Super VCD Slideshow with Toast?

[Huntn]

I'm using Toast, trying to create Slideshows of family pics that will play on a DVD player.

I've found that when I use Toast's Video section to author a Super VCD, that the resulting CD will not play on my DVD players.

But when I do everything the same, except designate DVD (and use a DVD-R), the resulting DVD runs just fine on my DVD players. The answer could be, just make DVDs! But some of these slideshows don't need the capacity of a DVD that I'll be sending to family members.

For slideshows, is the quality of a Super VCD, decent as compared to a DVD?

When creating Super VCD the options I selected in Toast were Super Video CD, NTSC, High Quality, and Create VCD Menu. Is there anything I need to be doing differently in Toast?

Any alternative suggestions?
Thanks!
-Dave

[AntnyMD]

Why not choose the option to do it as a VCD? The quality is the same as SVCD for slideshows.

The problem with your player not being able to show the photos may be that your player can only play SVCD tracks, and not SVCD with PBC. When you make a slideshow SVCD, the images are saved as sequence items, kind of like menus, and not as MPEG tracks like motion video is.

[Huntn]

Why not choose the option to do it as a VCD? The quality is the same as SVCD for slideshows.

The problem with your player not being able to show the photos may be that your player can only play SVCD tracks, and not SVCD with PBC. When you make a slideshow SVCD, the images are saved as sequence items, kind of like menus, and not as MPEG tracks like motion video is.

Yes, this works! Thanks! I noticed that as a CD, the controls for selecting each slide show, such as up and down arrows on the DVD controller don't work. There are numbers beside each slideshow, that allows me to selected the desired show using a number key.

A problem I'm noticing is that with this particular CD, there are 4 slideshows. 3 are displayed on the page with a right arrow at the bottom. Normally you'd cycle to the arrow and select it to jump to the second page where the 4th slideshow is displayed. But I am unable to select the right arrow.

I can select the 4th slideshow by pressing the number 4, but you have to know there is a 4th slidedshow. It would be better if you could cycle to the second page using the right arrow. Is there a way to fix this?

Is there any quality difference in slideshows authored on DVDs vs CDs?
Thanks again!
-Dave

[Frobozz]

With my DVD player's remote I am able to skip from one slide show to another (and to the page arrow) using the chapter skip button. That also allows me to advance the pictures in the slide show itself. I haven't had any difficulty with SVCD slide shows created with Toast on my DVD player, but I think that's a characteristic of the player's capability not an issue of how I created the SVCD slide show.

[Huntn]

With my DVD player's remote I am able to skip from one slide show to another (and to the page arrow) using the chapter skip button. That also allows me to advance the pictures in the slide show itself. I haven't had any difficulty with SVCD slide shows created with Toast on my DVD player, but I think that's a characteristic of the player's capability not an issue of how I created the SVCD slide show.

That is a good point. I want to author disks readable on as many DVD players as possible. My own experience is that the VCD will play on both of my DVD players. The SVCD will play on neither.

Do you know when it comes to slideshows, if there is a quality/resolution difference between VCD, SVCD, and DVD? I'm looking at the disks authored on VCD and DVD and don't really see a difference on a small tv. Will have to check them out on the large tv....
Thanks!
-Dave

[AntnyMD]

I could be wrong about DVD, but the max pic resolution for all formats is 704x480/576 for pictures. Any images above that size will be resized by your authoring software.

[Frobozz]

I don't see a quality difference in my SVCD slide show images than with DVD slide shows. However, I don't like the quality of VCD slide shows. I watch them on a 32" Sony XBR TV so the detail (or lack thereof) is apparent.

CORRECTION

For a test I just made a VCD slide show of pictures that I also had used for a SVCD slide show. There basically is no difference in image quality. The VCD images are .DAT files while the SVCD images are .MPG files. Interestingly, the VCD images have the largest file sizes. My test slide show on SVCD and DVD totaled 1.4 MB for the 29 images, but totaled 2.6 MB on the VCD. It appears to me that the edges are slightly more jagged with the VCD than with the SVCD and the colors are a little more harsh, but it's very close.

[Huntn]

CORRECTION

For a test I just made a VCD slide show of pictures that I also had used for a SVCD slide show. There basically is no difference in image quality. The VCD images are .DAT files while the SVCD images are .MPG files. Interestingly, the VCD images have the largest file sizes. My test slide show on SVCD and DVD totaled 1.4 MB for the 29 images, but totaled 2.6 MB on the VCD. It appears to me that the edges are slightly more jagged with the VCD than with the SVCD and the colors are a little more harsh, but it's very close.

Thanks for the info! I'd use SVCD if the format worked on any of my DVDs. It does not. I guess DVD is the way to go.
-Dave