Need DVD Slide Show software recommendation FAST!

[lbblock]

I am usually not this helpless and I do know my way around my XP Pro, AMD Dual-core computer. But, we just had a death in the family and I have been asked to put together a photo slide show on DVD with sound. Funeral is in 3 days! Creativity is OUT.

Any recommendations on software that has nice, pre-planned photo shows (transitions, etc) and all that one has to do is create the title and insert the photo scans and the music files.

Thanks!!

[Safesurfer]

DVD slideshow GUI. Others to consider at https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/photo-dvd-vcd

[lbblock]

I checked out DVD Slideshow GUI and at first it looked pretty daunting but this is a breeze. Lots of adjustments but needed to make very few actually. Some were a bit cryptic, too. Just to see what the transitions looked like, I encoded it with Random transitons and it opened up all of the ancillary software, rendered it, verified it and burned it without incident. Next is a test with audio, a title page and fade in and end fade.

Thanks!!!

[lbblock]

Safesrufer, just wanted to thank you again for your suggestion of DVD Slideshow GUI. It took me 7 hours to scan 102 photos, setup the program and burn the dvd. I could not imagine a better program for my objectives. Sweet, simple and effective (and free!!). My only caveats were the desire for more transition choices (though, for simplicy sake, I chose just one for the entire project) and the lack of a way to control the audio Fade Out rate. For that I just ripped my music to Wav and recorded it on Audacity, manually fading out per my calcs. Came out perfect. THANKS!!

[Safesurfer]

Glad it worked out! Yes, DVD Slideshow GUI is a great app, especially considering it's free - kudos to tin2tin the author.

[tin2tin]

Yeah, thanks for sharing your succesful experience with DVD slideshow GUI.

Makes me very happy.

[lbblock]

Yeah, thanks for sharing your succesful experience with DVD slideshow GUI.

Makes me very happy.

Not as happy as I was when 65 people at the funeral service loved the heartfelt slideshow and I was relieved beyond words!! You, thanks to safesurfer, saved the day.

I burned the DVD at the default settings for full frame NTSC 16:9. I am curious.... In terms of trying to maximize the PQ of the finished product, was there any other tweaking that I could have done (in retrospect)?

[tin2tin]

The slideshow is rendered with a bitrate of 7000 kbps and a max bitrate of 7500 kbps.

A dvd will play with a max bitrate of up to 9800 kbps MPEG2 video. See DVD specs here. However if the maxbitrate will be higher that 9800 it will not work. Occationally I've experinced that HCenc will not respect a maxbit rate of 9800, that's the reason for the lower bitrate - simply to ensure that the dvds will work in a standalone player.

You will most likely not notice the a picture quality difference between 7000 and 9800, but if you do it will proberly be in the transitions.

However if you want to try to higher the bitrate/maxbitrate heres how to do it:
In the DVD slideshow GUI folder you'll find a file called HC.ini.
Open this file in Notepad.
Change these two values:
*BITRATE 7000
*MAXBITRATE 7500
But before you burn to a dvd, you should check the mpg in ex. Bitrate Viewer to make sure that it will not have peaks higher that 9800.

Good luck and thanks for the donation.

[lbblock]

Well, if it isn't going to make much (or even a noticable) difference, I am happy with the status quo. I was wondering... if I use Roxio Creator to make a copy of the DVD, is the quality of the copy identical to the original? I do have it verify at the end of the burn. Thanks, Lar

[tin2tin]

If you notice compression artefacts in the transitions you could try to higher the bitrate, if not - I wouldn't worry.

Another thing you might be interested in is the export with dvd menus. Just reinstall DSG and check 'Gui for dvdauthor' in the installer or install it manually. You can find a tutorial(the 3. from the top) on this page: http://download.videohelp.com/tin2tin/tutorials.html

On burning. Digital copies should always be the same, but if there are errors on the media - you'll get a bad/non working disk. That happens sometimes you know, so it's a good thing to verify a burned disk.

However if you render the slideshow as iso(an image of the entire disk), then you can burn multiple copies directly from your computer by burning this file.

And if you don't want to render the slideshow again you can just use ImgBurn to 'Create image file from disk'(in the first menu) and this will make you an .iso(disk image) of a disk.

[lbblock]

No artifacts in the transitions in my case. It was all perfect. Good to know about authoring, too.

Is the iso from a disk of lesser quality than if rendered to an iso?

Are codecs a concern (or even an option) regarding the quality of the output?

Thanks again, Lar

PS- I posted in the alt.comp.freeware forum, too. Hope that that was ok.

[tin2tin]

No artifacts in the transitions in my case. It was all perfect. Good to know about authoring, too.

All working dvds are authored - The 'Gui for dvdauthor' suggestion was if you wanted a dvd with menus.

Is the iso from a disk of lesser quality than if rendered to an iso?

No it's the same. Read up on what an .iso is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_image

Are codecs a concern (or even an option) regarding the quality of the output?

DVDs must be mpeg.