Toast to make Blu-Ray on Mac a reality sooner than later

[marzetta7]

http://arstechnica.com/journals/appl...2006/7/25/4754

Toast to make Blu-Ray on Mac a reality sooner than later

Although Blu-Ray might not be in the cards for the eagerly-anticipated "Mac Pro" at WWDC, that doesn't mean some other company who likes to make large amounts of money doesn't have your back. Reports are showing up saying that Roxio will soon be bundling their Toast software with the impending rush of Blu-Ray drives, due any second now.

The software will enable Mac users who purchase Blu-Ray drives to store as much as 50GB of data on a BD-R (recordable) or BD-RE (rewritable) disc, according to Roxio.
The Blu-Ray version of Toast will include Toast Dynamic Writing, which enables a Macintosh computer to do something with a mounted Blu-Ray disc besides spit up a confused dialog box. According to the article, the software does not need 50GB of disk space to burn which does bring some concern about 50GB coasters beginning to stack up on coffee tables everywhere.

It is unclear how viable Blu-Ray will be for long term backup and archiving solutions, as the longevity of the media will probably be on par with that of other optical media. Price point will most likely also be an issue, at least for the near future, for many home users and a new format might have a difficult time penetrating the corporate world where tape is already a standard. Regardless of the initial roadblocks Blu-Ray might see as a backup solution, it is nice to see immediate support for a new technology for the Mac community.