High definition slide shows on DVD.

[EagleW]

I learned recently (I am probably the only one who didn't know) that by putting JPEG photo files on a data dvd and playing it in a blu-ray player results in a slideshow in high definition. I have always used PROSHOW slide show software and the resulting images on DVD are much softer. I know you can produce a Blu-ray version now on proshow as well. This has to be on Blu-ray media though. Is there a software package out there that uses the full sized JPEG file onto DVD media with the usual transitions & ken burns effects etc and gives you the above results?

[guns1inger]

Not if you want it to play in a standard DVD player. When you burn photos as data you are relying on the DVD player's ability to play jpeg files, and whatever transitions it has. Most players play jpeg files, although some older players may struggle with the size of files that newer cameras produce.

If you create a DVD slideshow then you are actually creating a DVD video, and are restricted to a maximum of 720 x 480 (NTSC) or 720 x 576 (PAL) pixel resolution. Some slideshow programs may allow you to output at a higher resolution, or you can use a video editor to do the same thing (I often use Vegas to create slideshows, for example). If you create your video at 1280 x 720 or 1920 x 1080 and output AVCHD compliant video you could use MultiAVCHD to author a bluray resolution disc for burning on DVD5 or DVD9 discs.

I suspect you could use ProSHow to output a bluray disc structure to your HDD, then use MultiAVCHD to re-author into AVCHD format for burning.

[EagleW]

Thanks 'guns1inger' for your comprehensive reply. When I created the DVD disk it was for holiday photos (356 photos 2.4G) I created a folder for the Holiday and added many more folders to that for all the stops we visited. Then I renamed all the photos to have 01, 02, 03 etc up to 356 in front of the slide name. When I played the disk in either my SONY BDP-550 or my Panasonic BW-850 the disk played the photos in sequence and at high definition no problem. The SONY DVP-NS76H played it also but at the normal DVD quality but looked very good. The players all had their slide show mode and faded shot to shot. The picture quality was as good as I have ever seen on my 46” Bravia TV. My question really was if I could find a slideshow software that didn’t create a DVD movie but used the file in a similar way how great that would be.
I did create a Blu-ray slideshow on a BD-RE disk using Proshow but found the images looked over sharp and frankly not as good as the above method. I don’t have a need to create many slideshows so I think I will use my DVD option in future. I will miss the Ken Burns effect though. I will study the AVCHD suggestion of yours though could be interesting.
Finally I find cropping to 16:9 from my NIKON 3:2 images is time consuming as you must have found when putting images on the VEGAS timeline at 1920 X 1080. Have you found any software that provides a crop template that you move over the photo and when you get it right you just save to a pre arranged file? Thanks once again for your informative reply, cheers.

[guns1inger]

Photoshop ? That is my standard tool for this, although with Vegas I usually don't have to crop before hand, as I can pan/zoom around the frame in Vegas anyway.

[papawupa]

I agree that the nle's pan and zoom function would be the best. But the link below will allow batch processing of your images to any aspect ratio and it is free or you can give a small donation.

http://www.darkwood.demon.co.uk/PC/crop.htm

[EagleW]

Thanks 'papawupa' that software looks promising, I think it will solve my batch cropping problems OK. Between you and 'guns1inger' my query has been answered, much appreciated.

[guns1inger]

irfanview is another good batch processing tool that can crop or resize for you. The problem I have with batching this type of job is that you have no control over what is left in the image. All of these tools tend to just do a centre crop, so if you need to have your focus elsewhere, they are of little use.

[EagleW]

Have just tried 'Image Cropper' and during batch processing you select all your images you wish to crop and then do them one at a time on the screen. The crop frame appears on the image you can drag it to the area of interest then just hit save and it saves the crop to a pre selected folder then the next image in the selection appears. Simple and effective especially for video as you can select a pre made 1920x1080 template. Original files are untouched.

[zenzen1]

Image Cropper is one cool program !!!!
I cropped a bunch of jpegs to 16x9 then transferred them into ProShow Producer and created a 16x9 BluRay slideshow.
But instead of burning it onto BR media, I created the show as a BR.iso to the PC's HDD. Then transferred the BR.iso file to my Xtreamer media player, and watched it play out on my 46" Panny plasma. Image quality (1920 x 1080) was amazing, especially considering that I had purposely cropped and zoomed in (to test the limits) using Image Cropper to begin with. I did not find them too sharp, and if I had done, I could have clicked the anti-flicker and desaturation boxes in ProShow, as this softens the pics slightly.

[multiAVCHD]

Btw, multiAVCHD supports picture-slide-show when user drags a folder with JPG files to the application. You can select of 4-5 different transition effects + background color, still duration and resolution.


You can select simple effects like: fade-in/fade-out, fade-out, slide left-to-right, slide to center, diagonal+vertical, none or random.

User can add background audio, too...

[zenzen1]

Thanks....I'll give multiAVCHD a work out

[EagleW]

One final enquiry guys if you don't mind. Whats a typical donation value if you want to register your 'Image Cropper' software?

[zenzen1]

Whatever you think the software is worth to you........

[tin2tin]

Just a quick FYI: DVD slideshow GUI will also allow you to make slideshows in 1080p and 720p and author them(with tsmuxer) for BluRay and burn on a dvd.