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Post by Microdad on May 6, 2007 22:14:21 GMT -5
I'm really not familiar with the mechanics behind using the DVD players/burners, I've only done video work on the PC. Someone else on the board might be able to shed more light on this.
The Sony software I use will render in several formats including mpeg, avi etc. but to prepare for burning on to DVD, it converts to .avi. The mpeg files are much smaller which makes them common for e-mailing.
The DVD's I was burning before that took an incredibly long time were commercially produced movies that were protected so I had to rip them directly in real time from the disk. This is done in real time, just like recording onto a video tape. (my bad) These files were raw .avi files which were huge and very complex files. The actual burn times were not too long, it's the rendering process (preparing the file to be burned) which really take a long time.
But, most of the things we're talking about here being slideshows from still photographs generally don't require so much rendering and take considerably less time.
As far as image size, my software truncates the still photos to 480x720 pixels when it renders and creates the .avi file. It is true that dpi is a measurement for printing quality, but changing dpi will also effect the photo's size as does changing pixel resolution. Before I use the photo, I convert it to this resolution at 72 dpi because the smaller size is easier for the software to deal with.
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Post by kiev4a on May 6, 2007 22:35:18 GMT -5
The jpegs I'm using now are 1800 x 1300 at 100 dpi. I was making 300 dpi pictures but the program converts them somehow and the 100 dpi files look just as good the resolution on a 32-inch LCD screen is excellent--if you set back at a decent viewing distance--like you would if viewing a 16x20 print. Dots per inch and pixels per inch are essentially the same thing--both are the number of specific points in a specific area.
I think the difference in processing time is has to do with the format. I'm putting it together just like a commercial DVD with icons you click on in a menu. There are fades between each photo and some special effects (zooms) on a few.
I've put scenes from a video camera on dev before but there you are processing maybe a dozen relatively large movie files. In this projects I'm dealing with close to 500 individual stills and the program has to figure out what has to be done with each individual photo. I think that's why the processing time is so great. A lot of DVD players will read mpg or jpg miles and I could probably do it a lot quicker by just dumping the picture onto a disk and letting the viewer select them. But I'm making these from some folks that aren't terribly adept at that sore of thing so I fugured I would try to make it as user friendly as possible. The good thing is I'll only have to do the long production process once--then just burn copies of the master DVD.
I don't know if there's any differences to address between U.S. TV format and European PAL format when dealing with TV.
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SidW
Lifetime Member
Posts: 1,107
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Post by SidW on May 7, 2007 4:09:45 GMT -5
Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I'll continue with my experiment and see what the DVD player will accept. Yes, there are different video standards in different international regions. The program I was using conforms to the appropriate standard for the region you select. I just saw an advert for an LCD HD-ready TV screen (40 inch) with 1366x768 px resolution. I'll check through my magazine cover disks and see if they had suitable software for putting still slideshows onto video discs. By the way, regarding resolution, DvX offers editing at "full 1920x1030 HD". In the meantime the ACDSee image manager (http://www.acdsystems.com/) promises to be adequate. PS. This is getting complicated. My DVD player didn't recognise the video CD with an mpg file. The manual says I can play DivX discs and refers me to www.divx.com/. My program helpfiles don't seem to be telling the full story when they urge you to "Create a video slideshow" and "Burn a Video CD". PSS. Another quote about TV resolution, from a computer mag. Standard NTSC region 720x480, standard PAL region 720x576. HD for both 1440x1080.
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