Using iMovie® and Roxio Toast 11 you can also edit your recordings, add titles and transitions, and create projects combining analog footage with that from digital camcorders.

You can 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.

You can also capture non-tape sources like the output from a TV set or game console (a great way to capture game play!). 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 or game console (when viewing standard-definition video)

The USB capture device 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 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 11 Titanium.)

Here's how to get started:

Step 1: Capture Video to Your Mac

After you've installed the software and plugged the USB device into your Mac, open the capture application. You'll see the following screen:

The video capture 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.

Next, 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:

Mac video capture output options.

You can burn your recording to DVD with Roxio Toast, send it to iMovie for editing, or save it in iTunes® MPEG4 video format for your iPad or iPhone. You can also go back and capture more videos. MPEG4 video output will be saved to your Movies folder, and can be dropped right into iTunes for playback on your iPad, iPhone or Apple TV®.

For YouTube and Facebook, it's even easier -- the capture files saved to your Movies folder can be uploaded directly, no additional conversion necessary. Just sign into your account in your Web browser and click the Upload button (YouTube), or the Add Photo/Video button (Facebook). Then select the desired capture files.

We'll go ahead and burn our recording to DVD with Roxio Toast 11.

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, Roxio Toast will open with the DVD project type selected and your video already in the project window, as below.

Burning to DVD with Toast (click to enlarge).

At right, you'll see options for personalizing your DVD, such as Menu Styles and whether your disc will start to play automatically on insertion. Click the Customize 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.

With Roxio Creator 2012 and the Roxio Video Capture USB device, you can burn them to DVD, convert them for playback on your portable player or streaming to your TV, even upload them to YouTube™, Facebook® and more. You can also edit your recordings, add titles and transitions, and create projects combining analog footage with that from digital camcorders.

Using Roxio Creator and the capture device, you can 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 plug in the USB stick, open Roxio Creator, and you're ready to start transferring your video.

You can convert more than just tapes. Here are some common analog video sources you can capture:

• 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)

Roxio Creator and the USB capture device are 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. Just connect the output of the DVR to the USB capture device. (If you have a networked TiVo, see our tutorial on converting TiVo shows with Roxio Creator.)

Here's how to get started:

Step 1: Capture Video to Your PC

After you've plugged in the USB device, connect your source to the USB stick using a composite or S-video cable. Now open Roxio Creator 2012 and click on the Video-Movies tab. To transfer tapes to DVD, 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.

If you want to do more with your recordings, such as edit them, upload them to YouTube, or convert them for playback on your iPhone®, iPad® or Android™ device, 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.

To use Plug & Burn, 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. Finally, click "Finish" to complete the burn. That's all there is to it!

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

If you want to capture video to your hard disk for further editing or conversion, you can choose either MPEG-2 (for DVD transfer) or other digital formats, such as MP4 or AVI. 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 tab 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). If you don't see a picture, be sure the correct input is chosen in the menu (either Composite or S-video). Next, choose a video format for your recording (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 Video-Movies tab, 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 your tapes to DVD only scratches the surface of what you can do with your digitized video. 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 Roxio Creator 2012.
• Convert them for viewing on your iPhone, iPad, Android device, PSP®, or other portable player
• Post them to YouTube or Facebook
• Share them online on your own secure Web page with Roxio PhotoShow®.

Finally, Roxio Creator 2012 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!

Using iMovie and Toast (Toast Basic is included in the package if you don't already have the full version) you can also edit your recordings, add titles and transitions, and create projects combining analog footage with that from digital camcorders.

Roxio 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.

You can also capture non-tape sources like the output from a TV set or game console (a great way to capture game play!). 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 or game console (when viewing standard-definition video)

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 11 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 the Easy VHS to DVD application. 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 iTunes MPEG4 video format for your iPad or iPhone. You can also go back and capture more videos. MPEG4 video output will be saved to the Easy VHS to DVD folder (inside your Movies folder), and can be dropped right into iTunes for playback on your iPad, iPhone or Apple TV.

For YouTube and Facebook, 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 (YouTube), or the Add Photo/Video button (Facebook). Then select the desired capture files in the 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.

Roxio Creator 2012 Pro adds more than $400 worth of extras, including the new HDR Express™ for ultra-realistic photos, the iZotope Music & Speech Cleaner™, and 100 pro-quality music background tracks for your videos.

Check out the complete list of what's new on the Roxio Creator 2012 and Roxio Creator 2012 Pro pages, respectively. Here, we've rounded up tutorials on the top ten features so you can get off to a quick start on your Roxio Creator 2012 adventure.

1. Rejuvenate Your Portraits

With FaceFilter Studio, part of the Roxio Creator 2012 suite, you can transform, rejuvenate, and revitalize your portraits. Turn frowns into smiles with the expression editor, vanish wrinkles with the skin filter, create fake tans, erase skin blemishes with the smoothing brush and much more. Fix that group photo so that everyone is smiling and looking their best, or touch up a family portrait.

See how FaceFilter works its magic in our video tutorial.

FaceFilter Studio can change frowns into smiles, and much more (click image to enlarge).

2. Create Hollywood-Style Video Effects

Want to liven up your videos with professional-looking special effects? It's easy with Roxio Creator! Use our special "Nature" Video Effects pack to create fog and smoke, or add falling rain and snow to your videos. Roxio Creator Pro has even more cool effects, such as Aged Film, Newsprint, Fireworks, Fairy Dust and more.

Learn how to make your movies come alive in our video tutorial.

Apply pro-quality effects like Aged Film to your videos with Roxio Creator 2012 (click image to enlarge).

3. Convert Video for Any Device

Roxio Creator 2012 now has dozens of presets that take the guesswork out of converting video for your smartphone, tablet, game console, Blu-ray player or other device. There's no need to understand confusing video formats. Just choose your device from our huge array (such as Android™ Phone, iPad® or Xbox 360) and click the convert button. Creator does the rest!

Learn how to convert videos for your device in our online tutorial.

Roxio Creator 2012 now has dozens of presets for video conversion (click image to enlarge).

4. Upload Videos Direct to Facebook and YouTube

Roxio Creator 2012 now makes it even easier to upload videos to Facebook and YouTube. Just choose the "Share Video" option from the Video and Movies tab on the Creator home screen, and select the Facebook or YouTube option. Roxio Creator does the rest, including saving your login information, and prompting for any needed information about your videos.

Roxio Creator 2012 takes the pain out of online video sharing (click image to enlarge).

5. Convert Videos with DivX® Pro

Roxio Creator 2012 now includes DivX Pro, a complete package of utilities that allows you to create and play high-quality DivX movies. In addition to playback on any PC or Mac, you can play your movies on millions of DivX devices such as the PlayStation® 3, DVD players, mobile phones and more.

To convert movies with DivX Pro, simply open the Converter, add the videos you want to convert, select an output profile (up to full 1080p HD resolution!) and click the Start button. To learn more about the capabilities of the Converter, including a list of supported video formats, visit the overview page.

Convert your movies into high-quality DivX videos in three easy steps (click image to enlarge).

6. Take DivX To Go

With DivX To Go, you can transfer videos for viewing on other DivX devices. For example, you can burn a DivX disc for your Blu-ray player, or save DivX files to a USB flash drive.

See how easy it is to use DivX To Go in our video tutorial.

DivX To Go lets you transfer videos to your DivX players (click image to enlarge).

7. Speed Up Media Performance

Roxio Creator 2012 now takes advantage of Intel's latest generation "Sandy Bridge" processors to greatly speed up encoding and media performance. If you have a late-model computer, Roxio Creator 2012 will save you a lot of time!

Enjoy faster encoding and performance with Sandy Bridge processors and Roxio Creator 2012 (click image to enlarge).

8. Jazz Up Your Videos with Background Music

Roxio Creator 2012 now includes a huge array of carefully selected pro-quality background music for your slideshow and video projects. There are 50 tracks in Creator and 100 in Creator Pro, all arranged in convenient categories like "Animals & Pets," and "Babies, Children & Family." There's a track for every theme!

Roxio Creator 2012 includes a collection of background music tracks from Triple Scoop Music (click image to enlarge).

9. Create Stunning HDR Photos

With HDR Express™ (in Roxio Creator 2012 Pro only), vibrant, true and beautiful colors are at your fingertips. Automatically merge multiple exposures into one HDR (high dynamic range) image with easy controls and presets to create realistic or stylized HDR photos.

If you haven't tried HDR photography yet, you will be astonished at the results! Check out this YouTube video for examples, as well as the PDF tutorial.

With HDR Express (part of Roxio Creator 2012 Pro) you can create photos that emulate the full range of human vision (click image to enlarge).

10. Cut the Noise with iZotope Music & Speech Cleaner

Clean up your audio recordings and experience increased impact and clarity by removing unwanted noise and enhancing voices or music. The iZotope Music & Speech Cleaner™ (included in Roxio Creator 2012 Pro only) gives you all the tools of a complete audio cleanup suite with straightforward accessibility.

Based on the same advanced noise reduction technology the experts use, the program provides professional-quality results on most common audio file types. See how it works in this YouTube tutorial.

The iZotope Music & Speech Cleaner (part of Roxio Creator 2012 Pro) guides you through the process (click image to enlarge).

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 from the media selector at right.

Dragging a Video_TS folder to the Toast project pane (click to enlarge).

2. Mark Clips to Extract

After you drag the video to the project pane, a window will open up showing the video with a timeline at the bottom.

The Toast clip selection window (click to enlarge).

3. Select Your Clips

The clip selection window 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 the first clip you want to extract, then click the + button in the bottom left corner to add it to the list. Drag the markers again to select a second segment and click + again. Double-click the clip names to edit the titles if desired.

Selecting DVD clips in the Toast Video Editor (click to enlarge).

Keep adding clips in this manner until you are done, then click the Add button to extract them. The clips will now appear in the project window, where you can burn them to disc or export them in a myriad of formats for use in video projects or playback on your mobile device.

4. Convert & Export Your Clips

Now that you've extracted your 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 (click to enlarge).

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 iPad, iPhone or Apple TV, upload them to Facebook, or use them in your other video projects, including iMovies.

5. Extract & Convert Audio Clips Too!

To extract audio clips from a DVD, the process is exactly the same, except you choose the Audio Files project type at the very beginning. Then drag your DVD or Video_TS folder to the project pane, and the same clip selection window as for video will pop up. Follow step 3, then click the Add button to add your audio clips to the project pane.

Here you can add track information and apply audio effects if desired. Finally, click the Convert button to burn or output your audio files.

Audio output conversion options (click to enlarge).

Now enjoy your audio clips on your iPod, upload them to the Web, or use them as slideshow soundtracks!

Toast 11 makes it easy to get great results with its 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 11 can automatically capture from your Web browser!). This article shows you how, step by step.

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 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 properly. Many home receivers and amplifiers have a special input for connecting the turntable. You then connect 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 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 Spin Doctor and select a recording source -- most likely the Built-in Input if you are recording from the Line-in, or a USB input. 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 by click the speaker icon at right.

Choosing your input source (click to enlarge).

Next, adjust the 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 meters in the recording window as you are playing the loudest passage in your source. Adjust the level slider so that the bars stay just just below the red region (where clipping occurs) even in the loudest areas. 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 in this case, 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.)

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, choose the recording quality from the drop-down menu at the bottom of the window, such as CD, DVD, or DVD High Quality. Choose as appropriate depending on what type of disc you want to make, and click Next.

Making the recording (click to enlarge).

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. CD audio is uncompressed, and runs about 10MB per minute (or 600MB per hour). Spin Doctor cleverly tells you exactly how much recording time remains. Click the Pause button if you need to pause the recording, and click the Done button when you are completely finished.

Step 4: Identify Tracks and Clean Things Up

Once you've made your recording, it will appear as a single waveform in Spin Doctor, 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 button 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 Spin Doctor Preferences dialog. You can also set Spin Doctor to automatically define tracks after every recording.

The Spin Doctor recording before defining tracks (click to enlarge).

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 lower right lets you view and edit track data such as artist names and song titles.

After defining and identifying tracks (click to enlarge).

Finally, click the Filters button at lower 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 (click to enlarge).

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

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 clicking on the 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 at lower left. 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.

Note that by selecting only the regions with sound when you define tracks, you eliminate any silence at the beginning as well as 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.

Sending tracks to Toast (click to enlarge).

When combining tracks from multiple sources, try the Normalize Track function found in the Toast 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 11 Titanium includes Disc Cover 3 RE, which makes it easy to create perfect labels and covers.

While Creator has had direct YouTube upload for a while, we've added Facebook uploads by popular demand. To upload, simply click the Share button on the Video/Movies tab in the Roxio Home screen, then choose either Facebook or YouTube as well as the video you want to share. You'll be prompted for information about the video, then it will be automatically uploaded to your account. You can save your Facebook and YouTube account information within the program, so you only need to enter it once.

Creator 2011 now lets you send videos directly to Facebook, in addition to YouTube (click image to enlarge).

Capture Audio from the Web — or Any Mac App

With Toast 11's updated Spin Doctor utility, you can now capture audio from any running application, including streaming audio from Web browsers, separate from the audio from other apps or the System. No more system beeps ruining your captures!

To get started, open Spin Doctor and choose Applications>Currently Running from the source options at left. Then click on the app you want to capture from, in this case, Safari:

Toast 11's revamped Spin Doctor utility now lets you capture the audio from any running app, such as Safari (click image to enlarge).

Click Next to go to the recording window. Here you can adjust the recording level (especially important for live microphone recordings and analog inputs), and choose recording quality options. We've chosen CD quality output.

Spin Doctor recording options.

Now it's time to capture. Click Next and press the red Record button when you want to start recording. (Tip: start recording just before you press play on a streaming Web audio track. That way you won't miss anything. You can trim off any excess bits in Spin Doctor later.) You can Pause the recording and restart at any time with the red button as well. When you're finished recording a track, click the Stop button. You can then record more tracks, or click Done.

Spin Doctor in the process of recording. You can pause and restart recording with the red Record button before finally pressing the Stop button to finish your track (click image to enlarge).

After clicking Done, your recorded track(s) will open in the Spin Doctor editing window, where you can define the beginnings and ends of tracks by sliding the green markers at either side, as well as apply audio effects and edit track information.

The Spin Doctor editing window, where we've adjusted the green start/end markers for our track, and entered Artist and Album information (click image to enlarge).

When you're finished editing, you can save your track(s) to disk from the File menu, or send them directly to iTunes or Toast using the buttons at upper right. When exporting to iTunes, you can choose your encoding format, such as AAC, Apple Lossless, or MP3. In Toast, you can burn your tracks to CD or Music DVD.

Next time you hear something great on the Web or any Mac app, fire up Spin Doctor and record it!

Exporting from Spin Doctor to iTunes in Lossless format.

Capture Web Video

Ever wish you could save YouTube or other Flash-based streaming Web video to your hard disk so you can play it offline? Or wanted to tranfer YouTube clips to your iPhone, iPad, Android device or other portable player? Now you can, with Roxio Toast 11's Web video capture feature.

There are just a few simple steps: To start, open Toast, click the Convert tab, and choose the Video Files project type. Next, open the Media Browser by clicking on the Media tab at top right, or selecting it from the Window menu. Finally, click the Video tab in the Media Browser and then "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 permanently, so be sure to convert them before you quit Toast). 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 iPad.

Sending captured video to iTunes (click to enlarge).

Now you can preserve and enjoy your favorite Web videos anywhere, no Internet connection required!

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 converting 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 iPhone, iPad or Android device, 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 iPhone, iPad, Android device, 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!

Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 is now part of the Toast 11 Pro media suite. Here are five incredible features that you'll be able to use right away to improve and share your photos.

 ♦ Use PhotoMerge to create perfect group shots and panoramas;
 ♦ Fix most photo flaws with the Spot Healing Brush;
 ♦ Use Guided Edits to create hot special effects like LOMO styles;
 ♦ Share albums online, complete with music and effects;
 ♦ Make amazing printed photo books, calendars and cards.

Read on for tutorials on each of these features.

Create Perfect Panoramas & Group Shots

Photoshop Elements 9's enhanced Photomerge technology let you combine the best parts of multiple photos to make the perfect panorama or group shot. Photomerge Panoramas's enhanced blending capabilities fill in those jagged edges as it automatically stitches together multiple horizontal or vertical photos. Photomerge Group Shot lets you create group shots where everyone looks their best. You can also match photo styles between pictures, clean up scenes, and more.

To make a panorama, choose File>New>Photomerge Panorama. You'll be prompted to choose a set of photos, your desired perspective, and whether you want the edges of your panorama automatically filled in for you. The autofill is a fantastic feature that means you don't have to crop your panorama to get rid of the uneven edges that result when photos are stitched together. Then the program goes to work creating your panorama...that's really all there is to it. You can then edit the finished panorama if you like, removing unwanted elements with the Spot Healing Brush (more in the next section), fixing red-eye, and so on.

Using Photomerge Panorama to stitch a perfect landscape (click to enlarge).

Learn more in this video tutorial.

Fix Photo Flaws

The Content-Aware Spot Healing Brush is another amazingly powerful tool that can make unwanted elements of your photos disappear as if they'd never existed! Wipe out telephone wires from your sky shots, or random strangers from your vacation photos. You can also use it to quickly fix scratches and tears so you can make new prints of old photos. Just select the Spot Healing Brush, then "paint" the spots that need fixing. They will magically be filled with appropriate content from the surrounding area.

Scratches on an old photo vanish with a few swipes of the Spot Healing Brush (click to enlarge).

See the Content-Aware Spot Healing Brush in action in this video tutorial.

Easy Special Effects

Want to create a reflection effect? Or a lomography-style photo? Touch up a photo portrait? Photoshop Elements makes it easy to apply pro-style special effects with Guided Edits that tell you exactly what to do, step-by-step, and even applies tools for you.

To choose an effect, click the Fix tab at upper right, then click the Guided subtab. You'll see a long list of edits and special effects, from touching up skin tones to creating old-fashioned looking photos. Below is the Reflection effect.

Using Guided Edit to apply a reflection effect, step-by-step (click to enlarge).

See how Guided Edits make special effects fun and easy in this video tutorial.

Share Albums Online

Want to share photos quickly in an online album for your friends and family to view, download and print? Photoshop Elements' Organizer makes it simple. Just select the photos you want to share, then choose Share>Online Album to open the Online Album Wizard.

You'll be guided through choosing an album name and slideshow theme, as well as email addresses to send a link to the album. Finally, click the Share button at the bottom, and you're done. In addition to Photoshop.com, you can share directly to Flickr, Facebook and SmugMug. You can even send photos to a CEIVA photo frame!

Creating and sharing an online photo album (click to enlarge).

In the example above, we entered an email address under the Sharing tab, which sends an invitation to view the finished album. Below is the album page on the Web. Clicking the Slideshow button at upper right starts a slideshow using the scrapbook-style template we picked earlier. Viewers can also download and print photos from the albums if you checked off the appropriate boxes under the Sharing tab above.

The finished online album at Photoshop.com (click to enlarge).

Make Amazing Photo Print Projects

Online and email sharing is great, but sometimes only a print will do. Whether you want a greeting card, calendar, collage, or photo book, Photoshop Elements's powerful print projects features can produce it. You can even produce CD and DVD labels and inserts.

To get started, select the pictures you want to print, then click the Create tab at upper right, then select the type of project you want to print. Below, we've selected Greeting Card, which brings up a wide selection of templates to choose from.

Creating a greeting card in Photoshop Elements (click to enlarge).

Learn more about creating greeting cards in Photoshop Elements in this video tutorial.

These special AVCHD discs can then be played back on your Sony Playstation® PS3 or most set-top Blu-ray players, for viewing on your HDTV's big screen. Of course, if you do own a Blu-ray recorder, Toast 11 can burn to Blu-ray Discs as well.

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. And now that HD camcorders and DVRs are plentiful and affordable, more people are recording their home movies and TV shows in high-def. Even the iPhone 4 can record 720p HD video (1280-by-720 pixels).

So how do you get your home HD recordings onto your TV screen? External Blu-ray recorders for Macs have become affordable, but even if you don't want to buy one, the answer is as close as Toast and your DVD burner.

You can fit up to an hour of HD video on a dual-layer DVD, which is plenty for most home video productions. With a Blu-ray recorder, you can also burn hours of video onto BD media. Even better, Toast lets you crop and trim your HD video, so you can edit out segments you don't want and conserve disc space and processing time. The same thing goes for HD recordings you make using Elgato's EyeTV, so you can burn your favorite HD shows onto DVDs 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 11 (make sure you have the High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in installed) and select the High-Definition DVD-Video or Blu-ray Video project option under the Video tab (you can also choose these options from the Toast Assistant under the Video projects tab). Now bring in your HD video clips. Click the Media Browser tab at right, and select clips already on your hard drive, or use the AVCHD option to import movies directly from your attached AVCHD camcorder (which should be in computer connection mode). You can even choose TV recordings from your EyeTV or TiVo folders.

Choosing the High Definition DVD-Video project in Toast 11, with the Media Browser at right (click to enlarge).

While Toast does not import directly from HDV camcorders, which use MPEG-2 video encoding, 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:

Video clips in the Toast Project window. The first and third clips are from two different AVCHD camcorders (note the different resolutions), the second clip is from an HDV camcorder. Toast can burn these all to one disc seamlessly (click to enlarge).

Each clip is labeled with valuable information, including the date recorded, the length, and the encoding format (such as H.264/AVC 1920x1080, 1440x1080 or 1280x720 for AVCHD clips, and MPEG-2 1440x1080 for HDV camcorder clips).

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 window pop up:

Editing a video clip in the Toast 11 Project window (click to enlarge).

Here, you can do several things. You can change the default name and date of your clip, set the thumbnail picture, add chapter markers to longer videos, apply audio effects, and crop and trim your video. The clip name and thumbnail picture will appear in the navigation menu shown when you pop the disc into your set-top Blu-ray player.

To trim the beginning and end of your clip, look at the slider below the video and drag the two trim markers at either end to their desired positions. (You can also enter specific start and end times in the boxes below the video.) If you'd like to crop out a portion from the middle of the clip, move the play head at the top to the beginning of the area you crop, then click the little upward triangle just to the right of the Play button. This will insert a new pair of trim markers that you can drag to define the area you want to crop out. When finished, click OK. Editing is nondestructive; your original video will be unaffected.

Finishing Your Disc

Now that you've imported all your clips, trimmed 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 disc menu--just drag them up or down to change the order. Next, click the Options tab at top right to bring up the disc options. You can select a menu style, choose the encoding quality, decide whether you want the disc to start playing video automatically on insertion, and include any original photos, among other options. Click the Customize button for even more settings.

Setting disc recording options (click to enlarge).

Now you're all done, except for burning! The bar at bottom left 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.

Choosing the DVD or BD disc type (click to enlarge).

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!

Easy LP to MP3 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 — perfect for Mother's or Father's Day, holiday reunions, anniversaries and birthdays — even combine them with tracks from digital sources like CDs or Internet radio.

For records that were never issued as CDs, or family audiotapes, transferring these analog sources to digital will help you preserve and enjoy them. And Easy LP to MP3 makes it simple. Here's how:

Step 1: Use a Clean Source

When digitizing analog audio make sure you get the best signal into the computer before recording. While Easy LP to MP3 has a noise cleanup tool, this should be viewed as a secondary cleaning. Wipe your LPs first 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, if you are digitizing tapes, make sure your tape deck heads are clean, and that you engage the same noise-reduction technology (Dolby B or C, etc) used when the tape was recorded, for proper decoding.

Step 2: Connect Things Up

The Easy LP to MP3 package includes a USB recording device and all the cables you need to connect most analog audio sources. First use the provided USB cable to connect the device to your computer. Now plug one end of the provided dual-headed RCA cable into the audio input jacks on the USB capture device. Be sure to connect the red plug into the red jack and the white plug into the white jack, to maintain the correct stereo signal. Red is right, and white is left.

Connecting your analog audio source to your USB capture device and computer.

Step 3: Choose Recording Input and Adjust Levels

Now you're ready to start recording! Open Easy LP to MP3 and choose the Audio>Convert LPs and Tapes task. This will open the LP & Tape Assistant, and you'll see a Recording window with options for selecting your audio input and adjusting the recording level. Choose "Line (USB Multimedia Audio Device)" to select the capture device. If you're using Windows XP, also select "Line" from the Input dropdown menu. Then click the "Recording Setup Guide" button for detailed instructions on setting recording levels.

Starting the LP & Tape Assistant from the Roxio Easy LP to MP3 main window (click to enlarge).

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 may also want to adjust the volume on your tape deck or amp. To minimize distortion from headphone jacks, it's best to use a midpoint volume level on the source, then adjust the level further using the level slider in Easy LP to MP3. You can also use the "Auto" button to have the program automatically analyze your source and set the correct recording level.

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

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 begin 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. 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 of the track separator, 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 (click to enlarge).

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 (click to enlarge).

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. The Edit Audio Tags window will then open, where you can identify your tracks automatically with MusicID.

Identifying your tracks and editing audio tags (click to enlarge).

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 (click to enlarge).

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 record a CD, select the tracks you'd like to include by ticking the checkboxes, then click the Burn Audio CD button. If desired, also 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).

Export options for your recording (click to enlarge).

If you'd like to output your recordings to files, such as MP3, WMA, FLAC or OGG files for use in your iPod or other portable audio player, select your tracks, then click the Export Tracks button. You'll be prompted to choose your output format and destination. Finally, you can also choose to send the tracks to the Sound Editor for further tweaking before burning or conversion.

So dust off those albums and start recording! Don't forget to transfer that beautiful cover art to your new CDs as well, with the included Express Labeler software. Find it in the Tools area of the Easy LP to MP3 home screen.

• Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 9 the most popular app for photo editing, enhancement and sharing;
• Boinx FotoMagico™ 3 RE for creating spellbinding photo and video stories in high definition;
• BIAS SoundSoap™ 2 SE with new Toast plug-in for audio noise reduction and enhancement;
• SmartSound Sonicfire™ Pro 5 for movie soundtrack creation; and the
• Toast 11 High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in for burning and converting video from your HD camcorder;

Read on to learn more about each of these programs.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 9

Photoshop Elements is the number one selling consumer photo-editing software on the Mac, and it's easy to see why. It's a snap to organize, edit and enhance photos, and you can quickly share your memories in unique print creations, on the Web, on your mobile phone, and more.

Here are just a few of the things you can do with Photoshop Elements 9:

• Use Photomerge technology to match photo styles between pictures, create smooth panoramas, create great group shots by selecting the best parts of several pictures, clean up scenes, and much more.;
• Repair torn or damaged photos and make unwanted elements vanish with the Spot Healing Brush;
• Create print projects like calendars, greeting cards, scrapbook pages and photo books;
• Create stunning effects with new Guided Edits, including pop art styles, reflection effects, LOMO camera styles, and more;
• Work with blended layers, for unlimited creativity;
• Quickly share photos on Facebook or Online Albums with fun template.

The Adobe Photoshop Elements editing window (click to enlarge).

Boinx FotoMagico 3 RE

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 and videos 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 11 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).

BIAS SoundSoap 2 SE

Want your sound recordings and LP transfers to sound as good as the originals? Use SoundSoap 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 Toast's Spin Doctor app. 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 (click to enlarge).

Even better, SoundSoap 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.

SmartSound Sonicfire Pro 5

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 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.

Toast 11 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 (such as that from AVCHD camcorders and EyeTV recordings), is an extra cost option in Toast 11, but comes included with Toast 11 Pro.

With the HD/BD 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 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!

Creating a high-def DVD from AVCHD video clips in Toast 11 (click to enlarge).

Editing is done with the included VideoWave software, a full-featured editing program. Check out this introductory tutorial to see how easy it is to edit clips, add effects, and upload the results to your favorite sharing site. And here's an example of what you can do with VideoWave and Game Capture:

One feature of VideoWave that's perfect for enhancing game captures is the ability to speed up and slow down your clips. You can fast-forward through less interesting sections, or turn already fast moves into light-speed maneuvers! Likewise, you can take a tricky move and replay it in slow motion for maximum effect.

Here's how. First, open VideoWave and select "Add Photo/Video" to add your clip to your production, following the introductory tutorial above. Then right-click on the clip in the timeline at the bottom of the screen and choose "Trim..." to bring up the Video Trimmer window.

Right-clicking on a video clip to choose the Trim feature (click to enlarge).

Notice the little box at the bottom left of the Trim window called "Speed." This is where the magic happens. Simply change the speed to whatever multiple you like. For example, if you want your clip to be speeded up by a factor of four, you would enter 4. Or if you want to slow it down to quarter-speed, enter .25. You can also choose the beginning and end points of your clip here, by moving the red and green markers.

Slowing down a clip to half-speed (click to enlarge).

After changing the speed for your clip, you can preview the results in the main video window at top right. Adjust the speed up or down if desired, or cut out portions that don't help tell the story. When you're done editing, you can share the finished production from the Output menu direct to sites like Facebook®, YouTube™ and WeGame™, or save it to disk, as show in our video tutorial. You can choose from many formats, such as MPEG2 for recording to DVD, or MPEG4 and AVC for iPod and portable player viewing.

Sharing a edited Game Capture video direct to YouTube (click to enlarge).

So hook up your Game Capture device and start recording! You never know when you'll achieve that high score or hidden level. But Game Capture makes it a snap to edit and share your exploits!

With Toast 11, you can capture streaming audio, easily access and search iLife and other photo libraries, or even capture video from your favorite websites. Once you've found the content you're going to work with, you can quickly and easily edit, adjust, and enhance that content. Last, Toast helps you convert and share that content on disc or online with friends, family, and the world.

Check out the complete list of what's new on the Toast 11 and Toast 11 Pro pages, respectively. Here, we've rounded up the top ten features so you can get off to a quick start on your Toast 11 adventure.

1. Streamlined Interface with Video & PDF Tutorials

The first thing you'll notice about Toast 11 is the new Toast Assistant, which gets you started quickly with common projects like converting DVDs for iPad, burning MP3 discs, or creating a high-definition DVD-Video disc for use in your set-top Blu-ray player.

Choose from common project types from the new Toast Assistant (click image to enlarge).

The Assistant also has video and PDF tutorials built right into the program. Five tutorials are available now, with more to come! Check out the tutorial on Converting Video for iPad and iPhone.

Toast 11 has built-in video and PDF tutorials that get you started fast (click image to enlarge).

2. Publish Videos to Facebook®, YouTube™ or Vimeo® — Then Tweet Them!

If you're a social media type, this is the feature you've been waiting for. Toast 11 now lets you post videos directly to your favorite sharing sites in one step, and can even automatically tweet your YouTube and Vimeo links!

See how to do it in our video tutorial.

Toast 11 lets you upload finished videos direct to the Web, and even Tweet about them! (Click image to enlarge.)

3. Supercharged Video Conversion for iPad/iPhone/Apple TV

If you have a relatively recent NVIDIA-equipped Mac, you can now take advantage of VideoBoost technology to speed up your H.264 video exports, such as those for iPad, iPhone, Apple TV and more.

Check out the list of supported NVIDIA cards, with instructions on how to enable the feature.

To make use of graphics card-accelerated video conversions, just check the VideoBoost box (click image to enlarge).

With VideoBoost you can get up to 2X faster encoding!

When VideoBoost is running, you'll see a confirmation under the encoding progress bar.

4. Capture Audio from Any App — Without Annoying System Beeps!

With Toast's updated Spin Doctor utility, you can now capture the audio from any running app, including streaming audio from Web browsers, without the audio from other apps or the System. No more system beeps ruining your captures!

Toast 11's revamped Spin Doctor utility now lets you capture the audio from any running app (click image to enlarge).

5. Preserve DVD Subtitles When Converting for iPad or iPhone

Want to watch converted DVD-videos on your iPad or iPhone with the subtitles? Now you can! Perfect for those who want to watch in quiet environments, or the hard of hearing, Toast 11 now let you embed subtitles on converted DVDs.

Simply add your DVD-Video image file or Video_TS folder to a conversion project, then click the Options button. You'll see a checkbox on the right to Embed Subtitles. That's all there is to it!

Just click the checkbook to embed subtitles in DVDs you convert for iOS (click image to enlarge).

6. Export to DivX, MKV & Flash and Save Custom Profiles

DivX and MKV (Matroska) are hugely popular video formats on the Web and in home video collections because they allow high quality in relatively small file sizes. In Toast 11 you can now convert video to DivX Plus HD and MKV, among many others.

Toast 11 supports virtually every video output format you could want, from smartphones and tablets to MKV and DivX (click image to enlarge).

By popular demand, you can also now export to Flash formats for embedding on your Web site. All the files you need are supplied, including the Player, if desired. You can even preview the results before you encode.

Toast 11 makes it simple to embed Flash video on your site (click image to enlarge).

Better yet, you can now save custom Video Export Profiles for any device or output format. Tweak your encoding settings as desired, then reuse them again and again.

In Toast 11 you can now save custom conversion profiles for easy reuse (click image to enlarge).

7. Enhanced Video Editing with Audio Effects

Now there's no need to use another program to edit video or add audio effects. Toast 11 includes built-in support for editing, trimming, and cropping — as well as the ability to apply popular Audio Unit effects to your tracks.

To edit video or apply Audio effects, just click the Edit or AU Filter buttons next to the video in your project list.

Apply your favorite audio unit plug-in filters to any editing project (click image to enlarge).

Video editing features include previews, trimming, cropping and chapter setting.

Video editing is easier and clearer with Toast 11's new interface (click image to enlarge).

8. Scheduled Conversions & Multi-recorder Burning

These two features can really improve your productivity. With scheduled conversions, you can control when to run lengthy encoding projects, and with multi-recorder burning you can take advantage of your extra optical drives to make multiple copies at once, greatly speeding production time.

To schedule an encoding project, first click the red encode button, then click the Schedule button at lower left to set a time. You can queue up as many videos you like in your conversion list before scheduling.

Queue up and schedule your conversion projects so they get done while you sleep (click image to enlarge).

Need to make a dozen copies of a DVD for all the parents in your child's soccer team? Cut the time in half if you have two optical drives, which many people do. Just change the drive destination option at the bottom of the Toast window to "Select Multiple Recorders" when you're ready to start burning, then check off the recorders you want to use.

Make use of multiple recorders to speed large burn projects (click image to enlarge).

9. Burn Audio Projects Across Multiple Discs

Now you don't need to worry if all your music files will fit on one disc! Toast 11 will automatically span them across multiple discs if needed. This is a great feature when you want to back up your music library or export large playlists.

Toast 11 now lets you span audio files across multiple discs for easy burning of large projects (click image to enlarge).

10. Play Back High-Def DVD-Video Discs Right on Your Mac!

Last, but not least, Toast 11 now lets you view high-definition DVD-Video discs right on your Mac! These are discs burned on standard DVD media by Toast that play on your set-top Blu-ray player, and are perfect for HD home videos. Now you don't even need to have a Blu-ray player handy to enjoy them.

Watch or preview high-definition DVD-Video discs made with Toast right on your Mac (click image to enlarge).

But you don't have to be George Lucas to use fun video effects that liven up your movies. Two new effects packs make it a snap to apply professional-looking styles like aged film, newsprint and destabilization (the Video Effects: Enhance & Style pack), or naturalistic effects like fog, fire, smoke and sparkles (the Video Effects: Nature pack). Both packs plug directly into VideoWave, integrating seamlessly with the program's built-in effects. They work with Creator 2009, 2010 and 2011.

To get started, install your Effects pack, and then open VideoWave by clicking on the Video-Movies tab on the Creator home screen and choosing Edit Video - Advanced. (You can also open VideoWave directly from the Roxio folder in the Windows Start menu.)

Next, choose your project type. Select Normal for 4:3 video, or Widescreen for 16:9 video, depending upon your source footage. Now add the clips you will use in your movie by clicking the Add Photo/Video button and choosing them from your hard disk. You can play clips in the file browser to preview them. Then click Open to add them to your project. Finally, arrange the clips on the timeline in the order you'd like them to appear in your movie.

Now that you've got your production started, it's time to play with some effects! Below we'll show you how to apply a few typical effects from the packs, but there are many more where these came from. For extensive video samples of the effects, be sure to check out the respective product pages for Video Effects: Nature and Video Effects: Enhance & Style.

Applying an Effect

The first step is to choose the type of effect you want to apply to a particular clip or portion of a clip. Click Add Video Effect at top left, or the Effect Selector in the right-hand pane to see a gallery of effects. You'll see a complete list of all available effects, including those built into VideoWave and those added by Effects packs.

You'll see several versions of most effects. For example, there are four fog effects: Fluffy, Red Mist, Rising Green and Steady Mist. Click the Play button on any effect in the gallery to preview it. Explore the various effects types and variations to get a feel for what's available and how you might be able to use them in your production.

Once you've familiarized yourself with the effects, choose one to apply to a clip, then either drag it to the clip preview pane to apply it to the current clip, or drag it directly to the Fx1 timeline at the bottom of the VideoWave window. You'll see a result like the below, from the Enhance & Style pack:

Applying the Aged Film effect (click to enlarge).

Notice the name and duration of the effect in the timeline at the bottom. You can have multiple effects at different points in the Fx1 timeline, or even overlap effects by adding a second effect to the Fx2 timeline, and so on. Here's an example of a second effect, Newsprint, from the Enhance & Style pack.

Using the Newsprint style (click to enlarge).

Now we'll look at how to edit the duration and settings for an effect. First click on the effect icon in the Timeline to select it, and then click the Settings tab at upper right (if you don't see this tab, choose "Show Settings" from the Tools area at left). You'll see a window similar to the below:

Changing settings for the Newsprint style (click to enlarge).

To change the duration, drag the orange start and end markers just below the clip in the preview pane. Press Play to preview how the effect will look and to help fine-tune your start and end points. Now check out the settings page at right. Here you can change whatever parameters are applicable to your effect. In the case of Newsprint, we can change the size of the lines or dots in the effect. In the case of the Visual Harmonizer, we can change the vertical position of the harmonics. Other effects may have different sets of parameters.

Nature Effects: Fog, Smoke, Fire & More

The Nature pack has some really cool effects, such as fog, rainfall, fireworks and "fairy dust" that should work well with many home movie scenes.

Here's the Mist effect being applied to a beach video:

Applying the Mist effect from the Nature pack (click image to enlarge).

Using Keyframes

The final piece of the effects puzzle is using key frames, found in the Settings tab for your effect. Key frames let you change the settings for an effect at different points in time. During the time between the key frames, the effect gradually changes from the settings defined in the first key frame to the settings defined in the second key frame. For example, if you apply the Visual Harmonizer effect to your production, you can set different vertical positions for the effect at the beginning and end, or any location in between.

By default, when you add an effect, the application adds start and end key frames. To add a keyframe, use the jog wheel or slider in the Preview pane to move the playback head to the position at which you want to insert the keyframe. Then click Add key frame here in the Settings pane. Make sure the key frame is selected in the drop-down box, and adjust its effect settings. You can have different settings for each key frame you define.

Defining new key frames.

Key frames give you incredible power over your effects, and help you create most any look you can imagine. Try some video effects today!

Better yet, EyeTV and Toast work with both standard and high-definition video! You can even use Toast to burn DVDs or Blu-ray Discs with your recordings. (Blu-ray requires the optional Toast HD/BD Plug-in.)

Assuming you already have Toast 10, all you need to do is add one of the several Elgato EyeTV tuner options, such as the EyeTV One and EyeTV HD, to turn your Mac into an HD DVR. Whichever tuner you choose, Toast makes it easy to save the programs you've captured on your Mac to DVD, or export them to your iPad, iPhone, iPod, or other media player. You can also stream them to your Apple TV!

Elgato EyeTV Hybrid.

The EyeTV tuners do a lot more than just record video to hard disk. The software interacts with the TV Guide 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 (there is a $20/year fee for the TV Guide service after the first year). 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/iPad/iPod Touch with the Remote app) to watch or record video from the comfort of your couch in full high-definition. Or play back EyeTV recordings through your Apple TV.

Depending on the tuner you choose, you can record over-the-air broadcasts in standard or high-definition, and/or cable/satellite signals using the set-top converter box supplied by your provider. When using a converter box to change channels, you plug 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.) All but the digital-only EyeTV One can also accept almost any form of standard-definition analog video from 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 when capturing analog audio. It's great for converting old tapes to digital format. (Note that for HD recording, a Dual G5 or Intel Mac is required.)

Open the EyeTV software and three windows appear: a resizable video window, a program guide/scheduling window, and an onscreen controller (which you can use along with or in place of a remote). The onscreen controller 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 video window can be resized as desired, or fill the screen. You can also show or hide the controller at any time.

EyeTV playing Sesame Street live, with controller and program window in the background (click to enlarge).

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 with Toast, or converting them for your iPad, iPhone or other media player.

1) First, connect things up according to the EyeTV instructions, then run the EyeTV software setup assistant to creat an account for the TV Guide program listing (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. Clicking the button next to a program name schedules it for recording.

2) Next, choose a future show to record by clicking the little 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 "CSI." Just click the show name, and choose "Record All." 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 library, where you can select it for playback on your computer, or send it to Toast for burning or conversion for iPad or iPhone. To make a DVD or Blu-ray Disc (with a Blu-ray recorder and the Toast HD/BD Plug-in) select your EyeTV recording(s) within the Toast 10 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 (click to enlarge).

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 (click to enlarge).

Finally, select the format you want to convert to by clicking the little gear icon at lower left to bring up the Player settings window. We chose to export in iPad and send the results straight to iTunes. Then click the red button to start converting. You can convert multiple shows at once.

Using Toast and EyeTV, you can keep your iPad loaded with high-definition shows to watch anywhere, and build up a video library of all your favorite programs. With an over-the-air antenna, you can even ditch cable altogether. Get started saving now!

Other hot features include: picture-in-picture effects, titles and scrolling credits; auto-adjustment of color, brightness and contrast; streaming Web video capture; video stabilization and rotation; iPad video conversion; and direct Facebook video uploads. You can even burn to Blu-ray Discs for playback on your set-top Blu-ray player.

Check out the complete list of Video Lab HD features here. Below, we've rounded up tutorials on Video Lab's top five tricks so you can get off to a fast start on your new editing adventure.

1. Create & Edit 3D Videos

If you're lucky enough to have a 3D camcorder, Video Lab HD will let you import and edit your videos. But you don't need a 3D camcorder to get started -- Video Lab can convert any 2D video to 3D!

Learn all about 3D video editing and conversion with Video Lab HD in our online tutorial.

Video Lab HD lets you import and edit most types of 3D video, or convert 2D video to 3D (click image to enlarge).

3. Share and Export 3D Video

After producing your 3D movie in VideoWave, you have a number of output options, including producing a 3D DVD in MyDVD, sharing via YouTube or exporting 3D files in various formats for viewing on your computer or elsewhere.

Check out YouTube's 3D channel and get some inspiration for your own projects. All you need to view YouTube 3D is the red/cyan glasses included with Video Lab!

See how to share and export 3D video formats in our video tutorial.

YouTube's 3D Channel has loads of cool 3D videos. Make your own with Video Lab! (Click image to enlarge).

3. Create a 3D DVD or Blu-ray Disc

With Video Lab HD's MyDVD app, you can burn 3D DVDs and Blu-ray Discs that you can play in your standalone 3D-enabled Blu-ray player. There's no need to have special 3D hardware on your computer, Video Lab does all the work.

Learn how to create 3D discs with MyDVD in our online tutorial.

Video Lab HD's MyDVD app lets you create 3D DVDs and Blu-ray Discs (click image to enlarge).

4. Stabilize Shaky Video

VideoLab's VideoWave editing app makes it easy to fix often-shaky handheld videos, or those taken in a moving car or train. You can correct rotational movement as well as up-and-down shakiness.

Learn how to tame those camcorder jitters in our online tutorial.

Stabilizing shaky video in Creator's VideoWave app is a snap (click image to enlarge).

5. Rotate Video

VideoWave also has a simple rotate button, so you can turn that video you shot in portrait mode with your smartphone or camcorder into landscape orientation, or vice versa!

See how to rotate your movies with one click in our online tutorial.

Video Lab's VideoWave app lets you rotate video horizontally or vertically (click image to enlarge).

First, check out our guide to shooting holiday video, which apply whether you're shooting in 2D or 3D. You'll discover tricks like getting down to kid level and using time-lapse video.

Check out our guide to shooting holiday video.

Next, if you have a pair of red/cyan glasses, either paper or plastic, don them now to see the anaglyph 3D pictures in the rest of this article. (Don't worry, you can still understand and use the tips without the glasses.)

Tips for 3D Photo & Video Shooting

Plan your depth cues — The appearance of 3D is produced when multiple objects in an image or movie are located varying distances from the camera. These provide "depth cues" that help your brain perceive the scene in 3D. In this photo of the Washington Monument, water is the only foreground depth cue, so the appearance of 3D is muted.

With water as the only foreground depth cue, the appearance of 3D is muted in this photo (click image to enlarge).

Compare that effect to solemn scene from the Korean War Veterans Memorial, below, where the bushes, fence, sidewalk, wall and trees in the background all provide depth cues that create a powerful 3D effect.

Here the 3D effect is powerful due to the variations in depth (click image to enlarge).

Compose your shots so that your depth cues are well spaced between the closest foreground and farthest background objects. If you're shooting the Grand Canyon, a bush a foot away from the camera is a blurry distraction. If shooting a close-up of a flower, objects a foot in front of and behind the flower enhance the 3D effect.

Mind the screen borders — 3D is an illusion, and you should avoid clues that ruin this illusion. In this statue of John Paul Jones, the 3D effect is powerful at the top of the image, but muted where the background and statue meet at the bottom edge of the photo, which tells your brain that the statue, background and edge are all at the same depth.

Be mindful of the borders of your image when shooting 3D (click image to enlarge).

Plan your shots so that the critical 3D-related components don't touch the borders. In the John Paul Jones shot, this would mean framing more loosely, so a larger portion of the body appears in 3D. In a video shoot, this means that all critical action occurs within the frame, and doesn't touch or extend beyond the borders.

Don't blur the background — When shooting traditional photos and videos, a popular technique is to blur the background, which focuses the viewer's attention on the subject of the shot. With 3D, you need the background objects to be as clear as possible to provide depth cues to the viewer. This means setting aperture at the highest possible value, creating the widest possible depth of field.

Make sure you have plenty of light — Most 3D viewing systems - whether $2.00 anaglyph red/cyan glasses, or $200 active shutter glasses -- darken the 3D photo or movie to some degree. This means that you should shoot your 3D shots with plenty of light. If you're following tip 3 (don't blur the background), you're also shooting with a high aperture setting, which reduces the light that reaches the lens. You'll get the best results shooting outdoors on sunny days, and if you shoot indoors, add as much light as you can to the scene before shooting.

Minimize grain — Simulated film grain reduces the sharpness of shot, and can reduce the associated 3D affect. Shoot at the lowest possible ISO setting.

Learning your camera's manual controls — You've probably already realized this, but tips 3, 4 and 5 probably mean that you'll have to abandon auto mode on your camera or camcorder and learn how to configure your camera manually.

When producing for anaglyph (red/cyan) distribution, mind the colors. Red/Cyan anaglyph viewing isn't friendly to reddish colors, converting them to yellows or blacks. You can see this in the image below; the original orange color turned to mauve by the anaglyph process.

Here's a before and after, a 2D image converted to anaglyph 3D, with accompanying color change (click image to enlarge).

If you can control what your subjects are wearing, stay away from reds, oranges and similar colors, favoring grays and blues. For serious shoots, however, you should check your colors out beforehand to make sure they look good in anaglyph. If you're out shooting casually, keep in mind that anaglyph red/cyan may not be the best technique to capture the beauty of a red rose.

Shoot in the target viewing orientation — Few 3D editing programs let you rotate your images. Though there may be workarounds, depth cues and the associated 3D effect seems most effective when viewed at the original orientation. So don't shoot in portrait mode if you plan to rotate into landscape, or vice versa.

The world is your oyster — When shooting 3D images with a 2D camera, you're stuck with subjects that don't move. With a 3D camera, you can shoot any subject, moving or otherwise.

Experiment with alternative shooting settings — We've already discussed that you'll have to learn how to set aperture, exposure and ISO settings manually to produce the best results with your 2D camera, and the same obviously holds true with 3D cameras.

If you have a 3D camera, keep in mind that your camera may have alternative shooting modes that enhance its 3D capabilities. For example, the Fujifilm FinePix REAL 3D W1 camcorder has an Individual 3D Shutter mode that lets you combine two shots from a different angle into a single 3D image, which is useful when creating 3D images from longer distance shots. In this mode, the camera displays the first image in the viewfinder while you're framing the second, which obviously assists the precision of the framing. So beyond learning how to go manual with exposure and ISO related adjustments, explore any alternative shooting settings.

Shooting & Editing 3D Movies

Limit DOF, maximize light, disable — All of the rules for shooting 3D photos apply when shooting 3D videos, whether with a 3D video camera or with a 2D camera that you intend to convert to 3D in Roxio VideoWave. In particular, keep in mind that video cameras need much more light than still image cameras, and light accordingly. If your video is dark and grainy, it will be almost impossible to perceive any 3D effect.

Frame more loosely to maintain good screen borders — Video can produce very powerful 3D effects, but they're almost totally muted if the subject in motion intersects with a screen border. Frame loosely to avoid this contact.

3D takes time so pace your videos more slowly — It takes a few moments for the brain to perceive 3D, so fast paced cutting from one 3D scene to another will limit the perception of 3D. Slow down pans and other camera motion as well.

Be conservative when editing — When editing your videos, keep these thoughts in mind:

• Limit the use of effects. Any effect that blurs edges in a video, like blurring or film grain, or otherwise distorts the content, like ripple or relief, may lessen the perception of depth in the 3D video.
• Be careful with color correction. Color adjustments on video to be distributed in anaglyph format may interfere with the Red/Cyan coloring used to produce this output.
• Be conservative. In general, be conservative in your first few 3D projects until you learn how to maximize your 3D videos. Then start spreading your creative wings.

Most of all, experiment and enjoy! 3D is an adventure. Don't be afraid to experiment and try new things. If you're a PC user, also check out our additional tips for editing 3D photos and videos with Creator 2011 here.

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. Even the new iPhone 4 can record 720p HD video (1280-by-720 pixels).

So how do you get your home HD recordings onto your TV screen? Blu-ray recorder prices are still quite high, at least $200 for an external drive. While prices will continue to drop, if you want to burn your HD movies NOW, the answer is as close as Creator and your DVD burner.

You can fit up to an hour of HD video onto a dual-layer DVD. If you are lucky enough to own a Blu-ray recorder, you can also burn hours of video on a single or dual-layer Blu-ray Disc, using Creator 2011 and its High-Def/Blu-ray Disc 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 2011 and select the "Create DVDs" option under the Video/Movies tab. This will launch the MyDVD application. (You can also launch MyDVD directly from the Windows Start>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). (For Blu-rays you also need the the HD/BD Plug-in, as we mentioned before.)

Choosing a project type in MyDVD (click to enlarge).

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 (use the default aspect ratio for widescreen footage); hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple clips at once. You will then be asked if you want to import the files as one movie, or separate clips. In most cases, it's best to choose to import as separate clips, so that you can rearrange, add and delete clips easily. (If your clips are not already on your computer, use the convenient "Capture Video" utility also available under the Video/Movies tab to transfer them from your camcorder.)

Clips listed in Project pane at lower left after adding movies to MyDVD project (click to enlarge).

The movies will now be listed in the Project pane 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 same pane. 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 (click to enlarge).

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 (click to enlarge).

You can choose any theme, although we recommend choosing from the HD themes, 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. There are some fun button animations!

Editing movie titles (click to enlarge).

Once you've edited your menus to your satisfaction, preview your disc by clicking the Preview button at bottom 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 (click to enlarge).

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 and disc space.

Disc encoding options (click to enlarge).

Finally, press the Burn button at bottom 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 (click to enlarge).

Once you press the Burn button, you'll see a recording progress indicator that shows the status of encoding and burning. Creator 2010 does not need to reencode most AVCHD clips unless you edit them or choose a different quality level, which saves a lot of time.

The MyDVD burn progress indicator.

Now you can enjoy your production on the big screen! Pop your AVCHD disc into your PlayStation 3 or other Blu-ray player, and let your whole family enjoy your home videos in all their HD glory.

3D Creation Basics

There are several ways to approach 3D creation: you can simply add 3D effects to your existing 2D pictures and movies (which look amazingly real!); you can shoot photos from two slightly different positions with a regular 2D camera and merge them into a 3D image; or you can use one of a new crop of true 3D cameras and camcorders that have dual lenses, such as the Fujifilm FinePix REAL 3D W3 or the Viewsonic 3DV5.

Creator 2011 lets you work in all three methods, with nothing more than what's in the box. Free red/blue 3D glasses are included so you can view "anaglyph" 3D photos and videos on any monitor. For the higher-quality stereoscopic format used by many new 3D cameras and camcorders, you can edit in Creator with no additional hardware, but you won't be able to view the results unless you have a 3D-capable PC or HDTV and matching "active-shutter" glasses. Check out our article on how 3D video works for more on anaglyph vs. active-shutter.

With alternate-frame 3D technology, full-resolution left and right images are displayed sequentially in sync with active-shutter glasses (click to enlarge). Credit: Panasonic.

3D-Capable Hardware

For the full high-definition 3D experience, we therefore recommend using a 3D-capable PC, which includes an appropriate video card or processor, a 3D-enabled monitor (which can be your big-screen 3DTV), and active-shutter glasses. Many recent laptops and desktops can be upgraded to 3D with a simple kit consisting of glasses and software, such as NVIDIA's 3D Vision Kit. NVIDIA provides an handy checklist of what you'll need to add to your current system to make it fully 3D capable, along with a list of system requirements, including compatible 3D monitors and HDTVs.

Hardware 3D support also opens up the world of 3D Blu-ray and 3D games -- almost 500 existing PC games can be viewed in 3D! And with 3D Blu-ray capability, you can both watch movies like Avatar, and create your own 3D Blu-rays for viewing on your big-screen 3DTV. (3D Blu-ray authoring requires the High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in or Creator 2011 Pro, along with a 3D-capable Blu-ray recorder.)

Creating and Editing 3D Photos

Creator 2011 makes it easy to produce 3D photos from either 2D or 3D originals, including 3D MPO files from a Fujifilm FinePix REAL 3D camera, a pair of left and right views of a place or object, or any 2D digital photo.

Basically, you load your pairs of images, adjust their positioning for an optimal 3D look while wearing your glasses (either anaglyph or active-shutter), and then save the results. Single 2D images are also supported. Creator will automatically make a second image slightly shifted from the first.

Check out our tips for shooting 3D images and videos for maximum effect, then see how to edit them in our video tutorial.

Creator 2011 lets you convert 2D photos to 3D with one click, or edit photos from your 3D camera (click image to enlarge).

Creating & Editing 3D Videos

If you're lucky enough to have a 3D camcorder, Creator 2011 will let you import and edit your videos. But you don't need a 3D camcorder to get started -- Creator can also convert any 2D video to 3D!

It's all done in Roxio VideoWave, part of the Creator suite. VideoWave can also convert traditional 2D images into 3D projects, and incorporate 3D images from multiple sources.

See how to do it in our video tutorial.

Creator 2011 lets you import and edit most types of 3D video, or convert 2D video to 3D (click image to enlarge).

Creating 3D DVDs or Blu-ray Discs

The final piece of the puzzle is burning 3D DVDs and Blu-ray Discs that you can play in your set-top 3D-enabled Blu-ray player. This is a great option if you have a 3DTV and Blu-ray player, but don't yet have a 3D-capable PC monitor and shutter glasses. If you do have 3D hardware support in your PC, you'll be able to preview your work before burning.

See how to create 3D discs with MyDVD in our online video tutorial.

Creator 2011's MyDVD app lets you create 3D DVDs and Blu-ray Discs (click image to enlarge).

With Streamer, you won't need to use up any of your precious mobile 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, iPad 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, iPad 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, 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!

• Roxio BackOnTrack™ 4 for restoring your precious data after a crash;
• Roxio Secure Burn™ for encrypted drag-and-drop burning;
• BIAS SoundSoap™ SE for audio noise reduction and enhancement;
• SmartSound Sonicfire Pro® for movie soundtrack creation; and the
• High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in for burning and converting video from your HD camcorder.

Read on to learn more about each of these programs.

Roxio BackOnTrack 4

Completely redesigned, Roxio BackOnTrack 4 can restore your entire system, protecting you against computer crashes and user error. Now with a streamlined interface, you can set up one-click backups, yet retain full control over exactly what you want to back up, and when. Get started now to preserve your precious photos, videos, music and other important files.

Roxio BackOnTrack can back up specific files, or your entire hard drive, with just one click.

Roxio Secure Burn

Roxio Secure Burn makes it simple to archive files to disc quickly and securely. The FIPS 140-2 certified encryption option gives you enterprise-class security for all your data, from tax files to family photos. Better yet, you can burn directly from the desktop by dragging and dropping. It could not be easier.

To use Secure Burn, you first insert a blank disc or rewriteable media (CD, DVD or Blu-ray). The Roxio Burn icon will then appear on the desktop, and you can drag files to it from anywhere on your computer. Once you've dragged all your files, just click the burn button to start recording. The Options window, accessible from the Roxio Burn drop-down menu at bottom right, lets you turn on encryption.

Burning an encrypted disc right from the desktop with Roxio Secure Burn.

Roxio Burn also lets you copy discs and disc image files, and can span files that are too big to fit across multiple discs. All right from the desktop.

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 Creator's LP & Tape 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 audio recordings with SoundSoap SE (click to enlarge).

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.

High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-In

The High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in, which lets you edit, burn and convert video from high-definition camcorders, is an extra cost option in Creator 2011, but comes standard with Creator 2011 Pro. With the Plug-in, you can burn your home movies or TiVo 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. It supports both AVCHD and HDV camcorder sources, and lets you archive AVCHD files to disc in one easy step.

The Plug-in also allows you to edit your high-def videos using any of Creators tools, including VideoWave and CineMagic. You can burn the results to disc, or convert them for playback on your iPod, iPad, iPhone, Android device, PSP or other portable player. Take your TV shows and home movies on the road!

Editing high-def video in VideoWave (click to enlarge).

Burning high-definition TiVo shows to a Blu-ray disc (click to enlarge).

Don't have a TiVo? No problem. Toast also lets you capture streaming Web video (here's how), and can convert and burn TV recordings made with Elgato's popular EyeTV tuners. With EyeTV, you can record over-the-air HD channels direct to your Mac's hard drive. Then use Toast to send them to your iPad or burn them to DVD or Blu-ray. Here's how to do it.

Not only can you easily build up your home video library with Toast, but in many cases, you can ditch the expense of cable altogether!

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

One of the 2009 "This Old House" carving contest winners (click to enlarge).

This year, instead of consigning your artwork to the compost heap, preserve it forever in videos and photos. Time-lapse videos are perfect for documenting the carving process, and are fascinating to watch. Put them on your blog, upload them to YouTube or Facebook, or make a DVD. Here's how to make time-lapse videos on your PC or on your Mac. Before you start, get some inspiration from YouTube!

Check out some YouTube time-lapse carving videos like this one for inspiration. Keeping the pumpkin lit while carving makes for a neat visual effect, and also lets you see what the finished result will look like as you carve.

Another great way to preserve and share your masterpiece is through photos. But not just any photos! There is an art to shooting pumpkins as well as carving them. Pose your pumpkin in an appropriate spot, with props if desired (spiderwebs, hats, other pumpkins, fake blood, etc.), and wait for just the right light. Dusk is usually a good time, since there is enough ambient light to show the pumpkin, yet it's also dark enough for the interior lighting to shine through. Here are some tips from Instructables.com.

To take a good pumpkin photo, try a long exposure time and some external lighting as well as internal (click to enlarge).

This year, you'll have the best documented pumpkin ever! So start carving and have a great Halloween.

Creator 2011 also integrates perfectly with all your digital media devices, from digital cameras and HD camcorders to smart phones, tablets, music players, TiVos, Blu-ray players and game consoles, making it a snap to transfer and convert files between them so you can enjoy your media anywhere. And the revolutionary new Roxio Streamer lets you share your entire home media library over the Internet with family and friends.

Check out the complete list of what's new on the Creator 2011 and Creator 2011 Pro pages, respectively. Here, we've rounded up tutorials on the top ten features so you can get off to a quick start on your Creator 2011 adventure.

1. Create & Edit 3D Videos

If you're lucky enough to have a 3D camcorder, Creator 2011 will let you import and edit your videos. But you don't need a 3D camcorder to get started -- Creator can convert any 2D video to 3D!

Learn all about 3D video editing and conversion with Creator in our video tutorial.

Creator 2011 lets you import and edit most types of 3D video, or convert 2D video to 3D (click image to enlarge).

2. Create & Edit 3D Photos

Creator 2011 makes it easy to produce 3D photos from either 2D or 3D originals, including 3D MPO files from a Fujifilm FinePix REAL 3D W1 camera, a pair of left and right views of a place or object, or any 2D digital photo. There's even a pair of 3D glasses in the box so you can view them on-screen!

See how to do it in our video tutorial.

Creator 2011 lets you convert 2D photos to 3D with one click, or edit photos from your 3D camera (click image to enlarge).

3. Create a 3D DVD or Blu-ray Disc

With Creator 2011, you can burn 3D DVDs and Blu-ray Discs that you can play in your standalone 3D-enabled Blu-ray player. There's no need to have special 3D hardware on your computer, Creator does all the work.

Learn how to create 3D discs with MyDVD in our video tutorial.

Creator 2011's MyDVD app now lets you create 3D DVDs and Blu-ray Discs (click image to enlarge).

4. Watch 3D Movies on Your PC

Creator's CinePlayer app is already the best 2D video viewer. Now it can play 3D videos too! You can play either discs or video files, assuming you have appropriate 3D video hardware and software in your computer, such as NVidia's 3D Vision Kit with supported monitor and video card. Windows Vista or Windows 7 is also required.

To start playing 3D movies on your 3D-capable PC hardware, first choose the Settings button at top left and click the 3D tab. Make sure "Enable 3D Processing" is set to Automatic. Then insert a 3D movie disc or use the Open menu to open a 3D movie file or video clip. Be sure to use full-screen mode in order to view 3D effects.

CinePlayer should automatically select the correct playback settings for the 3D video format, but if you need to change the setting, you can do so by clicking the Roll 3D Input Format button at bottom right to cycle through the available settings until things look right. There's also a Roll Eye Order button to change the left/right order. Also note that for best viewing, you should sit at least 3 feet from your monitor.

Roxio CinePlayer now offers the best 3D viewing experience, as well as 2D. (click image to enlarge).

5. Stabilize Shaky Video

Creator 2011's VideoWave editing app makes it easy to fix often-shaky handheld videos, or those taken in a moving car or train. You can correct rotational movement as well as up-and-down shakiness.

Learn how to tame those camcorder jitters in our video tutorial.

Stabilizing shaky video in Creator's VideoWave app is a snap (click image to enlarge).

6. Rotate Video

VideoWave also has a simple rotate button, so you can turn that video you shot in portrait mode with your smartphone or camcorder into landscape orientation, or vice versa!

See how to rotate your movies with one click in our video tutorial.

Creator 2011's VideoWave app lets you rotate video horizontally or vertically (click image to enlarge).

7. Share Your Home Media Library

Want to access your media files anywhere? Share them with friends and family? With Roxio Streamer, you simply copy your media files to special folders on your hard disk. From there, you can then access and play them anywhere you can connect to the Web -- in the living room, the office or the airport. You can play your music while you work, watch a video in your hotel room, or play a slideshow for the friends you are visiting. You'll always have your media at hand. Streaming works on PCs, Macs and many other devices, including smartphones and DLNA equipment like set-top boxes and game consoles.

Learn all about sharing media with Roxio Streamer in our video tutorial.

You can access your Roxio Streamer media library from any Web browser (click image to enlarge).

8. Convert Videos for iPad

Need to convert videos for your shiny new iPad? Look no further than Creator 2011. We've added an iPad output preset to the Video Capture & Convert utility, so you can send your videos direct to iTunes in optimized viewing format for syncing to iPad.

See how to convert video with Creator in our online tutorial.

Creator's Video Capture & Convert utility now has an iPad preset (click image to enlarge).

9. Upload Videos Directly to Facebook

Creator has long had direct YouTube video upload. Now we've added Facebook uploads too, by popular request. To upload, simply click the Share button on the Video/Movies tab, then choose Facebook, and the video you want to share. You'll be prompted for information about the video, then it will be automatically uploaded to your account. You can save your Facebook account login within the program, so you only need to enter it once.

Creator 2011 now lets you send videos directly to Facebook, in addition to YouTube (click image to enlarge).

10. Import MKV Videos for Use in Creator Projects

Last, but not least, Creator 2011 now lets you use the common MKV video format (Matroska Video), which is often found on the Web, in all your projects. You can convert MKV for your iPad, use it in VideoWave projects, or burn it to DVD or Blu-ray.

Since we now have email addresses for pretty much everyone on our list, we thought we'd go the email route this year, which also makes RSVPs quick and easy. But we still wanted the invitation to be special and convey the spirit of the party—not just a plain message. We also wanted to get people excited about coming!

So we decided to make a fun PhotoShow invitation, complete with captions and music. Roxio PhotoShows are free and easy to make, and you can email them directly to your recipients. We made and mailed this year's holiday party invite in less than an hour! (And started getting RSVPs and compliments immediately!)

Here's how to do it:

First, choose a few pictures from Halloweens past or find appropriate images on the Web, then go to PhotoShow.com and log in (if you don't already have an account, creating one is easy). Next, click "Make a PhotoShow" at the top of the screen. You'll be asked to upload your photos. When you're done, the fun begins!

Next, you'll be prompted to enter the title and credits for your PhotoShow, which we used for our main invitation text (Halloween Open House is the title).

Now it's time to choose a style, or overall theme, for the show. We chose "Spooky Halloween" for our show, which comes with a really neat title sequence.

If your photos are not in the right order, or you'd like to change the background music, click on the Photos & Music tabe now, and simply drag to rearrange. Click the musical note icon on any photo to choose different music, or upload your own, if you have a Premium account. The Spooky Halloween style comes with its own spooky music!

Next, we added captions to each photo, and chose a caption style that matched the Title text.

Finally, we clicked the Stickers tab and added some cool Halloween animations to a couple of the slides. That was it! PhotoShow did the rest automatically. We could have customized it further, but we were happy with the results. And it was time to start on our haunted house decorating plans!

When you're finished tweaking your invitation, save the PhotoShow and click the Done button. You'll now be presented with various sharing options, such as posting to your blog or Web site, and burning a DVD. Here, you'll be choosing the email option to send the invitation directly to your friends from PhotoShow.

Now you simply enter the email addresses of your recipients, add a message if desired (we included driving directions and RSVP information in our message so that they could be printed out easily), and click the Send button! Tip: If you have a lot of addresses, and don't want to enter them all in PhotoShow, simply send one invitation to yourself, then forward it to your recipients from your regular email program.

Here's our finished PhotoShow. What will yours look like? Please invite us!

Whether you're thinking of buying a new computer or adding on to your existing PC or Mac, a Blu-ray recorder is now an affordable and must-have extra for digital media mavens, especially HD camcorder owners.

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 Creator 2010 and Toast 10 support both types of discs, and provide all the software you need to take full advantage of the latest burning hardware.

But not all Blu-ray drives are alike. And you may need to make sure your other PC hardware is up to snuff in order to watch Blu-ray videos as well as burn them. There are considerable differences in media as well, with varying capacities, speeds and rewriteability.

So what should you look for when choosing a BD burner? Recording technology has been advancing rapidly, and the myriad formats and speeds can be bewildering. Media types alone comprise an alphabet soup: BD-ROM (read-only), BD-R (recordable) and BD-RE (rewriteable), plus single-layer (25GB) and dual-layer (50GB) variations. The brand-new BDXL, a triple-layer format with 33.33GB per layer, for a total of 100GB, just started to ship last month in Japan, and should hit stateside later this year. Quad-layer 128GB discs are coming too. BDXL is currently only available in set-top recorders, though, not computer drives. There are also mini 3-inch Blu-ray discs with a capacity of 7.5GB designed for compact camcorders.

Blu-ray State of the Art

Blu-rays hold a lot of data, which means it can take quite a long time to burn a disc -- literally hours for a 50GB disc on a first-generation BD recorder. But things have gotten much faster since then. The key spec you want to look at when choosing a drive is the BD-R burn speed. The current top recording speed for Blu-ray burners is 12X, which means you can write a 25GB BD-R disc in about 11 minutes, and a 50GB disc in about 22 minutes, assuming your computer and burning software are capable as well.

When buying a new computer, very often the Blu-ray recording speed is not stated up front, and you have to dig down in the specs to discover it. Check it out and upgrade to 12X if possible, since the many hours you will save when burning will be well worth the small cost differential.

If you're adding on to an existing PC or Mac (no Macs come with built-in Blu-ray), then the task is easier. Just search your favorite retailers for 12X drives, either internal or external, depending on your preference. External drives cost a little more, but are handy for moving around and sharing between computers.

Also make sure your system is up to snuff. If you're a PC user, you'll want Vista or Windows 7, in order to be able to play Blu-ray videos. You'll also need a fast computer with hardware support for the copy-protection on commercial Blu-ray movie discs. This includes the computer, graphics card and monitor -- ask your computer vendor if you're not sure of Blu-ray playback support. Finally, you'll also need Blu-ray capable recording and playback software, such as Creator 2010.

Mac users have a simpler task, since they only need to worry about burning capability (the Mac OS does not support playback of Blu-ray video). With Toast 10, Mac users can burn and read Blu-ray data discs and burn Blu-ray video discs for playback in set-top players. Toast 10 requires a PowerPC G5 or Intel Mac for Blu-ray video burning, and System 10.5 or 10.6.

Blu-ray Media Tips

Blu-ray media holds a lot, but is comparatively more expensive than DVD or CD media. A 25GB BD-R disc costs about $1.50, and a 25GB BD-RE disc costs about $5. You'll pay a premium, too for high-speed media. A 6X certified 25GB BD-R disc costs about $7. You can always try writing faster on lower-speed rated media, but results are not guaranteed.

Given the high prices, we recommend buying a few BD-REs to use as test discs. You can keep rewriting them until you have your perfect project, then burn to BD-R. BD-REs are also perfect for backup purposes, since you can overwrite as needed.

Blu-ray Burning Tips

A 50GB BD disc can hold more than 9 hours of HD video, or up to 23 hours of standard definition movies (half those numbers for a 25GB disc). If you want to burn full-length home videos or high-definition movies, Blu-ray is the right choice.

If you're on a PC, check out our guide to burning high-definition movie discs with Creator 2010. Mac users can see our similar guide for Toast 10.

Once you start enjoying your home movies in full HD on the big screen, you won't want to go back!

You'll also find many more resources in our online Support area, including the latest software updates, FAQs and active user discussions. Chances are, your answers are ready and waiting.

The Learning Center

Creator 2010 has an extensive in-program Help system, with both context-sensitive and searchable user guide pages. But for full step-by-step tutorials on almost every aspect of the program, turn to the Learning Center, which is accessible from the Creator 2010 Home screen. The Learning Center, pictured below, offers both video and printable PDF versions of each tutorial, so you can follow along easily. Here are just a few of the dozens of available subjects:

• Create a Blu-ray Disc with Menus: Put your home videos on Blu-ray for viewing on your HDTV
• Capturing Web Video: Record Flash-based video to disk, then convert it for your portable player
• Preserving Music from LPs & Tapes: Rediscover your family's music history
• Extracting Audio from a DVD: Extract soundtracks to put on your portable music player, or burn to CD
• Restoring Old Photos in PhotoSuite: Fix scratches, remove dust and fix faded colors with ease

The Creator 2010 Learning Center has tutorials organized by topic (click to enlarge).

If you're having a problem the Learning Center doesn't cover, it's time to turn to online support. The Creator 2010 Support pages and Knowledgebase host a plethora of resources, from software updates to Support Notes.

The Creator 2010 Support Page, showing the Knowledgebase and Support Notes (click to enlarge).

User Discussion Area

Finally, when you have a specific question that is not answered in the usual places, the Creator 2010 Discussion Area is where to find the solution. Users just like you post questions, and chances are, yours has already been answered. Try searching the discussions first, and then post a question if you can't find the answer.

The Creator 2010 discussion area is a great place to find helpful answers from your peers (click to enlarge).

You'll also find many more resources in our online Support area, including the latest software updates, FAQs and active user discussions. Chances are, your answers are ready and waiting.

The Help Menu

The first place to look for help is the in-program Help menu, which brings up a 142-page User Guide with full instructions for performing many common tasks, as well as explanations of specific features. Use the Search feature to find a topic, or browse the subject headings.

Video Tutorials

If you're just getting started with Toast 10, also check out our video tutorials, which give an excellent visual overview of the program features and interface:

• Introduction to Toast 10: Get an overview of Toast 10's features and interface
• Create an Audio CD: Make the perfect Audio CD from any music source
• Converting Video: Convert video for playback on any device, or burn to disc
• Extracting Scenes from DVDs: Extract and compile clips from your favorite DVDs, then convert for playback anywhere
• Auto Music Capture: Automatically capture any audio playing on your Mac, including Internet radio

The Toast 10 video tutorials show you exactly how things work (click to enlarge).

Web Tutorials

For more in-depth how-tos on specific subjects, try our extensive collection of step-by-step Web tutorials that you can print out and follow along with. Here's a list sorted by category:

GENERAL

• Toast 10's Top Five Features: The top five reasons to upgrade to Toast 10
• Toast 10 Pro's Five Magic Ingredients: These five premium software add-ons take your media to the next level
• Spring Clean Your Mac with Toast 10: Archive your data to CD and speed up your hard drive

VIDEO

• Capturing Video from Your Camcorder with Toast: How to transfer video from digital and analog camcorders.
• Burning High-Def DVDs & Blu-ray Discs with Toast 10: Turn your home movies into high-def DVDs you can play in your set-top Blu-ray player, as well as full-length Blu-ray video discs.
• Making DVDs with Toast 10 Titanium: Use custom-designed menu themes to create professional-looking DVDs
• Take Your Shows on the Road with Toast: Convert almost any video, including EyeTV recordings, for your laptop or portable player
• Converting TiVo Shows for your Mac or iPod: Transfer TiVo shows to your Mac and convert them for your laptop, iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch.
• Capture & Convert Web Video with Toast 10: Capture Flash-based video to your hard drive, then convert it for your iDevice!
• Stream Video from Your Mac to Your iPhone: Stream your videos privately and securely. Even automate TiVo transfers and streams
• How to Extract Video Clips from DVDs with Toast 10: Extract scenes from DVDs for compilations or conversion.

AUDIO

• Capturing Web Audio with Toast 10: Capture streaming audio and Internet radio for your portable player
• Create a DVD Music Disc with Toast 10: Create the perfect party disc, complete with album art or photos, to view and navigate on your TV
• Preserve Your Musical Past with Toast 10: Archive your LPs and tapes to CD
• Cleaning Audio with SoundSoap for Mac: Clean up your analog recordings and video soundtracks with this essential noise-reduction tool (part of Toast 10 Pro)

Support Pages

The Toast 10 Support pages and Knowledgebase also host a plethora of resources, from software updates to Help files and Support Notes.

The Toast 10 Support Page, showing the Help files and Support Notes (click to enlarge).

User Discussion Area

Last but not least, when you have a specific question that is not answered in the usual places, the Toast 10 Discussion Area is the place to find the solution. Users just like you post questions, and chances are, yours has already been answered. Try searching the discussions first, and then post a question if you can't find the answer.

The Toast 10 discussion area is a great place to find helpful answers from your peers (click to enlarge).

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. And now that HD camcorders and DVRs are plentiful and affordable, more people are recording their home movies and TV shows in high-def. Even the new iPhone 4 can record 720p HD video (1280-by-720 pixels).

So how do you get your home HD recordings onto your TV screen? Blu-ray recorder prices are still quite high, at least $200 for an external drive. While prices will continue to drop, if you want to burn your HD movies NOW, the answer is as close as Toast and your DVD burner.

You can fit up to an hour of HD video on a dual-layer DVD, which is plenty for most home video productions. If you are lucky enough to own 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 burn your favorite HD shows onto DVDs 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 10 (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 clips already on your hard drive, or use the AVCHD option to import movies directly from your attached AVCHD camcorder (which should be in computer connection mode). You can even choose TV recordings from your EyeTV and TiVo folders.

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:

The Toast 10 Blu-ray Video project window, showing video clips in both AVCHD and HDV formats, and a TiVo recording (click to enlarge).

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 (click to enlarge).

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 10 Project window (click to enlarge).

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 10 Video Player (click to enlarge).

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 disc menu--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 (click to enlarge).

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.

Choosing the DVD or BD disc type (click to enlarge).

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!

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. Even the new iPhone 4 can record 720p HD video (1280-by-720 pixels).

So how do you get your home HD recordings onto your TV screen? Blu-ray recorder prices are still quite high, at least $200 for an external drive. While prices will continue to drop, if you want to burn your HD movies NOW, the answer is as close as Creator and your DVD burner.

You can fit up to an hour of HD video onto a dual-layer DVD. If you are lucky enough to own a Blu-ray recorder, you can also burn hours of video on a single or dual-layer Blu-ray Disc, using Creator 2011 and its High-Def/Blu-ray Disc 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 2011 and select the "Create DVDs" option under the Video/Movies tab. This will launch the MyDVD application. (You can also launch MyDVD directly from the Windows Start>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). (For Blu-rays you also need the the HD/BD Plug-in, as we mentioned before.)

Choosing a project type in MyDVD (click to enlarge).

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 (use the default aspect ratio for widescreen footage); hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple clips at once. You will then be asked if you want to import the files as one movie, or separate clips. In most cases, it's best to choose to import as separate clips, so that you can rearrange, add and delete clips easily. (If your clips are not already on your computer, use the convenient "Capture Video" utility also available under the Video/Movies tab to transfer them from your camcorder.)

Clips listed in Project pane at lower left after adding movies to MyDVD project (click to enlarge).

The movies will now be listed in the Project pane 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 same pane. 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 (click to enlarge).

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 (click to enlarge).

You can choose any theme, although we recommend choosing from the HD themes, 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. There are some fun button animations!

Editing movie titles (click to enlarge).

Once you've edited your menus to your satisfaction, preview your disc by clicking the Preview button at bottom 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 (click to enlarge).

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 and disc space.

Disc encoding options (click to enlarge).

Finally, press the Burn button at bottom 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 (click to enlarge).

Once you press the Burn button, you'll see a recording progress indicator that shows the status of encoding and burning. Creator 2010 does not need to reencode most AVCHD clips unless you edit them or choose a different quality level, which saves a lot of time.

The MyDVD burn progress indicator.

Now you can enjoy your production on the big screen! Pop your AVCHD disc into your PlayStation 3 or other Blu-ray player, and let your whole family enjoy your home videos in all their HD glory.

But how does it all work? And how will it be brought to home computers and video cameras? Can you shoot your own 3D movies today?

How we see 3D

The key to understanding how 3D cameras work is understanding how we perceive depth. We don't really "see" in 3D. Our brains "infer" depth from multiple sources of information. Even with one eye and a 2D image, there are many visual clues that our brains process as depth: relative object sizes, shadows, objects partially obscured by others in a scene, the focal plane, and geometric perspective (such as a road narrowing in the distance). And with motion, we also get clues from how the positions of close objects change more rapidly than distant ones.

With two eyes, even more depth information is added, thanks to the stereoscopic effect. The two slightly diverging views from each eye are merged together into a single "stereo" image by the brain.

Not everyone can see 3D. About 5 or 10 percent of us have some stereoscopic vision deficiency, and thus can't process the dual left-right images properly.

Creating 3D in Photos and Movies

3D still and movie cameras movies rely on taking two pictures of a scene, mimicking the two images from our right and left eyes. They are then delivered to each eye separately for our brain to merge together as if the scene were "live" in front of us. Where 3D technology differs widely is in how these left and right images are delivered to the eyes.

The venerable ViewMaster toy is a familiar example of simple stereoscopy. Each 3D slide is composed of two images taken from slightly different positions and angles similar to the difference between human eyes (which average about 2.5 inches apart). When you look through the binocular viewer, each eye sees the appropriate left or right image.

ViewMaster binocular stereoscopic viewer and slide wheels.

For movies on the big screen, however, a different delivery system is needed. Red and blue glasses, like the ones used in the 3D movie craze of the early 1950s, are another familiar example of stereoscopy. Two images are projected on the screen at one time, through different color filters, then one eye sees the image filtered by the red lens, and the other eye gets the image filtered by the blue lens. The use of color filters to deliver 3D is called anaglyph.

A 1950s 3D movie audience.

The major downside to anaglyph 3D is picture quality, as so much color information is filtered from each image.

Today's 3D Displays & Glasses

Modern 3D movie technology has thus moved in new directions, and several methods are in use by various TV manufacturers and cinema operators. The most common method used by TV vendors is alternate-frame display, in which "active-shutter" glasses are synced with your TV to block the right eye when the left-hand frame is being shown, and vice versa.

With alternate-frame technology, the full resolution left and right images are displayed sequentially. (Click to enlarge.) Credit: Panasonic

Alternate-frame display with active-shutter glasses has several advantages, notably the ability to display full HD resolution. Many 3D delivery schemes only show half the resolution per frame. Active-shutter glasses also work when you turn your head or use a side viewing angle, unlike some other 3D technologies.

Sony's active-shutter glasses.

There is also a checkerboard 3D delivery technology called DLP 3D that uses active-shutter glasses, but you get only half the image resolution per eye. Not all 3D Blu-ray players will be able to output this checkerboard signal, either, in which case you'll need to buy a converter.

The 3D Future

Ideally, we'd be able to view 3D displays with no glasses at all, and that's what manufacturers are working on. These "autostereoscopic" displays use lenses to deliver the correct image to each eye. It will be a while before displays suitable for family viewing reach the market, however. Some small, personal autostereoscopic displays are available now.

Viewing Blu-ray 3D

So what do you need to view 3D movies on Blu-ray today? First, you need a 3D-capable Blu-ray player. Second, you need a 3D-capable TV with matching 3D glasses (different vendors currently use slightly different active-shutter syncing technologies, but universal 3D glasses will be coming soon). Sony's PlayStation 3 is also getting a 3D firmware upgrade this summer.

To watch Blu-ray 3Ds, you need a 3D-capable Blu-ray player and TV, plus matching 3D glasses.

You will soon be able to view Blu-ray 3Ds right on your 3D-capable computer display with Roxio CinePlayer 3D. Look for Blu-ray 3D-enabled PCs and notebooks with CinePlayer to start appearing this summer. Also check out nVidia's GeForce 3D Vision Kit, which is great for 3D games, and Fujifilm's FinePix Real 3D camera. Expect consumer 3D camcorders to appear later this year, starting with DXG's 3D View this summer.

Roxio CinePlayer 3D will be shipping this summer on 3D-capable PCs.

Learn more about 3D:

Roxio 3D FAQ

Wikipedia on 3D Film

How Stuff Works on 3D Glasses

Step 1: Open Roxio Video Copy & Convert

First, open Roxio Creator. Then click on the Video-Movies tab and choose the "Copy and Convert Video" project.

Opening the Roxio Video Copy & Convert utility (click to enlarge).

Step 2: Choose Your Videos and Settings

The Roxio Video Copy & Convert Utility will then open. At top left, click the Movies button to choose videos you'd like to convert for your iPad. You can choose multiple videos at once, of almost any type (WMV, AVI, DV, AVC, MPEG2/4, DivX and many more). You can even extract movies from nonprotected DVDs and capture Web videos.

Below, we've selected a TV show we captured from a DVR.

Selecting videos to convert (click to enlarge).

Next, we'll choose the settings to convert this movie to iPad format. To begin, click on the Video icon in the Output selection area at top right.

Now click on the Custom button at bottom right to adjust the settings for iPad. Simply select "H.264" from the Compression menu, and AAC in the Audio format menu, if not already selected. Also, if you have a high-definition source, reduce the resolution to "HD 720p," which is the maximum the iPad can display. Leave other settings where they are, unless you are an expert. (If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, choose the iPhone output icon instead, and send the converted videos directly to iTunes.)

Customizing video conversion settings for iPad (click to enlarge).

Step 3: Export Videos and Send to iPad

Now click the green arrow to start the export process.

Exporting the video for iPad.

When finished, simply drag the converted video into iTunes, then sync to your iPad. Enjoy!

Getting Started

So how do you get started making a DVD in Toast 10? It's really quite simple. First, determine where your source video and photos are coming from: direct from your camcorder (live or tape), from existing unencrypted DVDs, or from existing video and photo files on your hard disk, including iMovies. Import video from your camcorder with Toast, 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 natively, such as AVCHD, MPEG-2, DivX, EyeTV recorded shows, and TiVo 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 DVD player 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 (click to enlarge).

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. Generally, the less video you put on the disc, the better the quality. For photo slideshows you can fit thousands of images on a DVD. (You can also have a mixture of slideshows and video clips.)

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.

Drag & Drop

Now that you've set up your basic project, you can start adding videos. To add content, simply drag your video clips, photos or iMovies into the content window. You can mix up 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 DVD video project shows a few of the wide variety of source formats supported by Toast: Motion-JPEG clips from a digital camera, DV clips from a digital tape camcorder, H.264/AVC clips from a flash-based camcorder, an MPEG-1 animation downloaded from the Web, and a JPEG photo slideshow.

Organizing and Editing Your Content

With all the content added, 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 menu 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 (click to enlarge).

For photo slideshows, clicking the edit button lets you add and remove pictures, change their order, 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 Roxio PhotoShow (available at PhotoShow.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 10 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. 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, as we mentioned earlier, 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. 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 on the Desktop 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. You can burn the image without having to reencode the video.

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 10! We bet you'll want to make many more.

Toast makes it simple to convert non-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 (click to enlarge).

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 a show from our EyeTV library within Toast's Media Browser.

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 (click to enlarge).

Checking Encoding Settings

To check encoding settings, click the Player Setup button at the bottom left of the Toast window. (It looks like a gear.) 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. For iPad, you can just use the Apple TV setting in Automatic mode.

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 (click to enlarge).

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 (click to enlarge).

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.

Step 1: Download & Install the Plug-in

First, go to PhotoShow.com, and log into your account (or create one if you don't have one yet -- it's free). Then click the My Account button at top right, and the Software Downloads button at the left. Next, click the download button for the iPhoto Plug-in. Note that you need iPhoto '08 or '09 and an Intel Mac to use the Plug-in. Finally, double-click the downloaded file to install it, then open iPhoto.

Step 2: Choose & Export Photos

Using the Plug-in could not be easier. Just select the photos or events you want to upload to PhotoShow in the iPhoto library window at right, or select an album by highlighting in the list at left, and choose Export from the File menu to bring up the dialog box.

The iPhoto Export Plug-in for Roxio PhotoShow (click to enlarge).

Now add your PhotoShow account information to the drop-down list; your login will be saved for future uploads. You can even add multiple PhotoShow accounts.

Next, choose an existing PhotoShow to add the selected pictures to, or start a new one and give it a title (you can always change this later). Here we've selected three photos to add to an existing show.

Finally, click the Export button to send your photos to PhotoShow.com. You'll see a progress bar as they are sent, and a confirmation when finished. The confirmation dialog also gives you a convenient button to go to PhotoShow.com to edit your show.

The export confirmation dialog.

Step 3: Personalize & Share Your Show

Now that you've finished uploading, it's time to personalize and share your show! Check out our PhotoShow tutorial for more on its capabilities, such as captions, speech bubbles, animations and music.

Here's our African safari show:

African safari PhotoShow (click to open).

Step 1: Start Recording

To start recording, first make sure your Internet radio station (or other streaming audio) is open and playing in your Web browser or in iTunes. (Or if your show is about to start, tune to the station and start playing.) Then open CD Spin Doctor and click the button to Start Auto Music Capture. When you've finished recording, simply click Stop.

Starting Auto Music Capture in CD Spin Doctor (click to enlarge).

Step 2: Auto-Define and Identify Tracks

Once you've stopped recording, CD Spin Doctor will switch to a timeline editing view. Click the button to save your recording to disk (you can delete it later after you've exported the songs to iTunes). Now click the Auto-Define button at the top to automatically split your file into tracks, one for each song. Once you have the track list, click the Identify button to tag each track with title and artist information.

Tracks auto-defined and identified in Spin Doctor (click to enlarge).

Typically, since radio is continuous, you'll start recording in the middle of the first song, and stop in the middle of the last song. So you'll notice in our track list, the first and last tracks are short partial recordings, and one is unidentified. Simply click on these to delete them, and you'll be left with all your fully recorded tracks in between.

Step 3: Send to iTunes or Toast

The final step is to send your new recordings to iTunes or Toast. To send tracks to iTunes, first check them off in the "Active" column next to the track names. Then select "Send Active Tracks to iTunes" from the File menu. iTunes will open and your tracks will be added to the Music list. From iTunes you can sync them to your iPod or iPhone, stream them to your Apple TV or stereo and use them as backing tracks for iPhoto slideshows.

Sending tracks to iTunes (click to enlarge).

You can also send your recording directly to Toast, where you can use them in Audio CDs or Music DVDs. To send tracks to Toast, choose the desired option from the Toast menu. You can send all tracks, or selected tracks, and choose Audio CD or Music DVD. Toast will then open a new Audio CD or Music DVD project with your tracks in it.

Sending tracks to Toast (click to enlarge).

With Toast, you can get the most out of your streaming Internet radio subscriptions!

1. Use the highest quality camera settings on your camera

Great prints start with great images. Always set your camera to the highest resolution (number of pixels) and quality (compression level) it can capture. Typically this will be set in a menu on the LCD screen, like that of the Canon camera below. High-resolution images take more space, and will reduce the number that can fit on a memory card, but today's memory cards are so big and inexpensive that if you expect to run out of space before you get to a computer, it's best to simply buy another card.

Resolution and quality settings for a Canon camera (click to enlarge).

Also get to know the other image settings on your camera, such as scene modes and white balance. To learn more, check out CNET's excellent guide to scene modes, and Darren Rowse's white balance tutorial. With the right exposure, your pictures will shine on-screen and in print.

2. Scan at the right resolution

For printing images from older negatives or prints, it's critical to use the right scan settings. Most scanners have an automatic mode, where you simply select "document" or "photo" and the scanner software figures out the rest. For more control, switch to your scan software's expert or professional mode, so you can set the parameters directly.

For example, when scanning a print that will be enlarged, scan at a higher resolution than normal to give enough detail. Ideally, you want to end up (after editing and cropping) with an image that matches the native resolution of your printer (typically 240 or 300 dpi). Adjust the scan resolution accordingly. Scantips.com has a detailed tutorial.

"Professional" scan settings for an Epson scanner (click to enlarge).

3. Correct exposure and color problems

Now that you've got high-quality source images, it's time to enhance them. Older scanned photos will typically have fading and color balance issues which can often be corrected with automatic tools in your favorite photo editor, such as the Tint tool in Roxio PhotoSuite (part of Creator 2010), or the Enhance tool in iPhoto.

Newer photos taken with digital cameras and cameraphones often have contrast, brightness or saturation problems. It's best to head these issues off by learning about scene modes and white balance (see Tip 1), but if you still have problems, they can also be fixed in your photo editor. PhotoSuite has tools for Brightness & Contrast, Saturation and Exposure, including both manual and automatic fixes for exposure and saturation. iPhoto's Adjust tool has manual controls for these.

A faded photo fixed using color-correction tools (click to enlarge).

4. Remove dust & scratches

Scanned images, especially negatives, will also often have visible dust and scratches that can be corrected with your editing software, such as PhotoSuite. While you're at it, also remove red-eye with the simple tools in most editors. Our PhotoSuite tutorial tells you how to do both.

Removing dust from an old image scan with Roxio PhotoSuite's Dust filter (click to enlarge).

5. Crop and frame your photo

Fixing your image and removing dust and scratches will do a lot for your prints, but sometimes the biggest improvement will come simply from better cropping or framing of the subject. Tightening the crop will immediately make a difference in most pictures, and in others, putting the subject off center can add artful interest. Check out the Digital Photography School's tutorial on "Cropping for Impact" for more.

You can also crop to fit a particular frame or print size. Just make sure you get the proportions exact, the image will be scaled as needed during printing.

Finally, invest in a paper cutter. You'll be able to accurately cut prints to fit your mat or frame, cut out greeting cards or scrapbooking materials, and divide multiple-print pages with ease (see Tip 10).

6. Choose the right ink and printer

If you don't already have a "photo-quality" printer, usually with multiple color ink cartridges, you may want to invest in a better one. Very good photo printers can be had for well under $100 these days. The ongoing ink cost is often the bigger expenditure. But for top-quality prints, ink makes a huge difference.

The so-called "archival" inks found in better photo inkjets are formulated to withstand exposure to sunlight and resist smudging and bleeding. Some are even waterproof, and may be guaranteed to last for a certain number of years (assuming you use matching archival-quality paper).

Below is an image from a test of inkjet durability that illustrates the range of fading found with different inks and papers.

Inkjet print fading tests under UV light (click to enlarge).

7. Choose the right paper

As with ink, archival paper is the best choice for photos you intend to keep or display for the long term. But beyond durability, also check out the different paper types on the market. Each printer vendor has an array tailored to match their printer and ink characteristics, from high-gloss white to velvety semi-gloss to matte.

The Fine Art papers offered by Epson are especially good for black and white prints and old-time or artisan-quality effects with their heavy weights and cotton content. Check out these paper guides from HP, Epson and Canon.

8. Choose the right print settings

After selecting your ink and paper, make sure to choose the right print settings for them. Most printers have options in the print dialog boxes on both Mac and Windows for selecting paper type, resolution, print quality level, color etc. Go through all of these options and learn what they mean. Try some test prints to see the difference.

Your photo editing program may have further print settings, such as "print profiles" and color management (calibration) tools that help ensure the colors you see on the screen are what you get on the print.

9. Make old-timey prints

Now that you know the basics of how to get good prints from your home inkjet, it's time to get creative! With PhotoSuite, or your favorite image editor, you can take digital camera photos and make them look like old-fashioned prints with ease.

We wanted to take the middle photo below and give it a similar soft framed and airbrushed look to the left photo, which dates from the 50s. We also had an antique silver oval frame to put it in. In PhotoSuite, we used the Mask/Cutout by Shape tool to crop out the oval shape and give it a soft feathered edge. Then we also used the Selenium option in the Special Effects tool to give it a gray tint. After printing on heavy matte fine art paper with archival ink, we had a photo perfect for framing.

New image (center) masked and tinted to resemble an old photo (left) (click to enlarge).

10. Print multiple photos per page

Finally, printing at home makes it easy to create various sizes and extra copies of your photos to give to family and friends. Most photo editors, including PhotoSuite and iPhoto, have page layout tools that let you print multiple copies on one page, conserving expensive photo paper. Why print just one 5x7 when two will fit on the page easily? PhotoSuite has literally dozens of print templates for fitting combinations of photo sizes on a page, such as one 5x7 plus five 2x3s. Share your photos!

Printing multiple photos per page with Roxio PhotoSuite (click to enlarge).

With Toast 10 Titanium, you can take three easy steps toward a clean computing house:

1. Archive — Use Toast's flexible data disc burning features to offload little-used files to CD or DVD and free up valuable hard disk space. Your programs will run faster when they've got plenty of breathing room. Use the Mac-only disc format to encrypt discs for security — a perfect solution for old financial and tax records. Store copies of your archives in a second location for added safety.

Using the Data disc project type to archive tax data to disc for safekeeping.

2. Organize — Now's the time to wrangle all those audio, video and photo files floating around your hard disk into the appropriate iPhoto/iTunes/iMovie libraries. Once you've done that, Toast 10's integrated Media Browser gives you instant access to all your media for use in your projects. And of course your iLife programs will be more useful too, with media at the ready.

Using the Toast Media Browser to import music from iTunes for an audio project.

3. Back Up — Finally, perform manual or automatic backups of your current files with Toast 10's Get Backup program. This deceptively program sports amazing power. You can even back up to a network hard disk. For backups of large files, folders or applications across multiple CDs or DVDs, you can take advantage of Toast's unique disc-spanning feature - which splits the data across as many discs as needed.

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.

Now that your Mac is cleaned and backed up, you'll rest easier knowing your valuable data is safe, and your machinery all polished up, ready to go for another year.

Music DVDs are perfect for parties, too. You can include cover art (or any other photos you like) for each track, and tracks can be arranged in handy menus and playlists. You could create a 60's theme disc with pictures from the era that show on screen while the music plays. Or a disc for a family reunion with family photos and family favorite songs. In essence, a Music DVD is a music player that you or your guests can control with your TV remote. And just one disc can hold an entire music collection. (Both single and dual-layer DVDs are supported.)

To create a Music DVD with Toast 10, first choose the Music DVD project type under the Audio tab. Then drag in music files from your hard disk or the Toast Media Browser. Each folder or group of files you add at one time will appear as a playlist with its own button on the DVD menu.

Dragging in music from the iTunes library via the Toast Media Browser.

Now that you have your music imported, click the Edit button for any playlist to: rearrange, add or remove songs in the list; add album artwork or photos; set the name and menu button image for the playlist; and set the length of the pause between tracks. To add album art or photos, simply drag and drop an image directly onto a track in the Edit window. If you don't add artwork to a particular track, the button graphic from the DVD menu will be displayed instead.

Editing a playlist.

Next, open the Options area at bottom left to select a DVD menu style (there are dozens of choices) and options such as "Include Shuffle Play," which adds a Shuffle Play button for each playlist on your DVD to play the tracks in random order.

Choosing DVD menu options.

Finally, click the burn button to record your disc. The bar at the bottom tells you how much space your music will take up. You can use dual-layer discs if you have too much for a single-layer DVD, for nearly 100 hours of music!

The finished DVD showing the Playlist menu. Note the Artists, Albums and Songs buttons at the bottom, so you can find any song easily.

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.

Video Format & Resolution

Unless you are on a very limited budget, don't look at anything less than 1080p (1920x1080 progressive scan) recording, also called "Full HD," "True HD" or "Ultra HD" by vendors. Full 1080p will yield smoother and better looking results than either 1080i or 720p, the two other possible HD resolutions. Most 1080p camcorders also let you record in lower resolutions if desired, and 1080p models are now available in all price ranges, so there is little reason to go with anything less.

The other major spec to look at is the video format your movies will be recorded in. This has a major impact on how you will be able to use the video in your computer. Some formats can be used directly by various applications, or copied straight to your iPod or other portable player, and some require conversion.

The three most common are AVCHD, H.264 and HDV. AVCHD and H.264 are recorded to flash memory, memory card, hard disk or optical disc in the camcorder, while HDV is recorded to MiniDV tape.

AVCHD stands for Advanced Video Codec High Definition, and uses the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 compression scheme. AVCHD is a newer and more efficient format than HDV, which uses the older MPEG-2 codec (also used by DVDs). Thus AVCHD files will be smaller than HDV files at any given quality level.

AVCHD and HDV are found in the highest quality camcorders, the ones that have bit rates up to the maximum possible -- 24Mbps for AVCHD and 25Mbps for HDV. Higher bit rates mean less image compression, and therefore higher quality and larger file sizes. Camcorders that can record 1080p video at maximum bit rates are generally the most expensive, and tend to have better lenses, image sensors and other features as well.

The Canon Vixia HF-S20 is a 1080p AVCHD camcorder that records up to 24Mbps video as well as 8MP still images.

Finally, most pocket HD camcorders record directly in the H.264 format, using either MPEG-4 or AVI codecs. Cameras that record in H.264/MPEG-4 can be used to upload video direct to YouTube, iPod or PSP, with no conversion required, but are typically much lower quality than the full-size AVHCD or HDV models.

So what does all this boil down to when choosing an HD camcorder? Go with an H.264 model if you primarily want to shoot video for the Web, and also want a pocketable model. For top quality, you can go with either AVCHD or HDV, but AVCHD video is easier to copy to your hard disk, since you can simply drag and drop files on the desktop. And while AVCHD used to be difficult to edit, most computer video editing programs, including Roxio VideoWave on the PC and iMovie on the Mac, now support it.

Storage Media

As mentioned above, there are several possible storage formats for video: built-in flash memory, removable memory cards, hard drives, miniDVDs, and MiniDV tape. Some built-in flash memory is nice, but the most convenient type of storage is probably removable memory cards. They add little size or weight, compared to hard drives, discs or tapes, and dramatic drops in memory card prices have also made it affordable to carry spare cards.

The latest memory card format making its way into HD camcorders is SXDC, which expands the maximum capacity to an amazing 2 terabytes, from just 32GB for SHDC. SXDC cards up to 64GB are available now. With a 64GB card, you can record up to 6 hours of top-quality 24Mbps, 1080p AVCHD video.

SXDC memory cards can go all the way up to 2 terabytes.

At some point, however, you will need to transfer recordings on memory cards or internal storage to permanent storage like external hard drives, DVDs or Blu-ray discs. Roxio Creator and Roxio Toast make this process easy, with convenient AVCHD archiving capabilities that let you record direct to DVD or Blu-ray disc for both playback and storage. Of course, miniDVDs and tapes serve as their own long-term storage media, and may be the best choice if you travel a lot and don't have the means to archive your video on the go.

Lenses & Zooms

In general, the better and more expensive the camcorder, the better the lens. In a given price range, look for lenses with the longest "optical" zooms, and the best low-light performance. With optical zoom, you get a full-resolution picture at the longest zoom. With digital zoom, the picture is basically a cropped and enlarged portion of the full-resolution image, and you'll lose a lot of quality. Many manufacturers specify a combination of optical and digital zoom, such as 10X optical/200X digital, but the optical number is the one to focus on.

Some camcorders have staggeringly high optical zoom numbers, such as 60X or 70X. These can be useful in some situations, such as sports and big game-viewing, where you can't get closer to your subject. However, note that you'll likely need a tripod to use them, since at these long zooms, even the slightest camera movement can look like an earthquake. Image-stabilization (see below) helps, but a tripod is better.

For low-light performance, look at the minimum illumination number given for the camcorder (7 lux or lower is good). In general, cameras with larger CCD or CMOS chips (image sensors) have better low-light performance, with less grain showing. If you do a lot of indoor shooting, however, it's probably a good idea to invest in a video light as well.

Video Outputs

HD camcorders typically have multiple types of outputs. For transferring the video to your computer, there may be USB 2.0 or FireWire (also known as IEEE 1394 or i.Link) jacks. Just be sure that if you buy a FireWire camcorder, that you also have a FireWire port on your computer. For viewing your recordings on TV, there may be HDMI or component jacks. HDMI is simpler and more convenient as long as you have an HDMI port on your TV. Then there may also be separate audio inputs and outputs, which let you attach external microphones or listen via headphones. Some cameras also offer DLNA support. With DLNA in both camera and your TV or media device, you can be sure of playing back your video without conversion.

The Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 camera has USB 2.0 and HDMI outputs, and records in H.264/MPEG-4 for direct upload to Web or portable player. It also has face detection and image stabilization.

Image Stabilization

Also called shake reduction or steady shot, image stabilization is one of the most important features to make its way into consumer camcorders in recent years. As resolution gets higher, zooms get longer, and cameras get smaller, it becomes harder and harder to avoid visible camera movement while shooting.

That's where fancy electronic stabilization comes in, that automatically adjusts for small movements in the picture. As with zoom lenses, optical image stabilization is preferable to digital stabilization, where the effect is only applied after recording and reduces overall quality slightly.

While optical stabilization is great, the poor man's solution is simply to use a tripod, or steady your camera against a tree or wall. We keep a little flexible tripod, that can wrap around a pipe or tree branch or sit on a table, in our camera bag at all times.

The sure-fire way to stabilize your shots is to use a tripod.

Face Tracking

Face tracking, or face detection, is another recent innovation that can greatly improve the quality of your video. By recognizing faces in the picture, the camera can adjust focus and color for sharp subjects and natural skin tones, no matter where they are in the frame. Some cameras even let you touch the face that you want to prioritize on their LCDs.

Face tracking lets you shoot off-center subjects easily.

Geotagging

With geotagging, you'll always know exactly where a video or photo was shot. Cameras with this capability have built-in GPS receivers, and "tag" your videos so you can view them on a map. This is an especially good feature for outdoor sports and travel. Imagine recording your location as you shoot while hiking the Appalachian Trail or cruising in the Caribbean.

Some cameras also allow geotagging with external GPS receivers, by connecting them via Bluetooth.

Video Panoramas

Probably the coolest new feature to show up in camcorders at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show is 360-degree video panorama recording. Found in an inexpensive pocket cam, the 360-degree recording is achieved with a special lens attachment. It works for both photos and videos.

Still Photo Capability

Last but not least, we would be remiss if we didn't mention that today's camcorders are often also excellent still cameras. This combination lets you carry just one camera in your pocket, instead of two, although the still capability won't be as feature-filled or convenient as that of a dedicated camera. Look for at least 5-megapixel still photo support, plus the ability to switch quickly between still and video modes. You don't want to miss the shot because you were fumbling with controls or menus!

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.

Want to make a Holiday PhotoShow like this one? Then gather up your best photos, from holidays past and present, and go to PhotoShow.com to get started. In just a few minutes, you can create a fun and engaging keepsake of the season. Music, captions, and themed styles let you tell a story with your pictures.

The whole family can join in on picking photos and music, and adding captions, effects and stickers. You'll create new memories while you relive the old ones.

Play your new show on your big-screen TV for everyone to enjoy! Or put it on your Web site or blog (including Facebook and MySpace), email it to friends and relatives, transfer it to your iPod or smartphone, or burn a DVD. The sharing options are endless. Your show can also be as private or as public as you like. You control who you invite to view it.

Basic PhotoShows are free to create and share. With a Premium PhotoShow account you also get many added benefits, such as video clip support, hundreds more custom styles and artwork, and the ability to add your own MP3 tracks or use multiple music tracks in one show. Premium subscribers can also create PhotoShows offline with the downloadable desktop software, and burn their own DVDs.

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

Getting Started with Roxio PhotoShow

To begin your PhotoShow, go toPhotoShow.com and 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 "Make a PhotoShow" button at the top, which brings you to the first step: adding your photos.

Click to enlarge.

Next, click the Add Photos button so you can upload pictures from your hard drive. 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. Click the Add more... button to add more photos from different locations. You can import photos from Facebook, Flickr, Picasa and Shutterfly, too (choose the account first from the list on the right). If you have a Premium account, you can also select video clips from your camcorder to upload. Once you've added all the photos for your show, your screen should look like this (notice the video at the bottom of the list):

Click to enlarge.

Finally, click the Upload button to send all your photos and videos to PhotoShow.com. You'll see a progress bar as each file uploads.

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.

Click to enlarge.

Next, pick the overall Style, or theme, for your PhotoShow. There are dozens to choose from. Click the More Styles button to browse the additional themes available to Premium members. You can also customize the timing for each slide, if desired, letting some slides stay onscreen longer than others, using the drop-down Speed menu and slider.

Click to enlarge.

Here, we've picked the Christmas style; other Premium holiday options include Thanksgiving, Hannukah, New Year's, Happy Holidays, and Winter. You can quickly preview your show with any number of styles to see what is best for you in the thumbnail at upper right.

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If you have any questions about PhotoShow features as you go, simply click the little question mark icon to open the Tips panel on the side, which provides context-sensitive help.

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With the style picked, it's time to arrange our photos and 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). Under the Music & Photos tab, you can drag your photos around into any order, rotate them (using the popup icon at the lower left corner of each photo), delete photos, and add additional music tracks. Premium users can also upload their own MP3s.

First, we'll arrange the photos and videos in the order that we want them to appear by dragging them around. We've got two vintage items: one photo and one video, taken in the early 60s, that we want to show first, so we'll move them to the beginning, and also rearrange the rest of the slides.

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Next, we want to select a more upbeat music track for the contemporary portion of the show, so we'll slide over the blue handle at the end. The blue handles define the start and end of each music track. Now we can click the music icon in the top right corner of the third photo to pick a new track for the rest of the slides.

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The More Music window will open, where you can select other PhotoShow tracks, or upload your own if you have a Premium account. We've picked Jingle Bells as our second track below.

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Now you can see how the show looks with two songs. Each is represented by a different color. You can drag the blue handle in the middle to change the crossover point of the two tracks. You can also add and remove photos at any time.

Click to enlarge.

Moving on down the line, we come to the Captions tab. Captions can be added in any size or width of text, in several different styles, and dragged into position 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. Simply click the Next button to add captions to each slide in your show.

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New to PhotoShow.com this month is the ability to resize the editing window, so you can see more options at one time, and preview your show in full size in real time while you edit. Enlarge the picture below to see what a difference it makes!

Click to enlarge.

The fun doesn't stop there: you can also add speech bubbles, more titles, stickers, and borders. Premium subscribers get more options for these. Here we've added a bubble to one of our slides.

Click to enlarge.

And below we've added a couple stickers to another slide. Stickers are basically animated graphics, in tons of fun shapes and themes. You'll find everything from mistletoe and Santa's caps, to hopping Easter bunnies and flying Halloween witches in the sticker library.

Click to enlarge.

Finally, borders are great for adding interest to your entire show. Here's an example of what borders look like, although we have not applied one to our final show. There are many other themes to choose from, as well as plain picture-frame styles.

Click to enlarge.

Sharing Your Show

You can continue to play with your show and add or change elements. When you're finished, click the Preview button to check out the complete show.

Assuming everything is okay, click the Done button to 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; or purchase your show on DVD. 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, and burn your own DVDs.

To transfer a show to your iPod or iPhone (with a Premium account), click the "Save as MP4 video" button at lower right. In a few minutes, you'll received an emailed link to download your MP4 show to your desktop. MP4s can be dragged and dropped right into iTunes for syncing with your iPod, or transferred to any other media player that supports MP4 video, including PSPs.

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Now, wasn't that fun and easy?

Creator 2010 takes the pain out of these conversions, by providing presets for most popular output formats. You simply choose the files you want to convert from the list on the left, and your outpout device from the handy visual guide on the left.

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.

But that's just the beginning, there's lots more. Popcorn 4's top five new tricks are:

• DVD Clip Extraction: Extract video clips or music from any DVD-Video and convert to the format of your choice
• Mac2TiVo: Stream video from your Mac to your TiVo DVR — perfect for home videos
• Scheduled Conversions: Save time by setting your video conversions to run when you're away from the computer
• YouTube™ Publishing: Send converted videos directly to YouTube
• Adobe Flash Conversion: Convert your videos to the Flash FLV format for easy online posting and sharing

Read on to learn more about each of these features.

Extract Clips from DVDs

Popcorn 4 lets you extract both video clips and music from unencrypted DVD-Video discs and VIDEO_TS folders. You just mark clips, or areas of the DVD-Video you want to extract, and then export them to the format of your choice. This feature is perfect for sharing short clips online, or using clips in presentations and demos. You can also extract the music only from concert DVDs to put on your iPod or other music player.

To extract video clips from your DVD begin a Convert>Video Files project. Then insert your unencrypted DVD-Video disc. From the Popcorn Media Browser, select DVD from the top menu and then drag your DVD into the project window. You can also drag in a VIDEO_TS from the Finder.

Now that your DVD is dragged into the project, you will see the Extract DVD Clip dialog. Select the video title you would like to extract a clip from in the pull-down Title menu. Also select the audio track(s) you'd like to use from the DVD, including any alternate languages.

To select the portion of the video title you want to extract, click the play button to preview the DVD title. Now you'll see a timeline below the clip. Drag the Clip Start Marker and Clip End Marker so that the area of video you would like to extract is between them. Alternatively you can change the value of Start Chapter or End Chapter to have the clip markers move to those positions.

Finally click the + button at the bottom left of the window. This will add your selected clip to the list of clips to extract. You can click on the name of the clip in the list to make changes to the name. If you want to extract more clips, simply select another video title and repeat the same steps.

When you're finished selecting clips, click the Add button. Your video clips will be added to the Convert>Video Files project. Now all you have to do is click the red Copy button. The Player Setup dialog will appear and you can export all of the clips to the format of your choice.

Extracting (click to enlarge).

If you'd like to extract audio only from a DVD-video disc, the procedure is similar. First, begin a Convert>Audio Files project. Then follow the same procedure for extracting video clips above. Now when you press the red Copy button, you'll be able to select the audio format you would like to use for extracted music.

Send Videos from Mac to TiVo

Popcorn has been able to transfer shows from your networked TiVo to your Mac for years now, using TiVo Transfer. But in Popcorn 4, 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 the Mac2TiVo application in the Popcorn 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 (either standard or HD), 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 from your Mac to your TiVo DVR with Mac2TiVo (click to enlarge).

Schedule Video Conversions

Even though Popcorn is as efficient as possible, converting video takes time, and can drastically slow down your machine in the process. With Popcorn 4, you can now queue up and schedule CPU-intensive video conversions to run when you're away from the computer, eliminating downtime. You can also pause and resume conversions at any time, so you are always in control of your computer. Even better, Popcorn 4's improved video preview quality ensures no unpleasant surprises after conversion — what you see is what you'll get. You can even save Preview clips at different settings to compare quality, and then choose the best one for the full conversion.

To schedule your conversion, begin your Convert>Video Files project and get to the point to where the Player Setup dialog appears. Next, select your Device, Quality, and Save To destination from the available options. Now click the Schedule button, select "At Exact Time," and specify when your video conversion should begin. You can also choose "Countdown" and select the number of hours and minutes before conversion.

Finally, click OK. Popcorn 4 will minimize to the dock, and a schedule icon will appear over the normal Popcorn icon to indicate that a video conversion has been scheduled. Note that Popcorn must remain running for the conversion to occur at the scheduled time; however you can switch to other user accounts using Fast User Switching.

Scheduling video conversions means no more enforced coffee breaks (click to enlarge).

Publish Videos Direct to YouTube

Any video you convert with Popcorn 4 can also be sent directly to your YouTube account. You can select a title, category, description, and sharing options — then post to YouTube with a click. You can even publish your AVCHD home videos — saving significant time over iMovie since no lengthy conversion is required. Here's how.

First, start your Convert>Video Files project as you would any other, by adding video(s) to the project window using the Media Browser or dragging from the Finder. Then click the red Copy button and select YouTube from the Device pulldown.

Next, select your Quality level. You will notice the destination option is not available, this is normal because your destination is YouTube. Now click the Convert button and you'll be prompted with a YouTube dialog to enter information about your video.

If your YouTube account name is not shown in the Account pulldown, click Add and follow the instructions to enter your account details or create a new account. Then select the appropriate YouTube category for your video, and enter description and tag information.

You can also enable the "Make this movie private" option if you don't want other users to be able to see your video unless you explicitly share it with them. Finally, click Upload, and you video will be converted and uploaded to YouTube. Once complete, you can change your description and other details if desired by logging into your account on the YouTube site.

Publishing videos direct from Popcorn to YouTube (click to enlarge).

Convert Videos to Flash for Your Website

FLV and F4V, or Flash Video, are widely used formats for storing video that will be played back in Web browsers using Adobe Flash Player. Most video you watch on sites like YouTube is in this format. Popcorn 4 now allows you to turn your own video into FLV or F4V for Adobe Flash playback. Popcorn even generates the HTML template and video player controls you need for posting Flash video online. Here's how:

First, start a Convert>Video Files project as you normally would, by adding video from any source, including the Media Browser, to the Content Area. Then click the red Copy button, and select Flash Video (FLV) or Flash Video (F4V) from the Device pulldown. The format displayed here can be changed in Popcorn Preferences; F4V is Adobe's current recommendation. Next, select a quality level and destination for your converted video. Finally, click the Convert button and your video will be exported into the selected Flash video format.

There is also a "Flash Video with Player" option available from the Device pulldown menu. Selecting this option will not only convert your video into FLV or F4V video for Adobe Flash, but will also create an HTML template and video playback controller to make it easy to insert your Flash video into any Web page.

Exporting video in Flash format for sharing on the Web.

All you need is Toast 10 Titanium and a compatible networked TiVo DVR (click here for instructions on networking your TiVo). You can even set up automatic transfers that work together with your Season Passes, so your favorite shows will be waiting for you on your Mac whenever you want to watch them. You can also edit out unwanted portions from the shows you transfer to save space on your portable player. Here's how:

Transfer Shows from TiVo to Mac

Whether you want to send your TiVo shows to your iPhone or burn them to DVD, the first step is to transfer them to your Mac with the TiVo Transfer application. When you install Toast 10, you'll be asked if you want to enable TiVo Transfers. If you didn't check the box at first, you can enable TiVo support later by launching the Toast Setup Assistant from the Toast Help menu.

Enabling TiVo Transfers in the Toast Setup Assistant.

Now launch the TiVo Transfer application from the Toast 10 folder, or from the Extras menu in Toast. You'll be asked to enter the Media Access Key for your TiVo, which you only have to do once. To retrieve your key, go to "My TiVo" at TiVo.com, click on "My Account" and sign in. Finally, click on "View Media Access Key," copy the number, and paste it into TiVo Transfer. You can also find your Media Access Key in TiVo Central, under Messages & Settings>>Account & System Information.

Entering the Media Access Key for your TiVo.

After entering your Media Access Key, you'll see the main window of TiVo Transfer. The TiVo DVRs list at bottom left displays all TiVo DVRs detected on your home network. Click on one to view all shows in the Now Playing List for that DVR.

Viewing available recordings on your networked TiVo DVRs (click to enlarge).

Next, choose shows to transfer by selecting them and clicking the Start Transfer button. (Make sure you have enough hard disk space for your transfers, HD recordings can be large.) Some shows (mostly from premium movie channels) may have a red slash next to them, indicating they are copy-protected and cannot be transferred.

The shows will then appear in the Active Transfers list until they have finished copying to your Mac. Transfers happen in the background, and you can keep working on other things in the meantime.

When completed, the shows will be displayed in the TiVo Recordings list. You can watch these shows on your Mac with the Toast Video Player simply by double-clicking.

Shows in the TiVo Recordings list are on your Mac and can be used in any Toast video project (click to enlarge).

If you have Season Passes on your TiVo, also consider using the Auto Transfer feature, which copies all new recordings of a particular show to your Mac as soon as they appear. With Auto Transfer, the latest episodes of your favorite shows can be transferred and converted overnight, and all ready to view on your Mac or sync to your iPhone or iPod in the morning. Just be sure to select your default conversion format for TiVo recording under the Toast Preferences Audio & Video tab. For conversion to iPod or DVD, read on.

Creating an Auto Transfer for a Season Pass (click to enlarge).

Convert Shows for iPhone or iPod

Once you've transferred shows to your Mac, you can use them in your Toast video projects. To convert them for your iPhone, iPod or or other portable video player, open Toast 10, click the Convert tab, and choose the Video Files project type. Next, open the Toast Media Browser from the Window menu, select the TiVo recordings you'd like to convert, and drag them to the Toast window.

Selecting TiVo shows to convert for iPhone or iPod (click to enlarge).

Now click the Player Setup button at bottom left and select your portable player (such as iPhone/iPod, PSP or BlackBerry) from the drop-down list that appears. Also select a quality level (higher quality takes more space) and a destination for the converted videos. Here, we've chosen to send the converted videos directly to iTunes, since we will be syncing them to an iPhone. You can also save them to any location on your hard drive, or send them directly to Roxio Streamer for remote viewing via the Web (read more about Streamer below).

Selecting the iPhone/iPod conversion format.

At this point you can click the red Export button and start the conversion (which can be paused and resumed at any time), but you can also take a little time to trim out unwanted portions of the videos first. This has the advantage of saving space on your portable player.

To trim a video, first click the Edit button next to it. Then click Edit again within the box that appears. This will open the editing window.

Opening the Toast video editing window (click to enlarge).

To trim out any portion, simply move the play head at the top of the timeline bar to the point at which you want to start cutting, and then click the trim button at bottom, which inserts a set of two markers at that point. Then grab the right-hand marker and move it to the place where you want to stop cutting. The video in between the two markers, represented by hash marks, will be trimmed out. Keep inserting more markers to trim out more portions. When you're finished, your video will look something like this:

Trimming unwanted portions from a TiVo show (click to enlarge).

Now choose Save from the Edit menu to save your changes and close the editing window. Thanks to trimming, Mad Men has now been reduced from 1:01:59 to 47:08, a 24 percent space savings. Finally, click the red Export button to start the conversion.

The conversion process will take a while, and you'll see an encoding progress bar. Once finished, open iTunes and check out your new videos! You can play them back within iTunes, or sync them to your iPod or iPhone next time you connect.

Converted TiVo shows in iTunes, ready for syncing to iPhone or iPod (click to enlarge).

Burn Shows to DVD or Blu-ray Disc

Archiving shows to DVD or Blu-ray disc is a great way to free up space on your TiVo and build up your video library. You can then play them back later on your TV or computer at any time. To archive a show, simply start a new DVD-Video or Blu-ray Video project in Toast, open the Media Browser from the Window menu, and select shows to burn from the list of TiVo recordings on your Mac (as illustrated in the previous section). The bar at the bottom will tell you how much disc space is used by your selections, and how much is still available.

If you have a Blu-ray drive, you can fit two hours of full-quality HD video on a 25GB disc, and four hours on a 50GB disc. You can also burn HD recordings to DVD media that can be played in a set-top Blu-ray player, and they will be compressed as needed to fit on the disc. Simply choose the type of disc you want to use (such as single or dual-layer DVD or Blu-ray) from the drop-down list at lower right. Note that Blu-ray and HD recording requires the Toast HD/BD Plug-in (available separately, or included with Toast 10 Pro).

Burning high-definition TiVo shows to a Blu-ray disc (click to enlarge).

Once you've selected your shows to archive, you can customize your disc using the Options panel at lower left to choose a Menu Style and other features. You can also edit each video by clicking the button next to it. This allows you to change the title, customize chapter markers, and edit out unwanted portions (just like we did above).

Finally, click the red button at lower right, and your disc will be burned. You'll be prompted to insert a disc if you haven't already.

Watch TiVo Shows Remotely Using Roxio Streamer

We've covered how to transfer shows to your Mac or portable player when you're at home, but how about if you're on the road when a new show is recorded to your TiVo? With the Roxio Streamer application in Toast 10, you can set up most any Mac to stream video over the Internet in H.264 format to an iPhone or iPod Touch, or to a Mac or PC Web browser. There's even a free native iPhone app!

Using the Auto Transfer feature with Streamer, you can set things up so that your favorite new TiVo recordings are automatically transferred to your Mac, converted with Toast, and added to your Streamer list. You'll be able to view them from your broadband-connected computer or iPhone/iPod Touch as soon as they are in Streamer. This also frees up precious phone storage space.

Watching shows in Roxio Streamer on an iPhone (click to enlarge).

Is your favorite team in the playoffs and you can't watch the game in your hotel? Use TiVo's ability to schedule shows from the Web or iPhone, and Apple's Back to My Mac remote access capability to set up the transfer and add it to your Streamer list!

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. Read our complete Streamer tutorial here.

Send Videos from Mac to TiVo

One of the hot new features in Toast 10 is the ability to copy and stream videos back from your Mac to your TiVo. This makes it easy to view those home movies from your digital camcorder on the big screen. You can transfer pretty much any video you have on your Mac, including Web videos you've captured with the Toast Web Video Capture feature. 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. (See above for how to find your Media Access Key.) 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 (click to enlarge).

There are just a few simple steps: 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 Web videos anywhere, without an Internet connection!

Better yet, involve the whole family in making it. Everyone can have fun gathering photos, choosing music, and adding captions and special effects. You'll create new memories while you relive the old ones.

Play your spooky show on your big-screen TV as a backdrop to your Halloween celebrations, even use it in a haunted house! Or put it on your Web site or blog (including Facebook and MySpace), email it to friends and relatives, or burn a DVD. The sharing options are endless. Your show can also be as private or as public as you like. You control who you invite to view it.

Basic PhotoShows are free to create and share. However, a Premium PhotoShow account brings many benefits like video support, hundreds more custom styles and artwork, the ability to adding your own music tracks, and offline PhotoShow creation 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 of creating a Halloween PhotoShow on PhotoShow.com.

Getting Started with Roxio PhotoShow

To begin your PhotoShow, go toPhotoShow.com and 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 button labeled "Start Your PhotoShow Now," which brings you to the first step: adding your photos.

Click to enlarge.

Now click the Add Photos button so you can upload pictures from your hard disk. 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. Click the Add more... button to add more photos from different locations. You can import photos from Facebook, Flickr, Picasa and Shutterfly, too (choose the account first from the list on the right). If you have a Premium account, you can also select video clips from your camcorder to upload. Once you've added all the photos for your show, your screen should look like this:

Click to enlarge.

Finally, click the Upload button to send all your photos and videos to PhotoShow.com. You'll see a progress bar as each file uploads.

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.

Click to enlarge.

Next, pick the overall Style, or theme, for your PhotoShow. There are dozens to choose from, such as Father's Day, Graduation, Summer, and more. Click the More button to view additional styles available to Premium members.

Click to enlarge.

Here, we've picked Halloween, of course! 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.

Click to enlarge.

With the Halloween Style picked, it's time to arrange our photos and 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). Under the Music & Photos tab, you can drag your photos around into any order, rotate them (using the popup icon at the lower left corner of each photo), delete photos, and add additional music tracks. Premium users can also upload their own MP3s.

Click to enlarge.

First, we'll arrange the photos and videos in the order that we want them to appear by dragging them around. Next, we want to add a new music track for the trick-or-treating portion of the show, called "Dancing in the Streets," so we'll slide over the blue handle at the beginning to the next to last photo. The blue handles define the start and end of each music track.

Click to enlarge.

Now we'll select the first photo and click the popup music icon to choose the song. It will be applied to all the photos up to the start of the next track. You can add even more tracks if you like, and Premium subscribers can upload their own MP3s to use as background music.

Click to enlarge.

Now you can see how the show looks with two songs. Each is represented by a different color. You can drag the blue handle in the middle to change the crossover point of the two tracks. You can also add and remove photos at any time.

Click to enlarge.

Moving on down the line, we come to the Captions tab. Captions can be added in any size or width of text, in several different styles, and dragged into position 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. Simply click the Next button to add captions to each slide in your show.

Click to enlarge.

The fun doesn't stop there: you can also add speech bubbles, more titles, stickers, and borders. Premium subscribers get more options for all of these. Here we've added a bubble to one of our slides.

Click to enlarge.

And here we've added a couple stickers to another slide. Stickers are basically animated graphics, in tons of fun shapes and themes. You'll find everything from flying ghosts and witches to hopping Easter bunnies in the sticker library.

Click to enlarge.

Finally, borders are great for adding interest to your entire show. We've selected the Halloween border style here. There are many other themes to choose from, as well as plain picture-frame styles.

Click to enlarge.

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 Preview button to check out the complete show.

Click to enlarge.

Assuming everything is okay, click the Done button to 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; or purchase your show on DVD. 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.

Click to enlarge.

And here's the finished PhotoShow! Now, wasn't that fun and easy?

Even better, Creator 2010 integrates perfectly with all your digital media devices, from digital cameras and HD camcorders to smart phones, music players, TiVos, Blu-ray players and game consoles, making it a snap to transfer and convert files between them so you can enjoy your media anywhere. It is also certified for Windows 7, so you'll be prepared for Microsoft's latest OS.

There are full lists of what's new on the Creator 2010 and Creator 2010 Pro pages, respectively. Here, we've picked ten of the best new features to show you how they work.

1. Archive HD Video Direct-to-Disc

If you have an AVCHD camcorder, this feature alone is worth the upgrade to Creator 2010. AVCHD camcorders typically hold only a few hours of video, so they need to be emptied frequently -- resulting in hard drive overload.

Instead of clogging up your hard drive, Creator 2010 lets you burn AVCHD archive discs straight from your camcorder to DVD or Blu-ray Disc (Blu-ray Disc burning requires the optional High-Def/Blu-ray Plug-in, which is included with Creator 2010). These discs are playable in your set-top Blu-ray player, no editing needed! And you don't need an expensive Blu-ray drive if you burn AVCHD on DVDs. All you do is plug in your camcorder, open Creator and choose the AVCHD Archive task, select the clips you want to burn, and go!

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

HDV camcorder owners can also send their videos straight from tape to DVD or Blu-ray Disc with Creator 2010's Plug & Burn feature. Between AVCHD Archive and Plug & Burn, Creator has all its HD bases covered.

2. Transfer Your Videos Fast with Smart Encoding

HD camcorders provide top-quality video. But that very high quality also usually means long encoding times when you transfer the video to discs. With Creator 2010, you can skip the wait and chop hours off your video projects, thanks to Smart Encoding. With Smart Encoding, Creator automatically determines which sections of video need reencoding (such as titles and transitions), and leaves the remaining footage in its original form, so encoding is reduced to the absolute minimum. This has the added advantage of preserving original video quality as much as possible. Creator 2010 is one of the first applications to support Smart Encoding for both AVCHD and HDV videos!

3. Accelerate Video Conversions up to 5X

Creator 2010 now leverages the NVidia® CUDA™ and ATI® Stream technologies in certain graphics cards to speed up video encoding and conversion up to five times, a huge boost. NVidia CUDA works with AVC(H.264) video, while ATI Stream accelerates both AVC and MPEG2 encoding. Check the NVidia and ATI Web sites to see if your card supports one of these great new technologies.

4. Output Easily with Presets for Your Device

Creator 2010 lets you enjoy your media anywhere: on your PC, website, smartphone, portable player, game console, DVD or Blu-ray player, TiVo, and more. Creator also makes it a snap to convert files for playback on any device. Just choose your output medium visually from the scrolling gallery, press the Convert button, and you're done! There's no need to understand video formats to get the right results. But if you do want to tweak your encoding parameters, simply click the Custom button to get full access.

Converting video for iPhone with streamlined output presets (click to enlarge).

5. Pause/Resume & Schedule Video Conversions

Creator 2010 makes those long video conversion projects (such as converting HD video to MP4 for YouTube or your iPhone) way more convenient by add Pause/Resume and scheduling features. With Creator 2010, you can now queue up and schedule conversions to take place whenever you're away from your PC, pause them when you get back, and resume them later. No more system slowdowns while video is encoding!

With Creator 2010, you can pause and resume video conversion projects any time you want (click to enlarge).

6. Save & Convert Web Video

With Creator 2010, you can now capture Flash-based Web video (such as YouTube) direct to your hard drive, then transfer it to DVD or your portable player, or use it in any of your video projects.

To capture, simply open Creator, choose Video-Movies and the Copy and Convert Video task, then click on the Convert Video tab. Now click the Web Video button and you'll be prompted to open your browser and start playing your video. When your video is finished playing, it will appear in the list on the left of the window. You can keep playing more videos and add them to the list.

When you're done, choose your output device from the options on the right, and press the Convert button. That's all there is to it!

Capturing and converting Web video for playback anywhere (click to enlarge).

7. Capture Internet Radio

If you've ever wanted to capture songs from Internet radio, Creator 2010 is the solution. Not only can it automatically capture any audio streaming to your computer, it can identify songs automatically for you, and even send them to iTunes or your portable player! Build your music library easily.

To capture, open Roxio Home, then select the Music-Audio tab and choose Capture Audio from Sound Card. Also choose Separate Tracks to have Creator automatically divide the music stream into tracks and transferred to your iTunes library. When you press the Record button whatever is playing on your computer will start to be captured. You can stop at any time.

Capturing Internet radio and saving it straight to iTunes (click to enlarge).

8. Drag & Drop Burning Straight from the Desktop

Just need to copy a disc or burn some files to give to a friend or colleague? There's no need to fire up the full Creator application. Instead, insert a blank disc in your drive, and the Roxio Burn icon will show up on your desktop. Simply drag and drop your files or folders onto the icon, then press the burn button! Or insert a previously burned disc and use Roxio Burn to make a quick copy. You can even use it to erase rewriteable discs. The disc icon fills up to indicate how full your burned disc will be.

Roxio Burn lets you drag and drop files to burn right on the desktop.

9. Create Dazzling Multimedia Slideshows

Creator 2010 now integrates with Photoshow.com, to let you turn your photos and video clips into engaging slideshows complete with music and professionally-designed graphics. Finished PhotoShows can be burned to DVD or shared online in your personal PhotoShow.com gallery. See the Roxio YouTube PhotoShow channel for video tutorials.

Roxio Burn lets you drag and drop files to burn right on the desktop (click to enlarge).

10. View Step-by-Step Tutorials within Creator

Last, but not least, Creator 2010 includes a new Learning Center with full step-by-step video and PDF tutorials that will help you get started using all the new features, and many more, such as creating panoramas, editing videos, transferring LPs & tapes to DVD and converting CD audiobooks.

Creator 2010's Learning Center has step-by-step video tutorials that help you get started quickly (click to enlarge).

Creator 2009 makes it simple to convert non-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!

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.

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.]]> http://www.myroxio.com/enu/articles/mac/audio,video/2009/04/cleaning_audio_with_soundsoap_for_mac.html http://www.myroxio.com/enu/articles/mac/audio,video/2009/04/cleaning_audio_with_soundsoap_for_mac.html Mac Audio,Video 2009-04-23T17:11:59Z 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