What is the best photo slide show software on the market ?

[sugarshine]

I need to make a photo dvd. The project will consist of music, video and photos of course. Would also like nice transitions , ken burns effects & narration if possible. What software on the market now do you guys recommend. I thinking that proshow gold & memories on tv might be about the best to apps. I have no exp with either so any advise would greatly be appreciated.

[Capmaster]

I've used Nero Vision Express. It lets you mix stills and videos, add your own background music, and the menu thumbnails of the videos can be set to use the actual video as the animation 8)

[northcat_8]

Why not just use a video editor, set the "still pic" default time to 4 or 5 seconds...I like 5 because each transition is 2 seconds...

Just about any video editing app will do it. I use Pinnacle's Studio 8 or Adobe Premiere or Ulead's Video studio 6 (I think).

[northcat_8]

I should also mention, that I personally think Pinnacle's Studio 8 is a trash software and seems to be very hit or miss for everyone. BUT I do use it, it was fairly cheap...it came with my caputure card....and it is the app I use to do slide shows.

I can do everything you just said, narration, stills, video, music, voice, better than good transitions with Hollywood FX bundled.

I should also mention that since you are new to the whole video editing world...you might want to think twice before entering. It is highly addicting, and once someone says "Man, I love the video you did for so and so. It was awesome." That's it, you're hooked, pretty soon you are buying Adobe After Effects to make your own effects, dropping $1000 on that program, buying plugins, buying a 3D animation program...pretty soon, you'll be hanging out at Videohelp.com in the OT forum talking about stuff you had never even heard of before.

I remember what life was like before video editing...I have pictures

[Garibaldi]

I need to make a photo dvd. The project will consist of music, video and photos of course. Would also like nice transitions , ken burns effects & narration if possible. What software on the market now do you guys recommend. I thinking that proshow gold & memories on tv might be about the best to apps. I have no exp with either so any advise would greatly be appreciated.

Personally I have been very happy with the program Slide Show Movie Maker. It is freeware, but has a very rich library of features, including:
- many many great transitions
- text effects and overlays
- Ken Burns Effects and special picture effects
- High quality output IMO
- Music
- Random Transitions
IMO its really just a great piece of software. I would be happy to send you a demo vid of it, just pm me. I've made quite a few slideshows with it and have been very happy with the results (especially quality). Its a free piece of software, you might as well give it a try before you buy anything because you really don't have anything to loose.

[tgpo]

iPhoto

[thecoalman]

I That's it, you're hooked, pretty soon you are buying Adobe After Effects to make your own effects, dropping $1000 on that program, buying plugins, buying a 3D animation program...pretty soon, you'll be hanging out at Videohelp.com in the OT forum talking about stuff you had never even heard of before.

I remember what life was like before video editing...I have pictures

Good point.... Drop the Adobe and go with Ulead Quartet though and you only have to drop $600 or $700 for the whole thing.

There's not much you can't do with qquartet that you can't do with an entire suite of adodbe products. I have yet to see anyting the Adobe Image editor can do that Ulead photoimpact can't beside saving in particular adobe propetary formats such as AI. It will save PSD.

BTW DVD Workshop which has a slideshow function included is part of quartet. I haven't upgraded yet so I have no comment on the functionality of it. My guess is that it rocks because I have not been disappointed with a Ulead product yet..... and I'm picky....ask ATI

[Garibaldi]

Personally I have been very happy with the program Slide Show Movie Maker.

I forgot to mention that SSMM also imports avi videos as well, so you can have a mix of pics and videos accompanied by music.

[tweedledee]

No one's mentioned PROSHOW GOLD, is it crap? I use it, and it seems ok, and only about 50 bucks.

[Garibaldi]

No one's mentioned PROSHOW GOLD, is it crap? I use it, and it seems ok, and only about 50 bucks.

I've heard of that as being a good one, but personally I've never used it- I've always used SSMM.

[lordsmurf]

Adobe Premiere is what I use for slideshows. Render effects, then encode a video from it.

[budz]

No one's mentioned PROSHOW GOLD, is it crap? I use it, and it seems ok, and only about 50 bucks.

I'm using PROSHOW GOLD and like it compared to MEMORIES ON TV. PROSHOW GOLD the music and pictures have the option to be in sync. When I try that with MEMORIES ON TV it doesn't come out the way I want it to. In previewing it within MEMORIES ON TV program the stuff is in sync but after burning it on a DVD+RW it's not.

[sacajaweeda]

I like SSMM but there was a (2GB?) file size limit that was a pain, IIRC. Other than that it's great. You just have to segment your AVI and piece it all together before you encode it to MPEG2 for DVD.

[Garibaldi]

I like SSMM but there was a (2GB?) file size limit that was a pain, IIRC. Other than that it's great. You just have to segment your AVI and piece it all together before you encode it to MPEG2 for DVD.

The 2 GB file size limit is only really a problem when you don't use a codec (uncompressed video). I never had a problem with it when I used XviD. And then obviously avi -> mpeg 2, you can use TMPGENC, BBmpeg, The Film Machine, FFMPEG, or Avidemux are just a few encoders.

[Dr. DOS]

Memories on TV is my choice (and they have a cool "memories on the web" program that is free.

MTV supports great movement of the pictures between each slide and will save your files to a MPEG2 or burn the DVD for you. (menuing is good but not great)

I've opted to create a MPEG2 of the photos and incorporate that as another title on my DVD's.

[Rookie64]

I use Vegas Video - 4 will do the job but you might want to go for the latest version Vegas 5


Pics can be any size...so it won't be a problem if the pics you want to use are different sizes or dimensions.

Very easy to use - just drag and drop into timeline.

You can crop, add various effects, add text...add backgrounds...transparent layers...just about anything...so you can really get as creative as you want.

Also has audio editing and effects - like having soundforge built right in.

Plus you can encode/render to any video format.

[Baldrick]

Please TRY post in correct forum. This is not offfffffffffff topic. Moving you.

[sugarshine]

I first wanna say thanks to everyone who took the time out to respond to this thread. I'm also sorry for posting in forum at first. I heard vegas movie studio+dvd (sony) was another good app. Anybody use this before ?

[djcc]

I first wanna say thanks to everyone who took the time out to respond to this thread. I'm also sorry for posting in forum at first. I heard vegas movie studio+dvd (sony) was another good app. Anybody use this before ?

Fantastic app - 3 video tracks plus 3 audio tracks. Will go way beyond simple slide shows, so for one purchase, you get a very robust NLE package. The flip side to that is that you cannot tag a folder full of pics, a soundtrack, and have the app automatically set automatic picture timing, automatic transitions, etc. You have to do all that yourself.

I still prefer it to the simple applications like proshow, memories to TV, etc.

[Garibaldi]

Fantastic app - 3 video tracks plus 3 audio tracks. Will go way beyond simple slide shows, so for one purchase, you get a very robust NLE package. The flip side to that is that you cannot tag a folder full of pics, a soundtrack, and have the app automatically set automatic picture timing, automatic transitions, etc. You have to do all that yourself.

I still prefer it to the simple applications like proshow, memories to TV, etc.

I would say the app I use, SSMM, is somewhere in between this. It won't allow for several audio tracks (unless you mix them yourself with audacity or something first), but it does allow for auto transitions and importing a whole group of pics, which can save quite a bit of time.

[ozymango]

I need to make a photo dvd. The project will consist of music, video and photos of course. Would also like nice transitions , ken burns effects & narration if possible.

Can't go wrong with any of the advice so far, but one more question -- do you plan on making more slideshows and, if so, is DVD playback all you need? Because one thing that ProShow Gold will do is allow you to burn to DVD *and* to an .exe stand-alone file (for computer playback) *and* make a screen saver (.scr) out of the end file. I did only a cursory check of the other software and I believe they all are .avi or .mpg out only?

Dunno if this is a big deal or not, but I do like the ProShow can build screen savers and stand-alone playback .exe files for computers.

[Garibaldi]

Can't go wrong with any of the advice so far, but one more question -- do you plan on making more slideshows and, if so, is DVD playback all you need? Because one thing that ProShow Gold will do is allow you to burn to DVD *and* to an .exe stand-alone file (for computer playback) *and* make a screen saver (.scr) out of the end file. I did only a cursory check of the other software and I believe they all are .avi or .mpg out only?

I know SSMM only outputs to avi, but that's fine for dvd, you can just convert it. As far as computer playback since it doesn't support .exe you could either play the avi or mpeg. I'm not sure about the .scr though...

[sumibas]

Hi,

i use Proshow Gold version 2.0 and it can do every thing you need. i have worked with Ulead picture show, memories on tv and photo2dvd studio ilike PSGold it has good transison easy too use and cheap and great great Quality and fast

[rdinero]

Hi,

I'm using Proshow Gold ver 2 right now and I'm having a problem with the quality of pictures. The pictures are not sharp as they are. Could you tell me what I did wrong?
I try to make dvd slide show from my family photos. The music and slide show are work fine. I can watch it on my tv. Except the pictures are not very good.
thanks for your help.

[tin2tin]

Maybe tryout this DVDslideshowGUI I wrote - it's free.
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=245071

Tin2tin

[ozymango]

Hi,

I'm using Proshow Gold ver 2 right now and I'm having a problem with the quality of pictures. The pictures are not sharp as they are. Could you tell me what I did wrong?

Could be several things, but let's start with maybe an easy fix. You say you're burning to DVD? And I'm assuming your photos are sharp and clear to begin with?

If so, when you go to "Create DVD disc," there'll be a menu option on the left for "Output Options." Select that, and therell be an option for "DVD Output format." The default is "DVD SP (Standard Play)" -- you can try setting this to "DVD HQ (High Quality)."

There's another option for "Video Output Options," and under that "Encoding Quality." The default is "Normal Quality" -- change this to "High Quality."

If you do the above you *should* be getting the highest possible image quality from your slides; the second step ("Video Output Options") will probably do the trick on its own, still images usually look just fine in DVD SP. But doesn't hurt to set everything as HQ as possible.

Hope this helps!

[rdinero]

hi ozymango,

thanks for your help. I will that and let you know.

also thanks to tin2tin ...

[rdinero]

hi,

after try to change everything to HQ but the quality of the pictures are still not very good. I'm try to make a show using jpeg and bmp. does it matter?
any ideas? thanks...

[Rogue3]

Do any of these programs (besides premiere) support widescreen pictures? My tv is 16:9 and I would like all of my pictures to reflect that. I know with premiere I had to crop all of them manually. It would be nice to have it do it all automatically for you.

[csaag]

What resolution size are your input pictures (or are they all different sizes)? One thing I've been told is that not every slideshow program is good at resizing/resampling photos. It was suggested to me to crop your photo to a 4:3 ratio (i.e for a fullscreen TV) then resize and use that for your input. That way the software program is relieved from having to do any internal resizing/resampling.

Although I'm not 100% sure what the right size is: 640x480 or 720x480.
One site said 640x480 and that will look fine on a TV because of square vs non-square pixels. Another said 720x480, another said 704x480 then pad with black borders to 720x480. It's all confusing.