Stills on PAL TV - What should the JPG size be?

[Metallo]

Hi all,

In the past, I used to make photo VCDs using VCDEasy, therefore the conversion of the stills was in MPEG1.
I was able to put around 1800 stills whose original resolution was 1600 x 1200 pixels (JPG from my digital camera).

Nowdays, I cannot succeed with more than 1000 stills on DVD-R.
Of course, conversion is now to MPEG2, but given that we talk about stills, I use 352 x 288 pixels MPEG2

I was wondering, what's the advantage of using a DVD-R if the quantity of stills I can burn on it is less?
OK, there are many other things you can do using a DVD-R, I know, but if you only want to put stills on it, no transictions, no music etc.
Therefore the question: Do I need such a high resolution of the picture to be watched on TV?
I mean, if I resize the picture to, say, 640 x 480 and then convert to 352 x 288 pixels MPEG2 and put it on DVD, I guess the quality I see on TV is the same as if the picture was 1600 x 1200.

Would I save space and be able to add more stills this way?
High resolution is important for printing only.

Am I right or wrong?

BTW, my TV is not a hi-tech one, it's a 16 years old Philips, but image is still perfect.

Thanks for clarifing.

Cheers

[Baldrick]

Please change your post subject to something that describes the problem. Just click on Edit on your post.

[Cornucopia]

What's your DVD player model? Many of them can directly decode and "PLAY" the original hi-rez JPEGs.
Just burn a standard data DVD (ISO/UDF). Put the files in the root directory (or add folders if you've got lots and can categorize them). If they're very hi rez, it may take a little longer for your player to scan, resize and display them, but they usually work right out of the box.

-or-

You can do a true DVD-slideshow--NOT one of those things that really should be called a Pan&Scan or "KenBurns"-style video.
With certain DVD authoring apps, you can add 1GOP MPEG stills (which are usually directly encoded from within the authoring app at compile-time). You place "chapter"-type marks and it does a frame-by-frame advance (using the play button). IIRC, you can get 99x99x99 (970,299) or 99x99 (9801) slides, depending on which app is authoring and how it's put together. These are 720x576 (as you said you live in PAL-land).

-or-

You can resize all your pix to 720x576 and author a DVD where all the pix are considered MENUs that flow into each other (you still would have to have at least 1 piece of video but it can be small). Amount is dependent upon the authoring app (or the DVD spec, whichever's smaller).

Don't resize to 352x288! Even VCD/SVCD can do slideshows with 704x576 resolution.

Scott