iPhoto Slideshow export screwed up in iDVD

[willrob]

I thought I'd give iPhoto's Slideshow capabilities a try. I had a series of photos from a friend's wedding, and a video of the same event, and wanted to built a DVD with a menu item for the video and one for the slideshow.

I created the slideshow in iPhoto with a soundtrack from my iTunes library. Rather than "Send to iDVD" (which I assumed meant the DVD would only be the slideshow), I chose to Export the slideshow at the highest size (720x480). When you export a slideshow, there is only this one selection—size. The resulting move is MPEG-4. It played properly in Quicktime Player and when placed into iDVD along with the video footage (which was DV format).

So I selected Burn Disc image and hours later when I mounted the image and opend it with DVDPlayer I discovered that the Slideshow soundtrack wasn't there. Its video was fine; but it had somehow picked up the sound track from the DV video. That video still had its own soundtrack.

Having never placed MPEG-4 footage into iDVD, I have to wonder if that's the source of the problem. I'm currently converting the MPEG-4 slideshow into DV to see if that solves the issue.

iDVD's Help file claims I shouldn't have a problem going the route that I went:

" To import a slideshow created in iPhoto into your iDVD project, you must export the slideshow from iPhoto as a QuickTime movie, then import the QuickTime movie into your iDVD project. The slideshow is imported as a movie and you can't edit or change it using the iDVD slideshow features."

Can anyone explain what's happening here?

[willrob]

I'm burning a new disc image as i type. The DV version of the slideshow has a noticeably lower image quality—less sharp, less contrast. Of course that's when viewed on my monitor. Perhaps on a TV it won't be so obvious. I'd much prefer to have the MPEG-4 version, but with the correct audio.

[willrob]

This morning I "Sent to iDVD" the slideshow I was having problems with yesterday. I wasn't sure what would happen, but apparently the slideshow is exported to the last opened iDVD project rather than to a new project.

Looking into the Package Contents for the file I discovered that the video exported in this way is MPEG2, with the audio as a separate file. Also the "size" is 640x480, and image quality is not as sharp as the MPEG-4 version.

Granted, muxing would convert the MPEG-4 to standard DVD quality, looking at the two DVDs I finally burned from these files, the one produced from the MPEG-4 movie is vastly better image quality, although it has the wrong soundtack.

Any ideas on how to gt the best of both worlds here?

[willrob]

I may have made a mistake looking into the Package Contents. I noticed in iDVD's Project Info that the iPhoto exported movie was located in my user/libary/movies folder. The movie stored there was an MPEG-4 movie with audio, at 720x540, with the prefered image quality.

Preview in iDVD however shows a lesser quality image.

[willrob]

Another follow up on iPhoto "Exporting" vs "Sending to iDvd."

While both methods create an MPEG-4 Quicktime movie with audio, the "Send" version is 720x540 and when played on my G$ in full screen mode will fill the monitor. The "Export" version is 720x480 and when played at full screen will letterbox the images.

I "solved" my original audio problem by converting the Export movie to DV format. Playing the two files side by side, the DV movie is dramatically less sharp, and not as color accurate. It is also 15G in size, while the MPEG-4 is only 1.3G.

Still experimenting on how to get the MPEG-4 quality AND the audio onto a DVD with other footage present.

[willrob]

I decided to endure another burn to disc image, this time with the MPEG-4 (720x540) footage created by "Send to iDVD." The resulting image (and ultimately the disc I burned) played perfectly. No soundtrack cross over.

Despite the conversing to MPEG-2 that iDVD performs, the image quality for the slideshow is still much better than that from the DV movie conversion.

I'd like to thank myself for all the assistance and comments I provided. You guy are great! Don't know if I could have done this without you.

[MerlinMacuser]

Will, I'm not sure you realize that although this is a Mac oriented forum, it is not really an All-things-Macintosh one.

I would recommend posting your questions on the Apple discussion site. There are very knowledgeable contributors there including authors of books on iPhoto and iMovie.

I am having a problem adding a slideshow in iDVD to a concert movie I created in iMovie too. I want to add some songs and photos of the artist being remembered at a memorial concert held by his friends and admirers. The concert only takes up about 1 hour 45 minutes so I thought there'd be room for a cool special feature tribute of my own in the way of my favorite songs.

Good luck with your project! Hope to "see" you on the Apple.com discussion site.