Ok this is driving me nuts! I have 350 large jpegs from a class reunion. I want to create a DVD video slideshow that plays on a standard TV/DVD, and plays background music. Sounds simple enough. Now I want to add the original jpegs in a data folder so that quality prints can be made if wanted. Nero 7 (OEM) say "No problem." What I get is a DVD-video (w/ VIDEO_TS etc.) that background music drops in and out, then garbles, and sometimes causes transitions to freeze, when played on three different DVD players (none very new). The glitches are the same and at the same point on each player. However, the DVD plays flawlessly on Windows Media Player, and a couple other (PC based) media players. Here are a couple of other observations and facts that may give some idea where to begin. - The video has 87 chapters (I could not figure out how to even create chapters or edit chapters.) - The source files for the music are MP3's. - I have burned 6 or 7 DVD's trying different things, with the same result. - I forced the burn rate to be below what is specified on the blanks. - I forced the book type. - Compile and burn time is running 20 to 25 minutes, though I have heard it can take much longer. - there is a prerequisite note in the manual that says "For slide shows on DVD-Video, Super Video CD, miniDVD, AVCHD and HD-BURN: the DVD-Video plug-in with which MPEG-2 is encoded. The plug-in is already available in the full version. " What does that mean? Do I need a plug in? If so why does Nero "pretend" to complete the process? I am sure I am doing something wrong but don't know where to begin to look. Several people have suggested other programs, but I believe that I will make the same mistakes no matter what program I purchase. I would be willing to break things into smaller blocks and then use them as chapters if that would help, in fact I would prefer something like that. I am also willing to go through several intermediate steps if it would help like: - Create a non DVD video or group of videos then convert/compile them into chapters in a DVD-video. - Convert the MP3's to another format (AC3 etc) Email to Nero tech support got no reply, and a call to customer support (would purchasing "full version help?") was a waste of time.
I make DVD photo slideshows frequently for family gatherings and other events. I have tried all the popular slideshow software out there including Nero. A waste of time and money. Now I exclusesively use Photostory 3 FREE from Microsoft. Yes, Microsoft. Easy, intuitive, and with all the features you're looking for and more including voice narration if desired, and the cool Ken Burns "pan and zoom" effect. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx Help and tip sites online: http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/PapaJohn/25/Photo_Story_3.aspx Save and view your finished project with Windows Media Player 11. The result might appear a bit "choppy" due to the video acceleration settings on your PC, however, when burned to DVD the playback and sound are smooth as silk. Here's the rub: In order to burn the project to DVD, however, you will need to purchase the Sonic DVD burning plugin for Photostory 3. I haven't found a way to get around that as the project file is proprietary to Windows. It's only $20.00 though which is cheap compared to other software that doesn't compare in quality output. http://www.estore.sonic.com/enu/photostory/default.asp Copy your "master" DVD to .iso using DVD Shrink. Then burn as many copies as you need with Imgburn. The reason for this step is that although effective the Sonic DVD burning plugin is much slower doing one at a time. I know that you mentioned that you are hesitant to begin with different software all over again, but once you master Photostory, nothing else comes close.
Thanks! I have been looking at using PhotoStory for the earlier steps. I will try a couple variations on your suggestion w/o the plugin first. I have access to several programs that proport to convert PhotoStory output to DVD-video. However, not being familiar with either shrink or imgBurn (both of which I have looked at and downloaded, but didn't want to tangent too much from the original problem). One question arises immediately. Will they allow mw to end up with one disk containing both raw picture data (the source jpegs) and the DVD-video? I have also gotten input from a couple other sources, including Nero, that I will have to sift through. I will post my progress, but don't expect that will be too soon, as I have spent too much time on this and now need to get caught up on things I have blown off.
"Will they allow mw to end up with one disk containing both raw picture data (the source jpegs) and the DVD-video? " -wmgill Yes. That is an option. There are many programs that can copy the final Photostory once in DVD compliant format. But as I stated, I only know of the Sonic plugin that will convert the raw Photostory project file itself. If you find another one let me know.
>Will they allow mw to ... sorry the w is too close to the e on this keyboard == "Will they allow me to..." > If you find another one let me know. I believe I saw several, including Nero, and MS MovieMaker during my research, but I don't remember the specifics. I will let you know.
OK here's what I did to get everything the way I needed. 1) for video slideshow I used reduced original jpegs (I had "web versions" Photoshop reduced in file size and pixel dimensions that more closely match NTSC) 2) Used Nero Vision to create a hard disk DVD-Video output 3) Set Nero transcoding quality output to standard play instead of automatic, or high quality 4) Used ImgBurn to build and burn a DVD. I couldn't use Nero anymore because the pictures used to create the slideshow were not the originals I needed to include on the disk for prints. 5) I Set ImgBurn to a write speed of 1/2 of the speed specified on the DVD-R's. I am not sure which changes were the fix, but I did do one more bad disk after using the smaller image files (the video was fine, but the background music just quit after a few songs???). The final DVD does have an empty AUDIO_TS folder, which the Nero disks never did.
Holy moly. You're really taking the long hard road. But I guess the end result is the key, so have fun and good luck.
Actually, sifting through the various tools all proporting to do the job at hand, translating the similar yet different syntax/verbiage, and circumnavigating the restrictiveness of their "user friendliness" (many programs are "idiot proofed" to perform their function without allowing for variations on desired output. i.e DVD-video and data on one disk) was more difficult than the final process. I am sure there is a more direct route, which I will ultimately find, but I needed to prove (to myself at least) that what I wanted to do could even be done. Having accomplished that, I can now even evaluate commercial products for their "user friendliness", flexibility, and other variables. FYI I did experiment with MS PhotoStory and MS MovieMaker, but got very poor images (bad pixelation, and clarity). Not sure why. Since the DVD Player seemed to be choking, (bandwidth overload problems?) I decided to try source images that were already close in dimensions to the NTSC display, and that I expected to display acceptably. I had already performed this reduction to put the pictures on a website, so I figured why not try them. Once I did that, it rendered Nero's "Add: Original Pictures" option useless (since the originals for the slideshow and the true originals were different). I could have used Nero; written to disk; used Add: Original Pictures; then substituted the true originals before compiling and burning, but ImgBurn seemed to be more flexible for this final step. As I said, now that I have a working model, I can work to streamline the process, or even further troubleshoot the original problem if I want. I'm not sure your process of creating; converting; then burning, is any less involved. But it is quite possible Photostory or Moviemaker can and do do the initial "image reduction" step internally. In which case it becomes a matter of which authoring environment one prefers. Thnks for your help.
