Roxio: Crunch your Toast?
Well, Roxio have recently ‘bitten’ into the Apple TV market by announcing and Previewing Crunch.
Crunch is a new app to convert video into Apple TV, iPod, and iPhone friendly formats. On deck is the ability to painlessly convert your videos for all your Apple devices. Keyword being painlessly.
It is shown to use a familiar drag-and-drop interface, with both QuickTime and some non-QuickTime formats – Div-X and MPEG-2 are to be supported as well. Roxio are also allowing the conversion of unprotected DVD’s and their VIDEO_TS folders, so you can expect .VOB support as well. Crunch is very iTunes friendly – automatically exporting crunched content to an iTunes folder, which is then automatigically synced to Apple TV.
Crunch promises to be “…a one-stop shop for all of your video conversion needs” offering simple drag, drop, and convert goodness. All in all it seems like a very classy and worthwhile app. All will be revealed on Tuesday 8th May, and is to be available for $50. Promo prices may also be available via the Roxio website.
Now if only I could afford an Apple TV, and an iPhone…
@Greg: I’m considering an iPhone, but not the Apple TV. It’s probably because I don’t watch much TV these days, but it just doesn’t do much, for NZ$498.
@Fraser: Nice article. Welcome aboard!
I’m still trying to figure out why this program is worth more than double what VisualHub is worth and why everyone is so excited about it.
Cheers Marvin
And Vinny… To be honest I don’t know, I’s just seen some of the hype, and thought a roundup article could be useful.. Maybe this calls for a showdown in a couple of weeks?
It’s also confusing as to how this program overlaps with Roxio’s own Popcorn, and of course Toast. And at $50, how is it possibly going to compete with VisualHub? I guess it has the Roxio name and marketing department.
That 2nd screen shot is the same as quicktime pro export screen, all this app is, is a nice front ent to quicktime for converting videos.
but then again the QT interface is a front end to the QT code. The key would be a streamlined interface that has a few options focused on quickly converting files into one of three formats. QT is awesome, but once you open it up, there are thousands of combinations of way to export files. It’s daunting to a new user.
I agree about VisualHub, which is already easy to use, and much broader focus.
Roxio has the name, and it’s very focused. It’s too bad they are above releasing $10 apps, b/c that is what Crunch should be…. until it’s incorporated or sold with Toast.
Why aren’t y’all using Nero? Much less bloat than Roxio and certainly more feature rich, you can do soooooooo much more with it.