed, you can choose a different disc size, such as a dual-layer disc instead of a single-layer disc. You can also specify a quality level. By default, Creator will fit your video to the disc size. If you want to make sure that it is encoded at a particular quality level, use the pop-up menu at bottom right. The Highest Quality encoding option takes longer, but is worth it if you have the time.

Disc encoding options.

Finally, press the Burn button at top right, and select burn options, if desired. You can erase the disc if needed (for a rewritable disc), give it a label, and choose a burn speed. Be sure to use a burn speed that is supported by both your drive and media (not all media is rated for higher speeds). Choosing a lower speed may help avoid any problems while burning.

The MyDVD Burn window.

Once you press the Burn button, you'll see a recording progress indicator that shows the status of encoding and burning. Encoding usually takes longer than burning.

The MyDVD burn progress indicator.

Now it's time to enjoy your disc on the big screen! Pop it into your PlayStation 3 or other Blu-ray player, and let your whole family enjoy your home videos in all their HD glory.

Once you've made your PhotoShow, you can share it instantly via a secure Web link that your friends can click on and view in their browser window. But with the Premium Service you get the added ability to download your finished shows in MPEG4 video format. This means you can view them offline on your computer, burn them to DVD, or copy them to your video-capable phone, iPod, PSP, or other portable player. Imagine being able to pull out your iPhone and play your PhotoShow for all your friends and co-workers!

Getting Started -- Importing Your Photos & Video

The first step in any PhotoShow project is to import your media. With the standard Roxio Online account, you can upload pictures only. With the Premium Service, however, you can upload video clips as well, making it easy to merge still photos and videos into the perfect show. To get started, just go to RoxioOnline.com, and click on "Make a PhotoShow." If you don't already have a Premium account, also click the button to "Upgrade Now."

Once you are signed in with your Premium account, you'll be presented with the Add Photos screen. This is where you choose the photos and videos you'd like to include in your show, and upload them. Note that there is a size limit of 50MB on videos, and 20MB on photos. Most popular photo and video formats are accepted, including JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF, AVI, WMV, MPEG1, MP4, M4V, MOV and QT. Here, we've chosen a series of photos and video clips from our summer vacation in Wisconsin.

Uploading photos and videos to make a PhotoShow.

Personalizing Your PhotoShow

Now comes the fun part! Personalizing your PhotoShow with titles, captions, music, animated graphics, borders, background themes and transitions. For the full scoop on how to trick out your show, see "Share Your Photos with Roxio Online." Below, we chose the Summer theme to go with our vacation photos. It came out amazingly well, even before we personalized it, as you can see below.

Choosing a theme in PhotoShow.

Once you've finished personalizing your show, it's time to share it with the people you choose, either publicly or privately. You'll be prompted with several ways to share: via emailed Web link, blog post, DVD, even via TV on Demand in select cable TV areas! To download your show in MPEG-4 format for your portable player, click the button at middle right, labeled "Get this PhotoShow on Video (mp4)."

Choosing to get your PhotoShow delivered in MPEG-4 video format.

After you click the button, Roxio Online will begin the process of encoding your video (saving you the time to do it!), and then email you a link to download the file to your computer. From there, you can drag it to iTunes, or whatever program you use to sync with your mobile device, and start playing it for your friends and family! You can also burn it to DVD with Creator or Toast.

One more thing...If you are using a PC, and have a Premium account, you can also download the PhotoShow desktop software, which allows you to export video and burn DVDs right from your computer, rather than using the Web interface. Either way, Roxio Online has you covered!

If you've watched Blu-ray movies played on an HDTV, you know how breathtaking the quality can be. There is simply no comparison between the detail you get with full 1920-by-1080 HD video and standard 720-by-480 DVD resolution. Once you've experienced it, you'll likely never go back. And now that HD camcorders and DVRs are plentiful and affordable, more people are recording their home movies and TV shows in high-def too.

So how do you get your home HD recordings onto your TV screen? Blu-ray recorder prices are still very high, at least $500 or so for an external drive, and media prices range from about $15 to $50 per disc, which can add up fast. After buying that HDTV, set-top Blu-ray player and HD camcorder, there's probably not much left in the budget for an expensive Blu-ray burner as well. While prices will come down eventually, if you want to watch your HD movies NOW, the answer is as close as Toast and your DVD drive.

With Toast 9 and its High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in, you can burn your HD camcorder footage onto regular DVD media, in the same format as Blu-ray video, using the DVD burner you already have. These special high-definition DVDs can be played in most Blu-ray set-top players, including the Sony PlayStation 3, and you can fit up to an hour of HD video onto a dual-layer DVD. If you are lucky enough to have a Blu-ray recorder, you can also burn hours of video on a Blu-ray Disc. Even better, Toast lets you crop and trim your HD video, so you can edit out segments you don't want. The same thing goes for HD recordings you make using Elgato's EyeTV or your HD TiVo, so you can make DVDs of your favorite HD shows that will play back in your set-top Blu-ray player.

Getting Started -- Import Your Video

To create a high-definition DVD, first open Toast 9 (make sure you have the High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in installed) and select the Blu-ray Video project option under the Video tab. Now bring in your HD video clips. Open the Toast Media Browser, and select the EyeTV or TiVo option to import TV recordings, or select the AVCHD option to import movies directly from your attached AVCHD camcorder (which should be in computer connection mode). You can also simply drag in video clips to the Toast project window that are already on your hard disk. While Toast does not import directly from HDV camcorders, you can use HDV clips in your high-def projects as long as you import them to hard disk first, using your camera's utility software, then drag them to the Toast window. Everything will be converted to the proper format when you burn your disc. As you import or drag in video clips, your Project window will start to fill up and look like this:

Toast 9 Blu-ray Video project window, showing video clips in both AVCHD and HDV formats.

Each clip is labeled with valuable information, such as the date recorded, the length, and the encoding format (such as H.264/AVC 1920x1080 or 1440x1080 for AVCHD clips, and MPEG-2 1440x1080 for HDV camcorder clips).

Video clips in the Toast Project window. The top clip is from an AVCHD camcorder, the bottom clip is from an HDV camcorder.

Cropping and Trimming Clips

If some of your video clips need trimming to remove unwanted portions, click the Edit button next to each clip in the Project window. You'll see the following pop-up:

Editing a video clip in the Toast 9 Project window.

Here, you can do several things. You can change the default name and date of your clip, and you can crop and trim it by clicking the Edit button. Change the name to whatever you'd like your clip to be labeled in the navigation menu you'll see when you pop the disc into your set-top Blu-ray player. Clicking the Edit button brings up the Toast Video Player window.

Trimming an HD video clip in the Toast 9 Video Player.

To edit out unwanted portions of your clip first look at the slider below the video and move the pointer to the place where you'd like to start trimming. Click the middle icon just below the slider, which will then insert two markers at that point. Drag these to the left or right to exclude the unwanted portions. The area between the two markers will not appear in your finished project. You can repeat this procedure to crop out multiple portions. Finally, save your changes. Note that the original video will not be affected.

Finishing Your Disc

Now that you've imported all your clips, trimmed off any unwanted portions, and given them descriptive names, it's time to finish up your disc. Make sure the clips are in the sequence you'd like them displayed on your TV--just drag them up or down to change the order. Next, click the More button at bottom left to bring up the complete set of disc options. You can select a menu style (be sure to choose an HD style), decide whether you want the disc to start playing video automatically on insertion, and choose an encoding quality, among other options. "Best" quality encoding takes longer, but is worth it if you have the time.

Setting disc recording options.

Now you're all done, except for burning! The bar at the bottom will show how much video you have, and whether it fits on your disc. Choose DVD or DVD DL as the disc type if you have a DVD drive, and BD or BD DL if you have a Blu-ray recorder. (Note, do NOT choose HD DVD if you have a DVD drive, HD DVD refers to Toshiba's now discontinued high-definition video disc format). If all is in order, click the red Burn button, insert a blank disc, and wait while Toast performs its magic. You can then pop your disc into most set-top Blu-ray players and enjoy high-def home movies on your HDTV!

Do More with Your Media--Faster

Yes, we know Creator has the richest set of features in any media suite. But we also wanted to make them easy to find and utilize, so that you don't have to read the manual to get things done. That's why Creator 2009 has a new product launcher that provides clearly organized access to all the many programs and tasks available within the suite, from Video & Movies to Music & Audio:

Roxio Creator 2009's new task-based product launcher.

As you move your mouse over each task, you also get animated tips on what they do. You'll also find lots of step-by-step tutorials to help you get started, as well as inspirational articles that show you how to get more out of your media.

Finally, we know you're busy. So we've improved our video encoding algorithms dramatically, and optimized speed in several other tasks as well. For example, converting a 9GB DVD-video to fit on 4.7GB media is now up to 60 percent faster! The performance improvements are especially notable on multi-core systems.

Import Video from Your AVCHD Camcorder

The most hotly anticipated feature for many users will be Creator 2009's new support for AVCHD video. AVCHD is the most widely used new camcorder format, and also great for burning high-def DVDs and Blu-ray Discs that you can play in your set-top DVD player, such as a Sony PlayStation 3. Creator 2009 can import, edit and burn AVCHD, and supports Blu-ray video burning with the optional High-Def/Blu-ray Plug-in. Click here for a full tutorial on importing AVCHD video from your camcorder with Creator 2009

Creator 2009's Media Import utility, showing AVCHD clips imported from a camcorder.

Author High-Def DVD & Blu-ray Discs

Just purchased an HD camcorder? Now you can author high-def DVDs and Blu-ray discs with Creator, thanks to dozens of new HD menu themes. With Creator 2009, you can burn high-def video onto standard DVDs that will play right in your set-top Blu-ray player, so you don't need to buy an expensive Blu-ray burner for shorter videos. And if you do have a Blu-ray burner, Creator 2009 supports it with the optional High-Def/Blu-ray Plug-in.

HD menu themes in Creator 2009.

You can also edit your high-def video, including AVCHD, in VideoWave before you burn it to disc.

Editing an HD movie in VideoWave.

Create Online PhotoShows

Creator 2009's Roxio Online integration is the other big news. With Roxio Online, Creator now offers secure online sharing of photo and video shows. You can upload video and photos directly within Creator, and make beautiful PhotoShows to securely and privately share online with friends and family. You also can burn your show to DVD, embed it in your blog or website, send a link via email to a secure site for viewing, or sync it to your portable media player!

Roxio Online integration in Creator 2009.

Sync to Your Portable Player

Sometimes you just need to get that new photo or video onto your smartphone or PSP quickly. Or sync a new playlist to listen to in the car. With Creator 2009, media syncing is a snap thanks to the new SyncIt! gadget. Just drag media files onto the handy desktop gadget, and it will automatically convert and send them to your portable device. Unlike the last version, the new gadget is an applet that does not depend on the the Vista sidebar, and works equally well with Windows XP. You can keep the gadget on your desktop, or invoke it right within the Roxio Launcher. Click the Video – Movies tab and then choose "Drag and Drop Convert" to launch SyncIt!

Using the new SyncIt! gadget.

Beatmatch Your Music Mixes

With beatmatching, you can create perfectly synchronized crossfades in music compilations for a professional DJ-style mix. Beatmatching is great for parties to keep the excitement level high between songs, so people stay on the dance floor. It's also ideal for workout playlists, to keep your energy up and the action going. To start beatmatching, just open Music Disc Creator from the Launcher, choose your tracks, and go! Click here for a complete tutorial.

Create smooth crossfades with Creator 2009's new beatmatching feature.

Convert Audiobooks to Go

Who needs a Kindle when you have an iPod or other portable music player? iTunes, iPod and iPhone have custom features for playing back audiobooks, such as chapter skipping, pause/resume and book cover art, using the special iTunes .m4b audiobook file format. But converting CD or MP3 audiobooks to iTunes audiobooks used to be difficult and inconvenient. The new Audiobook Creator in Creator 2009 makes the process easy, and even keeps the chapters and bookmarks that would be lost with a manual transfer. Audiobook Creator also supports other portable players like the Creative Zen as well. Click here for a complete tutorial.

Take your books to go with the new Audiobook Creator.

Creating a PhotoShow is just half of the experience, the real fun is in sharing it. Invite friends and family to watch your shows on your personal Roxio Web page, embed your shows on your blog or on other sites like Facebook and MySpace, burn your shows to a DVD, even podcast your favorites and watch them on your mobile device of choice!

With a basic account, you can create PhotoShows on the Roxio Online site as well as through the integrated sharing utility in Creator 2009 (one more reason to get your hands on this hot new release!). However, with a Premium PhotoShow account you can also create PhotoShows when you’re offline, using the matching PhotoShow desktop software! That means your imagination can continue on even without an Internet connection and you can spend more time flexing your creative muscle and less time waiting for media to upload! Plus, you can burn DVDs on the go!

A basic PhotoShow account is a fine way to get started sharing your favorite stories in a unique way, but to really bring your most memorable moments to life you’ll want to subscribe to our Premium service. With a Premium account you can upload your videos alongside your photos for an end to end storytelling experience, as well as pick from the hundreds of music titles, animated stickers, playback styles and backgrounds that Premium membership offers.

So how does it all work? The best way to show you is simply to create a PhotoShow! Here, we'll go through the process within Creator 2009. The process within the PhotoShow desktop software and Web site is nearly identical.

Getting Started with Roxio Online and PhotoShow

To start a PhotoShow, simply select the Online tab in the Creator 2009 Launcher, then click the "Share Photos" button.

The PhotoShow utility will start, and you'll be prompted to add photos by selecting them from your hard drive. We selected three photos, which are queued in a list. You can keep adding more photos as needed. When you're done, click the Upload button. Don't worry if you forget some photos, you can always add more and reedit your show later.

Customizing Your PhotoShow

Now the fun begins! You'll be asked to enter a title for your PhotoShow, as well as a creator and "star(s)." These credits will be shown at both the beginning and end of your show. Be as whimsical or serious as you like, depending on the subject matter. The default PhotoShow styles will be applied, and you'll see a preview of your PhotoShow.

At this point, if you like the defaults, you can go ahead and click the Publish button to send your show to the Roxio Online site, and invite people to view it. But most users (especially the kids!) will enjoy spending a little time customizing their shows, to add their choice of music, styles and animated graphics. These options are presented in convenient tabs along the top. You can pick and choose which items you want to change, and leave others untouched. For example, we could just click the Captions tab to add captions to each photo and be finished. Basically, you can customize your show as much or as little as you want before clicking the Publish button. Above, we have applied the "Baseball" style to our slideshow, since the photos were taken at an Atlanta Braves game.

Next we added captions to each slide, rearranged the slide order under the Arrange tab, and chose some new background music, as shown above. We already entered our Title information, and don't need to change that, nor do we want to put a Border (frame) around our show, so all that's left is the Stickers tab.

Stickers are basically animated graphics, in tons of fun shapes and themes. You'll find everything from hopping Easter bunnies to scary pumpkins in the sticker library (the Premium service brings you the widest selection). We added a few to our birthday theme show (which you'll see below in the finished product!).

You can continue to play with your show and add or change elements. But we're finished, so now it's time to click that Publish button and start sharing! Once you click the button, you'll get a screen asking for email addresses of the people you want to share it with. Enter as many as you like--you can always send it to more people later. You can also just send yourself a link, and then forward it through your email program as desired. We also chose to make the PhotoShow private, so only invited family and friends can view it. That also can be changed later if desired.

Sharing Your Show

When you (or your recipient) click the link in the PhotoShow email, you'll be brought to the PhotoShow site to view the show. If your recipient doesn't already have an account, they'll be prompted to create one (it's free). An account is needed to preserve the privacy of your shows. At that point viewers can also do things like buy prints or a DVD of the show, or download it for viewing on a portable media player, depending on whether they have a standard or Premium account.

If you click the "Menu" button at the bottom of your PhotoShow, you'll also get a bunch of other sharing options, such as emailing it to more people, and generating a direct link to the show you can use anywhere.

Even more sharing options are shown right under the slideshow window, including sending it to your local Time-Warner cable system for view on demand, and creating code you can use to embed the show on your blog or Web site. We used the Post feature to generate the embedded show at the bottom of this page!

The Finished Show!

Here are the results of our handiwork, which literally took about 10 minutes from start to posting on the Web. You'll also find many more examples of finished PhotoShows on the Roxio Online site. We hope we've illustrated just how fun and easy it is to create great results, and inspired you (and the whole family!) to create your own fun PhotoShows!

Toast makes it simple to convert non-copy-protected DVDs, DVD Video_TS folders, home movie clips or downloaded videos to portable player and cell phone formats, including MPEG-4, H.264/AVC and DivX. You can even convert TV shows you’ve recorded with your El Gato EyeTV or copied from your networked TiVo, and send the results directly to iTunes or Roxio Streamer.

Getting Started

To start, open Toast and click the Convert tab, then choose from the list of source video types: DVD-video discs or image files; Video_TS folders; and individual video files on your hard disk, such as downloaded videos or TV recordings. Below, we've selected a Video_TS folder on our hard disk. Video_TS folders (which include all the content on a DVD) can be created by Toast from your home movie discs, or sometimes downloaded from the Web.

Converting a Video_TS folder.

In addition to copying DVDs to your iPod or iPhone, Toast can convert and copy EyeTV and TiVo recordings -- or most any MPEG-4, QuickTime or DivX file. In the illustration below, we have selected two shows from our EyeTV library within Toast's Media Browser. The first, "Criminal Minds," is in high-definition, the second, "Best of the Beatles," is in standard definition.

Converting EyeTV recordings.

Cropping and Trimming Your Videos

Before pressing the red Burn button to start the conversion process, it's time to clip out any unwanted portions of your videos, and check the encoding settings.

To trim out portions of your recordings, click the Edit button. Depending on the type of video you have, you will see two different edit windows, but the principle is the same for each: first move the slider below the video to the place where you'd like to start trimming. Click the middle icon just below the slider, which will then insert two markers at that point. Drag these to the left or right to exclude the unwanted portions. The area between the two markers will not appear in your finished project. You can repeat this procedure to crop out multiple portions. Finally, save your changes. Note that the original video will not be affected.

Trimming high-def video in Toast.

Checking Encoding Settings

To check encoding settings, click the Player Setup button at the bottom left of the Toast window. (It looks like a wheel.) A window will pop up that lets you select your output device format (such as iPhone or PSP), encoding quality level, and destination folder. Select your device from the list.

Choosing an output device.

Next, if you are familiar with encoding settings, you can change the quality level to "Custom" and choose your conversion parameters. Here, we checked the box to preserve the aspect ratio using letterbox format, since we were combining HD and SD sources. It's best to leave the settings at their defaults unless you know what you are doing or want to experiment.

Customizing encoding settings.

After tweaking your settings, try the Preview button to see a snippet of your video the way it will be encoded. This is really handy for avoiding problems, since encoding full-length videos can take hours, depending on the speed of your machine.

Previewing the results.

Starting the Conversion Process

Assuming you like what you see in the Preview, it's time to convert your video! Press the red Burn button and the Player Setup window will pop up again. Double-check your settings, and press "Convert" to start the encoding process. You'll see a progress bar of the results telling you how much longer you need to wait.

The Player Setup window appears when you press the red Burn button.

In addition to saving videos for copying to your portable player, Toast can also send videos direct to Streamer, Roxio's free real-time streaming service. With Streamer, you can view videos streamed from your home Mac in real time directly to your iPhone, iPod Touch or laptop. You'll need a broadband connection, such as WiFi or 3G cellular. For a complete tutorial on using Streamer, click here.

So next time you're hitting the road, don't leave home without your videos. Creator makes it easy to take them with you.

Happily, you can get the answers to all these questions (and many more you didn't know you had) using Toast's handy recorder and disc information tools.

Recorder Information Tool

To learn more about your CD or DVD drive's capabilities, choose Recorder Settings from Toast's Recorder menu. When the dialog comes up, click on the tab showing the model name of your drive (such as Matshita DVD-R) to view its capabilities and status. A long scrolling window will come up, with the more important parameters, such as firmware number and cache size, at the top.

The Toast Recorder Settings window provides a listing of literally dozens of drive parameters.

Scrolling down a bit, you'll see a listing of all the types of discs that can be written and/or read by your drive, such as DVD-R/RW write, CD Track at Once, and so on. .

More of the dozens of drive parameters shown by the Toast Recorder Settings tool.

Disc Information Tool

Now you know all about your drive. But what about your discs? After they are out of the packaging, one printable white disc looks much like another. Is it a CD or DVD? 4X or 24X? 72-minute or 80-minute? And even if a disc is already burned, you may not know if it's a CD-R or CD-RW, for example. That's where Toast's Disc Information tool comes in. Found under the Recorder menu, the Disc Information tool shows details about the media (CD-R, DVD+RW, etc.), the content type (such as DVD-Video or CD-audio), and information about what's on the disc (if already burned). For this blank CD-R, Toast correctly shows that it is a blank 700MB disc capable of being written at 8X or 24X.

Toast's Disc Information tool shows details about your blank or recorded media.

Here's another example, this time showing results for a recorded DVD-R. In this case it shows the space used, number of layers, file system (Hybrid PC/Mac), number of sessions, and the content of the disc. If it were a DVD-RW, the "Erase Disc" button at bottom left would also have been enabled, letting you reuse rewritable media.

The Disc Information window showing results for a previously recorded DVD-R.

Notice the "More" button next to the Manufacturer ID in the above picture? This is one of our favorite little-known features in Toast. Clcking the button takes you online, where you'll find complete details and user ratings for that particular brand and type of disc. Here, we find that our disc is a "Silver Verbatim DVD-Recordable 4.7GB 120min 16x Certified" with "Good" reliability ratings. By viewing the user ratings submitted by others, you can check the quality of your media, and find the best-performing discs for your drive.

Disc information for our DVD-R from VideoHelp.com.

We hope this article has given you a taste for the valuable information you can gain from Toast's disc and drive information tools. If you want to learn more about what all the drive parameters mean, there is an excellent glossary of CD recording terms on CDRInfo.com, while VideoHelp has a great database of DVD recorders.

The fun begins with Plug & Burn, which helps you create video discs right from your camcorder with a couple of mouse clicks. You can also drag and drop any QuickTime video or iMovie file and use Toast 9's Convert tab to make a DVD with menus, buttons and chapters. Finally, Toast can rip, extract to DV, or reuse video from an iDVD or Toast DVD disc (or any non-copy-protected DVD) in a new project. (Extracting to DV lets you edit it in iMovie.)

Getting Started

So how do you get started making a DVD in Toast 9? It's really quite simple. First, determine where your source video and photos are coming from: direct from your DV camcorder (live or tape), from existing unencrypted DVDs, or from existing video and photo files on your hard disk, including iMovies. Get your camcorder ready, or organize your content files. You can use any QuickTime-supported video files, such as DV, AVI, MOV, HDV (1080i/720p), and MPEG-4. You can also use video files that QuickTime doesn’t support, such as iMovie HD projects, MPEG-2, DivX, EyeTV recorded shows, and TiVoToGo transfers. Then launch Toast, and click on the Video tab at top left. Select "DVD-Video." (Also select NTSC or PAL under the Toast Preferences Audio/Video tab, depending on your video format. North America and Japan are NTSC, most of Europe and Asia are PAL).

Toast's easy-to-use encoding presets let you prioritize recording speed or video quality.

Also decide on encoding quality (bottom left). Choose Automatic, then "Best" quality unless speed is more important to you. The Toast encoder will automatically adjust the encoding rate to use all available space on a disc. A single-layer DVD holds 60 to 150 minutes of video depending on quality level, double that for dual-layer. Again, the less video you put on the disc, the better the quality. For photo slideshows you can fit thousands of images on a DVD.

Finally, if you are making a disc that contains slideshows, you can choose to include the original full-quality photos on the disc as well. Click the "More" button at bottom left, then check the box to "Add original photos" under the Disc tab). This is a great feature for sharing photos with family and friends. Not only will they be able to view your video and photos, they can print the pictures too! The photos will be accessible when the disc is used on a computer, Mac or PC.

Toast video disc options include the ability to add full-resolution photos on a photo slideshow DVD.

Now that you've set up your basic project, it's time to start adding content (this process is the same, regardless of what type of disc you intend to burn). We'll cover the two basic methods here: Plug & Burn, and drag and drop.

Plug & Burn

Plug & Burn is the feature that helps you transfer video directly from your DV camcorder into Toast effortlessly. Here's how to use it:

 * Open Toast and start your Video project as described above.
 * Plug your DV camcorder into a FireWire port on your Mac, switch it on in Playback mode (aka VCR mode), and Toast will detect it and display camera controls (rewind, play, pause, fast forward) in the video content area (any DV camcorder supported by iMovie should also be supported by Toast).
 * Next, click the camera controls if necessary to move the tape to the desired location (preview on your camcorder's LCD). Then click the Import button.
 * A window will drop down, with options for naming your new clip (the name will be used for the DVD menu). You can choose to import the entire tape or a duration from 1 to 60 minutes. You can also choose to import from the current position or rewind the tape to the beginning first.

Toast's easy-to-use encoding presets let you prioritize recording speed or video quality.

 * Finally, click the Import button, and Toast will start recording your video file. A preview will appear in the project window, so you can see what is being recorded. (There is also an Import & Record option that lets you automate the entire process of video capture and disc burning. This is great for archiving family videos or simple transfers. We will assume here that you want to customize your DVD or edit your video before burning.)
 * When the clip is done, Toast will ask if you want to import additional clips. Keep adding clips in this manner until you are finished.

Drag & Drop

The other way to add content, is to simply drag existing video files, photos or iMovies into the content window. You can mix up Plug & Burn DV files, movies copied from an MPEG4 (AVC) camcorder, video downloaded from the Internet (including DivX files), iMovies, EyeTV recordings, pictures from iPhoto or Photoshop, selections from other DVDs, and more. Use the Toast Media Browser to select clips, or drag in your files from the Finder. Photos dragged together, or in one folder, will become a single slideshow; photos dragged individually will become separate "slideshows."

This video project shows a few of the wide variety of source formats supported by Toast: MPEG4 clips from a digital camera, DV clips from a digital camcorder, H.264 clips in iPod format, and JPEG photos.

Organizing and Editing Your Content

Now that you've added all your content, it's time to organize it and think about what the resulting disc will look like.

First, put your content in the order in which you'd like it to appear on the disc, by dragging items up and down the content window. Note that each item in the content window will become a button in the DVD navigation menu, so if you want some videos to be combined into a single button, you'll need to merge them before dragging into Toast. You can splice clips together in QuickTime Pro, iMovie or another video editor.

Next, customize each item if desired, by clicking on the Edit button. For video, you can trim off extra frames at the beginning or ends of clips, set a particular frame to use as the button icon, and give a name to the clip, which will be used as a tag on the button. You can also split the clip into "chapters" of 1 to 10 minutes or automatically use chapters that have been set in iMovie, Final Cut or Toast's Plug & Burn utility. Chapters allow you to use the DVD player's remote control to jump forward and back in the video quickly.

Toast lets you trim the beginning and ends of clips using sliders, and set chapter markers for easy navigation.

For photo slideshows, clicking the edit button lets you add and remove pictures, set a duration for each slide to appear on screen, specify a name for the slideshow, and select one photo to use as the button icon. For a truly great slideshow with transitions, animation effects, audio tracks, titles and more, use PhotoShow (available at RoxioOnline.com) to create and download the show, then drag the resulting movie into your DVD project.

Toast makes it easy to rearrange, add and delete photos from your slideshows. You can also choose a photo for the menu button, and set slide duration.

Customizing DVD Menus and Styles

Toast 9 lets you choose from a number of different themes, or menu styles, for your DVDs. These themes incorporate background artwork, fonts, menu placement, border styles, and so on. Thirty-four styles are included with Toast, and add-on menu style packs are also available. Photoshop mavens can even create their own. To choose a theme, select it from the drop-down menu at the bottom left of the Video project window. Then click the "More" button to customize your disc further.

Options include changing the number of buttons you want to show in the main menu, and whether you want to include slide menus for photo slideshows. You can also decide whether you want the disc to auto-play when inserted, and whether it should play continuously or stop at the end of each chapter. Finally, you can opt to include data files or original photos on the disc that will be viewable only when inserted in a computer. This feature is really useful for adding full-resolution files to a photo slideshow for archiving or printing purposes.

Choose one of the provided menu styles, or drag in your own background picture.

If you are a real pro, you can also customize DVD encoding parameters like video and audio bit rates and aspect ratio. More information on these can be found in the Toast user manual, but we advise sticking with the automatic settings for reliable results.

Toast provides full control over DVD encoding parameters for video pros.

Now that you've got everything perfect, be sure to save your project to disc. That way, you can open it again later and add or tweak things easily.

Burning the Disc

Now it's time to burn! We recommend previewing your DVD by saving it as a Disc Image file (using the Disc Image button at bottom right), and playing it back just as you would a regular DVD (mount it from the Toast Utilities menu). This way you can try it out and make any needed tweaks. If you decide that the slide duration should be a little longer, the menus need rearranging, or a piece of video needs a little editing, you can make changes without wasting media. A disc image is also handy to have if you want to make extra copies of your disc later.

To burn, simply click the record button and insert your blank media (single or dual-layer, as appropriate for your project). Toast will then encode and process your video before burning. If you want to make multiple copies, you can specify this in the burn dialog, and Toast will prompt you to keep inserting additional discs until all are done.

That's it! You've successfully made your first movie DVD with Toast 9! We bet you'll want to make many more.

But how do you get your home HD recordings onto your TV screen? Blu-ray recorder prices are still very high, at least $600 or so for an external drive, and media prices range from about $15 to $50 per disc, which can add up fast. After buying that HDTV, set-top Blu-ray player and HD camcorder, there's probably not much left in the budget for an expensive Blu-ray burner as well. While prices will come down eventually, what do you do if you want to watch your HD movies NOW?

Toast 9, together with its HD/BD Plug-in, is the answer. With Toast, you can burn your high-def camcorder footage onto regular DVD media, in the same format as Blu-ray video, using the DVD burner you already have. These special high-definition DVDs can be played in most Blu-ray set-top players, including the Sony PlayStation 3, and you can fit about 20 to 30 minutes of HD video onto a 4.7GB disc (or almost an hour onto a dual-layer DVD). Even better, Toast lets you crop and trim your HD video, so you can edit out segments you don't want. The same thing goes for HD recordings you make using Elgato's EyeTV or your HD TiVo, so you can make DVDs of your favorite HD shows that will play back in your set-top Blu-ray player.

Getting Started -- Import Your Video

To create a high-definition DVD, first open Toast 9 (make sure you have the HD/BD Plug-in installed) and select the Blu-ray Video project option under the Video tab. Now bring in your HD video clips. Open the Toast Media Browser, and select the EyeTV or TiVo option to import TV recordings, or select the AVCHD option to import movies directly from your attached AVCHD camcorder (which should be in computer connection mode). You can also simply drag in video clips to the Toast project window that are already on your hard disk. While Toast does not import directly from HDV camcorders, you can use HDV clips in your high-def projects as long as you import them to hard disk first, using your camera's utility software, then drag them to the Toast window. Everything will be converted to the proper format when you burn your disc. As you import or drag in video clips, your Project window will start to fill up and look like this:

Toast 9 Blu-ray Video project window, showing video clips in both AVCHD and HDV formats.

Each clip is labeled with valuable information, such as the date recorded, the length, and the encoding format (such as H.264/AVC 1920x1080 or 1440x1080 for AVCHD clips, and MPEG-2 1440x1080 for HDV camcorder clips).

Video clips in the Toast Project window. The top clip is from an AVCHD camcorder, the bottom clip is from an HDV camcorder.

Cropping and Trimming Clips

If some of your video clips need trimming to remove unwanted portions, click the Edit button next to each clip in the Project window. You'll see the following pop-up:

Editing a video clip in the Toast 9 Project window.

Here, you can do several things. You can change the default name and date of your clip, and you can crop and trim it by clicking the Edit button. Change the name to whatever you'd like your clip to be labeled in the navigation menu you'll see when you pop the disc into your set-top Blu-ray player. Clicking the Edit button brings up the Toast Video Player window.

Trimming an HD video clip in the Toast 9 Video Player.

To edit out unwanted portions of your clip first look at the slider below the video and move the pointer to the place where you'd like to start trimming. Click the middle icon just below the slider, which will then insert two markers at that point. Drag these to the left or right to exclude the unwanted portions. The area between the two markers will not appear in your finished project. You can repeat this procedure to crop out multiple portions. Finally, save your changes. Note that the original video will not be affected.

Finishing Your Disc

Now that you've imported all your clips, trimmed off any unwanted portions, and given them descriptive names, it's time to finish up your disc. Make sure the clips are in the sequence you'd like them displayed on your TV -- just drag them up or down to change the order. Next, click the More button at bottom left to bring up the complete set of disc options. You can select a menu style (be sure to choose an HD style), decide whether you want the disc to start playing video automatically on insertion, and choose an encoding quality, among other options. We usually choose "Best" quality for encoding, which takes longer, but is worth it if you have the time.

Setting disc recording options.

Now you're all done, except for burning! The bar at the bottom will show how much video you have, and whether it fits on your disc. Be sure to choose DVD or DVD DL as the disc type, instead of BD. If all is in order, click the red Burn button, insert a blank DVD, and wait while Toast performs its magic. You can then pop your DVD into most set-top Blu-ray players and enjoy high-def home movies on your HDTV!

Easy Media Creator 10 makes it easy to convert between video formats. You simply choose the files you want to convert, and the player you want to output to.

Here's a guide to the most common formats you'll see around the Web:

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (advanced video codec) -- This is the highly efficient format used by most new portable players, including the iPhone, iPod Touch, Apple TV and Sony PSP. It's also used by a lot of web video chat and conferencing programs, and is popular for streaming video due to its compact size.

AVCHD -- A high-def video format based on H.264 video that has taken the camcorder market by storm. Most flash and hard-disk-based camcorders record in AVCHD. Discs, including DVDs, authored as AVCHD are playable in most Blu-ray players.

DV/HDV -- DV is the original consumer digital camcorder format. All MiniDV tape camcorders are either DV or HDV, the new high-def version. DV is a special high-quality standard definition video format that is very space-consuming. By contrast, HDV uses the MPEG-2 compression scheme, the same used by DVDs (although in a higher resolution), so it can fit a decent amount of high-def video onto the same size tapes. Both are excellent quality, but are being displaced by AVCHD due to AVCHD's even smaller file sizes and easier handling.

DivX -- DivX is both a brand name for products from DivX Inc., and a compression format noted for its extreme encoding efficiency. Movies encoded in DivX format maintain surprising quality, even in high-definition. Both Roxio Creator for Windows and Toast for Mac can convert video to DivX format.

Flash -- The format used by YouTube and much other web-based video. Requires Flash Player to decode, as well as special authoring tools. Best avoided by consumers except for playback.

WMV9 -- Windows Media Video 9 is the Microsoft implementation of the VC-1 SMPTE HD video standard. VC-1 is an efficient codec that can be played back in set-top Blu-ray players, and WMV9 can support both unprotected and DRM (copy-protected) material.

QuickTime or MOV -- QuickTime files (usually with the .MOV extension), can contain almost any type of video format within them. QuickTime is basically a wrapper that tells the QuickTime Player how to decode whatever is contained inside. Since QuickTime is a system-level architecture, many applications can play QuickTime files in addition to Apple's player. You will need to have the QuickTime framework installed on your PC or Mac, however.

For more information on any of these formats, we highly recommend Wikipedia.

Capturing Webcam Video

First, open Media Import from the Creator home screen, then click on the Video button at the top. After connecting your camera and turning it on (if necessary), choose it from the drop-down list of video sources. You should then see a live video preview start up. You can also connect full-fledged camcorders, not just Webcams.

The Media Import window shows a live preview of your Webcam recording.

From there, you can adjust recording and picture enhancement options, such as hue, contrast, brightness and sharpness, and set a recording duration. Also make sure the Capture Settings menu is at the highest quality your camera will support. Here, we've chosen the DVD HQ option, which provides a similar resolution and bit rate to commercial DVDs. Finally, choose a file name and destination for your recording, then click the Capture Now button.

Capture as many clips as you like in this manner. The clips will appear in the media browsing pane to the right of the capture pane. Once you've finished capturing, use your clips in DVD projects, or use the Video Compilation feature in Disc Copier to convert them to iPod or cellphone format.

Converting Webcam Clips for Portable Players, YouTube & More

Webcam video is usually lower resolution and quality than that of digital camcorders, making it ideal for playback on the small screens of portable players and YouTube. Creator 10's handy video conversion utility lets you convert clips in a snap.

The video converter translates between all standard formats, including MPEG1 (Video CD), MPEG2 (DVD), MPEG4 (Video iPod), MPEG HD, MPEG Transport Streams, 3GP (cell phone), DivX, WMV, MOV (QuickTime), TiVo, and Media Center PC TV recordings. So you can convert pretty much anything to the portable format used by your device. Presets for popular players like the iPod and PSP take the guesswork out of format settings. You can even batch convert a whole folder full of video files at once.

To start the process, click the Video tab in the main Creator window and choose Convert Video to open the DVD Copy & Conversion utility. Use the Add Movies button as many times as needed to make a list of all the video files you'd like to convert, then choose the appropriate output format (such as "3GP" for your cell phone or "iPod" for your music player) and location in the right-hand pane. You can send video directly to supported portable devices if they’re attached. Be sure to save your export options as a template (with the Options button), so you can use it every time you send video to your device.

Disc Copier includes a versatile video conversion utility.

Want to save the clip for upload to YouTube video on your iPod? Choose the H.264 format, and use letterboxing (in the Options window) if your source is widescreen, otherwise YouTube will squeeze it.

That's all there is to it! You've captured Webcam video and saved it to play back on your portable player or the Internet. If you'd like to edit the video more extensively, use VideoMaker, the full-featured timeline video editor included with Creator.

Media Conversion Tools

In Toast 8, media conversion tasks were sprinkled around in several places. Now they are grouped into a handy new project category called Convert, with a lot more options. Here, you can convert audio and video files for use with all different types of video playback and portable devices, from your HDTV to YouTube and your iPhone. You can convert DVD-Video discs and disc images, as well as audio and video files (including EyeTV, TiVo, and AVCHD camcorder sources) to the format of your choice -- even batch process multiple files, a real time saver. Just drag in the files you want to convert, click the Player Setup button at bottom left to choose your output device and quality options, and press the Convert button. Video output options include: Apple TV, iPhone/iPod Touch, Video iPod, PSP, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, BlackBerry, Palm Treo, 3G phone, DV, HDV, DivX, H.264, MPEG-4, and QuickTime. Audio files can be converted to AIFF, WAV, AAC, Apple Lossless, FLAC and Ogg Vorbis.

The new Convert project category makes it easy to convert most any type of audio or video file.

Before you convert videos, take advantage of another great tool in Toast 9. Now you can crop out unwanted video segments from virtually any type of video -- no need to use iMovie to trim clips for a DVD or uploading to YouTube. Just click the Edit button next to any video in your Project window, then slide the pointers along the timeline. Add as many additional splits in the middle as needed by clicking the Crop Marker button underneath the timeline.

You can now trim and crop unwanted video segments from QuickTime video files right within in a Toast project.

Finally, the new Quick Look feature in the Media Browser makes it easy to preview the items you are converting or editing (in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard only). Just select an item in the Browser and press the spacebar.

Toast 9 takes advantage of Leopard's Quick Look feature to preview most items in the Media Browser window.

Roxio Streamer

Probably our favorite feature in Toast 9 is the new video streaming capability. When you first start Streamer, it prompts you to create an account, which you'll use to access your video from the Web. After that, you simply click the Start Streaming button and drag video files to the window. Toast will then convert them and make them accessible from your special Web page in any standard Web browser: on your Wi-Fi connected iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac or PC.

With Streamer, you can convert and upload video to the Web for playback on your Wi-Fi-connected iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac or PC.

Imagine using Streamer to view your EyeTV and TiVo recordings on your next business trip. Or just making today's video of your baby's first steps available to the grandparents, without the public exposure of YouTube.

AVCHD Editing & Blu-ray Burning

Have an AVCHD camcorder? You can edit and burn video direct to Blu-ray disc with Toast 9 and the optional HD/BD plug-in. You can also make special DVDs that play back in Blu-ray players in full high-definition -- they simply have proportionally less capacity than Blu-ray discs. This is a great way to create discs for your Blu-ray player and HDTV without having to buy an expensive Blu-ray burner.

First, bring in AVCHD files from your camcorder with the Media Browser, then drag them into a Blu-ray disc project. The resulting video will be perfect, since Blu-ray uses AVCHD as its native video file format. Choose one of the HD menu styles, or create your own backdrop.

Creating a Blu-ray disc project in Toast 9.

You can also edit and trim the clips using a simple slider to remove unwanted segments. (This editor works with EyeTV and TiVo recordings as well.)

Editing AVCHD video with Toast 9.

When you've arranged your edited clips the way you want them, just press the Burn button to create your Blu-ray Disc or special Blu-ray format DVD.

Streaming Audio Capture

Want to record streaming Internet Radio, or any other audio playing on your Mac? Now you can, with CD Spin Doctor's new capture mode. To save audio to disk, select “CD Spin Doctor” from the Toast Extras menu, and click "Start a new recording." The CDSD Audio Recording Assistant will appear. Then choose CD Spin Doctor Capture Support from the list of audio inputs, and start recording.

Record Internet Radio, podcasts and any other audio playing on your Mac.

New Get Backup Utility

Toast 9 Titanium’s all new backup application, Get Backup, makes scheduling backups and avoiding disaster a breeze. Get Backup provides complete control over backing up individual files and folders, along with a plethora of other features such as compression and disc spanning.

To create a Get Backup project: 1. Launch Get Backup from the Toast Extras menu and click on "New Backup Project."
2. Select the files or folders to add to your project and designate a backup destination. Option include burning to disc as well as backing up to any hard disk, flash drive, network volume, or even your iDisk.
3. Click on the Options tab and choose between full, incremental, and versioned backups.
4. Click on the Filters tab and choose exclude specific file types, such as invisible or Finder data files. You can choose to exclude applications and aliases from being part of your backup.
5. Click “Backup Now” to start your backup, or click on the Schedule tab to pick a regular time.

Toast 9's new Get Backup utility makes scheduling backups easy.

Capture Your Video Clips

The first step in any video project is of course to bring clips from your camcorder into your computer. To start, connect your camcorder to your PC with the USB or FireWire cable that came with it, and turn it on in the proper mode for computer transfer (usually the Playback mode -- see your camcorder's manual). Then, within MyDVD, choose File>Capture/Import. The Media Import tool will open, and you can select your camcorder from the device list and start capturing clips. Tip: First cue up your camcorder to the beginning of clip you want to capture, and pause it. Second, click the Capture button in Media Import to start the recording, and then press Play on your camcorder. There will be a few extra frames to crop out at the beginning of the recording, but this is easily done when you start to create your DVD.

The Media Import window lets you import clips directly from your camcorder.

You can also use video from other sources, such as cell phone or digital camera movies, Web video downloads, and clips you may have recorded with a TV tuner card.

Beginning Your MyDVD Project

Now that you've gotten all your video onto your PC, it's time to start creating your DVD. Open MyDVD, and click the "Change Menu Style" button under the Edit pane to select an overall theme for your disc, such as "Birthday," "Safari" or "Snowing." This is what will appear on screen when you insert the disc into a DVD player. Menu styles consist of background images, button styles and placements, and font selections. Next, click the Add New Movie button. Select a clip or group of clips that you'd like to be accessed from the first button in your DVD menu. If you select a group of clips, check the box to import them "as one movie" when prompted.

MyDVD 10 Premier comes with dozens of professional menu styles to choose from.

Keep adding movies until you have all your intended chapters. At this point, you may want to experiment with different typefaces and styles, or reposition some of the graphic elements. Simply drag elements to move them, or select them to change fonts or styles. There are dozens of available button styles, for example. To change the background image, choose the "Change Menu Background" option in the Edit pane.

A MyDVD project with three chapters in the main menu.

Editing Video Clips

If some of your video clips need trimming, or if you'd like to add special effects and transitions, select the video in the Preview area, then choose Edit Movie under the Movie menu. You'll be presented with a full timeline video editing system where you can also add background audio and photos to your movie. Once satisfied with your movie, click the "Back to Menu" button at middle top to return to the DVD menu view.

Editing a movie within MyDVD.

If you'd like to do more with your video clips, but don't want to take the time to edit them manually, MyDVD 10 Premier also includes CineMagic, Roxio's 3-step movie creator. Just select clips and stills, add a music track, and choose one of the eye-catching built-in styles. CineMagic does the rest!

Finishing Your Disc

At this point, you have imported all your clips, made chapters out of them, and edited them where desired. You've also made graphic design choices for your DVD menu. It's time to preview your finished movie to see if it runs the way you want it to. Click the Preview button at top right, and wait while it loads (it may take a few minutes, depending on the complexity of your disc). Finally, check the appearance, playback and navigation of your disc using the onscreen controls. You can easily go back and tweak the graphics or video if you find problems.

Now you're ready to burn! Simply click the Burn button at top right, and choose your target drive. You can also create a Disc Image file on your hard disk if you like, which can be burned later or uploaded to a Web site for others to download and burn.

Making a Slideshow

While we've covered the basics, MyDVD has lots more cool features to explore. For example, you can add an Intro movie that will play when the disc is inserted, before the main menu appear. (Like the FCC warnings and movie trailers that appear on commercial DVDs.) You can also customize the audio file that will play when the main menu is onscreen. But our favorite trick is using the Add Slideshow button to open the Slideshow Assistant, which leads you through the process of making a photo slideshow, then drops it right into a chapter on your DVD! This way you can combine home videos and photo shows on one disc. MyDVD 10 Premier even includes Roxio's full PhotoSuite editing package, so you can remove red-eye, rotate, crop and adjust your photos as needed.

Creating a photo slideshow with the Slideshow Assistant.

Exporting Your Movies

MyDVD is not just about making DVDs. It's also the perfect tool to convert your movies for portable players or Web sites like YouTube. Roxio Copy & Convert lets you choose any of the clips you imported or edited for your MyDVD project, and then export them in the appropriate format for your player. You can even upload clips directly to YouTube at the click of a button, and sync movies with your iPod or other handheld player using the included Media Manager application.

Exporting movies in iPod format.

Picture Quality

Along with physical size and cost, picture quality is the most important criterion when choosing a camera. And image quality is not just about megapixels, but about the lens and the sensitivity of the camera's image sensor (expressed as ISO).

For most users, 6 megapixels is more than enough information in an image. That will let you print 8x10s with ease, unless you crop a lot (in which case consider an 8 or 10MP model). Rather than spending money for more pixels, consider a longer lens that lets you capture the action in sports and wildlife photography. A 3x zoom is fairly standard, but there are cameras that go up to 10x or 12x. These tend to be larger physically, so there's a trade-off in camera size and versatility. Note that we’re talking optical zoom here; while digital zooms can seem useful, they reduce underlying picture information. (Digital zooms do the same thing as blowing up a picture on your computer screen. )

The ISO tells you the light-gathering ability of the image sensor. The higher the ISO number, the more likely you’ll be able to get a usable photo when shooting indoors and in low light. Just be aware that often at the highest ISO a camera will produce very noisy pictures. Camera review sites like DPReview.com usually provide examples of photos taken at high ISOs, so you can compare.

This image from Nikon's CoolPix P50 brochure illustrates the benefits of a high ISO in capturing good pictures at low light levels.

Picture-taking Modes

In the olden days, photographers had to learn how to focus and set shutter speed and aperture to produce good results in different situations. Today's cameras do most of the work for you, but there is more to life than the "Automatic" setting. Choosing one of the available Camera or Scene Modes tells the camera both the kind of image you want to capture (single shots, sequential bursts, video, time lapse) and the situation you are in (Sports, Sunset, Close Up, Backlit, Portrait, etc.) In reality, what you’re doing is telling the camera how to adjust itself. For example, for sports it will try to use the highest shutter speed, and for backlit subjects it will increase the exposure.

Camera modes can do wondrous things for your photos, if you know what they mean and remember to use them. So make sure they are readily available from a dial on the camera, rather than buried in menus. Similarly, if the camera doesn’t clearly remind you what mode it's in, you can end up with lots of incorrect exposures and disappointment. And if the camera has manual modes, you can even do things the old-fashioned way in those situations that confound the camera's tiny mind.

Image Stabilization & Focusing

Image stabilization, formerly a high-end feature, has now found its way into the mainstream. It's a great advantage when shooting in low light (which usually requires longer exposures) and with long zooms. It allows you to capture sharper images by adjusting the optical path to account for camera shake or movement. There are two types of stabilization: optical and digital. Look for optical, which is preferred. Some cameras offer digital stabilization, which boosts the ISO (and the shutter speed) of the camera. This is less useful since it will increase the noise in your pictures.

Optical image stabilization is performed in the lens, rather than digitally, for better image quality, as shown in this diagram from Canon.

Image stabilization and focusing go hand in hand in making sure your image is sharp and clear. Cameras generally offer either fully automatic focus, a semi-manual mode (that lets you choose what part of the image to focus on), or fully manual focusing. Manual focusing works best on cameras like DSLRs (digital single-lens reflex) that let you quickly turn a lens ring or push a slide to adjust focus. Whatever method you expect to use, make sure it's convenient and ready to use at all times. If you have to spend 30 seconds focusing each shot, you'll probably end up just using the autofocus.

Face detection is also appearing on many cameras. This is a great and easy way to make sure your subject is in focus, as long as they are facing the camera!

Face detection lets you keep your subjects in focus, as illustrated on Olympus' website.

Video and Sequence Capabilities

Digital cameras have been able to capture sequences of video since the early days, but the resolution and frame rates were generally low. These days, video quality in some cameras rivals that of low-budget video cameras, and SD cards are getting capacious enough to handle it. If a camera can capture 640-by-480 at 30fps, it’s essentially matching the resolution of standard-definition camcorders.

In addition to image size and frame rate, consider whether you can zoom the lens while capturing video, and whether you can quickly switch between capturing stills and video. Sound capabilities are improving too; some cameras now support stereo audio capture.

The kind of video compression the camera uses matters too, as it affects file size and editing options. Make sure your favorite editing software can handle it, and that you have sufficient memory card space. Finally, check if there is a limit to the length of the recording; some cameras are only restricted by available memory, while others capture up to a certain amount of time.

Burst or continuous mode shooting is important if you’re a sports photographer, or just want more chances to capture the perfect candid. A camera's ability to capture multiple images rapidly is defined by the time between shots and the maximum number of pictures that can be taken sequentially without stopping. Some cameras feature a burst mode that lets you take several photos rapidly, but then the camera will stop while it saves those images to memory.

Batteries

Most cameras use either rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries, or standard AAs. In the latter case, you can use either rechargeable NiCads, or throw-away Alkalines. Lithium-ion batteries are usually smaller and longer-lasting than NiCads, allowing for more compact, lighter cameras. And while they are more expensive up front, they are usually much cheaper in the long run than buying Alkalines.

If you're a heavy user, or like to shoot video, you'll want to buy a second Lithium-ion battery or extra NiCads, which is something to factor into the purchase price. An advantage of AA batteries is that in an emergency, you can always buy some replacements.

Also consider any power-saving features of the camera. For example, many higher-end cameras have LCDs you can turn off when you use the viewfinder, greatly prolonging battery life.

Other Goodies

Our camera shopping list is starting point, but you may have other requirements to add. Interested in infra-red photography? Macro or underwater shooting? Want something that will fit in your shirt-pocket, or send your pictures straight to a printer? There's a camera just right for you.

But don't let the fun stop there. Roxio's Easy Media Creator 10 takes Windows Vista's media capabilities to a whole new level by providing advanced editing, conversion, organization and burning tools. Fully certified for Windows Vista, Creator 10 is the perfect digital media companion.

Get Guidance & Inspiration

Creator 10 boasts a brand new user interface, featuring Windows Vista's sleek Aero Glass look, and including the Roxio Central home screen, an integrated hub with handy task lists and educational resources like step-by-step video tutorials. Never edited a video before, or made a photo greeting card? Wondering how to backup your hard disk? You'll find all the answers here, as well as plenty of inspiration.

Easy Media Creator 10's revamped interface and central task-based hub make it easy to get started.

Take Control of Your Media

Creator 10's Media Manager lets you organize, tag and rate all your digital media in one place. Take control of all those photo, video and audio files you have floating around in various locations and centralize them with the Media Manager so you can use them in your media projects. It's fully integrated with Vista's metadata system, so that ratings, tags, keywords and orientation written in Vista are reflected in Media Manager and vice-versa. To launch Media Manager from the Roxio Home screen, select the Media and Devices tab, and then select "Manage Media."

The Creator 10 Media Manager.

Make a Greeting Card

Photos are meant to be printed, and Creator 10 makes it a snap to output greeting cards, albums, calendars, collages, gift tags and more. They make perfect gifts for friends and family. To make a greeting card for any occasion, just open the Photo Projects task from the Home screen, and choose one of the many customizable templates. You can add your own photo, text and background image.

Making a greeting card in Creator 10's Photo Project Assistant.

Record Audio with the Roxio Gadget

Want to record your child reading his first book aloud? Or perhaps practicing piano? Install the Easy Audio Capture Gadget in the Windows Vista Sidebar, and you can record clips right from your desktop.

The Gadget can capture any PC audio from your microphone or sound card. Simply press the red Record button to start, and blue to stop. Use the settings window to choose your audio format and adjust recording levels. Creator 10 also includes an Audio/Video Converter Gadget, for handy drag-and-drop conversion of media files.

The Roxio Audio Capture Gadget (middle), and Audio/Video Converter Gadget (bottom).

Make Movie Magic

Want to make a movie out of your holiday videos, but don't have time to learn about video editing? We made CineMagic just for you. In just three simple steps, CineMagic takes your raw video clips and creates a Hollywood-style movie out of them, complete with special effects and a music track, then saves it to hard disk, CD or DVD. If you like, you can also "direct" by telling CineMagic which particular scenes should be included or excluded, and choosing a style for your movie, such as "holidays" or "memories." It can even have title pages at the beginning and end.

Create Hollywood-style movies in three easy steps with Cinemagic.

Sync to Your Mobile Device

Want to sync your photos, music, videos, data and ringtones with a mobile phone or other portable device? Just attach a new device to your PC and run the Creator 10 Media Manager, and the Device Sync Wizard should launch automatically. Otherwise, you can select the "Tools/Sync Settings" menu in Media Manager to launch it. Now you're ready to sync! To move media to your device, just drop files into the appropriate buckets. They'll be synched the next time you attach your phone. Media Manager will also sync back from your phone to PC, so you can get pictures off your cameraphone easily, for example.

Creator 10's handy mobile sync feature.

To learn more about how Easy Media Creator 10 can enhance your Windows Vista Experience, click here:

http://www.roxio.com/vista

First, take some time to practice with your new camera and learn the basic controls. Make sure it is charged up, and that you have adequate spare batteries and tape or memory cards for a few days of shooting. Christmas morning is not when you want to be opening the package for the first time, even if it's a gift. You can rewrap it if necessary.

Next, read up on how to take better pictures and shoot interesting video. You don't need to learn fancy manual camera settings, just absorb some easy-to-remember tips on subjects, lighting and composition.

Tips for Digital Cameras

Put your subject off-center. This tip works especially well with other interesting material in the background, such as a Christmas tree.

Move in close. Make the subject the star of your photo. Fill the frame for greatest impact.

Shoot first, ask question later. Always be ready to capture the moment. Don't worry about settings or flash if there's not time. Just use automatic modes. And take as many pictures as you can. The odds that some will be great will improve.

Don't forget the lead-in. The holiday is not just the big day itself, but also the preparations for it: Buying the tree, wrapping presents, baking cookies. Capture the spirit and joy of the season by capturing these moments as well. They will often be more fun and candid, too.

Avoid indoor flash. Flash is harsh and can create bright spots on your photos, not to mention red-eye. Have people stand near a window or flood the room with as much ambient light as possible and take a longer exposure.

Set the scene. Take some shots of your house, the tree, the decorations, the snow on the trees outside, candles burning in windows, anything that sets the scene and mood for the holiday. You can use these shots in collages, greeting cards, slideshows and videos mixed in with your standard material.

More tips:

BetterPhoto.com's Top Ten Tips for Better Holiday Photos

About.com's Tips for Perfect Holiday Pictures

Tips for Digital Camcorders

Follow the rule of thirds. This guiding principle of photographic composition applies to video as well. Put your subject in the first or last third of your frame, depending on which direction they are moving. If the subject is looking at something, make sure the object of their attention is in the following two thirds and clearly visible.

Zoom in on faces. Every once in a while, capture an expression or moment by zooming in on a particular person. Use this technique sparingly, however.

Shoot from different angles. Even with only one camcorder, you can move it around or zoom in and out (slowly!) to get different perspectives. Get down to the same level as your kids, for example. Just leave the tape rolling and edit out camera moves later.

Don't forget the audio! Monitor your camcorder's audio recording to make sure you are getting a good soundtrack.

Ensure adequate lighting. If your camcorder video looks to dark or grainy, turn on a few more lights in the room, or ask people to stand in a different corner.

Shoot establishing shots. Establishing shots are things like the wreath on the door, stockings hanging in the fireplace, and presents piled under the tree. Also be sure to get around the house, not just in the main room. What's happening in the kitchen?

More tips:

Video Forum's Digital Director Tips

VideoMaker's Shooting for the Holidays

Gather it all Together

Now that you've done the hard work of creating your raw material, be sure to ask other family members who've taken pictures or video for copies of theirs too. They will likely have different perspectives and interesting shots that you lack, and vice versa. As soon as possible, import it all into your PC and organize it into a project folder. Even if you don't create anything with it yet, getting it organized and labeled while it is still fresh in your mind will ensure you don't forget things. Creator 10's Media Manager can help with the importing, tagging and organizing.

Create a Video or Slideshow

Finally, put it all together into a slideshow or video using Easy Media Creator 10 that you can burn to DVD or upload to your Web site. Learn how in our step-by-step tutorials:

Creating a CineMagic Movie

Getting Started with MyDVD]]> tag:blog.roxio.com,2003:/myroxio//5.39 2007-11-26T08:00:00Z 2007-11-26T17:30:49Z

However, you've got a secret weapon in the war against the black magic marker: Easy Media Creator 10! Next time you make a party compilation disc, digital photo album, or DVD of your kid's birthday party, try making a printed jewel case cover. It's simple with the included Label Creator program. You can print three ways: to label templates from most major manufacturers, such as Avery and Neato; to printable discs with an appropriate printer; or even directly to disc using a LightScribe drive.

We recommend the latter two printing methods, since labels can sometimes get stuck in slot-loading drives like those in many cars and most Apple Macs. LightScribe is a new technology that etches labels right onto the reverse side of specially made discs, using the laser in your recorder. They have a cool holographic look, and come in several colors. Printers with direct CD/DVD print support are available from Canon, Epson and HP, among others, and LightScribe drives from companies like HP, Samsung, and Toshiba. For both LightScribe and direct disc printing, you'll need to buy special recordable media. Look for discs labeled "LightScribe" or "printable."

Taking the Express-Way

There are two basic ways to use Label Creator. For quickest results, use the Express Labeler wizard, which is invoked whenever you launch Label Creator from within another Roxio application. It's also available from the Tools menu within Label Creator. Express Labeler provides a series of dialogs that quickly step you through the process of creating labels, booklets, inserts and more. You can have finished labels in just a few clicks, using the convenient styles and automatic track name import. We won't go into the details here, since they are largely self-evident. Instead, we'll show you how to get creative by customizing your labels and inserts.

Taking the fast lane to disc labels with Express Labeler.

To launch Label Creator in full mode, choose it directly from the Windows Start menu in the Roxio Tools folder, or by clicking the "Edit in Label Creator" button at the end of the Express Labeler wizard (this method lets you start a label quickly in the wizard, and then use Label Creator to add any custom elements). At startup you will be presented with a generic template for the disc label. Clicking the Show/Hide Layouts icon at the bottom of the window brings up the other 11 options available: front and back jewel case inserts, booklets, slim case inserts, mini disc labels, core labels, disc sleeves, and DVD case inserts and booklets. To get started, check the boxes for all the layouts that apply to your project, such as label, booklet and back insert for an audio CD. The linked layouts will then appear at the top of the window, and you can move back and forth between them.

All the templates are sized to fit perfectly into standard plastic jewel boxes, so all you need to do is add artwork and information. And Label Creator helps you there, as well. The easiest way to add glamour in Label Creator is to choose from one of the many different pre-designed templates, or Styles. Styles are professional graphics backgrounds combined with strategically placed text fields. Simply choosing a Style (by clicking on the Select Style button at the left of the screen) and filling in relevant information creates a handsome jewel case package. A Style can be applied to all the parts of your project for a consistent look, or just a particular layout. (Don't worry, you can also create custom designs, which we'll get to later.)

Customizing a disc label with Label Creator.

Once you've selected a design theme, it's time to enter information about your project into the text fields. For data CDs, that information will likely be title, contents, and date created. For Audio CDs it might also include the artist name and song list. If you've already entered any of that information already while burning your CD-R in Easy Media Creator, Label Creator can read it off the disc and position it for you in the label using the Smart Objects feature (click the Smart Objects button at left to select the elements you want on your label). Hitting the "Auto-Fill from Disc" button then polls your disc drive and returns with title, contents, artist, and other information and places it in the appropriate fields. Audio CD info will be automatically looked up on the Web for you. For any remaining fields not filled in, you can just double-click the text boxes and enter data manually. By using Styles and the information available on a disc, making a handsome jewel case cover and label can be faster than putting on earrings.

Adding Your Own Graphic Elements

Of course, you don't have to use the Styles as they are. You can use a Style as a starting point, then add or delete graphic elements, and change, reposition, or add text fields. The "Add Objects" tools let you add photos or graphics, rectangles, circles, lines and text, making Styles completely flexible. Label Creator doesn't mind if you overlap multiple fields, and lets you send objects to the back, bring them to the front, and align them in various ways by using the positioning tools at the top.

You can also apply special effects like curved text, shadows and rotation to text. To experiment, select the field or fields you want to edit, then choose Properties from the Edit menu. You'll get a dialog box with a preview field. Selecting multiple text fields at once and editing Properties or using the text toolbar at the top of the layout window is also an easy way to apply the same style across multiple text boxes.

To add your own custom image as a background, click the "Edit Background" button at bottom left. This lets you select a picture or graphic file, or a solid color, then apply it to some or all of your layout templates. Label Creator automatically resizes image and photo files to fit the template, which can save a lot of work. Or, instead of making a photo the background, use the Add Image tool at left to import it on top of the background. You can then scale the image to any size and thus effectively replace the background.

Choosing a background image or color in Label Creator.

If you're making a photo album or DVD, you should have plenty of photos or video stills to choose from for your cover art. For audio CDs, try the Web: it's full of pictures of celebrities, singers, and bands, including CD cover art. Right-clicking on just about any image on the Web lets you save it to your hard drive, typically as a JPEG file which can go straight into Label Creator. What's more, you can find lyrics to a large majority of popular songs on the Web, often at an artist's own Web site, which you can cut and paste into your jewel book. Just be aware that these images and lyrics might be copyrighted, and should not be downloaded for anything other than personal use within the copyright laws.

If your cover art is not available on the Web, you can also scan the original album cover directly into Label Creator, with any standard scanner and the Scan Image tool at left. Or try scanning old family photos for a picture CD.

Printing Options

Once you've got your labels and cover art designed, it's time to print! Any color inkjet printer and photo paper will do, but for best results and to save cutting time, try the special labels made for the task (available at any office supply outlet). Label Creator already has most popular brands listed in the Print dialog). To ensure exact page placement, test things first on some plain paper, then use the Calibrate button to fine-tune the alignment. Once you've gotten the placement perfect, you can create future labels and covers over and over with the same template and positioning.

Label Creator's print dialog is where you choose options like specialty label types, or even LightScribe laser-etched labeling.

For disc labels, Label Creator also supports printers that can print directly onto CDs. For these printers, you can choose printable silver, white or other media. Just look for the word "printable" in the media name.

If you're using stick-on labels, be sure to position them precisely over the middle hole, and then squeeze any air bubbles out by pressing from the center outward. Blank silver CDs without any logo printing work best, printed lettering may show through your labels, or create unsightly ridges.

That's all there is to it. So next time you make a CD, there's no excuse for using magic markers! Your CD rack, your friends, and your customers deserve better. Making yourself look like an artist doesn't require any crown jewels, just well-designed ones.

What you'll need: a scanner and/or digital camera, photo editing software like Roxio PhotoSuite, clip art and border collections, a color printer or DVD burner, and lots of creativity! Here is a tutorial on using PhotoSuite's Collage project to create sizzling scrapbook pages, as well as a resource list of good sites for free artwork, tips and inspiration.

Making Photo Collages in Creator

Easy Media Creator and PhotoSuite make it a snap to create beautiful digital scrapbook pages, using the Photo Projects collage wizard. Just open the Photo Projects Assistant from the Creator home screen or Windows Programs menu, and click the Collage button. You'll then have the option of choosing your own background artwork, or one of several professionally designed themes.

Choosing the Collage photo project assistant.

Once you've chosen your background image or theme, the next step is to add photos and text. Here, we've added three photos to the background image, and arranged them by dragging into position and resizing using the corner grab handles. You can even turn the pictures at an angle if desired. We've also edited the title at the top from the original placeholder text on the collage template. You can add as many text fields as you like. We could have added captions at the bottom of each picture.

Adding photos and text to the collage page.

You can crop and enhance your photos right within the project assistant by double-clicking on the photo you'd like to edit. You can also eliminate red-eye and rotate pictures in the editing window.

Cropping and editing photos.

Once you're satisfied with the page, click on to the Output screen, shown below. From here, you can use the photo collage in several ways: send it via email, print it out, save it to disk, or send it to PhotoSuite for further editing.

Output options for photo collage projects.

That's all there is to making a scrapbook page with the Photo Projects Assistant. The hard part is gathering all your photos, background art, and other digital tidbits to place on the pages. To bring in items like menus, ticket stubs, kids' school artwork, report cards, letters and other ephemera, use your scanner. If you don't have a scanner, you can also take photos of them with your digital camera. for clip art and background images, read on.

Scrapbooking Resources:

The Web is the best resource of all for digital scrapbookers. A quick online search will yield hundreds of pages offering free clip art, backgrounds and frames all perfect for customizing your scrapbook pages. You'll also find a myriad of tips and tricks, including some excellent advice from Kodak and About.com. Finally, get inspired by galleries of scrapbook pages created by people just like you. You can find great examples for every theme imaginable.

Photo Backgrounds and Frames

> ScrapbookFlair.com
> ScrapbookScrapbook.com
> Cartoon Cottage.com

Valentine's theme backgrounds at ScrapbookFlair.com.

Tips and Tricks

> Kodak's scrapbooking tips
> Family history scrapbooks

Sample Scrapbook Page Galleries

> Creating Keepsakes
> Memory Makers Magazine

User scrapbook page gallery at CreatingKeepsakes.com.

Here's an overview of some of CinePlayer Surround's key features.

1) Getting Started with CinePlayer

When you install CinePlayer, you have the option to make it your default DVD player, so that it will open automatically when you insert a DVD-Video disc. You can also open it from the Start menu or Creator Home screen, of course.

CinePlayer can handle much more than just DVD-Video discs, however. It plays back DVD-ROM titles, Video CDs and Super Video CDs, DVD images on your hard disk (Video_TS folders), and even individual video files, such as MP4 movies, residing on your hard disk. Use it as your total multimedia player, and benefit from the pro-level user interface and playback features. For example, you can drag and drop a file or disc icon onto the CinePlayer icon or video window and it will start playing.

When CinePlayer opens, the main video playback window appears. Double-clicking the video window toggles the player between normal and screen-filling modes:

The main video window provides access to all of CinePlayer's features, settings, and help files. You can also perform navigation and number entry functions from the keyboard. Almost every CinePlayer function has a keyboard equivalent, listed in a handy guide within the built-in Help file.

2) CinePlayer Controls

Looking at the window's controls in more detail, you'll see basic DVD control buttons at bottom middle. You can pause, fast forward or reverse, and skip chapter by chapter, just as with any set-top DVD player. There's also a button to take you to the main DVD menu. The name of the disc is shown at the top, and you can see your location on the disc (in minutes) at bottom right. At bottom left, there's a handy volume control slider.

At top right, in addition to forward and back buttons, there are four icons for Home, Open files/folders, Tools/Settings, and Help. Home takes you to the CinePlayer start screen. Use the Files/Folders button to locate particular files and folders to play on your hard disk, or play a loaded DVD or Video CD. You can browse for Video_TS folders, for example, and play them back just as if they were physical DVDs. Help opens up the CinePlayer Help file. We'll discuss the Settings button in more detail in the next section.

3) CinePlayer Settings

The CinePlayer Settings button brings up a host of playback and viewing options, such as aspect ratio choices, audio and language options, closed caption support and more. For example, the Playback Options tab lets you decide whether to automatically resume playback at the place you left off, start from the beginning, or have the program ask you each time.

If you output your video from PC to a TV set or LCD projector, you will want to play with the DVD Settings to find the best Stretch mode, such as Wide, Wide Cinema or Wide Zoom.

If you use closed captions, the Audio tab lets you set a preference to show them whenever possible, instead of having to turn them on for every disc you play. The Language Settings tab does the same thing for foreign languages.

Many CinePlayer controls and settings can also be accessed directly by right-clicking anywhere on the screen

4) InterActual Playback

If your disc has special InterActual content on it, like this Monsters, Inc. DVD, CinePlayer will prompt you on insertion to ask if you want to play the InterActual content or the DVD movie. Here, we are playing the added game content on the DVD using CinePlayer.

But for experienced users, the best new feature in Popcorn 3 may be the revamped and streamlined production workflow that offers both batch conversion and an incredibly useful pause/resume feature. You'll never again need to surrender your Mac to an encoding project. With Popcorn 3, you can literally queue up your entire collection for conversion, and then just pause and resume the job at your convenience it until it's done.

More new time-saving features include optimized encoding presets for most popular devices, a video quality preview window, and Turbo.264 encoding support. The preview feature lets you check what your converted video will look like with specified video quality settings, ensuring things are optimal before beginning a long project. Turbo.264 support means that owners of Elgato's popular video recorder can use it to encode H.264 video within Popcorn, dramatically speeding up encoding times and freeing up your Mac CPU. If you've ever tried to move more than a few videos onto an Apple TV, Xbox 360, or even an iPod, you'll know just how valuable these features are.

Copying DVDs & Disc Image Files

The heart of Popcorn is still its ability to copy non-protected DVDs and image files. It includes compression technology that lets you fit a full 9GB dual-layer movie disc onto a standard 4.7GB recordable DVD. You can copy directly from physical DVDs, or use VIDEO_TS folders and disc image files residing on your hard disk. Popcorn works great with discs and image files created by Toast, iDVD® and DVD Studio Pro®.

For any of these sources, you can choose exactly which parts of a DVD to copy, so that you don't waste space on foreign language tracks, trailers, and so on. Eliminating unnecessary parts of a DVD maximizes video quality on the resulting copy by minimizing the amount of compression that will be needed.

To start a DVD copy project, first choose a video source from one of the first four DVD options: DVD Disc, Image File, VIDEO_TS Folders, or VIDEO_TS Compilation. Then insert your original DVD or drag and drop an image file or VIDEO_TS folder into the content area. You can then either click the Record button and Popcorn will compress the content as needed to fit your recordable media (which can be single or dual-layer), or you can customize your disc by selecting particular tracks. To create a custom disc, just click the Options button and select from the menus. The bar at the bottom indicates indicates the amount of compression needed. Eliminating elements will result in improved quality (less compression). Under the Video menu, choose "Main" to copy the longest running main video or all videos of similar length (such as episodes of a TV show), or choose "Custom" to create a custom compilation, where you select the specific videos, audio and languages to include. (The ABC icons at right drop down to show audio options for each video track.) The custom compilation feature even lets you combine tracks from multiple DVDs or image files.

Creating custom DVD compilations with Popcorn 3.

Batch DVD Encoding

To queue up multiple DVD projects for encoding, first choose the VIDEO_TS folder project type, then drag in all your folders (which can be from Toast, iDVD or other sources). Customize the copy options for each DVD-Video folder as outlined above, then choose "Save as Disc Image" from the File menu. The processor-intensive encoding process will begin, with each DVD being saved to its own image file.

Batch DVD encoding.

Once encoding is complete, you can then use Popcorn to quickly burn each image file to DVD. During encoding, you can pause and resume the process at any time, freeing up your Mac for other work.

Popcorn's encoding Pause/Resume feature.

Creating DVDs From Video Files,
Including EyeTV & TiVo Recordings

In addition to copying DVDs and image files, Popcorn lets you create DVDs from scratch from almost any type of video file. You can even create custom DVD menus for your project. Popcorn supports more video formats than any other Mac burning software. You can add any QuickTime supported video files, such as DV, AVI, MOV, HDV (1080i/720p), and MPEG-4. You can also add files that QuickTime doesn’t support, such as MPEG-2, DivX, XVID, titles and chapters from DVD-Video and DVD–VR/RAM discs, plus EyeTV and TiVo recorded television programs.

To start a DVD project using video files, select the DVD-Video option, and then choose your videos from the Media Browser (open it from the Window menu if not already present). Here, we're selecting TiVo recordings that have been transferred to our Mac using the TiVoToGo software included with Popcorn.

Selecting content from the Media Browser.

Each video you add will have a button in the DVD menu. Click Edit to change the button image or text. For most videos, you can also do basic cropping and set DVD chapter options for scene menus if desired. Finally, click the More button at lower left to edit global DVD menu options, and then burn your DVD!

Popcorn's DVD menu options.

New Roxio Central Home Screen

Roxio Central, the hub of Creator 10, now integrates handy task lists with educational resources like step-by-step video tutorials, user profiles, how-to articles, and a monthly Digital Media Report. Never edited a video before, or made a photo greeting card? Wondering how to backup your hard disk? You'll find all the answers here, as well as plenty of inspiration.

Easy Media Creator 10's new task-based Home screen.

Media Manager

The revamped Media Manager takes Vista's built-in media tools to the next level, letting you organize, tag and rate digital media all in one place. It's also fully integrated with Vista's metadata system, so that ratings, tags, keywords and orientation written in Vista are reflected in Media Manager and vice-versa. To launch Media Manager from Roxio Central, select the My Media tab, and then select "Manage Media."

The Media Manager integrates with Vista's media tools, making it simple to organize your content.

HD Video Capture & Edit

Just purchased an HD camcorder? Or eyeing one for Christmas? VideoWave now supports HD video capture and editing, and you can burn to Blu-ray or HD DVD discs as well! VideoWave has a powerful 32-track video editor with studio-quality tools, effects, and transitions.

Editing an HD movie in VideoWave.

Copy Media Files from Any iPod

Need to download pictures and videos from your brother's iPod? Creator 10 can copy any non-copy-protected media files through the Media Manager, where your iPod will appear in the list of available devices. Then use the files in your Creator projects.

YouTube Uploading

Want to send a movie to YouTube? Just right-click it in the Media Manager, select "Upload to YouTube," and go! The first time you will be asked for your YouTube account name and password. From then on they are remembered for you.

One-button YouTube uploading from the Media Manager.

One-Click Disk Copying

Want to copy that (unprotected) DVD your sister made for your birthday? Just pop the disk into the Video Copy & Convert tool, and click go! You'll be prompted to insert your blank media, and then you're all done.

Copying a video DVD.

Internet Radio Capture

The Easy Audio Capture Gadget now resides in the Vista Sidebar, for ready access. It has the capability to capture any PC audio from your microphone or sound card, including streaming Internet radio. Simply press the red Record button to start, and blue to stop. Use the settings window to choose your audio format and adjust recording levels.

The Easy Audio Capture Gadget resides in the Vista Sidebar.

Mobile Device Synchronization

Want to sync your photos, music, videos, data and ringtones with a mobile phone or other portable device? Media Manager makes it simple. First, create a "profile" for your device using the Device Sync Wizard. Normally, when you attach a new device to your PC and run Media Manager, this will launch automatically. Otherwise, you can select the "Tools/Sync Settings" menu in Media Manager to launch it. Now you're ready to sync! To move media to your device, just drop files into the appropriate buckets. They'll be synched the next time you attach your phone. Media Manager can also sync back from your phone to PC, so you can get pictures off your cameraphone easily, for example. You'll need a multimedia-capable mobile phone with ObexFTP support and USB or Bluetooth connectivity.

Synching media files to mobile devices.

Multiple CD Ripping

Got more than one CD/DVD drive in your machine? Use two or even three drives to rip audio CDs simultaneously! Now you can make short work of loading your CD collection onto your iPod. The Ripper can even automatically detect duplicate tracks and prevent ripping them again. Finally, the tool uses both the GraceNote CDDB and MusicID fingerprinting systems to identify your tracks reliably.

The Multiple Audio CD Importer makes short work of large collections.

And even if you have an offsite backup, do you have easy access to it? Would you be able to get your business or Web server back up and running on short order?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, you need a disaster plan. It doesn't need to be overwhelming. For example, a basic plan might be to simply burn a DVD of your entire digital photo library and mail it to a few relatives. You'll spread the risk over several disparate locations, and let others enjoy your photos too. Do the same for any large archives of material you don't want to lose, such as your email folder, iTunes library, Documents folder, and so on. If some material is private, use Toast's encryption option to burn a password-protected disc, and put it in a sealed envelope to be opened in the event of need. Repeat this process once a year or so, perhaps at holidays where your relatives are all in one place.

Now that you have some basic protection against losing the bulk of your files, it's time to turn to the regular daily and weekly backups. You are making these, right? Okay, well, if you haven't yet gotten the habit, here's how:

Toast 8 offers three main ways to keep your data safe. First, it includes Déjà Vu, a powerful, yet easy-to-use program that helps you schedule automatic backups to a second hard drive, a network server, or to a blank CD or DVD. Second, you can use Toast's Volume Disc and Disc Spanning features to make an exact copy of a hard disk volume onto a set of CDs or DVDs. Finally, for everyday quick-and-dirty backups or file transfers, you can of course just drag and drop selected files or folders into the Toast window and press the Record button.

A good backup plan might include all three of these methods. For example, you might keep a CD-RW or DVD-RW handy for quick manual backups of key files on a daily basis, use Déjà Vu to schedule weekly backups of all your documents, and use Volume Disc copying to back up your entire hard disk, including the System and Applications, once a month. For the weekly and monthly backups, use two rotating sets of discs, and keep the most recent set in a different location, such as your office.

Backing Up with Déjà Vu

Déjà Vu lets you back up any number of folders manually at the click of a button, or automatically on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Backups will take place even if you aren't logged in. If you forgot to check the option to install Déjà Vu along with Toast, you can add it later by rerunning the Setup Assistant from the Toast Help menu.

The three-step backup process could not be easier. Just select When (time), What (files & folders) and Where (destination drive), and you're done. Other powerful features of Déjà Vu include remote backup to networked servers, intelligent backup of changed files only, and folder synchronization. Read on for a complete tutorial on using Déjà Vu.

1) First, select the Déjà Vu pane from the System Preferences window. Then click the lock icon at the bottom left and enter your administrator password. This unlocks the features of the program. Also choose "Enable" from the drop-down menu at top left if not already selected.

Make sure Déjà Vu is enabled and unlocked before starting to create backup schedules.

2) Next, select folders or files you want to back up by double-clicking "Choose folder or disk" under the What heading. Keep adding folders to back up by clicking on the plus sign at lower right. If you want to make a "clone" or exact copy of your entire hard disk, select your system drive icon instead of a folder.

Backing up in Déjà Vu is a simple matter of choosing What, When and Where.

3) Then decide how often you want to back up each file or folder in your list by choosing Daily, Weekly or Monthly under the When heading. You can also specify exact times for your backups by clicking the Options button at lower right, then choosing the Schedules tab.

Change the default time for your daily, weekly or monthly backups in the Schedules Options pane.

4) Finally, choose the destination for your backup, the folder where files should be saved, under the Where heading. This can be any drive available at backup time, from external hard drives to networked servers to CD and DVD recorders. You can even back up to the unused hard disk space on your iPod if it's plugged in. Déjà Vu will check to see that the drive is available, and that there's enough space to complete the backup. If you are making a clone of your entire hard drive, be sure to reformat (erase) the destination drive (as Mac OS Extended) just before cloning. Also check off "Repair Disk Permissions" and uncheck "Remote Backup" in the General Options pane. If your destination drive is a remote server, enter a username and password (if needed) for the server in the Auto-Connect Options pane.

Déjà Vu's General Options pane has several useful settings.

5) Now your backups are ready to go. Automatic backups will occur at the scheduled time, provided the destination drive is available. Or if you want to backup manually, click the Backup button at lower right to start the process. All items that say "Manually" and are checked off in the left-hand column will be backed up immediately to the selected destination. If you are backing up for the first time, do a manual backup and check to be sure everything went okay. Then future backups can be performed according to a schedule.

Note that you don't have to be logged in for scheduled backups to take place, but they will not occur if your machine is sleeping. You may want to change your Energy Saver preference to prevent this from happening. Be sure to click the Schedule button again each time you change any options or add any new files/folders to the back-up list.

6) If you're backing up to CD or DVD, you can also take advantage of Toast 8's data compression and encryption features, which let you fit up to fifty percent more on your data discs. And with 128-bit encryption and password protection, you can be sure that your data is secure from prying eyes. To use either feature, simply select the Compressed or Encrypted option from the disc settings drawer before burning. Note that these options are available for "Mac only" data discs-not Mac/PC hybrids.

Decompressing or decrypting is even easier. These two functions are built right into OS X and no special software is needed, not even Toast. All you need is the password you selected when burning your encrypted disc.

Using Mac Volume Recording

One of Toast's unique and useful features is the ability to burn entire Mac volumes to CD or DVD. This is great for making personal backups of smallish hard disks onto sets of DVDs (or up to 50GB per Blu-ray Disc). Here's how to record a disc in Mac Volume format (Mac OS standard HFS) with Toast 8 Titanium:

1) First, choose the Mac Volume project under the Data button (if you don't see it, check the box to "Show Legacy Settings" in the Toast Preferences). Note that you can't use Volume format to create bootable discs, and that File Sharing must be turned off on volumes you want to copy.

Toast's Mac Volume recording option tells you which disks can be burned as CD or DVDs.

2) Then drag the volume you want to copy into the Toast window from the desktop, or click the Select button to choose it. You can only select volumes with the comment "ok to write."

3) Click the Record button, insert a blank disc, and you're done!

Now that you know just how easy it is to be backup with Toast, we're sure you will be the most prepared person on your block.

And even if you have an offsite backup, do you have easy access to it? Would you be able to get your business or Web server back up and running on short order?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, you need a disaster plan. It doesn't need to be overwhelming. For example, a basic plan might be to simply burn a DVD of your entire digital photo library and mail it to a few relatives. You'll spread the risk over several disparate locations, and let others enjoy your photos too. Do the same for any large archives of material you don't want to lose, such as your email folder, iTunes library, Documents folder, and so on. If some material is private, use Creator's encryption option to burn a password-protected disc, and put it in a sealed envelope to be opened in the event of need. Repeat this process once a year or so, perhaps at holidays where your relatives are all in one place.

Now that you have some basic protection against losing the bulk of your files, it's time to turn to the regular daily and weekly backups. You are making these, right? Okay, well, if you haven't yet gotten the habit, here's how:

Creator 9 offers two main ways to keep your data safe. First, it includes BackOnTrack, a system rollback utility that undoes the damage caused by software conflicts, accidents and malware. With BackOnTrack, you simply click a button to record a "snapshot" of your system at a point where it is working cleanly. Then if things go wrong, you just press the Restore button to roll things back. It's that easy! For a full tutorial on using BackOnTrack, click here.

The second key utility is Backup MyPC, a powerful, yet easy-to-use program for Windows XP/2000 that helps you schedule automatic backups to a second hard drive, a network server, or to blank CDs or DVDs. For everyday quick-and-dirty backups or file transfers, you can of course just drag and drop selected files or folders into the Creator Drag-to-Disc window on the desktop.

A good backup plan might include both of these methods. For example, you might keep a CD-RW or DVD-RW handy for quick Drag-to-Disc backups of key files on a daily basis, and use Backup MyPC to schedule weekly backups of all your documents, or even your entire hard disk.

Here's an introduction to using Backup MyPC.

Starting Up

Opening Backup MyPC displays the Welcome screen, from which you can choose one of four key step-by-step guided "Quick Start" tasks, or one of the three main function buttons on the left (Backup, Restore, Compare). Beginners should choose the Backup Wizard or Automatic Data Protection to start, depending on whether you want to perform a one-time backup job, or schedule ongoing automated backups. We recommend setting up a schedule, assuming you have a second hard disk or CD/DVD drive available to back things up to on a regular basis. Backup MyPC also supports tape and other removeable media drives, as well as networked hard drives.

Clicking on Automatic Data Protection takes you through a simple three-step wizard where you choose the time of the backup, select the drive to back up to, and enter your Windows username and password. That's all there is to it! Your entire drive will be backed up weekly at the time you specify, and frequently changed files and folders can also be backed up daily. The process could not be easier.

To just back up specific files and folders on a one-time basis, choose the Backup Wizard, which leads you through five simple steps in similar fashion. You'll see a progress screen showing how your backup is going, and prompting you to insert new media if needed. There is full support (of course!) for CD/DVD drives, including double-layer 8.5GB DVD media, which makes it much easier to back up big hard disks.

Creating a Disaster Recovery Disk Set

One of the most valuable features of Backup MyPC is the ability to create disaster recovery disks for your system, in the event of a catastrophic failure where you are unable to boot your machine. These disks, along with your backup set and Windows installation CDs, can be used to perform a complete restoration of your system. In one easy step, Backup MyPC will analyze your system and hardware, and prompt you to insert blank media to create the disks. Then you can put them aside secure in the knowledge that your system is safe. You should redo the disaster disks after major system updates or hardware changes.

Customized Backups

After you've used Backup MyPC for a bit, you may want to customize your backup jobs. Clicking on the Backup button on the left brings up the backup window, from which you can configure all backup options, such as incremental backups, and choose options like compression (to save valuable backup disk space), passworded backups (to keep your data private), and verify (to immediately check all files in the backup to be sure it was successful). Backup job settings can be saved for repeated use.

Now that you know just how easy it is to back up with Creator, we're sure you will be the most prepared person on your block.

Capture Your Video Clips

The first step in any video project is of course to bring clips from your camcorder into your computer. To start, connect your camcorder to your PC with the USB or FireWire cable that came with it, and turn it on in the proper mode for computer transfer (usually the Playback mode -- see your camcorder's manual). Then, within MyDVD, choose File>Capture/Import. The Media Import tool will open, and you can select your camcorder from the device list and start capturing clips. Tip: First cue up your camcorder to the beginning of clip you want to capture, and pause it. Second, click the Capture button in Media Import to start the recording, and then press Play on your camcorder. There will be a few extra frames to crop out at the beginning of the recording, but this is easily done when you start to create your DVD.

The Media Import window shows a live preview of your camcorder recording.

You can also use video from other sources, such as cell phone or digital camera movies, video downloads, and clips you may have recorded with a TV tuner card.

Beginning Your MyDVD Project

Now that you've gotten all your video onto your PC, it's time to start creating your DVD. Open MyDVD, and click the "Change Menu Style" button under the Edit pane to select an overall theme for your disc, such as "Birthday," "Safari" or "Snowing." This is what will appear on screen when you insert the disc into a DVD player. Menu styles consist of background images, button styles and placements, and font selections. Next, click the Add New Movie button. Select a clip or group of clips that you'd like to be accessed from the first button in your DVD menu. If you select a group of clips, check the box to import them "as one movie" when prompted.

A MyDVD project with three chapters in the main menu.

Keep adding movies until you have all your intended chapters. At this point, you may want to experiment with different typefaces and styles, or reposition some of the graphic elements. Simply drag elements to move them, or select them to change fonts or styles. There are dozens of available button styles, for example. To change the background image, choose the "Change Menu Background" option in the Edit pane.

Editing Video Clips

If some of your video clips need trimming, or if you'd like to add special effects and transitions, select the video in the Preview area, then choose Edit Movie under the Movie menu. You'll be presented with a full timeline video editing system where you can also add background audio and photos to your movie. Once satisfied with your movie, click the "Back to Menu" button at middle top to return to the DVD menu view.

Editing a movie within MyDVD.

Finishing Your Disc

At this point, you have imported all your clips, made chapters out of them, and edited them where desired. You've also made graphic design choices for your DVD menu. It's time to preview your finished movie to see if it runs the way you want it to. Click the Preview button at top right, and wait while it loads (it may take a few minutes, depending on the complexity of your disc). Finally, check the appearance, playback and navigation of your disc using the onscreen controls. You can easily go back and tweak the graphics or video if you find problems.

Now you're ready to burn! Simply click the Burn button at top right, and choose your target drive. You can also create a Disc Image file on your hard disk if you like, which can be burned later or uploaded to a Web site for others to download and burn.

Bells & Whistles

While we've covered the basics, MyDVD has lots more cool features to explore. For example, you can add an Intro movie that will play when the disc is inserted, before the main menu appear. (Like the FCC warnings and movie trailers that appear on commercial DVDs.) You can also customize the audio file that will play when the main menu is onscreen. But our favorite trick is using the Add Slideshow button to open Creator's Slideshow Assistant, which leads you through the process of making a photo slideshow, then drops it right into a chapter on your DVD! This way you can combine home videos and photo shows on one disc.

Happily, you can get the answers to all these questions and many more you didn't know you had, using Creator's Disc & Device Utility.

Using the Disc & Device Utility

To learn more about your CD or DVD drive's capabilities, choose the Disc & Device Utility from the Creator Tools folder in the Programs menu. When the utility comes up, click on plus sign under Drive Properties to view its capabilities. The list of parameters includes everything from the firmware and model numbers, to a list of all the media types it can read and write, plus the speeds at which it can do so (given in order of CD write-once, CD rewrite, DVD write-once, DVD rewrite).

Creator's Disc & Device Utility provides a listing of drive parameters and capabilities.

Now you know all about your drive. But what about your discs? After they are out of the packaging, one printable white disc looks much like another. Is it a CD or DVD? 72-minute or 80-minute? And even if a disc is already burned, you may not know if it's a CD-R or CD-RW, for example. Expanding the Disc Properties for a disc shows details about the media (CD-R, DVD+RW, etc.), the content type (such as DVD-Video or CD-audio), and information about what's on the disc (if already burned). For this prerecorded CD, Creator correctly shows that it is a burned CD-ROM using the Joliet file system. If it had been a CD-RW, the "Erase/Format" button at bottom would also have been enabled, letting you reuse rewritable media.

Getting information about a prerecorded CD.

Here's another example, this time showing results for a blank DVD. In this case the utility shows the available capacity, number of layers, and medium type (DVD+R), among other properties.

The Disc & Device Utility showing properties for a blank DVD+R.

We hope this article has given you a taste for the valuable information you can gain from Creator's Disc & Device Utility. If you want to learn more about what all the drive parameters mean, there is an excellent glossary of CD recording terms on CDRInfo.com, while VideoHelp has a great database of DVD recorders.

Slide Shows, the Easy Way

For ultra-quick and simple photo discs, just click on the Video project button and drag pictures into the Toast window from the Media Browser or the Finder. You can import individual pictures, groups of pictures, or entire folders from anywhere on your hard disk, or from your iPhoto library. Arrange them in the order you'd like them displayed by dragging them up and down, choose whether you'd like to create a Video CD, S-VCD or DVD disc, and burn!

Making a DVD slideshow with Toast.

Note that when you drag a group of photos at one time, or a folder, it appears as a single slideshow item in the project window (up to 99 pictures per slideshow). Clicking on the Edit button then allows you to add, remove or rearrange photos within the slideshow, set the duration of each slide, and add a title for the slideshow. When you drag additional groups of photos, or individual photos, to the project window, they appear as additional separate slideshows underneath the first one. Each slideshow will have its own button and text title in the disc navigation menu when burned. This is a handy way to organize pictures on a disc. You could have separate slideshows for each child, holiday, event, year, etc.

Clicking the Edit button for a group of photos brings up a dialog box where you can rearrange photos within the slideshow and set the duration for each.

The options at bottom left of the Toast window let you customize the disc a little. You can choose a menu style for your disc, as well as the desired quality level, and set the disc to automatically start playing when inserted into your player. Click the "More" button to bring up a few additional goodies, such as the ability to edit the menu titles for your disc, and the option to include the original full-quality photos along with your slideshow. This is a great feature for sharing photos with others. Not only will they be able to view your pictures on their TV screen with their DVD player, they can print them in full quality from their PC or Mac too!

Toast video disc options include menu titles and auto-play upon insertion.

Using Motion Pictures HD

After making a couple slide shows using Toast's built-in video disc capabilities above, your appetite will likely be whetted for additional features, such as being able to add music and transition effects between pictures. That's where Motion Pictures HD shines. This standalone application, included in the Toast 8 suite, helps you create amazing slideshows, with pro-quality pans and zooms, audio soundtracks and much more. While you can use the default settings to make a Ken Burns-style photo-movie without so much as a peek at the Help file, here are some pointers that will help you get the most out of the program:

First, click the Media Browser button at top left to select photos for your slideshow. You can then reorder the pictures by dragging them up or down, or use the Slide Sorter view available from the Window menu. Handy left and right rotation buttons in the toolbar let you reorient photos if needed.

Use the Media Browser to bring in photos for your slideshow.

While default motion effects will be applied to each picture, you can change these by selecting any slide or group of slides and clicking the Picture Motion button in the toolbar. Available Picture Motions include zoom, pan, zoom and pan, horizontal or vertical pans, random motions, or no motion at all. Each motion has one or more parameters, such as percentage zoom and start and finish points that you can experiment with, and you can also select the exact areas of your image to use as the start and ending points of zooms. Use the Motion Preview button to see what your effect will look like. Play around with the various pans and zooms until you are familiar with them. They are great fun!

Choosing a Picture Motion for a slide.

If you don't have time to play, and just want to make a quick show, leave the motion presets in their default mode. Or choose make the Random mode in the Preferences dialog your default to create some hilarious effects!

Now that you've gotten your motions down, it's time to add a soundtrack for your slideshow. Click the Music in the Media Browser, and choose one or more audio files, depending on the length of your show. The Settings button at top right lets you fit the pictures to your music, or repeat the music if needed. Other options in the Settings dialog include the amount of time for transitions between slides, whether to use a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio, and a title for your slideshow.

The Settings dialog lets you fit your slideshow to a music track.

Now you're ready to export your motion picture. Click on the Make Movie button to record your show to disk in any format from email, to Web video, to full-quality widescreen DV for use in iMovie or a Toast video disc. If you export to Toast, you can opt to send the original picture files along with the movie for burning to one video disc.

Motion Pictures HD slideshows can be saved in a variety of formats, from email to iMovie, and even .Mac.

Exporting will take a while, depending on the length and quality of your slideshow, and the speed of your processor. Assuming you opted to send your movie and original photos to Toast, you can then burn a Video CD, Super Video CD or DVD by clicking on the Video button as described at the beginning of this article. Choose "Add Original Photos" in the Disc Settings Drawer if you'd like to include them for people to see when they insert the disc into their Mac or PC. Then click the Burn button! You're all done creating your first Motion Picture.

Converting a movie, TV show or home video into a format that will look good on your iPod or iPhone is a fine art, as is creating top-quality streaming files for Apple TV. The compression process needs to be tuned for each type of video source and playback device, which can involve a bewildering array of technical parameters. But you don't need to be a digital video guru to get your home movies onto your iPod, or your DVDs onto your Apple TV. All you need is Roxio Crunch for Windows.

Roxio Crunch reduces the entire process to three easy steps, and does all the heavy lifting for you. You simply choose the video source files to convert (in nearly any format), select output presets optimized for your device, then convert! Multiple video files can be processed in one batch, making it simple to convert entire movie libraries for your new Apple TV or video iPod.

You can even take unencrypted DVDs and Video_TS folders and select just the movies you want to convert, which can save huge amounts of valuable hard disk space. After converting, Crunch drops your videos right into iTunes for automatic synchronization to your device. Here's how to do it.

Getting Started with Crunch

Roxio Crunch can convert most types of digital video for use on your Apple TV, iPod, or iPhone, including: * DVD-Video discs burned on your PC * Commercial DVD-Video discs that are not copy-protected or encrypted * DVD-Video image files or VIDEO_TS folders on your hard disk * Other digital video formats including QuickTime MOV, DivX, WMV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264 and more.

The basic process consists of three simple steps. Just select the videos you want to convert using the Add Movies button on the left of the Crunch window (which brings up a handy media browser), choose an output file format, destination and options at right, then click the Copy/Save button at the top. You can convert as many video files of various types at one time as you like, as long as they are going to the same output format and destination, a real timesaver. If you want to preview or trim a movie before converting (by cutting material at the beginning or end), click the middle icon just above the movie list at left.

Crunch video in three simple steps.

The easiest way to use Crunch is to select your device (Apple TV, iPod or iPhone) and desired quality level (Fastest, Standard, High, Highest) from the drop-down Formats list or the Options dialog box, then output the results to iTunes. Those settings will do everything automatically for you, and place the converted video right into iTunes for syncing to your device. For top quality output, choose the Highest setting, the other settings will yield lower quality and file size, depending on the output device.

Format and quality settings in Crunch.

Crunching DVDs & Image Files

Converting DVDs, Video_TS folders and Disc Image files gives you the added option of selecting particular movie and language tracks to compress. This is a big advantage when converting DVDs with lots of extras like trailers, director's cuts, foreign languages, and extra scenes. Omitting the extras conserves scarce disk space on your iPod or iPhone. The Media Browser that pops up when you click the Add Movies button makes it easy to select the tracks you want.

Selecting movie tracks to convert from a Video_TS folder.

You can also choose which languages to convert along with your DVD movie tracks.

Selecting DVD language tracks to convert.

Sending Videos to Your Player

If you selected iTunes as your destination, your videos can be automatically or manually synced to your device from there. If you saved your compressed videos elsewhere, you can drag and drop them into iTunes, or transfer them to many other players that support MPEG-4 or H.264 video.

We hope this article shows how easy it is to take all your videos to go, or even to convert an entire video library for viewing on your new Apple TV. Now it's Crunch time!

With Roxio's comprehensive guide to choosing recordable media, of course! Read on for all you need to know to buy with confidence and ensure successful burning.

CD & DVD Media Types

* for top multiformat DVD recorders as of mid-2007. CD recording speeds are given for combo CD/DVD recorders.

CD Formats Demystified

There are two basic types of CD recordable discs, CD-R and CD-RW. They can each be recorded in many different data formats, such as CD-Audio, Video CD, MP3 CD, data CD, etc. All the varied types of projects that Roxio's Easy Media Creator 9 for Windows and Toast 8 Titanium for Mac allow you to create.

For audio CDs, both regular and MP3, stick to standard 74-minute CD-Rs unless you really need 80-minute capacity. They are the most universally compatible in home and car players (CD-RWs often won't play). But avoid the new 90-minute CDs, which can literally damage your drives unless your hardware specifically supports them. The few extra minutes you get are just not worth the risks and playback incompatibility. Also avoid using "overburn" on 74- and 80-minute media, for the same reasons, unless you really need it for a specific purpose and your drive supports it. Easy Media Creator supports overburn.

There are also special "Audio CD" blanks that must be used in standalone living room CD burners. They cost more than the regular data CDs used in computers since royalties are paid to music companies for each disc sold. There is no need to buy these unless you have a burner that requires them.

For Video CDs and Super Video CDs, you can use either CD-Rs or CD-RWs, although CD-RWs often play more reliably in set-top DVD players, which are most often used to play Video CDs. Note that Video CDs (and DVDs) can't be "overburned," due to the rigid specifications of video discs.

For data projects, consider whether you will likely want to reuse the disc or not. If you are archiving photos or other data for the long term, CD-Rs are preferred. They are both cheaper and more secure, since they can't be erased. If you are backing up a hard disk, or just moving data between machines, CD-RWs will allow you to keep adding and deleting data over time, saving a lot of money. Learn more about archival-quality discs below.

DVD-R/RW & DVD+R/RW

Choosing DVD media is a much harder task than choosing CDs, due to the plethora of formats. But once you figure out the basics, you can just keep using them. First, a quick primer on the DVD alphabet:

DVD-R/RW discs are the most common, and the most compatible with older players, largely since DVD-R is the oldest recordable format. DVD+R/RW technology is somewhat newer, and has better error correction and burn reliability than DVD-R/RW. We recommend DVD-R for movie discs that will be played back on a set-top player, and DVD+R for archiving purposes. For everyday data transfer and rolling backups, use DVD+RW.

Double-layer DVDs let you record 8.5GB of data on a single disc, almost twice the capacity of single-layer media. They require double-layer capable DVD recorders.

DVD-RAM is the oldest rewritable DVD format, and is available in several capacities (usually 4.7GB single-sided or 9.4GB double-sided media). The format's large capacity, superior error correction, and longevity (it can be rewritten more than 100,000 times) make it a good choice for industrial-strength data-processing applications. Consumers should avoid this format since it is incompatible with many players.

Recorders come in three basic types, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW and versatile combination drives that can write all four. Newer drives also support dual-layer recording. Your choice of media will thus likely depend on the hardware you have. Most rewritable DVD drives can also burn CD-R and CD-RW discs, but at slower speeds than dedicated CD burners.

All DVD media formats (DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW) can be read in most DVD players. But some more so than others. CDR-Info, a CD/DVD research firm, has done a study on compatibility, and found that DVD-R is the most universally compatible, being read by 96.7% of players, while DVD-RW came second at 87.7%, then DVD+R at 87.3%, and DVD+RW at 87.1%. Relatively few DVD-ROM drives or set-top players can read DVD-RAM. The lesson here, as we said before, is to use DVD-R for for movie discs that will be played in set-top players or shared with other people.

Does Speed Matter?

Recordable drives typically state three speeds, such as 24X/8X/4X, for either CDs or DVDs. The first number is usually the read speed, the second number the write speed, and the last number the rewrite speed. Be sure you understand the numbers for your drive, and the differences between the speeds for CDs and DVDs. DVD recorders will have different ratings for CD reading/writing than DVD reading/writing. The rated numbers are maximums, actual recording speed will depend on many things, such as the speed of your system and hard drive, the source of your data, whether file conversion is taking place on the fly (such as MP3 conversion), and the media you use. (For more on drives, see our DVD Recorder Buying Guide.)

Recording media of all types also have speed ratings. So if you have a recorder rated at 24X for writing CDs, you should buy at least 24X-rated CD-Rs if you want to record at top speed. Likewise for DVDs. The latest DVD recorders boast 8X and even 18X write-once speeds. But the top-speed media can be relatively expensive and hard to find (media availability usually lags behind drive speeds). You can still use lower-rated media in your drive, but be sure to set the recording speed in Easy Media Creator or Toast at or below the rating of the media.

Archival and Printable Media

In addition to formats and speed ratings, recordable discs come in all sorts of dye colors (gold, silver, blue, green etc.), with varying label surfaces, longevity ratings and reliability ratings. "Data-grade" or "archival" discs are typically manufactured to higher tolerances, and should have fewer overall errors in recording. (All optical discs will have recording errors, but built-in error correction compensates for them. Still, the fewer errors, the better.) Archival discs will also likely be more universally compatible with various players and drives.

Longevity ratings refer to the shelf-life of discs, how long you can store them before they degrade. This number has greatly improved since the early days of CD-Rs, when organic dyes could degrade in as little as 10 years. Manufacturers have now typically rate dye stability at 70-100 years. The other important component of longevity is the quality of the clear coating on the disc. If it has pinholes or separation, the reflective metal layer can oxidize.

Label surfaces options include matte silver, shiny silver, printable white, and LightScribe. Choose discs that match whichever label method you like best. For LightScribe labeling, where the label is "burned" into the disc, you'll need a compatible recorder.

Which Brand Should I Buy?

For routine data sharing, or music discs you don't expect to keep for a long time, by all means shop by price. For important data, such as backups and family photo or video collections, get the highest quality you can afford in a name brand, and record at slightly slower speeds than maximum (recording more slowly generally results in fewer errors.) And NEVER skip the verification step! CDFreaks.com has extensive user ratings of optical media brands.

Finally, while compatibility between drives and media has improved dramatically over the years, you may find some brands that just don't seem to work well in your recorder or player. If you get frequent coasters or playback problems, switch brands. And when you find one that works every time, stick with it.

The fun begins with Plug & Burn, which helps you create video discs right from your camcorder with a couple of mouse clicks. You can also drag and drop any QuickTime video or iMovie file and use Toast's Video Converter feature to make a DVD with menus, buttons and chapters. Finally, Toast can rip, extract to DV, or reuse video from an iDVD or Toast DVD disc in a new project. (Extracting to DV lets you edit it in iMovie.)

Getting Started

So how do you get started making a DVD, Video CD, Super Video CD in Toast 8? It's really amazingly easy. First, determine where your source video and photos are coming from: direct from your DV camcorder (live or tape), from existing unencrypted DVDs, or from existing video and photo files on your hard disk, including iMovies. Get your camcorder ready, or organize your content files. You can use any QuickTime-supported video files, such as DV, AVI, MOV, HDV (1080i/720p), and MPEG-4. You can also use video files that QuickTime doesn’t support, such as iMovie HD projects, MPEG-2, DivX, EyeTV recorded shows, and TiVoToGo transfers. Then launch Toast, and click on the Video button at left. Select "Video CD," "Super Video CD" or "DVD-Video." (Also select NTSC or PAL in the Toast Preferences window, depending on your video format. North America and Japan are NTSC, most of Europe and Asia are PAL).

Toast's easy-to-use encoding presets let you prioritize recording speed or video quality.

Also decide if you want "Good," "Better" or "Best" encoding quality (bottom left). Choose Best unless speed is more important than quality to you. The Toast encoder will automatically adjust the encoding rate to use all available space on a disc. A DVD holds 60 to 150 minutes of video depending on quality level. Video CDs can hold a maximum of about 70 minutes, but at a much lower quality (MPEG-1 compression). Super Video CDs (which use MPEG-2 compression just like DVDs) should be 20 minutes to one hour at most on a 700MB CD. Again, the less video you put on the disc, the better the quality. For photo slideshows you can fit thousands of images on a CD or DVD.

Finally, if you are making a disc that contains slideshows, you can choose to include the original full-quality photos on the disc as well (check the box under the Disc options tab). This is a great feature for sharing photos with family and friends. Not only will they be able to view your video and photos, they can print the pictures too! The photos will be accessible when the disc is used on a computer, Mac or PC.

Toast video disc options include the ability to add full-resolution photos for printing to a photo slideshow DVD.

Now that you've set up your basic project, it's time to start adding content (this process is the same, regardless of what type of disc you intend to burn). We'll cover the two basic methods here: Plug & Burn, and drag and drop.

Plug & Burn

Plug & Burn is the feature that helps you transfer video directly from your DV camcorder into Toast effortlessly. Here's how to use it:

&emsp* Open Toast and start your Video project as described above.
&emsp* Plug your DV camcorder into a FireWire port on your Mac, switch it on in Playback mode (aka VCR mode), and Toast will detect it and display camera controls (rewind, play, pause, fast forward) in the video content area (any DV camcorder supported by iMovie should also be supported by Toast).
&emsp* Next, click the camera controls if necessary to move the tape to the desired location (preview on your camcorder's LCD). Then click the Import button.
&emsp* A sheet will drop down, with options for naming your new clip (the name will be used for the DVD menu). You can choose to import the entire tape or a duration from 1 to 60 minutes. You can also choose to import from the current position or rewind the tape to the beginning first.
&emsp* Next click the Import button, and Toast will start recording your video file. A preview will appear in the content window, so you can see what is being recorded. (There is also an Import & Record option, which lets you automate the entire process of video capture and disc burning, and is great for archiving family videos or simple transfers. We will assume here that you want to customize your DVD or edit your video before burning.)
&emsp* When the clip is done, Toast will ask if you want to import additional clips. Keep adding clips in this manner until you are finished.

Drag & Drop

The other way to add content, is to simply drag existing video files, photos or iMovies into the content window. You can mix up Plug & Burn files, video downloaded from the Internet (including DivX files), iMovies, EyeTV recordings, pictures from iPhoto or Photoshop, and more. To add an iMovie, open the folder containing your iMovie 3 project, and drag and drop the iMovie reference file into Toast (the iMovie reference file will have .mov as the suffix). Photos dragged together, or in one folder, will become a single slideshow; photos dragged individually will become separate "slideshows."

This video project shows a few of the wide variety of source formats supported by Toast: WMV clips from a digital camera, DV clips from a digital camcorder, and H.264 clips in iPod format.

Organizing and Editing Your Content

Now that you've added all your content, it's time to organize it and think about what the resulting disc will look like.

First, put your content in the order in which you'd like it to appear on the disc, by dragging items up and down the content window. Note that each item in the content window will become a button in the DVD navigation menu, so if you want some items to be combined into a single button, you'll need to merge them before dragging into Toast. You can splice clips together in QuickTime Pro, iMovie or another video editor.

Next, customize each item if desired, by clicking on the Edit button. For video, you can trim off extra frames at the beginning or ends of clips, set a particular frame to use as the button icon, and give a name to the clip, which will be used as a tag on the button. You can also split the clip into "chapters" of 1 to 10 minutes or automatically use chapters that have been set in iMovie, Final Cut or Toast's Plug & Burn utility. Chapters allow you to use the DVD player's remote control to jump forward and back in the video quickly.

Toast lets you trim the beginning and ends of clips using sliders, and set chapter markers for easy navigation.

For photo slideshows, clicking the edit button lets you add and remove pictures, set a duration for each slide to appear on screen, specify a name for the slideshow, and select one photo to use as the button icon. For truly great slideshows with transitions, motion effects, audio tracks, titles and more, use Motion Pictures HD (included with Toast 8) to create the show, then drag the resulting movie into your DVD project.

Toast makes it easy to rearrange, add and delete photos from your slideshows. You can also choose a photo for the menu button, and set slide duration.

Customizing DVD Menus and Styles

Toast 8 lets you choose from a number of different themes, or menu styles, for your video discs. These themes incorporate background artwork, fonts, menu placement, border styles, and so on. Ten styles are included with Toast, such as Beach, Road Trip and Corporate; and several add-on menu style packs are also available. Photoshop mavens can even create their own. To choose a theme, select it from the drop-down menu at the bottom left of the Video project window. Then click the More button to customize your disc further.

Options include changing the number of buttons you want to show in the main menu, and whether you want to include slide menus for photo slideshows. You can also decide whether you want the disc to auto-play when inserted, and whether it should play continously or stop at the end of each chapter. Finally, you can opt to include data files or original photos on the disc that will be viewable only when inserted in a computer. This feature is really useful for adding full-resolution files to a photo slideshow.

Choose one of the provided menu styles, or drag in your own background picture.

If you are a real pro, you can also customize DVD encoding parameters like video and audio bit rate and aspect ratio. More information on these can be found in the Toast user manual, but we advise sticking with the automatic settings for reliable results.

Toast provides full control over DVD encoding parameters for video pros.

Now that you've got everything perfect, be sure to save your project to disc. That way, you can open it again later and add or tweak things easily.

Burning the Disc

Now it's time to burn! We recommend previewing your DVD by saving it as a Disc Image file (from the Toast Edit memu), and playing it back just as you would a regular DVD (mount it from the Toast Utilities menu). This way you can try it out and make any needed tweaks. If you decide that the slide duration should be a little longer, the menus need rearranging, or a piece of video needs a little editing, you can make changes without wasting media.

To burn, simply click the record button and insert your blank media (DVD recordable for DVD-Video discs, and CD-recordable media for Video CDs or Super Video CDs). Toast will then encode and process your video before burning. If you want to make multiple copies, you can specify this in the burn dialog, and Toast will prompt you to insert additional discs until done.

That's it! You've successfully made your first video disc with Toast 8! We bet you'll want to make many more.

With BackOnTrack, you simply click a button to record a "snapshot" of your system at a point where it is working cleanly. Next time you install or update software, wait until you are sure things are okay, then record a new snapshot. Or if things go wrong, just press the Restore button. That's it. Both snapshots and restores take only a few seconds, compared to many minutes with other utilities. No special boot disc is required.

Your First Snapshot

After installing the program on your Windows XP machine, open BackOnTrack from the Control Panel window or the System Tray. You'll get a management console screen with four easy options: Configure, New Snapshot, Restore and Undo Restore.

The BackOnTrack Control Panel lets you take a snapshot or restore your system in just two clicks.

The first step is to take a New Snapshot of your system to create a restore point. You may also want to Configure the BackOnTrack properties (below), such as creating a password that ensures other users can't turn your system back or alter your system snapshot.

Configuring BackOnTrack properties.

Restoring Your System

That's all you need to do, until you either install new software that you want to keep (in which case you should make a new snapshot) or experience a system problem that you want to fix. To restore your system, you simply open BackOnTrack and click the Restore button. If your system won't boot properly, you can also press F7 during the startup sequence to initiate the restore. It could not be easier.

Starting a System Restore operation.

Note that to prevent files and documents from being rolled back during the restore process along with system files and programs, you should always store them in My Documents, My Pictures, My Music, My Videos or the Desktop (including subfolders), which are not affected by a restore. Other key locations excluded from the restore process are: Outlook email folders; My Network Places; Explorer Favorites, History and Temporary files; and the Windows Temp folder. Some older applications may not automatically store their files in the documents folder; if so, you should try to change this setting, or make regular backups. If you should accidentally lose something because of a restore, you can also choose Undo Restore, move or retrieve the relevant files, then redo the restore.

The Document Archive

In addition to protecting your system and application files with the Snapshot/Restore function, BackOnTrack also protects your important documents (text and MS Office files) separately via a special Document Archive feature. With the Document Archive you can "roll back" to old versions of documents, even after you have saved new ones. A maximum of ten versions per document will be saved in the archive, up to an overall total archive size of 10 percent of your hard disk space (or 2GB, whichever is greater). Files of 30MB or greater are not archived since they would eat too much space.

The Document Rollback Archive can be found in the My Computer window.

To revert to an earlier version of a document, simply double-click on the Archive in the My Computer window, then search or browse for the file you need. Select it and you're done! BackOnTrack handles all the version tracking work automatically in the background.

Using the BackOnTrack Document Archive.

But perhaps the best thing about the system Restore and Document Archive features of BackOnTrack is that they complement your regular backup program perfectly, to provide even greater protection. BackOnTrack provides rollbacks to recent time points without the hassle of restoring from a backup set, which may not have the latest version of your system or documents anyway. By using BackOnTrack along with Roxio's Backup MyPC 2006 (included in the Easy Media Creator suite), you get the best of both worlds.

Learn more about Roxio BackOnTrack.

The added capacity can go a long way. Blu-Ray Discs can make short work of backing up your hard disk, and dual-layer recorders let you back up your valuable movie discs without compromising video quality. Roxio's Easy Media Creator 9 and Toast 8 support both types of discs, and provide all the software you need to take full advantage of the latest burning hardware.

So what should you look for when choosing a DVD drive? Recording technology has been advancing rapidly, and the myriad formats and speeds can be bewildering. Media types alone comprise an alphabet soup: DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD-RAM, Blu-ray and HD-DVD, plus double-layer and dual-layer variations. There's also a long list of recorded formats, including DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, DVD-VR, DVD-ROM, Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD. Then to top it all off, most DVD burners can also play and record CDs, both CD-R and CD-RW, in various CD formats, such as Audio CD and Video CD.

Deciphering the Alphabet Soup

The first thing to decide is what type of drive will record the formats you need. Here's a quick guide to the various CD & DVD recording types:

* for top multiformat DVD recorders as of mid-2007. CD recording speeds are given for combo CD/DVD recorders.

Most current recorders can burn multiple types of discs. You can get a top-rated internal that handles most everything but Blu-ray for around $100. Make sure you get dual-layer capability, since some older drives may still be on the shelves. A few do DVD-RAM. Virtually all of these multiformat DVD drives can also write CD-R/RW discs. Blu-ray capability will run you about $500 more as of this writing, but prices are coming down fast.

DVD-R/RW generally offers the best compatibility with various set-top DVD players, with DVD+R/RW a close second. These are the formats that most users will choose for creating DVD movies and archiving data. While DVD-RAM was the first entry in the format wars, it has largely been relegated to office data environments, thanks to its superior reliability and ability to rewrite up to 100,000 times.

By the Numbers

How much speed do you need in a DVD recorder? Today's fastest DVD drives can reach transfer speeds as high as 18X, which means you can write a single-layer 4.7GB DVD-R or DVD+R in 5 minutes or so. (1X for DVDs is 1.38MB/sec.). However, you'll usually see multiple numbers in drive marketing material separating various types of CD and DVD read and write speeds. Make sure you know which number is which. For example, 16X/4X/12X usually means the drive can write DVDs at 16X, rewrite at 4X and read at 12X. A second set of higher numbers, such as 32x/24x/48x gives corresponding CD write/rewrite/read speeds. As you can see, write speeds are typically lower than read speeds, but that's okay, since most people spend relatively little time writing as opposed to reading.

Note that while specs can be helpful guideposts when comparing one drive to another, they can't be taken strictly at face value. Real-world recording rates will likely be one or two notches below the spec, and can also depend on the speed rating of your media. Recording performance can also be limited by your system. For example, the speed of your USB or IDE connection.

Internal or External?

If you have an open drive bay in your computer, you'll save a little money and desk space with an internal device. However, this means opening your PC and understanding internal cabling. External drives are more expensive, but offer the flexibility to move around to different PCs and Macs. You may also want to consider a "portable" drive, which is powered by the USB or FireWire bus in your computer, rather than plugged into a wall. These are good for laptop users, but will have lower specs than full-sized drives.

Interface Options

If you choose an internal drive, the interface will likely be some flavor of ATAPI/ATA/IDE. In newer machines, these interfaces handily exceed maximum transfer speeds for both CD and DVD drives, so whichever you happen to have in your computer is fine. However, older versions of ATAPI (especially if DMA is not supported) are potentially too slow to support maximum data transfer rates. If you have an old machine, consider an external drive that you can transfer to a newer machine when you upgrade.

For external drives, the choices are more complex. We recommend USB 2.0 or FireWire (also known as IEEE1394 or i.Link). USB 1.0 will greatly limit your recording speed, so make sure your computer has a USB 2.0 interface if you get a USB 2.0 recorder. USB and FireWire drives both have the major advantage of being hot-pluggable, so you don't have to turn your computer off before attaching them.

More Features to Look For

DVD drives with the same speed ratings are not all created equal. There is a whole host of other features that separate the best drives from the lower end. One important spec to look for is the amount of cache (memory buffer) the drive has. A larger cache will help prevent the dreaded "buffer-underruns" that result in failed recordings. Top multiformat DVD burners typically have about 2MB of cache, in addition to special underrun-prevention technology. Also look for S/PDIF optical audio outputs (for connecting to a stereo system for audio playback), and a long warranty. Finally, if you like the idea of laser-etched disc labeling (for a sort of holographic look), check for LightScribe support. An increasing number of burners have it, and both Easy Media Creator and Toast include labeling programs that work with LightScribe drives.

Blu-ray & HD-DVD

If your budget allows, also consider Blu-ray recording technology, a standard developed for the needs high-definition video. Blu-ray Discs hold 25GB (single-layer) or 50GB (dual-layer), making them excellent choices for backing up large hard drives. Media is available in both write-once (BD-R) and rewritable (BD-RE) formats. Note that computer Blu-ray recorders are not capable by themselves of playing commercial Blu-ray movie discs. You'll also need special graphics and display hardware that is not widely available. Until it is, desktop Blu-ray will be mostly limited to archiving and backup purposes. Blu-ray drives can also record regular DVD-R/RW discs, but generally at lower speeds than non-Blu-ray drives, so there is a trade-off if you expect to continue to burn a lot of regular DVDs.

There is also HD-DVD, a competing high-definition video format, but thus far, HD-DVD recorders are not available for computers, only players. Recorders should be available soon, but they will be less capacious than Blu-ray, at 15 and 30GB for single and dual layers.

The Bottom Line

That's everything you need to know to make an informed DVD recorder buying decision! Start with the type of drive and speed you need, then narrow things down by interface and internal or external, and finally, look at the bells and whistles, like cache, connections for headphones and sound output, fan noise (if any), warranty, casing, and manufacturer reputation.

Don't let those precious memories get lost in the shuffle. Instead, learn how to organize your digital life so you can enjoy it now, share it easily with friends and family, and preserve it for future generations. The combination of Windows Vista and Easy Media Creator 9 gives you all the tools you need. Windows Vista provides the foundation, with powerful media tools like Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, and the Windows Media Center (included in Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate versions).

For example, you can import and edit photos and video with Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Movie Maker, then use Windows Media Center to view them on your TV. You can even record, watch and pause live TV. By adding tags, labels and comments to pictures and clips in Windows Photo Gallery, you can get your library organized and make it easy to find that special photo from last year's vacation trip or birthday party using the handy integrated Instant Search feature.

The Creator Difference

Easy Media Creator 9 takes Windows Vista's photo and video capabilities to a whole new level by providing advanced editing, conversion, organization and burning tools. Fully compatible with Windows Vista, Creator 9 is the perfect complement for preserving your digital memories.

Do More With Your Photos

With PhotoSuite, the full-fledged photo editor included in Creator 9, you can expand Windows Vista's photo-editing abilities with advanced tools like cloning, brushes, smart edge detection and masking. You can also create stunning panoramas and photo collages, and drag and drop Windows Photo Gallery pics directly to PhotoSuite's professional-quality templates to make calendars, cards, collages and other memorable gifts.

PhotoSuite includes more than 100 customizable special effects, like the tile pattern shown here.

Make Movies the Easy Way

Want professional-looking movies in a flash without having to learn anything about video editing? CineMagic is the answer. In just three simple guided steps, CineMagic takes your raw video clips and creates a Hollywood-style movie out of them, complete with special effects and a music track. If you like, you can also "direct" by telling CineMagic which particular scenes should be included or excluded, and choosing a style for your movie, such as "holidays" or "memories." It can even have title pages at the beginning and end. After you're done, you can save the video to disk, burn it to CD or DVD, or open it for further editing in VideoWave.

Use CineMagic to automatically create Hollywood-style movies with transitions, titles and soundtracks in just three easy steps -- no video editing knowledge necessary.

After you've gotten a taste of the possibilities with CineMagic, we bet you'll want to move up to VideoWave, Creator's powerful timeline editing application. VideoWave adds capabilities like a 32-track timeline, batch video conversion, automatic color correction and background noise removal, as well as hundreds of transitions and special effects. If you can imagine it, you can make it with VideoWave.

Make the best birthday videos ever, with VideoWave's powerful, yet easy, editing tools.

Burn and Go

Now that you've gotten your photos and videos the way you want them, it's time to share! Creator 9's disc burning and export features make it painless to take things with you wherever you go: on CD or DVD, or on your iPod®, PSP™, mobile phone or other portable player.

For example, Disc Copier lets you create compilation DVDs from DVD movies, DivX®, WMV, TiVo® or other video files, then convert them for playback on portable devices. It can even export the results directly to popular players!

Video Compilation DVDs are easy to make with Creator's Disc Copier, combining clips from all kinds of sources, including DiVx, TiVo and HD camcorder files.

To learn more about how Easy Media Creator 9 can enhance your Windows Vista Experience, click here:

http://www.roxio.com/vista

However, you've got a secret weapon in the war against the black magic marker: Toast 8 Titanium! Next time you make a party compilation disc, digital photo album, or DVD of your kid's birthday party, try making a printed jewel case cover. It's simple with the included Disc Cover RE label creator program. You can print three ways: to label templates from most major manufacturers, such as Avery and Neato; to printable discs with an appropriate printer; or even directly to disc using a LightScribe drive.

We recommend the latter two printing methods, since labels can sometimes get stuck in slot-loading drives like those in Macs and many cars. LightScribe is a new technology that etches labels right onto the reverse side of specially made discs, using the laser in your recorder. They have a cool holographic look, and come in several colors. Printers with direct CD/DVD print support are available from Canon, Epson and HP, among others, and LightScribe drives from companies like HP, Samsung, and Toshiba. For both LightScribe and direct disc printing, you'll need to buy special recordable media. Look for discs labeled "LightScribe" or "printable."

Using the Disc Cover Assistant

Getting started with Disc Cover is easy. Opening the program launches the Disc Cover Assistant, where you choose a disc type (music, photos, files&data, general or blank), and a design template, such as the acoustic design shown below. Templates include complete matching sets of disc labels, jewel case covers, tray inserts and spines, all sized to fit perfectly into standard plastic jewel boxes.

Choosing a disc template with Disc Cover RE.

Once you've selected your project type and template, you click Next, and import file, photo or music track names directly from sources like iTunes, iPhoto and Toast. You can also simply past your text in directly with the text tool, but if you use the import feature, the appropriate titles will be placed on all the jewel case parts for you automatically, like the CD Tray insert below.

Editing a jewel case tray insert in Disc Cover.

Adding Your Own Graphic Elements

At this point you can proceed directly to print your labels and covers (see next section), but if you want to customize elements or add additional text and graphics, Disc Cover offers complete flexibility. You can import your own photos (such as album artwork scans), use one of the hundreds of backgrounds and clip art elements included with the program, change font sizes, styles and colors, and much more. A handy Circle Text tool lets you wrap text around your disc label.

When you import a photograph, you can crop, resize and reposition it, and even add a host of special effects tools like gradients and distortions. Have fun being creative with your pics, just be sure to keep important parts away from the hole in the CD label! If you're making a photo CD, try choosing one of your pictures for cover art.

For audio CDs, try the Web: it's full of pictures of celebrities, singers, and bands, including CD cover art. Control-clicking on just about any image on the Web lets you save it to your hard drive, typically as a JPEG file which can go straight into Disc Cover. What's more, you can find lyrics to a large majority of popular songs on the Web, often at an artist's own Web site, which you can cut and paste into your project. Just be aware that these images and lyrics might be copyrighted, and should not be downloaded for anything other than personal use within the copyright laws.

You can add, edit and subtract as many graphic elements as you wish, using the templates as handy starting points. You position them by dragging and dropping, and send them to foreground or background layers as desired. If you can envision it, you can produce it with Disc Cover.

Printing Options

Once you've got your labels and cover art designed, it's time to print! Now that your project is finished, it's time to print! If you are lucky enough to have one of the new printers that can print directly onto CDs, that's the best choice. There are printable media in silver, white and other colors. Just look for the word "printable" in the media name. For laser-etched LightScribe labels, you'll need LightScribe media, and a compatible drive. For booklets and tray inserts, any color inkjet printer and photo paper will do, but for best results and to save cutting time, try the special labels made for the task (available at any office supply outlet). Disc Cover has templates for most popular brands, just click on the "Select Format" button to choose.

Disc Cover's Print dialog box reveals a wealth of options, including a huge selection of standard label templates from companies like Avery and Neato, as well as LightScribe and direct-to-disc printing.

To ensure exact page placement, do a test print on plain paper using the Calibrate Printer button at the bottom of the Print dialog. Once you've gotten the placement perfect for the first print, you can create future labels and covers over and over with the same template and positioning.

If you're using stick-on labels, be sure to position them precisely over the middle hole, and then squeeze any air bubbles out by pressing from the center outward. Blank silver CDs without any logo printing work best, printed lettering may show through your labels, or create unsightly ridges.

That's all there is to it. So next time you make a CD, there's no excuse for using magic markers! Your CD rack, your friends, and your customers deserve better. Making yourself look like an artist doesn't require any crown jewels, just well-designed ones.

Creator 9 works hand-in-hand with Windows Vista's powerful new media playback and sharing features, so that you can do more with your audio. For example, you can resurrect your old LP and tape collection with Creator's analog recording assistant. Even clean up hiss and pops with a click of the mouse. Then use Windows Vista's revamped Windows Media Player 11 to merge your newly digitized tunes with CD tracks and music store downloads into powerful playlists. Even better, WMP11 can find missing album artwork automatically.

With Windows Vista, you can share your music with other users on your network, store them on your Xbox 360, or use the Windows Media Center (included in Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate) to send them to your home stereo system.

Creator 9's LP and Tape Assistant turns scratchy old vinyl into shiny new CDs and DVDs in just 3 steps.

You won't even have to type in titles for most LP tracks, thanks to Creator 9's audio fingerprinting system, which looks up real song names automatically, even for single tracks. This feature is perfect for identifying tunes on all those unlabeled mix CDs you have lying around.

And did we mention you can also use Creator's new Desktop Capture Widget to record any audio playing on your PC? Now you can capture your favorite Internet radio streams for download to your portable player, or record narration for your photo slideshow and video projects. And you can also mute system sounds to capture only what you need, so that you don't hear "You’ve Got Mail" in the middle of your captured audio, or your buddies IM'ing you.

Creator 9's Desktop Capture Widget records audio on the fly as it plays on your computer -- from any source.

Do More With Your Music

Now that you've gotten a handle on your music collection -- getting it all in one place, with proper labeling and artwork -- it's time to put it to work and enjoy it! We've already mentioned Windows Vista's sharing and Media Center features, but one of the coolest new features in WMP11 is Multi-PC Sync. Now you can sync your portable player to music libraries on more than one PC, such as home and work, or desktop and portable. No longer do you have to limit yourself to one or the other.

With Creator 9, you can go even further, using the AutoMix feature to generate custom playlists for every mood, based on a source song of your choice. Quickly create fun party mixes or energetic workout soundtracks, then sync them to your portable player along with your tunes.

Creator 9 also lets you make DVD Music Discs. These specially-designed discs are playable on any standard home or car DVD player, yet hold up to 50 hours of top-quality Dolby Digital music. With Creator, you can add professionally designed on-screen TV menus for easy navigation to a particular song, artist or album, and you can even set the album artwork as the background image for menus that will be displayed on your TV while the DVD is playing.

And don't miss Creator 9's fun Ringtone Maker. Save big by making your own ringtones from your favorite tunes, then downloading them to your mobile phone. Never pay another ringtone fee!

To learn more about how Easy Media Creator 9 can enhance your Windows Vista Experience, click here.

http://www.roxio.com/enu/promotions/landing/vista/learnmore.html

Here are a few of the high-end audio features you'll find in Toast 8, some taken from Jam, and some entirely new!

Noise Reduction & Sound Enhancing.
With the new CD Spin Doctor 4 you can apply sound-enhancing and noise-reduction filters to your audio tracks, including de-click and de-hiss processors that clean up files recorded from LPs and tapes. There's also a 10-band equalizer. Just open a track, then click the Filters icon at top right. You can apply them to a single track, or all tracks in your Track List.

Volume Normalization. This hugely valuable feature equalizes volume levels across multiple tracks automatically within Toast, so that finished CDs play at a standard level.

Here's how to do it: Start an Audio CD project in Toast and add your tracks. Then select the tracks you want to normalize from the track list. You can choose some or all of them. Then choose "Normalize Track" from the Disc menu. Wait for the process to finish, and burn your disc!

DJ-Style Crossfades. Get pro-quality control over fades between tracks in every Toast Audio CD project. Choose from handy presets like linear, slow or fast, or apply your own custom fade curves.

The Custom Crossfade window lets you simply drag the curves for each track to the desired level. You can apply it to just one fade, or an entire disc. To test your crossfades, choose Preview from the Disc menu.

Audio Unit Processing.Take full advantage of Mac OS X's Core Audio plug-in technology with Toast's new support for Audio Unit filters. Apply up to three filters to any track in your Audio CD project right from the Toast window. Just click the AU icon to the right of the track name to choose and configure filters. Basic options Matrix Reverb, Pitch, 31-band graphic EQ, Parametric EQ, Delay, High & Low Pass, High & Low Shelf, Peak Limiter, Dynamic Processor, BandPass, and a mulltiband compressor. More AU filters are available from a variety of third-party sources. Toast can use any that you have installed in your system.

Track Trimming. You can easily trim unwanted material from the beginning or end of audio tracks within CD Spin Doctor just by moving a slider. Position your cursor at the beginning or end of a track, and the cursor will become a double-sided arrow. Click and drag the sliding arrow left or right to adjust your track. The snipped bits will appear as new tracks in the Track List below, which you can delete or make inactive. Then export your trimmed track.

Pro-quality Red Book Mastering Tools. Want to send your audio CD to a mastering house? Now you can produce an image with pro-level features like disc-level product codes and offsets, track-level copy prohibition, digital preemphasis and ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) numbers.

To access these tools, turn on "Show Advanced Audio Mastering Settings" in Toast's Audio & Video Preferences, then click the Info button at the bottom of the Toast Audio CD project window. You'll see tabs for both Disc and Track settings.

Not sure when or how to use these? See our Pro Mastering support page for the full scoop.

Once you’ve prepared your perfect mix, it’s no surprise that Creator lets you burn it to CD or DVD. But did you know you can also use Creator to export tracks directly to your portable player, such as an iPod or PSP? You can even convert them to your preferred portable audio format before sending. Creator can export to any Windows Media Device Manager-compliant player, or any device that appears as a drive letter on your computer.

Here’s how: After organizing your mix in Music Disc Creator, select the tracks you want to send to your player. Right-click, and choose "Send to Portable Device." (Make sure your player is attached to your computer. For iPods, iTunes must be installed.) Check the box labeled "Convert to preferred audio format before sending" if desired. Select the format from the drop-down list. Then click Send. That’s all there is to it!

By turning all these items into a slideshow that plays back on any TV with an ordinary DVD player, you can share your treasure trove with the rest of the family. Even the grandparents can enjoy them, no computer experience necessary. They are also easy to copy and mail, even overseas (have any family among the troops?).

Making a photo show on Video CD or DVD has many advantages over traditional prints, or even emailed photos:

• You can store literally hundreds of photos on a disc, far more than you could print or email to each recipient;
• You can include the full-resolution original photos on your disc along with your slideshow, so that recipients can print the ones they want for themselves;
• You can add music and Hollywood-style effects and transitions to create an entertaining presentation;
• You can organize your pictures into multiple shows on one disc, using standard DVD-type menu navigation.
• The Video CD option also has the advantage of being playable on standard DVD players, while not requiring a DVD recorder or DVD media. You can burn a VideoCD with your regular CD burner.

All this for a little time and spare change per disc when you own Easy Media Creator 9! Here's how to get started.

Slide Show Options

Creator 9 actually offers three ways to produce great photo slide shows: with the Media Manager's QuickShow feature, with the SlideShow Assistant, and with the CineMagic Assistant. Each has its place. If you only have still photos to share, and don't need a lot of audio and effects features, QuickShow is the fastest way to go -- you simply select the pictures you want to display in the Media Manager, click the QuickShow button, and then save the resulting slide show from the QuickShow options bar (below). Settings are available for adding an audio soundtrack, setting slide duration, and adding global transitions and motion effects.

You can also open your QuickShow in VideoWave for further editing or combining with video clips. Finally, you can bring your QuickShow into MyDVD Express, to save as a DVD. Multiple QuickShows can also be imported into MyDVD as different menu items.

If you want even more control over your slideshows, try the SlideShow Assistant, which is accessible from the Media Manager, the Roxio Home screen, or the Windows Program menu:

Three Steps to Custom Slideshows

Here's how to use Creator's SlideShow Assistant to create rich slide shows, in three quick steps.

First, pick the photos you'd like to use in your show. You can select them in the Media Manager, then choose SlideShow Assistant from the Projects menu, or open the Assistant directly and add your photos on the first screen:

If you'd like an audio soundtrack, this is the place to add it. Also use this view to arrange your photos in the order you'd like them to appear. Finally, if you want your DVD to be in widescreen format, select it from the drop-down menu. Then click the Next button to move to Step 2.

In this step, you customize the transitions and motion effects that will be applied to your slides. You can apply effects individually, or across all slides in your show. The Preview button at bottom left lets you view, in real time, how things will look in your finished production. Have fun tweaking things, or simply choose a theme, such as "Kids Birthday," and let the SlideShow Assistant do the work for you.

When you're satisfied with your show, click Next to go to the final step (or go Back to add more photos or audio tracks).

In Step 3, you then save the project for further use in the future and/or burn it to disc. When you select Burn to Disc, the MyDVD Express window will then open, with your slideshow already placed as the first menu item. You can then edit the DVD background image, edit the name of your Disc, and edit the menu title. You can even create and add more slideshows if you like, up to the capacity of the disc:

That's really all there is to it. Click the Create Disc button and your DVD will be burned. But here's one more tip: Before you burn, click the Project Settings button at right, and check the box to Archive Photos. This will put copies of the original photos on the DVD along with your slideshow. These photos can be copied off the disc or printed, when the DVD is inserted in a computer.

Now be sure to make lots of copies to give to all your friends and family! Also save your DVD project so you can edit or add to it later.

The answer to these problems is as close as your very own PC. With SnapStream Beyond TV and Easy Media Creator 9, you can not only record shows directly to computer hard disks (for virtually unlimited space), but you can easily archive them to DVD or Video CD with just a couple more clicks. And best of all, there's no big hardware investment or monthly fee. What's more, you can take your shows on the road to watch on your laptop! Plus create a personal library of your favorite recordings for the cost of blank discs.

Storing digital recordings on DVD or Video CD has many advantages over VHS recordings:

• You can easily edit out commercials and other parts of recordings you don't want
• DVDs last between 20 and 100 years and don't degrade with viewing like VHS tapes
• You don't have to fast-forward through other recordings to get to the one you want to see
• Video CDs don't even require a DVD recorder, but can be played back on most standard DVD players.

Beyond TV makes the whole process easy. All you have to do is install a compatible TV tuner card (the Beyond TV selection wizard makes it easy to pick the right one for your system)plus Beyond TV, then schedule recordings and select them in Creator to burn them to DVD or Video CD. Here's how to do it:

1. Install a TV Tuner card and Beyond TV software

• For a simple guide to how Beyond TV works, whether you have cable, digital cable or satellite, see the Beyond TV “How it works” page
• Do you already have a TV tuner card?
• Yes: Make sure your TV tuner card is supported and then download the 21-day Beyond TV trial.
• No: Use the Beyond TV selection wizard to find the right TV tuner/capture card for your computer. Install the card, and then install Beyond TV.
• We highly recommend choosing a TV tuner with hardware encoding, since this type of TV tuner captures high-quality recordings while leaving your computer's processor free for other applications. This is a huge advantage over the software-based video encoding found in many video capture cards and utilities.

2. Set Recording Quality to a DVD-ready Format
Beyond TV gives you the option to record in DVD-ready format so Creator doesn’t have to spend time reformatting shows before recording to DVD. This saves huge amounts of time over making DVDs from regular video sources. Here's how:
First, select “Settings” from the Beyond TV main screen

Next, select Recording Quality. Beyond TV has two DVD-ready formats: “Best (DVD-Ready)” (720x480 and 7Mbps) and “Good (DVD-Ready)” (352x480 and 4Mbps).  “Best” gives the best results for burning TV shows to DVD, while “Good” is the right choice for Video CD creation.Confirm that “Preferred Recording Format” is set to MPEG-2

3. Make a Recording in Beyond TV

Recording in Beyond TV is simple:

First, find your show in the program guide or use the "search by title" option.

With one click, record one, all (including repeats), or all new episodes of your favorite show. You can also prioritize recordings so that if two recordings are scheduled to happen at the same time, your top pick will be recorded.

4. Burn to DVD or Video CD           

Now that you have your DVD-ready recordings, it's time to bring them into Easy Media Creator! If you like you can edit them with VideoWave first, to mix them up with other tracks, or add titles, tranitions, special effects and so on.

Finally, record your finished tracks to DVD or Video CD simply by dragging Beyond TV recordings into Creator's DVD project window. By default, your recording files are located in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\SnapStream\BeyondTV\shows. You can also open this folder from the Start Menu by choosing Start à All Programs à SnapStream Media à Beyond TV à Recorded Shows. That's it!

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