Although it is trying to resolve issues with the current version, Roxio does not anticipate another release of its DirectCD authoring software, but says that Roxio is working on an OS X-compatible version.

Macintosh Product Manager Victor Nemechek writes that the company is not anticipating another release of its DirectCD software because of a number of "different sporadic problems that are virtually impossible to diagnose and solve," although it will continue to work toward a resolution for known issues and problems. It is however, developing a Mac OS X version of its product, which is due later this year. In a letter to users, Nemechek writes:

Dear DirectCD for Mac Users,

There have been lots of inquiries about the status of DirectCD for Mac lately. I am here to end the speculation and update you on the product's current status.

In the past, Roxio has stated that we were working on a new version of DirectCD that would fix some minor bugs and add support for new drives. Indeed, we did build a new version, and submitted it to Beta testers and our QA team. During testing we uncovered many problems that caused DCD, Toast, and/or the Mac OS to crash, sometimes with loss of data. These problems are difficult to diagnose and fix because of the many variables involved. Every combination of Mac OS version, Toast version, DCD version, CD Recorder firmware version, FireWire or USB bridge firmware version, and UDF version caused different sporadic problems that are virtually impossible to diagnose and solve.

We at Roxio do not feel comfortable releasing a product that we know has a fairly high probability of crashing your system and possibly corrupting your data. We will continue working on these problems, but I do not anticipate a resolution in the near future.

On a more positive note, we plan on starting development of DirectCD for Mac OS X later this year.

Sincerely,

Victor Nemechek

Macintosh Software Product Manager

by MacNN Staff