DVD presentations

[kiev4a]

I'm in the process of putting shots from our trip in DVD format for our fellow travelers and other family members. Just saving them on a DVD wouldn't be a problem but I'm doing it with menus for playing like a movie on a stand alone DVD player. I have a program to do it but you have to figure out what type of transitions you want between photos, how long each will remain on the screen and whether you want to just display the photo or zoom in or out on portions of it. Then, when it comes time to process the arrangements it takes my computer a considerable amount of time to do all the necessary "thinking." In addition, I I can find some suitable music I may even try to put some sort of appropriate audio behind the photos. A lot of the arranging is very repetitive but I'm interested in seeing the finished product.

Anyone have any experience along this line?

[byuphoto]

sure I use slideshow Pro gold all the time. The slideshow DVD is a big thing for weddings now. They like them even better than video

[herron]

Wayne:
I've got Avid Cinema (don't like it, too complicated). I also have Studio MediaSuite (it seems less difficult, but still a lot to wade through).

I finally made a DVD for my father-in-law's 90th birthday party (early January this year) using a rather simple program called Memories on TV. I didn't have time to learn anything complicated. It was not expensive, intuitive to use, and allowed me to do all the things you're talking about, including the sync of music throughout (used a downloadable program called Cdex that allowed me to convert music from a variety of sources to use on the DVD.

It took me about a week to finish a 30-minute DVD celebrating his life. We played it as a continuous loop at my father-in-law's birthday party (at his church).

My mother-in-law says he still plays it every day! He's a neat guy. Made me feel really good that I made a present he enjoys so much.

[kiev4a]

My son-in-law gave me a prgram--the one I had seemed to have problems with the actual burning process. But I discovered the new program (called muvee) automatically zooms in during the viewing of each photo--rather distracting--especially on landscapes where there's not really a point you want to zoom in on. The zoom can be turned off but you have to do it on each individual picture which is rather distracting. If I was going to do this on a regular basis I would invest in a different program. It can be done with Windows Movie Maker but you have to find a program that will convert the AVI file to something that can be used on a DVD.

[herron]

Memories on TV can be downloaded. I found it to be quite intuitive. You can mix, match and control a large variety of "effects" and sync your music to it. I used it to create some simple things like dissolves, but also made a still image look as if the couple were descending the staircase they were on....I think you can also add video clips (although I did not do that).

Are there others that are simpler/better? Don't know. Just know it worked for me, and I had a pretty tight time frame to produce in. It came out well (although, like most creative things I get into, I found things I would change almost as soon as I was done)!

[kiev4a]

I'm too far into the project to change programs now but Memories on TV does look like a better program. I may have to pick it up for future projects. Thanks for the info.

[herron]

You're welcome.

I'd been struggling with the other two programs I had (but had never learned to use), and was lamenting the fact "I would never get done in time" with my project for my father-in-law when a friend told me about codejam and their "Memories" software.

It was a nice piece of advice, as far as I was concerned!

Good luck with your project. Let us know how it turns out! ;D

[Microdad]

If you decide to get really serious about this, the most popular programs are Adobe Premiere and Sony Vegas but they both run about $600 - $700 for the full versions. Personally, I use Sony Screen blast which is a cheaper/limited version of Sony Vegas but a lot more intuitive. I paid $59 for is and have been really happy with it.

My capture card is Pinnacle which I selected primarily because it doesn't recognize the carrier signal used to encrypt many movies allowing me to rip them directly from the original. The card came with it's own software which is a bit cheesy with it's menus and weird wipes and fades (which I never use), but it's nice when in a hurry.

This was a serious hobby I've had for several years but haven't partaken much since we moved here and been working the new job. But, I've made many compilations (at least a few hundred) and far from being an expert.

I've used many of the cheaper/freebie programs such as Win Studio, Nero, Sonic, etc. and although they can save a lot of time, I pretty much got away from them after making a few shows. I now avoid them like the plague because they tend to be too automated and offer little control over effects.

Some of things I've learned about this craft (individual results may vary):
* The many wipes and weird fades are a lot of fun which makes them tempting to use, but I've found they are not only distracting but add a cheesy/amateur feel to the finished product. I use simple soft transitions and, at most, some fades in and out of black between scenes.

* The zooms are a very valuable effect and can turn a mediocre slide show into a great one by adding some movement to your stills. But, they can also be very distracting if overused, I stick to zooming only every 3rd or 4th shot.

* Some older DVD players have problems playing the disc's if they don't have progressive scan, especially if they were burned with the cheaper software. This happened to me several times, but luckily even the cheapest ($30) players have this as a standard now.This isn't really much of an issue as much as it was a couple of years ago, but if anyone contacts you saying they have problems playing their DVD "hanging up" or "skipping" this is probably your culprit.

* I bought some DVD cases off Ebay which were surprisingly low-cost and really make them look professional. The ones I use have the clear plastic cover for inserting a cover sheet which, by the way, allows you to exercise your graphics and photography skills Same rule applies to disk labels, they're expensive in the stores but very reasonable on Ebay.

I used CorelDraw to make templates to cut the covers to size (to fit in the case sleeves). With color covers, I saved a lot of $$ by printing a master on my printer at home, then took it to Kinko's and had color copies made. Nowadays though, I do many of them in B&W and copy/cut them at work early in the morning before by boss is there

Here's a few I did last summer:

[SidW]

I suspect ypu've all pointed me in a direction I was unaware of. If I've undestood this thread properly, it's possible to transform a still slideshow into a DVD recording and play it like a film. When we got a DVD player, I tested it's still photo capabilities by carefully preparing a photo CD with everything in the right order etc. and the player messed it up by wanting to use it's own clumsy software and have me sort the pictures once more on the screen and arrange how they were to be played, all while my audience were im,patiently waiting ... I never tried it again. This DVD approach looks promising.

[kiev4a]

You are right about special effects. They are like the guy that gets a video camera with a zoom lens and thinks that means you are supposed to zoom in and out ALL the time.

The Old ULED Movie Factory program I had was easy to edit with. Only trouble was it wouldn't burn a readable CD (The program was about three years old).

I have done it with Windows Movie Maker but you can't go directly to DVD format with it and I suspect that if you runs the files through a converter program you probably lose some quality.

From running tests I also discovered that newer DVD players with progressive scan give a better screen picture. An LCD screen seems better than a tube, too.

[herron]

floppydog said:

* I bought some DVD cases off Ebay which were surprisingly low-cost and really make them look professional. The ones I use have the clear plastic cover for inserting a cover sheet which, by the way, allows you to exercise your graphics and photography skills Same rule applies to disk labels, they're expensive in the stores but very reasonable on Ebay.

One note of caution...I've never had it happen to me, but both of my sons asked that I not use the stick-on disk labels when I send them images on CD, or another home made DVD, as they sometimes come loose or off and jam their players. Could have something to do with heat and humidity with them being in sourhern Florida...I don't know.

Fortunately, I have a printer that will print directly on a printable CD/DVD and that's what I've been doing since. It's actually a bit cheaper than the CD and a label.

For what it's worth.........

[kiev4a]

I just invested in a Litescribe drive that will laser on titles. The Drawbacks are the disk are more expensive and I understnd the scribing process is pretty slow. I've learved NEVER put stick on labels on music CD--if they will be played in a car CD. Lavels get hot, lift and goooodbye.

Question for someone smarter than me:

The ohotos I am importating into the DVD program are all 300 ppi and it's taking FOREVER for the program to process it before burning--something like 4 hours to do 30 minutes of DVD.

Do I need 300DPI or could I make the files like 11x14 at 72 ppi. Do the programs decide the resolution? I plan to do a shot test DVD tomorrow and see if the low resolution makes any difference in quality on a TV screen.

[Microdad]

I've heard the same thing from many sources that the sticky-back labels cause problems. In fact, the instruction manuals (I actually read them ) to many players say this same thing. Like Ron, I haven't had a problem with them... hmmmm Maybe it's better to be safe than sorry ?

Michelle (wife) also has the Litescribe drive and speaks very highly of it, although I haven't seen her use it for a while. I think it's because the disks are still a bit spendy.

When I worked in the media lab at the college (last year) they had an Epson inkjet printer that could print directly on Cd's and the printer itself was pretty reasonable (about $100 I think).

Wayne: I've ran into this same issue and have experimented on using different resolutions with no noticeable difference in the end product. I'm sure it may differ from program to program, but I believe the Sony software I'm using truncates the images to 72 dpi anyway. I've loaded everything from 72 to 300 dpi and it seems to slow the program itself while editing, but doesn't seem to affect the rendering times.

It's pretty normal for it to take a long time. When I started doing them I thought I must have something wrong with my computer because some longer movies I was burning were taking about 24 hours to render I also had problems getting "illegal operation" messages which then shut-down the program after 14-16 hours of rendering At first, I thought boosting the RAM would help, which seemed to at first, but later had the same problems. Eventually, I discovered the problems were due to heat from the CPU (and possibly other components on the mother board) building up. Blowing the dust out with the air compressor helped occasionally, but I eventually had to leave the sides off the case

Even now with my newer/faster 'puter, an hour-long DVD takes most of a day to render and burn. In fact, I start the burn usually before I go to bed, and it's still rendering when I leave for work in the morning.

[kiev4a]

Thanks for your feedback. I ran some tests this morning at different resolutions and they all came out looking OK on a 32-inch TV screen. Reducing the file size by half doesn't seem to speed the process up, either.Patience is the watchword, I guess. One of those newer dual core processors and 3 gigs of ram might chew it up faster but my current cpu is fine for most things.

[SidW]

I'm still evesdropping and learning.

I discovered my image database program (ACDSee) will create slideshows on Video or VCD, with sound. Available file formats MPG, WMV, AVI, RM. I checked the DVD player manual, it will accept VCD in MPEG. What formats do you people work with?

To experiment I produced a slideshow of 6 pictures in MPG in seconds. Not burned yet (it's too late to continue just now), but it runs on the computer screen. But this obviously isn't the same league as the DVDs you are describing that take 24hrs.

Regarding image size, why measure in dpi? I always thought that was for printers, and pixels were for screens. I read somewhere that standard TV screens are divided into 800x600, and HD 1600x1200. Is that correct? My little experiment was with 1600x1200 JPEG images.