create slideshow

[shashgo]

Is there a good free program out there that will help create a slideshow of pictures on CD/DVD and also add music to the slideshow

[guns1inger]

https://www.videohelp.com/tools?toolsearch=slideshow&Submit=Search&s=&orderby=Name&hits...uthorfeatures=

[shashgo]

I downloaded the DVD slideshow GUI and created a slideshow and all with a music background. But one thing I noticed is that the music only plays while the series of pictures is being displayed. After the last picture is displayed, the music also ends at whatever point it has reached. And then the slideshow begins again and the music starts playing from the beginning.

Is there a way to have the music play continuously from start to end regardless of how long the slideshow is? In other words I want the slideshow to keep looping and I want the music to keep looping and I want both to play regardless of the length of the other. So if the pictures have reached the end but the music file hasnt, I want the pictures to start another slideshow while the music goes on till the end. And vice versa also, that is if the music file is short, then I want the current slideshow to the end while the music loops over.

Is that possible?

[lordhutt]

Photodex makes one of the better ones...

http://www.photodex.com/products/proshowgold/

[guns1inger]

You would have to add the same slides again. All slideshow programs work the same. You either distribute the slides across the length of the song, or you cut the song off at a certain length. If you want to repeat the slides again, load the same photos in a second time.

[shashgo]

lordhut, thanks for the link but I was only interested in free programs

guns1inger,

I just experimented by making the music file very short and it does loop automatically if the picture collection is still going on. However, the opposite doesnt work, that is, if the length of the music is longer than the picture collection, then the music doesnt continue while the pictures loop.


If I need to add the pictures again to make the pictures series last as long as the music, is there a way to make sure that the two will last the same lentgh, that is the picture slideshow and the music (maybe by comparing the KB size of all the pictures combined to that of the music file)? But in that case, when the music is over, then the slideshow will loop over to the beginning and start from the first picture. Is that a compromise I have to make, or is there any way around it?

[guns1inger]

kb size has nothing to do with it. The math is simple. You just need to work out how long each slide needs to be shown for. Duration = Length of song / Number of pictures.

I don't use slide show programs anymore, as I prefer to create them manually, but the few I did look at a few years back all had a match duration type feature. Could be called Fit to song or something else. Read the help files or just look at all the screens.

[tin2tin]

Most slideshow programs export the slideshows as video with an audio track, therefore the length of the video will determine the length of the audio.

In DVD slideshow GUI you can doubleclick on the last slide to preview/hear the last part of the music/audio to be played before restarting.

The DVD structure only allows video linked with audio. Audio and video can't be played seperately. Samething with motion menus.

So the only option is to ajust the length of the video to the length of the audio if you want the video/images to fit with ex. the length of a song.

In the tutorial forum I posted a small tutorial on how to add audio in sync to a DSG slideshow with Movie Maker.

[shashgo]

guns1inger,

Okay, but when you say duration=length of music/num of pictures,

would the length of music be the number of minutes it plays, like 5 minutes or 6 minutes or whatever?

Also, I want to enlarge the pictures to the max. width of the screen, whether computer or TV, an I dont knowo how todo that. Is it possible to do that from within DVD slideshow GUI ?

How do you make a slide show manually

[tin2tin]

In DVD slideshow GUI under Presets you must type in '0' as safe x and safe y values to avoid using a safe area(area not visible on a normal tv screen).

Yeah, the length of the music should fit the length of the video/images to use the entire song. Unfortunately the length of the slideshow written in the status bar is not allways exact, so you better check the audio played on the last slide by double clicking it.

[shashgo]

tin2tin,

My audio is 6:36 minutes or 396 secs. I have 18 pictures. How do I set the duration of the pictures to total 396 seconds.

And what is exposition and duration both in the settings dialog (when you click the tools icon) and in the slide settings dialog box (when you click the icon that looks like an image of a sun?

[videobread]

I use XP to make slide shows. Works great. I put all my photos in a folder then right click on the folder and send to my burner. When the files are through transferring and ready to be copied to CD I check "Make HighMat - compatible CD" and "convert files, if necessary". I gives me a CD that I can play in my DVD player on my HD TV. The slides are automatically sized to the screen (as big as the screen). It is in full screen vs wide. I can add a music track.

I have never tried the most complicated programs referred to on VH. I'm sure they are great also.

[guns1inger]

@shashgo : not wanting to be rude, but going to sound it anyway - did you ever do math at school ? Do you know how o use a calculator ? Can you not divide 396 by 18 ?

[shashgo]

gunslinger,

Before jumping to conclusions, just try and guess what is meant by the question. I meant to say how do you set the duration of each picture to be 21.63 seconds. Should I modify the exposition number or the duration number (by the way the duration number in the settings dialog is currently 24 and the exposition number is 760, and in the slide settings dialog, the exposition is 120 and the duration 21) and the current length of the picture slideshow is 1.34 minutes

[tin2tin]

@ shashgo

If you read the DSG help:
Exposition: Shows the number of frames the image will be visible before the transition.
Duration: Shows the number of frames of the transition between the current slide and the next. Lowest transition will not be used. Duration can be negative for overlapping slides.

Under Presets you need to set the if you want a pal or ntsc slideshow(pal=25 frames pr. sec. ntsc=29.97 frames pr. sec.)

So you need to calculate everything in frames. Ex. the length of your audio in sec. * frames pr. sec.

So you should set the Exposition/duration to something like
duration = same for all transitions ex. 25
exposition= (((length of your audio in sec. * frames pr. sec) - ((number of slides-1) * duration))/number of slides

[shashgo]

tin2tin,

I tried that and the expo # works out to 305.x. The setting of the expo number in the software doesnt go below 313 for some reason so even if I set it to 305, it stays 313. Weird. I guess Ill have to increase the number of slides so that I can come up with an expo# above 313.

The other question, how do I tell DVD slideshow GUI that I want each slide to be displayed fullscreen and not as a small picture with the surrounding background.

I looked in the help thing, but there is no mention of how to do this. And the dropdown for backgrounds doesnt have a none value for me to say I dont want a background, so .... what do I do

[tin2tin]

I tried that and the expo # works out to 305.x. The setting of the expo number in the software doesnt go below 313 for some reason so even if I set it to 305, it stays 313. Weird. I guess Ill have to increase the number of slides so that I can come up with an expo# above 313.

How are you doing this? 305 shouldn't be a problem at all!?

The other question, how do I tell DVD slideshow GUI that I want each slide to be displayed fullscreen and not as a small picture with the surrounding background.

I looked in the help thing, but there is no mention of how to do this. And the dropdown for backgrounds doesnt have a none value for me to say I dont want a background, so .... what do I do

Read my first post here... again? https://forum.videohelp.com/topic354425.html#1873363

There is no such thing as no background, load a black image...

[shashgo]

tin2tin,

Yes I got the audio length to sync with the picture slideshow, but I still cant get the pictures to show up fullscreen in the slideshow, meaning they appear as small thumbnails in the center of the screen in the player. How do I fix this? I did what you had said before, playing around with the safe area, but no matter what I set those values as or set the image to occuppy the whole window by modifying these values, I still get the small centered thumbnail images when I preview the slideshow

By the way, the values in the safe area presets only go down to 1 not to 0. And how do I load a black background, there is no choice in the background selection dialog box (when I go in the backgrounds folder)

So what am I doing wrong?

[tin2tin]

Sounds like your original images are too small. DSG do not upscale images.

I think Irfan view can batch upscale images. Or you could use the animation tool to zoom into the image until it fits your prefered size and use that zoom value as a keyframe at the beginning and at the end.

Type in the safe values.

Black background: Open mspaint fill the image with black and save it as jpg. Under Presets open the black jpg as background...

[tin2tin]

All right, now I've added a 'Match Slideshow to Audio Duration' to the Edit menu.

Run this test version from the main folder an installed DSG 0.86B. Get it here! (v. 0.86C)

[shashgo]

tin2tin,

thanks Im going to try out the new version. I thought there would be a way in DSG to upsclae pictures as some other applications do. But if it doesnt, then youre right, the ooriginals are probably too small.

[shashgo]

tin2tin,

The original DVD slideshow GUI that I downloaded has a trojan embedded in its diskfree4 file. The new dvd slideshow GUI that you created with the option of sizing the audio, does it have the trojan embedded in it too?

Can you remove the trojan from that diskfree4.exe or is there another application that is trojan free

[tin2tin]

I'm pretty sure that there isn't any trojan in diskfree4. Must be a false positive. Get your anti-virus provider to check this please.

[shashgo]

tin2tin,

That is how I found out. AntiVir detected the trojan, and if you google the name of the trojan, there are a lot of hits. I think that earlier I had my antivirus turned off

anyway ill try it again, but why do you think the antivirus detects it

[tin2tin]

Must be a false positive.

[shashgo]

tin2tin,

I installed the dvd program again even though I was getting the trojan warning. I still cant figure out how to make the slides appear fullscreen in the slideshow, I loaded a black background, but the truth is I dont want a background. I just want the pictures to appear fullscreen. How do I do that? I can resize the pictures, but isnt that different from saying I want the pictures to be fullscreen in any sizze TV?

What do I do

[tin2tin]

Read this again, please:

Sounds like your original images are too small. DSG do not upscale images.

I think Irfan view can batch upscale images. Or you could use the animation tool to zoom into the image until it fits your prefered size and use that zoom value as a keyframe at the beginning and at the end.

I can resize the pictures, but isnt that different from saying I want the pictures to be fullscreen in any sizze TV?

No!? One more time: If your original image is less than 720x576(PAL) or 720x480(NTSC) it will not fill your entire DVD frame and a background will be visible, unless you use the 'Animation Tool' to zoom into the image until the entire background is covered(and make a similar keyframe at the beginning and end of the animation). This has nothing to do with your TV, but how make the dvd.

[shashgo]

tin2tin:

all of my images have been upscaled to 1024x768, and even though I use those as the slides they dont fit the entire DVD frame. So maybe my only other option is to do the zoom in the reanimation.