Best way to make a DVD photo slideshow with music and titles

[brh986]

I have a +/- DVD R and Nero burning software. I would like to take some of my photographs and make an automated slideshow that will play in a stand alone player. I would like to add music and have some titles or perhaps some kind of cool scrolling or animated text (maybe the lyrics to the music?). I would also like the pictures to fade in or spin in or some kind of animation to make it more interesting to look at. Idealy I would also like to have a menu on the dvd and have seperate catagories that play like chapters on a movie disk. I.e. "Summer Vacation 04" "SKiing pics" "Pics of the kids" Etc. Is this hard to do? Is there any freeware or shareware software I can do it with? I have no expirience with digital video or DVD authoring but I would really like to put something like this together. It doesn't have to be perfect professional quality but I would like to get it as best I can. Thanks.

[fritzi93]

Let's see, Ulead DVD movie Factory, Memories on TV, DVD PixPlay, and VCDEasy can all do slideshows. There's a freeware version of VCDEasy still available. Those are all the ones I've used.

IMHO, the effects (transitions) in Memories on TV are best, but the program is a little buggy with overscan (safe area). You might have to pad your pictures first (in batch mode!) to get satisfactory results. VCDEasy is the most difficult. Give them a try and have fun. And check out the guides listed on each program's page.

[thecoalman]

Ulead makes a app specifically for that and it's fairly cheap. $50 U.S. There's a free 15 day trial that you can download. http://ulead.com/dps/features.htm

You can do that with most Editing and Authoring software but it will be quite tedious. I haven't used the above app but I'll bet it automates most of the work.

[d_unbeliever]

proshow

[wwjd]

I second that, Pro Show is the way to go

[tygrus2000]

All those programs mentioned have horrid quality. if you are just looking to get it up on the screen in the shortest time frame possible, they work.

If you want a pure quality photo show that will give your stills the justice they deserve, only one program...Vegas Video.

[wwjd]

I have never used Vegas Video but I am sure of one thing, the quality of
the slide shows that I have made with Pro Show is not horrid! I am rather
picky about the video stuff I do.

And as I have seen posted many times in this forum "garbage in garbage out"

wwjd

[tygrus2000]

Vegas is an expensive program. I didnt see in your post you were looking for something cheaper. if that is the case then Ulead DVDPS or Pro Show are probably the two best.

But neither stand up to a professional encode from a real editing app like Vegas. I am a photographer so I dont want anything degrading my pics when I put them to slideshows. Those inexpensive programs do not have a high quality rendering engine and if you have an eye for video or photo, you will definately notice it. Especially if you display it on a large TV.

[thecoalman]

All those programs mentioned have horrid quality. if you are just looking to get it up on the screen in the shortest time frame possible, they work.

Well i could have suggested he get Ulead Media Studio Pro for $500 (which by the way will do what he wants very easily) or any other high-end editor if he was looking for outstanding results but since he's looking for something that's freeware or shareware Uleads' pictureshow is a good alternative because of the price and it's ease of use.

[Supreme2k]

I use MemoriesOnTV for those tasks. It's cheap, the quality is fantastic, and it has excellent transitions and effects.

[vico1]

All those programs mentioned have horrid quality. if you are just looking to get it up on the screen in the shortest time frame possible, they work.

Well...I think MemoriesOnTV (with MP2 plug-in) along with the ability to use TMPGEnc as your
encoding engine, puts out a Fantastic DVD slideshow.
Ken Burns effects and all. (I`ve used it a lot)
But...To each his own.


*******************************
The Devil`s always.....in the Details!

[d_unbeliever]

really Vegas is better. i bought Vegas don't have time to learn how to use it though...

can you tell why it is better? any feature that Vegas have that proshow or memoryontv does not have?

i tried memoryontv and proshow and im satisfied with these two...

[DVD_Ripper]

All those programs mentioned have horrid quality. if you are just looking to get it up on the screen in the shortest time frame possible, they work.

Well...I think MemoriesOnTV (with MP2 plug-in) along with the ability to use TMPGEnc as your
encoding engine, puts out a Fantastic DVD slideshow.
Ken Burns effects and all. (I`ve used it a lot)
But...To each his own.

*******************************
The Devil`s always.....in the Details!

I've done 3 or 4 Slide shows with MemoriesOnTV.... One Very sweet applicaton. Looking again at Proshow Gold 2.xx again due to recent upgrades

[vico1]

I've done 3 or 4 Slide shows with MemoriesOnTV.... One Very sweet applicaton. Looking again at Proshow Gold 2.xx again due to recent upgrades

I have both...Proshow Gold v2.0.1571 and MemTV v2.1.7 with Mpeg2 plug-in.
The two are very close and do just a super job but...
The ability to utilize TMPGEnc as your render engine with MemoriesonTV,
tips the scales considerably for me.


*******************************
The Devil`s always.....in the Details!

[Garibaldi]

I have been doing exactly what you are trying to do. Here is the process I use. First I import my pictures into Slide Show Movie Maker (freeware). I use the wizard to add the pics and the time per picture. I then select all of them, and erase the text in the box, and click update. This takes the original text away from all the pictures. I then can add my own individual text to each picture. With all the pictures selected, I add random fadings, this program has ALOT of transitions which is great. Then I look and see how long my slideshow is. I then open up Audacity and import all the songs I want in the slideshow. I then put them together and get them to go over the length of the slideshow. I then cut the audio at the length of the slideshow and fade it out. I then export this as a wav file. Then I go to audio settings in slideshow movie maker and import this audio file. Since it only accepts 1 audio file this is how I put multiple songs on it without using more than 1 track. I then go to creation and set my project to final production. To have it export the fastest, set your video codec to uncompressed (only if you have alot of hard drive space). Then export. This will create an avi file. Then take that avi file and import it into BBMpeg. This will convert the file into an mpeg-2 file. Then import that file and any other files you want into GUI for DVD Author. Make your menus with music and backgrounds and titles and create your dvd. This will give you your VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders. Simply take Nero or your favorite burning software, make a data dvd, and drop those two folders on it and burn. If the 2 folders are too big to fit on a 4.7 GB dvd, import the files into dvd shrink and reduce the size until they will fit. All the programs I have mentioned are freeware and are a great way to make your own slideshow dvds! If you have any other questions just feel free to ask, I am happy to help.

[lhbrown]

I use Movie Maker to create the slide show and then TMPGEnc to render to mpg. MM maybe a newbie software but for quick and dirty slide show it is easy to use

[lingoguysw5]

I am just starting with slideshow movie maker and would like to know how does Audacity work? The instructions are pretty poor I find. How do you append the several audio files. It seems fairly complicated. Does it fade onto the next track by the way? If anyone knows plse let me know thanks.

[csaag]

<I have both...Proshow Gold v2.0.1571 and MemTV v2.1.7 with Mpeg2 plug-in.
The two are very close and do just a super job but...
The ability to utilize TMPGEnc as your render engine with MemoriesonTV,
tips the scales considerably for me.



Why have the mpeg2 plug-in if you use Tmpg?
Wouldn't MemTv output mpeg1 or avi and that would be the input to Tmpg?

[lingoguysw5]

What I meant is that with the Audacity tool I can't work out how I'm supposed to merge more than one audio track as one wav file since this is the only way one can do it I believe whilst using Slide show Movie Maker. I just need to cut and join the audios somehow. Do you know?

[racer-x]

The best quality and special effects will only come from using a good video editor like Premiere, Vegas, After Effects ect.

For a free program the will also do a great job and will let you do great special effect like image motion and animated 3-D titles, I recomend Wax2. You will have to export to avi (I recomend Huffy) then use an encoder to convert to Mpeg-2.

[disturbed1]

I use Vegas Video. Drag and drop your pics to the time line, add any effect you want, then export mpeg2 and ac3 from the time line.


There's a Vegas lite called Vegas Movie Studio, has most of the features of Vegas Video, without the ability of multitracks and some other things for ~$100. Both Movie Studio and Vegas have free demos. You can't export ac3 or mpeg2 in the demo versions.

[sumibas]

I use proshowgold. Excellet results and great quality. I use it to get the DVD complaint Mpeg2 and then use vedio studio to create menu and put it on DVD.

[ozymango]

I have been doing exactly what you are trying to do. Here is the process I use. First ... [much detail clipped] All the programs I have mentioned are freeware and are a great way to make your own slideshow dvds! If you have any other questions just feel free to ask, I am happy to help.

Hey, have you done a guide for this, or if not, thought of doing one? 'Cause this is good stuff! True, perhaps a few more steps and author involvement than something like ProShow or MemoriesOnTV, , but I noticed there are only four guides on slideshow to DVD conversion and they all involve paying $$$ for programs. Being both a geek and a cheapskate, I think this would be great a thing to put on the Guides page.

[csaag]

Garibaldi,

do you crop/resize your photos into any specific ratio/size before throwing them into SSMM?