ULead DVD PictureShow 2.0

[tygrus2000]

I've been playing with the trial of this new software and so far, I am not finding any major drawbacks. It has transitions now, multiple music tracks, DVD output and many more customizable options. Could Ulead have hit the ball out of the park on this one?

Comments?

Tygrus

[JDaCunha]

I'll let you know when I get my free upgrade as I bought 1.0 version just before xmas Ulead will give me the upgrade. Glad to hear you like it.

Can you use your on mp3 files, that is a problem on version 1.0/

[MOVIEGEEK]

You might as well get Moviefactory 2 for the same price($49.95US)that
way you can combine video and slideshows on one disk,plus add text and docs.The only differance between DVDPS 1 & 2 is they added Photo Explorer 8.

[LuckyLu]

I have been evaluating Ulead DVD PictureShow v2.0. Although it produces VCDs with great image quality (MPEG stills with NO transitions), multiple slide shows with menu and background music (different music for menu and each slide show - nice!), it has several defficencies:

1. The viewer has ABOLUTELY no control during slide viewing:
"PAUSE", "FF", ">>|", "FR", and "|<<" do NOT function.
2. The menu does not wait infinitely for viewer selection - first
slide show automatically starts after music ends or some unknown
time delay.
3. Several bugs which caused program to crash, especially when
using any preview function.

DVD PictureShow v2.0 has all the features I am looking for in a VCD/DVD slideshow authoring tool, but I am especially disappointed in the absolute absence of viewer control while viewing the slideshow. It is totally unacceptable to expect viewers to watch a long slideshow without the ability to pause and go to next and previous slide at will.

I would be somewhat satisified with just a pause function. I have seen other programs that produce VCD MPEG stills slideshows that allow pause, and some that even allow FF (or >>}) and FR (or |<<) to go to next and previous slide, but for one reason or another, they were not satisfactory.

Does anyone know of any (x)VCD authoring software (SVCD will NOT play on my Samsung DVD-N501 player) that wil produce photoalbums/slideshows with the following criteria?:

Absolute Requirements:
1. High image quality (MPEG stills, NOT video)
2. Good DVD player compatibility
3. FULL playback control: PAUSE, NEXT SLIDE (or FF),
PREVIOUS SLIDE (or FR)
4. Multiple slideshows with menu

Nice (but not necessary) Features:
5. Background music for slideshows and maybe menu
6. Transition effects

[MOVIEGEEK]

LuckyLu,
As with all slideshow programs,if you add music you lose PBC(<<,>>).
Sonic MyDVD 4 makes a nice slideshow with transitions(DVD)and it even
has motion menus.

[RichEtheridge]

There's a trade-off between the higher quality of still images and MPEG video. Products that allow you to pause a slideshow with music and transitions are likely MPEG videos while the stills that PictureShow uses without transitions are actually menus. Adding music to these slideshows create another layer that make it technically not possible to use pause, fast forward or rewind. I do not know what the technical limitation is, but I assume it has something to do with the audio stream being integrated with a string of menus. Personally I can live with the limitation until I get a DVD burner, after which I will use Pictureshow with transitions as the MPEG2 video should be good enough.

[Nolonemo]

tygrus: I can see you haven't tried to exactly match your slideshow length to your soundtrack. The only way to do it is to get close with the default display time, and then go in and tweak individual slides to get to the right length. Not acceptable, especially since this should be a very easy feature to implement. Maybe v3.0 will be the one.

[tygrus2000]

For me this is not really an issue since I am scoring my own soundtrack with the pics so I have complete control over both mediums, video and audio. You can accomplish the same thing using Vegas or some other program and render to mpeg, but Ulead does everything much faster including putting in the transitions which took forever in Vegas. The only addition I would add is some text effects like Flash can produce.

tygrus