Best program to make a Slideshow on DVD from JPG and MP3s???

[BryceOne]

I would like to make a slideshow using many JPGs and some MP3s for background music.. What's the best program with the best quality??? I've already tried Photo2VCD (which also supports DVD) but I was not happy with the final results..

[DaveS]

BryceOne -

There is no best (for any of these tools).

Having said that, I myself have used memoriesontv:

(https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=363#comments

I liked the results overall - the transitions were very nice (esp. the panning), and I found the tool easy to use. The control over the transitions and panning was good and you can crop in the tool too. For a quick slideshow, this is much easier in this tool than an editor (I thought). It does automatically adjust the timing to fit your sound track(s) if you like. It wasn't perfect at that (the music ended one or two pictures earlier than the slides) but I think it was probably a rounding error that they need to fix in the next release.

I did not like the authoring as it is very limited, although there are templates provided and a rudimentary preview capability. There is an option to have it save the elementary streams (it encodes) - if you select that you can then bring these into your favorite tool(s), which will do everything you know them to do (and, if you want to use ac3 encoded sound tracks, for example, you can drop the encoded sound track from the tool). I thought that was a reasonable approach, providing a limited authoring just in case you don't have anything but giving you the encoded file to work with.

Also, be sure to work off of a copy of your images as one person reported it *deleting* some images under certain circumstances. I can't say anything about that as I don't think I re-created it, but that person was pretty sure, so I work off a copy of my images just to be sure (which can't hurt anyway).

Hope this helps - I'm sure there are other tools / approaches out there as well.

[ZenZen]

>>Best program to make a Slideshow on DVD from JPG and MP3s???

This same question gets recycled every few weeks with monotonous regularity.
Why not try a little search on these forums ??

[mrbass]

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=180613

[ImaWeTodd]

I would like to make a slideshow using many JPGs and some MP3s for background music.. What's the best program with the best quality???

Avisynth + VDub + Encoder(s) + DVD-lab

Hands down


If you really want stills, probably DVDArchitect

[DaveS]

ImaWeTodd -

fwiw, DVDA, in my opinion. was fairly limited in making a slide show - it will do it but seemed somewhat limited to me - (I don't think I missed any features, but it is possible).

What is would let you do is drag jpegs (etc.) from the media pool into a slide show folder, specify the order for the slides, allow you to specify the duration for each slide (or change all at once) and allow you to associate audio to the slides. You can then control the bitrate, etc. for encoding (in the optimizer).

The thing that Memories on TV did, for example, is provide the transitions (which you would have to build in in your editor of choice, then encode and bring into DVDA). It also can automatically sync the timing of the slides to one or more audio tracks, and let you fairly easily specify the duration of the transitions and the slides themselves. You can do all of this in vegas (et al) + DVDA, but the "MOT" tool made it really easy imho. Of course the editing and 'real' authoring tools would run circles around the MOT type of tools in many areas, but my opinion was that the MOT tool was just easy to use.

These are just my opinions from some brief experience w/ these (I have no relationship to the MOT company, but just found their current tool to seem to be decent for doing a nice slide show).

[ImaWeTodd]

DaveS

Thanks for the info.

I must say, I have never used DVDA to do a real slideshow. Just a few Music Compilations. That's why I said 'probably'.

However, If you really want dvd stills, Sonic products do them. I believe mrbass wants stills, so he can put thousands and thousands of pics on a dvd.

There might be a product that does still ->> transition ->> still. But I'm not sure you can get both at once.

I did briefly try MOT and was disappointed that the VCD show did not support high res stills. Because of this, I doubt it does dvd stills (not really needed for most).

Also, I am not impressed with transitions. They are a fairly easy trick even with Avisynth. I'm thinkin of writting a script and a batch file to churn out slide shows to keep the photo developer bill down (my wife's gettin to like her digital camera, but she still wants a print of everything).

BTW: A close friend thought MOT was great. He didn't even mind the low res VCD.

These too "are just my opinions ", and I really do appreciate such a civil exchange.

[MachineMan]

Ulead DVD Pictureshow 2.

https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=41#comments

[Viper10000]

BryceOne,

Since you mentioned "best quality" and also your requirement is "DVD", I guess it's tough to answer. As you know, DVD resolution is 720x480/576, and no matter you cut it, all the apps mentioned (i.e. Ulead DVD Pictureshow 2, MemoriesOnTV, Proshow Gold, etc. ) will transform your pictures to that DVD resolution. If you think DVD resolution is good enough, then the mentioned apps are all good. But if you think 720x480/576 resolution short-change your original higher resolution beautiful pictures, than I guess you should use an app that create a regular slide show (with voice over capability) but does not alter your original resolution.

NOTE: If this is for a presentation, I even suggest you should use a nice projector instead a DVD player.

[DaveS]

Pinnacle also just came out w/ a dvd slide show software -maybe they have a download demo of it - the package ad that I saw in a magazine looks good (but so did the box for S8 ).

[mrbass]

DaveS
However, If you really want dvd stills, Sonic products do them. I believe mrbass wants stills, so he can put thousands and thousands of pics on a dvd.

yes I do, very much so. I contacted tech support for memoriesontv and they'll consider adding it in future versions. Like you said I guess Sonic is the only one I know that supports DVD stills.

also he said
"b) We are considering adding ac3 support. We are looking at the
feasibility and demand for that."

but now that I think about it ...maybe ac3 isn't all that great. I think any player that can play SVCD (almost all new ones can) should handle .mp2 no problem.

[ImaWeTodd]

mrbass

Here is a thought I had. May be silly but hey...

Can you make a slide show without transitions in something, with say 5 sec long clips of the pictures and running audio, and THEN shrink it to stills with DVDShrink ?

I've been meaning to try this and so many other things too

I've never looked at the dvdshrink still ifos' to see what is really there, but I would assume he takes an I frame and does a cell time delay.

I'd have to take a look at what Architect does to understand the navigation. Not sure how hard it would be to "next" to the next cell/pic.