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The new release includes several new features, some of which are available to Mac users for the first time, including Blu-ray disc burning, disc cataloguing, cross-platform data spanning and recover and advanced audio tools.

Toast 8 retains the familiar interface, albeit tweaked in the words of Roxio, to take 'drag, drop, and burn' to new heights. As a result, users can now complete their projects faster and easier, due in no small part to intuitive visual feedback and a readily accessible media browser.

Toast is the first Blu-ray burning software for the Mac, enabling users to store an estimated 12,500 music tracks, 50,000 photos, or up to four hours of high-definition video on a single 50GB BD Disc. Toast's Dynamic Writing feature allows users to simply drag and drop content directly onto the disc icon on the desktop to add or remove files.

The new Disc Cataloguing and Instant Search can automatically catalogue discs and as well as working with with discs created in Toast, it will also create a record of previously burned and commercial discs, such as audio CDs.

Data Spanning is designed to safely back-up data of any size, such as entire music or photo libraries, iMovie project and DV files by automatically splitting files and folders across multiple discs, while maintaining the exact folder and file structure for easy retrieval on any Mac OS X and Windows XP or Vista system. Roxio touts the feature as an ideal way for Mac users to share large files with Mac and PC users in other locations.

Toast's has new image and audio tools for creating enhanced photo discs and CDs.

The Photo Discs feature creates an auto-run slideshow from the many thousands

On the audio side, Toast 8 provides DJ-style crossfades, volume normalisation tools, sound enhancing plug-ins, track trimming capabilities and other features previously found in Roxio's Jam software. Users can create 50-hour music DVDs with on-screen menus, shuffle play, and Dolby Digital sound.

CD Spin Doctor, Toast's tool for recording analogue audio from vinyl records and such like, now includes Assistant software that guides users through the recording process, from setting up the equipment through to burning a disc or encoding tracks for portable devices.

Toasts 8 also introduces Disc Recovery which can recover data from scratched or damaged discs that may be unreadable in the Mac OS Finder and a Back-up and Convert DVDs feature that can backup an entire 9GB DVD to a standard 4.7 GB DVD disc employing Fit-to-DVD compression technology that utilises all available disc space to maximise video quality. Toast also features Director's Cut custom compilations, so users can select the specific video, audio, and languages they wish to record or convert individual video files for use on a portable video player. Toast 8 also includes support for digital video recorders, including EyeTV and TiVo. Users can watch recorded shows on their Mac, burn them to DVD or DivX discs and encode them for portable players such as an iPod or PSP. Users should beware that this may infringe copyright.

'Toast's success is based on its unique ability to make both everyday and specialised tasks trivially easy to accomplish,' said Vito Salvaggio, vice president, product management for Roxio. 'Toast 8 continues this tradition and once again pushes the disc burning boundaries with exclusive features such as TiVoToGo and Blu-ray Disc support that will appeal to both new and existing customers.'

Toast 8 Titanium is available now for a suggested price of £69.99; upgrades are available from some previous versions. For more information go to roxio.com/eng/store/mac.html.