Sonic Solutions announced that the newest version of Toast 7 will incorporate Blu-Ray support for the Mac.
This represents the first Blu-Ray support for Macs. With the new format, users will be able to store as much as 50GB of data per disc. The first supported Blu-Ray drives will be shipping later this quarter.
Toast's Blu-ray Disc features include Toast Dynamic Writing, which for the first time enables users to record files simply by dragging and dropping files onto a disc in the same convenient way they would move or copy files to a removable storage device. The ability to store as much as 50 GB of data makes Toast an ideal solution for archiving extensive digital music collections or protecting critical files and precious memories too large to fit on a standard DVD. In addition to its Blu-ray capabilities, Toast 7 is now also a universal application that runs natively on both Intel-based and PowerPC-based systems.
Little information about Apple's adoption of Blu-ray has been released. Analysts speculate that the Mac Pro (Intel PowerMac) will be the first to incorporate the new drives, but not for a number of months.
Available rumors about the upcoming Mac Pro expect a traditional DVD-R SuperDrive, but the new machines are said to offer an empty optical drive slot for future expansion.
The Mac Pro is expected to be announced on August 7th, 2006 at WWDC 2006.
