Nero 6 makes FUZZY SLIDESHOWS, but Nero 5.5 are SHARP????

[tgm1024]

Ok.................................help. How do I solve this???

I recently purchased Nero 6, and now my VCD slideshows are producing fuzzy images on my Dell's teac DVD+RW (when burning a -R cd).

The same files, when I had burned them with Nero 5.5 (on a cheap CD-R cyberdrive, that couldn't possibly matter, could it?) produced very sharp slideshows.

I know that the technical horizontal resolution for VCD is clamped down to something like 352 or 704 (I am getting differing answers on the web, perhaps the 2nd is SVCD?). So Nero presumably has to do some image resizing and may be using some horrible cubic spline with nero 6, but I don't know.

Remember, the same exact files produce 5.5: sharp, and 6.0: fuzzy. HELP!

Did Nero 6 use a different set of [@#$% up my pictures] defaults?

PS. I'm a software engineer, so you can save energy and not dumb down the answer tooooo awfully far.

--
"I don't want FOP, God dammit!
I'm a DAPPER DAN MAN!"

[celsoac]

I have exactly the same problem. I replaced my old CD recorder, with Nero 5 bundled, with a DVD burner with Nero 6.3. I had to install 6.3. Since each version is bundled, Nero 5.5 doesn't recognize my DVD.

I thought the problem with be one of the .dll libraries. After trying to replace each of the .dll files in Nero 6.3 with Nero 5.5 files, nothing worked, and I gave up.

I've managed, though, to have BOTH Nero 5 (5.5, an update) and 6.3 working on the same machine, with Windows XP. I use Nero 5 to burn an image file of the VCD, and Nero 6.3 to burn the image file to a CD.

That's what could be done for this weird solution:

- Uninstall Nero, delete the Ahead and Shared Files/Ahead directories, and clean the registry

- Install Nero 5

- Take note of Nero 5 serial number. It should start by 15 ...
- If your version is bundled, go to the Registry and take note of the serial number under
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\AHEAD\Nero Burning Rom\Info and/or
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\AHEAD\Nero Burning Rom\Info

- COPY (don't Move!) the entire Ahead directory under another location, (say, C:\Program Files\Old Nero 5 ) by dragging and dropping

- Uninstall Nero 5 and delete Ahead directories

- Install Nero 6

- Go to the Registry, and modify or add these keys under

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\AHEAD\Nero Burning Rom\Info :
- Click on the right button and Add New alphanumeric value:
Serial5 => Modify => Enter your Nero 5 serial number

Repeat this with HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\AHEAD\Nero Burning Rom

- In this way, you should have both a Serial6 key for Nero 6, and a Serial5 key for Nero 5

- Nero 6 executes from the regular desktop links; you need to add a link to execute Nero 5 from the directory where you copied it, f.ex. Old Nero 5

Nero image files .nrg are only forward-compatible. That is, you'll be able to burn a Nero 5 image file with Nero 6, but not viceversa

If anyone finds an easier way to MAKE NERO 6 BURN VCD's LIKE NERO 5, PLEASE POST SOLUTION HERE!!

[tgm1024]

Well thanks for that! I have an open case with nero tech support about this.

They seem insistant on seeing the .jpg itself (not the one on the cd), but the original image file. No clue as to how on earth THAT could be of help, but I sent it to them anyway. Perhaps they are trying to see if it is somehow non-conforming or something. Either that, or they (somehow) still don't understand the complaint.

I also pointed them to this thread.

Good luck. Lemme know if you find any other solution.

IN THE MEANTIME, I'm buying a new dvd +- burner (mine was from dell when they only offered +), so I'll be experimenting with burning dvd slide shows that my dvd player can actually see.

[bazooka]

Use 5.5 then

The answer is simple.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[bazooka]

Well thanks for that! I have an open case with nero tech support about this.

They seem insistant on seeing the .jpg itself (not the one on the cd), but the original image file. No clue as to how on earth THAT could be of help, but I sent it to them anyway. Perhaps they are trying to see if it is somehow non-conforming or something. Either that, or they (somehow) still don't understand the complaint.

I also pointed them to this thread.

Good luck. Lemme know if you find any other solution.

IN THE MEANTIME, I'm buying a new dvd +- burner (mine was from dell when they only offered +), so I'll be experimenting with burning dvd slide shows that my dvd player can actually see.

My eyes

[tgm1024]

Use 5.5 then

...[cliché snipped]...



I cannot ues 5.5 for two reasons.

1. The 5.5 I have is keyed for use only with my old cd-rw, and nothing else.
2. If I install the 5.5, I have to remove the 6.3 (except for the fancy registry crocking shown above by celsoac)

[bazooka]

Use 5.5 then

...[cliché snipped]...



I cannot ues 5.5 for two reasons.

1. The 5.5 I have is keyed for use only with my old cd-rw, and nothing else.
2. If I install the 5.5, I have to remove the 6.3 (except for the fancy registry crocking shown above by celsoac)

edit

[celsoac]

[quote="tgm1024

I cannot ues 5.5 for two reasons.

1. The 5.5 I have is keyed for use only with my old cd-rw, and nothing else.
2. If I install the 5.5, I have to remove the 6.3 (except for the fancy registry crocking shown above by celsoac)[/quote]

Exactly, tgm1024. That's exactly why I also want (and need) to use Nero 6.3. Perhaps bazooka didn't understand that with the new DVD/CD burner and its bundled Nero 6.3 installed, Nero 5.5 can only produce image files -- it doesn't recognize the new burner.

It makes no sense that a more advanced version of a software does certain things WORSE. I don't want to have TWO burners installed, not even two versions of Nero as I described -- it's a bad solution, though the only one I've found so far. It is Nero's responsibility to release a patch or an upgrade that fixes this problem. I hope they're reading this thread.

Thanks for your posting, tgm1024. Please let us know what you find.

[mats.hogberg]

It makes no sense that a more advanced version of a software does certain things WORSE.

I take it you've not followed Neros roller coaster-like quality thru the versions? As soon as they add a new feature (or fix an old buggy one) something else gets broken.

It is Nero's responsibility to release a patch or an upgrade that fixes this problem. I hope they're reading this thread.

Why do you think there's a new Nero release every other week (+ each full moon)?

/Mats
PS! To address your initial problem - Use ProShow Gold for slide shows! DS

[tgm1024]

It makes no sense that a more advanced version of a software does certain things WORSE.

AFAICT, it's behaving as if some junior engineer in there thought it was bright to somehow enforce the 352 or 704 pixel width of VCD, and furthermore to use an overly zealous cubic spline (aka "blurry") image scale to achieve it.

Simply put: If that's the case, then you just DO NOT ENFORCE THAT RESOLUTION, and leave it to the user to establish what he wants there. If he creates something un-supportable, then it is his own fault (as with 5.5---as it should be).

OR at least provide an override checkbox for this behavior.

I've seen no end of junior software engineer think that "gee this must be incorrect, let's be smart and correct it", without forethought as to something called backward compatibility! Those are the types of characters that I've fired before.

[bazooka]

The problem with trying to make things backward compatible is you are hindered when trying to improve.

That is why so many companies do not offer backwards compatible products.

Backwards compatibility also brings security risks in the computing world.

[tgm1024]

The problem with trying to make things backward compatible is you are hindered when trying to improve.

That is why so many companies do not offer backwards compatible products.

Backwards compatibility also brings security risks in the computing world.

Having brought many software products to market successfully for over 20 years, I can tell you that it is axiomatic that maintaining full backward compatibility is difficult at best. But making the attempt is critical to limiting feature regression and maintaining an existing client base.

Sometimes you can try too hard to this end for no clear reward and at worst, a result of larger problems. But the blanket statement that it hinders improvements or brings security risks is just far too broad.

[mats.hogberg]

some junior engineer in there thought it was bright to somehow enforce the 352 or 704 pixel width of VCD

For starters, VCD is 352px wide, nothing else, or it's not a VCD. That junor engineer certainly halved the number of support calls, compared to if Nero had allowed for any resolution mpg to be authored as VCD.
It may well be that the resize routine in Nero has changed for the worse, but it has never been the best tool for anything, possibly besides writing stuff to (re)writable CD/DVD media.
You have to take it for what it is - a simple tools for people who don't know better, to achieve simple results.

/Mats

[tgm1024]

For starters, VCD is 352px wide, nothing else, or it's not a VCD.

No, that's just not the bottom line. There is something losely known as "XVCD" (and XSVCD). While these are not established standards, a great many dvd players will read and interpret them just fine. These allow for the placement of higher resolution images on the VCD.

Nero (used to) allow this, and if this indeed is the problem, should not have enforced this downward to VCD constraints. There are just too many ways around the standards---Most folks leave it up to their DVD player to determine how to scale down the images----this is as it should be.

Again, this is assuming that this is the problem in the first place. I'm holding out for just a plain old bug.

Besides, when I burn 352x240 images that I've reduced myself, I still get them blurry. There is something wrong here, and it's not in the cockpit.

[mats.hogberg]

You may call anything you like a VCD, with any letter combination as prefix, but that doesn't make it a VCD. Again, Nero is for people who really don't know how to go about creating VCD/SVCD/DVD, and for that audience, I think Nero is right when enforcing compliancy. For the more experienced/adventureous user, there are far better tools available.

/Mats

[bazooka]

But the blanket statement that it hinders improvements or brings security risks is just far too broad.

Not really

There is only so long that you should coast on old code.

That is why dos is being phased out.

That is just one of many examples.

The entire '86 architecture needs blown up and redone.

We would be better off.

[celsoac]

You may call anything you like a VCD, with any letter combination as prefix, but that doesn't make it a VCD. Again, Nero is for people who really don't know how to go about creating VCD/SVCD/DVD, and for that audience, I think Nero is right when enforcing compliancy. For the more experienced/adventureous user, there are far better tools available.

/Mats

Well, I may not be a software engineer at all, but I don't think this issue has to do with enforcing standards compliancy. The VCD's that Nero 5.5 creates can combine still images (ANY original resolution, yielding SHARP stills) with MPEG-1 videos. Nero 5.5 does the picture resizing perfectly. As tmg1004 says, the problem with Nero 6.3 may be a stupid bug, unrelated to their upgrading the product. Now still pictures of over approximately 300 pixels turn fuzzy.

Yes, I am not a professional at all, but this simple feature (VCD's combining still images and videos) is all I need for my classes (I am a teacher). We may argue here about whether this is too unsophisticated, but the truth is that many users want simple products. For example, I've tried DVDlab-pro and TMPGEnc DVD Author for DVD's, and so far I'm sticking to the latter.

So, if anyone knows of any other, easy-to-use, freeware product that can do these VCD's, please let me know, and I'll surely try it. Thanks.

[mats.hogberg]

So, if anyone knows of any other, easy-to-use, freeware product that can do these VCD's, please let me know, and I'll surely try it. Thanks.

The last freeware version of VCDEasy is the best free tool for authoring VCD. You can mix and match stills and video, and it doesn't enforce standards (even if it warns for non compliant source material).
If your sources aren't suitable for VCD, use TMPGEnc (also free for this purpose) to encode to VCD spec mpg.
You should also look at SVCD if video length is not an issue - it gives you much better video quality, but only ~1/2 the amount (in time) of video on one CD.
For stills "slide shows" as VCD/SVCD/DVD, take a look under Tools!

/Mats

[bazooka]

You may call anything you like a VCD, with any letter combination as prefix, but that doesn't make it a VCD. Again, Nero is for people who really don't know how to go about creating VCD/SVCD/DVD, and for that audience, I think Nero is right when enforcing compliancy. For the more experienced/adventureous user, there are far better tools available.

/Mats

Well, I may not be a software engineer at all, but I don't think this issue has to do with enforcing standards compliancy. The VCD's that Nero 5.5 creates can combine still images (ANY original resolution, yielding SHARP stills) with MPEG-1 videos. Nero 5.5 does the picture resizing perfectly. As tmg1004 says, the problem with Nero 6.3 may be a stupid bug, unrelated to their upgrading the product. Now still pictures of over approximately 300 pixels turn fuzzy.

Yes, I am not a professional at all, but this simple feature (VCD's combining still images and videos) is all I need for my classes (I am a teacher). We may argue here about whether this is too unsophisticated, but the truth is that many users want simple products. For example, I've tried DVDlab-pro and TMPGEnc DVD Author for DVD's, and so far I'm sticking to the latter.

So, if anyone knows of any other, easy-to-use, freeware product that can do these VCD's, please let me know, and I'll surely try it. Thanks.

Upgrade Nero

They are already up to 6.6.0.3.

For all the complaining you are doing, the issue might already be fixed.

Merry Christmas/Happy New Year

[tgm1024]

Upgrade Nero

They are already up to 6.6.0.3.

For all the complaining you are doing, the issue might already be fixed.

p'raps. I just checked and I was wrong before when I said I was on 6.3, I was actually on 6.6.0.1. That .03 doesn't seem too promising an increment, but I'll give it a whirl and report back.

Thanks for the heads up.

[tgm1024]

But the blanket statement that it hinders improvements or brings security risks is just far too broad.

Not really

There is only so long that you should coast on old code.

That is why dos is being phased out.

That is just one of many examples.

The entire '86 architecture needs blown up and redone.

We would be better off.

Again, you're over-reaching, as well as have the cart before the horse. From the point of view of Intel, part of the reason that they have become so dominating is that everything legacy over the years just works, save a for a miniscule sliver of apps.

And over the years, no, we wouldn't have been "better off", no matter how it may seem to you now. I too am frustrated with legacy notions----the holdover of 640K, the 16 IRQ interrupts only "sort of 32", how long we were saddled with only 33 and 66 Mhz PCI, etc. But remember that as time went on, the buying public and businesses VERY MUCH wanted NOT to have rebuy applications all over again with every new processor. Speeding up the CPU should not mean having to throw your software investment out. Your statements are just not taking everything into account.

[celsoac]

The last freeware version of VCDEasy is the best free tool for authoring VCD. You can mix and match stills and video, and it doesn't enforce standards (even if it warns for non compliant source material).
If your sources aren't suitable for VCD, use TMPGEnc (also free for this purpose) to encode to VCD spec mpg.
You should also look at SVCD if video length is not an issue - it gives you much better video quality, but only ~1/2 the amount (in time) of video on one CD.
For stills "slide shows" as VCD/SVCD/DVD, take a look under Tools!

/Mats

I think I've tried VCDEasy before. Thanks for the tip, I'll try it again. Yes, I use TMPGEnc for encoding sometimes. SVCD is not a choice, as many (oldish?) DVD players don't reproduce SVCD, and the CD's I make are filled to the top with video clips -- I distribute them to students, who thus have extra class materials unexpensively. (On a side track, I sometimes don't understand the emphasis on DVD-quality video for end users, when VCD MPEG-1, if the encoding is good, is more than enough for many purposes. CDs can be copied easily, reliably and cheaply, and played in almost all computers and DVD players, etc. I have the feeling that VCD has been underexploited as a home resource, -- for example to back up video tapes -- even with its limitations.)

[tgm1024]

(On a side track, I sometimes don't understand the emphasis on DVD-quality video for end users, when VCD MPEG-1, if the encoding is good, is more than enough for many purposes. CDs can be copied easily, reliably and cheaply, and played in almost all computers and DVD players, etc. I have the feeling that VCD has been underexploited as a home resource, -- for example to back up video tapes -- even with its limitations.)

I suppose that as the dust on all the +, -, and +- formatting compliancy bull@#$% settles, that it will become more and more a nobrainer just to use dvd to start with.

But you're certainly correct in the short term---if you don't need dvd, then cd-r's are cheaper than dirt and play, well, everywhere when it's VCD without the S.

[mats.hogberg]

as the dust on all the +, -, and +- formatting compliancy bull@#$% settles

...we'll all be talking about how to create our own BluRay/HD-DVD discs...

/Mats

[tgm1024]

as the dust on all the +, -, and +- formatting compliancy bull@#$% settles

...we'll all be talking about how to create our own BluRay/HD-DVD discs... /Mats

Yeppers. That blue-laser business is really neat. But why stop at the blue?

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.yorku.ca/eye/spectrum.gif&imgrefurl=...magesr&start=1

Seems to me that Gamma lasing is what we want, give or take. In any case, raising the frequency of the beam to blue is a huge win and I cannot wait for it to establish itself stateside.

I've heard that blue-light laser dvd's are currently available in japan. Is that true?