Best slideshow creator on a dvd?

[onetrueday]

I need a program, perferably freeware, that'll let me create a slideshow onto a dvd. I'd love something with menu's and musical background capable.

or if it's sharewear, that's fine too.

just need some suggestions.

thanks

[nomads]

Look at Memories On TV. It the best I've tried so far.

[andkiich]

Windows Movie Maker 2.

[verchad]

Windows Movie Maker 2 works for a basic slideshow ( actually a video file of still pictures ). You can ad music to theslideshow too. Only drawback, when you pause the slideshow/movie, the music also stops. Did one for a relative of family pics and they loved it.

[Braindrain]

Ulead Picture Show 2 is also an excellent proggy.

[rallynavvie]

Uh, I think the music stops if it's part of a slideshow on any DVD format. It's basically an MPEG2 stream with chapter points every picture, not seperate video and audio files. I don't think you can keep the music playing if you pause on a picture.

[lechtin]

DVD-Lab also has a nice slide show function. Not free, but trial is available.

[jdizzy40]

Memories On TV

[FOO]

Does anyone know where to get Mammaries on TV ?

[verchad]

Does anyone know where to get Mammaries on TV ?

Playboy Channel, pay per view at hotels, ............

[onetrueday]

wait...

I have dvdlab! I didnt know you could do slideshows too!

thanks!

[twinches]

ProShow Gold http://www.photodex.com/products/proshow/

I have been using this for months now and it is great! I love it because you can sync. up the audio with the picuters. Like say I have 100 pics in my slide show and I want to have one song play for the first 50 and then have another song play for the last 50. It will automaticly adjust the display time of the slides and the transistion times to match the length of the songs. You can also add captions to the slides, Randomize transistions, Randomize the slide order, etc. Very easy to use too. You need the Gold version in order to create MPEG2 files though. Then you just author with your favorite DVD authoring program like DVD-Lab.
Quality is very good even on my 50' TV.

[mrbass]

I'm still looking for it. About to download magix.com dvd slideshow thing trial. The closest so far I'm come to is Sonic MyDVD believe it or not. I want to put 5,000 or more still pictures on a dvd.

In my testing Ulead PictureShow 2.0 requires a huge MPEG video with or without transitions. MyDVD a still picture was 150KB but just adding a simple transition is 850KB (transition) + 150KB (still picuture). Adding an mp3 which is converted to .mp2 takes just a tad less than adding transitions.

So I want a dvd slideshow that can create stills, synch audio with # of images. So MyDVD can do it and it's perfect right? Almost I have over 135 albums and it has no batch adding like Ulead DVD Pictureshow 2.0 does.

DVDLab was a no go. I couldn't even figure out how to drag all over at once. Seems like you have to drag a image at a time.

Now that memories on TV I looked at the changelog and this kills it for me
http://www.picturetotv.com/changes.htm?
Changed limit on number of tracks to 97.
The previous 99 limit doesn't take into consideration the prelude video and data track.

Well I have a ton of albums at 99 images and Ulead DVD PictureShow supports up to 99 and that's the DVD STandard and I ain't gonna change it now..way too much work.

Still on the hunt for the perfect DVD Slideshow for 3,000 + photos. Remember if your just throwing together a couple hundred photos then almost anyone will fit the bill.

[mrbass]

ok that magix demo woudln't even let me create a dvd in demo mode so how am I suppose to know if it let's create dvd still images or not. Anyway didn't like it.

Sonic MyDVD 5 is out Sep 18, 2003
didn't know that. I'll have to give it a whirl and if it has batch adding up slideshows then I'll be in heaven.
http://www.sonic.com/products/mydvd/deluxe/default.asp

press release Sep 18th
http://www.sonic.com/pr/default.htm

edit: forget it...it only runs on the devil's os WinXP....not win2000. Still will continue my search I suppose.

[wwaag]

mrbass

Regarding Memories to TV, I think you misunderstand. The limit is 97 TRACKS, not images. You can also have multiple Albums (next higher level), each of which can consist of 97 tracks. I don't know what the limit number of images per track is, but I have put over 400 images on a single track. I have no doubt that you could easily fill up the entire DVD with a single track or at most a few if you so desire. Permitting multiple albums and tracks certainly simplifies workflow and organization.

As I see, the real advantage of Mem to TV is that enables you to pan/zoom each image (either randomly or each image manually) and create some movement (often called the Ken Burns effect). It certainly is more entertaining to watch than a bunch of stills, even separated by nice transitions.

After working extensively with this program for the past 6 weeks, I'll admit that it's a bit buggy, but the output is really good (you can use Tmpgenc for encoding). Recommend that you give it a try.

wwaag

[mrbass]

yea I guess I did sure misunderstand...ok still playing with it. How many max images have you been able to fit on 4.37GB? More with the mpeg2 plugin or TMPGEnc?

[wwaag]

mrbass

First, let me clear up another misunderstanding that I had as well. If you want DVD resolution (720x480), you must use the Mpeg-2 plug-in, even if you already have Tmpgenc. Bottom line, if you decide to purchase, get both the program and plug-in at the same time--saves you $5.

I've been working on a vacation slideshow consisting of a little over 400 photos, plus about 20 titles and a couple of Avi clips for beginning and end. That took roughly 1.5GB and lasts roughly 34 minutes. This works out to be about 1200 photos on a disc. This assumes that each photo is displayed for 5sec (includes transition time). Tmpgenc encodes in the CQ-VBR mode with a quality setting of 50. At present, you can't change these settings (apparently they are working on a change to their plug-in to allow the user some encoder controls).

If your satisfied with VCD output, then obviously you could put a lot more images on your DVD (about 4 times as many). Hope this helps.

wwaag

[mrbass]

ok I'm a little further along. Seems nice...ok will try that mpeg2 trial plugin. I used TMPGEnc last night ..the transitions are nice but I sure wish one slideshow would support DVD mpeg stills.
I sure wish they had a trial available for DVD X Show. I don't want to plop down $40 and get burned.

Some cons of memoriesontv are:
--Returns you to the first item in the menu each and every time. Let's say you have 4 menu items per menu and you just finished watching #3. Well it show have #4 highlighted for you to click. Ulead pictureshow does this I believe.

I do like how you can deselect transitions you wish not to include in random mode. I guess that the ultimate slideshow app will allow dolby digital 2.0 encoding for maximum dvd compatibility. I believe sonic mydvd 5.0 deluxe does this and is about $20 more than the basic version. But once again works only on winxp.

[jtommyj]

I like the transitions in Memories on TV (particularly the Ken Burns effect), but it uses TMPgenc @ CQ 50 which in my case, 43 " HD TV with progressive scan DVD doesn't come out as nice as ProShow Gold which uses 7500 bitrate. If Memories on TV gave you a way to adjust the TMPGEnc encoding quality, It would be my hands down favorite.
My .02.

[Lula1]

MemoriesONTV has a new beta version 2.1.0 with new features. One of them is the ability to configure TMPGEnc as you like just by loading your TMPGEnc template file .

Don't forget to have a look at ProShow Gold.

[TerryG]

MemoresOnTV.com released 2.1.1 today, see changes:

http://www.picturetotv.com/changes.htm?

They have implemented one thing that I asked for which was ‘Video background audio fading.’ Now if you are playing a ‘home movie’ video clip with low sound you should be able to hear the video clip sound better.

[videotree]

I agree with twinches: Proshow Gold is the best. I came to this conclusion after trying several others (including some mentioned in this column).

[SARK]

MemoriesOnTV

[TerryG]

MemoriesOnTv.com ($50) is currently the best dedicated DVD slideshow program if you want Pan and Zoom and include video mixed in with the stills.

One nice thing about the new 2.1.1 MemoriesOnTV is the way the pan and zoom works. In the old version the P&Z started and stopped during transitions between slides, so a viewer could miss either the entire establishing shot or the final target of the zoom. With v2.1 you can time a pause at the beginning and end of a zoom for as short or as long as you want. This allows the viewer’s eye to steady on the slide and better recognize the subject of the slide.

Another interesting new feature is the ability to add multiple zooms. I had one slide where a tour guide had been very animated and waved his arms up and down. By using short .2 sec. multiple zooms, I was able to make the slide jump up and down.

The new version of MOTV also retains resolution during zooms. I tried a photo from a 6mg camera and even with the maximum zoom, no resolution was lost. In the old version full zoom would give you a fuzzy picture.

You can also have a true cut (no transition) between slides. You do this by setting the time of the transition to 0.00. Although I usually use a 1 sec dissolve between each slide and time most slides for 3 sec., I’m now thinking that it might be possible to do one of those 1000 pictures in 60 sec. that was a fad many years ago.

Although MOTV has only one audio track, it is possible to start different music for different sets of sides within one show. As was pointed out to me by another user, you can start a new slide 'track' within a slideshow 'album' and have different music or no music in that track.

If you have sound with a video clip you can adjust the volume sound of the clip and also the background music playing during that video.

There are two user guides for MemoriesOnTV. The 1st one is a little dated because the new 2.1.1 has more features.

"How to create Award Winning Photo DVD with Ken Burns Effect "
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=175186

"Advanced Slideshow Techniques.
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=189358

Check out the demo video in the above.