Why do photos on DVD slide show turning out bad?

[johnharlin]

I have a number of 10 megapixel jpg photos that I converted to a DVD slide show using AVS Video Editor. The quality of the photos playing them directly from my camera on my 32 inch TV look reasonably good however, once I converted them to the DVD slide show, the quality looks trashy.
There are different levels of quality for the conversion option, one is Standard, above that is good and above that is maximum best whatever it's called, the maximum quality wouldn't work because I would always get "runtime error! r6025 - pure virtual function call." But the "good quality" level worked fine. Maybe I should try the "standard quality" level.
Anyway, I would gladly like to hear from anyone who might have had that experience of having their photo slide show turn out trashy in the DVD format and how they might have fixed it.

[jagabo]

You're camera is probably putting out a high definition signal when it displays its pictures on the TV, most likely 1920x1080. When you make a DVD the resolution is reduced to 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL) -- the highest resolutions allowed for DVD. So the images will be much less sharp.

If you're seeing something more than that, like more contrast and more saturated colors, it's a matter of different processing.

[Vidd]

The original 10 megapixel image has a pixel resolution of 3872x2592. A DVD slideshow has a resolution of 720x480. That is a reduction of 82%.

[racer-x]

Aside from lower resolution problems, it's still possible to make good quality slideshows at SD resolution if processed correctly. I'm still impressed with the quality I achieved in my 10+ year old slideshows on dvd. It helps to use lowest framerate allowed (23.976 fps for NTSC and 25 fps for PAL) and encode as progressive using a good quality Mpeg-2 encoder.

I never used your s/w, so I can't comment.

[El Heggunte]

Also, the commonly-used quantization matrices used by the MPEG-2 encoders are not good for still images.
AFAIK, only mpeg2enc accepts quantization matrices whose first "intra value" is less than 8.
Besides, many standalone players might be unable to deal with those HIGH-bitrate MPEG stills...

[johnharlin]

I thought that DVD software would convert photos or videos without destroying quality. So, with what has been said here, if I were to convert the 10 megapixel photos to 720x480 with Photoshop and also convert high definition videos that the camera takes I think at 1080 by 760 then would I get better quality when making DVDs?

I also don't really understand by lowering frames to 23.976 fps would make a difference. It seems to me it would make the video more choppy.

[Vidd]

I also don't really understand by lowering frames to 23.976 fps would make a difference. It seems to me it would make the video more choppy.

More bitrate per frame:
8 Mbps @ 24 fps = 0.333 Mbps per frame
8 Mbps @ 30 fps = 0.266 Mbps per frame


A standard slideshow is is made up of still images, so you should not notice 23.976 vs 29.97 frames, but if you use transitions or movies you may prefer 29.97fps.

[racer-x]

Way back in the old dvd days, I used to use the old TMPGEnc 2.5 encoder for slideshows. I remember it having a setting for still images. Bitrate only averaged about 5,500 kbps, well below dvd specs.

I only do slideshow in full 1080p nowadays.

[jagabo]

I thought that DVD software would convert photos or videos without destroying quality.

No, it cannot. DVD can only be standard definition.

If you want to verify this is the problem, upload a few of your original images and a VOB (including any tranisitions) of the same images from the DVD. Someone here will tell you if something unusual is happening.