Creating DVD Photo Albums

[drake317]

I have purchased a HP with a writable DVD. Can anyone recommend software that will create a show and burn it on a DVD to play it on my TV?

I have created albums using Snapfish, which is a Comcast Cable program, but to create DVDs I would have to order them on line for $14.95

Ideally this program would be able to add music, graphics, etc.

[steven]

Have not tried it yet but my HP DVD burner came with softeware to do that.

So you might not have to spend additional funds.

[Jack W.]

Pro Show Gold
www.photodex.com

[boomer1959]

Nero 6 ultra edition works very well.

[AzzKicker]

Pro Show Gold
www.photodex.com

Another Vote for PRO SHOW GOLD.

Its just TOP NOTCH. Creates DVD menus, chapters, add sound, everything. It does it all. Burns on the fly.

[RomanB]

If you have Windows you don't have to spend a dime: you can burn straight from Windows to your CD and it works without a problem. One thing to keep in mind, if you intend to store the CD's for a long time, buy the best CD's available. They will cost a little more but you will be sure of not losing your photos. Believe me, all CD's are not the same, some will seemingly self-destruct after a (short )period of time. I've had that experience.

[AzzKicker]

If you have Windows you don't have to spend a dime: you can burn straight from Windows to your CD and it works without a problem. One thing to keep in mind, if you intend to store the CD's for a long time, buy the best CD's available. They will cost a little more but you will be sure of not losing your photos. Believe me, all CD's are not the same, some will seemingly self-destruct after a (short )period of time. I've had that experience.


He wants them to play on a DVD Player on his home TV. Not computer.

[ToddMorris]

Hi,

We took some pictures of my sister's wedding a few weeks ago, and a couple of family members didn't have computers (still use webtv). We just burned the pictures to a regular CD, and they were able to view them on thier TV through the DVD player. I'm pretty sure that as long as they have a newer DVD player that will read CD-R, it should work just fine.

Hope this helps,
Todd

[Boswell]

I use Adobe Premier Pro, and Photoshop CS and TMPGEnc

I put 3 - 5 photos on a blank canvas about 3000-4000 pixels I think in photoshop, I followed a free tutorial off the web. Import in to Premier pro and you can zoom in and out against each photo and then pan across to the next canvas.

One this to look out for with premier pro, don't use more than 12 mins, you need to do up to 12mins then do another one and use TMPGEnc to put them all on one DVD with a menu.

Takes a while the first time, but it is really easy once you get use to it.

[Digital Prophet]

I recently did a project just like this. I tried quite a few applications and had mixed results. Of all the packages I looked at Pro Show Gold definately had the most features hands down. In the end though I just used the Nero software that came with my DVD burner.

It was fast, simple and I already had the license so there was nothing else to buy. Combine that with the fact that I was very short on time and you have the recipe for a simple, but nice little DVD. Although I so think later that I will in fact upgrade to Pro Show Gold because it really does seem to be a good all round package.

- Digital Prophet -

[J Rabin]

I do this all the time now for event photography. Have good succcess with Roxio software. On the Mac platform it's called Toast. They have companion Windows platform product under different name.
It does not crash, has enough features without getting into over-sophisticated features wars. It writes nice menus controllable on the TV, and offers choice to burn an archive of the files as well as slide show on the DVD.
Be aware:
1. Compression takes a while. A 200 slide show can take a long time to compress and burn
2. Each slide sequence menu button is limited to 99 slides, but the number of menu buttons is unlimited up to 4.4 gig DVD capacity.
3. It is better to use an UNCOMPRESSED file format like TIFF. The time it takes the TV DVD to read and load an image is not based as much on file size as it is uncompressing. I have found that 20-40 MB TIFs respond smoother to the TVs DVD player button controls than 2 MB JPGs.

Some poster's above have recommended just using the VIDEO CD format and burning the same menu driven slide shows on CD, which DO PLAY ON A TV LIKE A DVD. However, I have discovered that they respond slower and are very frustrating for users (family viewers). Don't go this route and do get DVD software.
J

[David_Hughes]

Pro Show Gold www.photodex.com - fantastic software and incredibly good value. Have tried everything from Ulead to Pinnacle and this is the best BY FAR. Simple to use, intuitive. I produce wedding dvd slideshows as part of my packages to clients and I thought it would take me hours to put this sort of thing together. With Pro Show Gold you can have a stunning slideshow burned to dvd, exe, or cd within minutes!!

[J Rabin]

One other tip.
IMO Do not oversharpen images when preparing for TV DVD slide shows. I follow Bruce Fraser's (of RAW and sharpening fame) three step sharpening advice, and only do Capture sharpening for DVD slide show images. Output sharpening, even the "multimedia output" sharpening makes images look coarse on CRT TV screens.
In addition to the no compression, this is another reason why less sharpened TIFs from RAW look better than JPGs in DVD slide shows, IMO.

J

[Tripod]

I use Pinical Studio 8 for this. It has a good selection of transitions, lets you do sound, titles including streaming titles. it actcualy for Vidio but works fine for still. Does take a long time to compress when you do the streaming titles but other wise I have had good success with it.

[J Rabin]

Final Tip for DVD burning fans for TV Viewing:
IMO make sure you embed sRGB color profile and NOT Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB. I learned hard way Adobe and ProPhoto look equal on my color managed monitor, but look horid on TV screens.
Since my digital workflow is RAW to 16-bit ProPhoto RGB for archive then to 16-bit Adobe RGB for inkjet print, I made a mistake of distributing DVDs with images burned with ProPhoto and Adobe profiles. Results Yuch.
I now use a PhotoShop action to Image>Mode>Convert Profile and Image>Mode>8bit on copies of image folders to make 8-bit sRGB TIFs for burning the DVDs.
As noted above TIFs are better than JPGs because the DVD player does not have to uncompress them. No play back lag time.
When I scan 35mm chrome slides, I use Nikon/Adobe Wide Gamut profile for 16-bit scanning. For DVDs shows, these also should be batch converted to 8-bit sRGB.
Sorry for multiple posts. But I put up the opinions when they came back to me.
J

[tommykjensen]

My trial version of proshow gold has expired and before I buy I have one question.

Is it possible to create a dvd with more than one slideshow?

Because we might as well face it, no matter how brilliant we think our photos is not many are interested in watching hours of photo slideshow :lol:

So my question is following, is it possible to create a dvd divided into following structure:

Menu: Orlando
___Submenu: 1996
______Slideshow: Disney World 1
______Slideshow: Disney World 2
______Slideshow: Seaworld
___Submenu: 1998
______Slideshow: Universal
______Slideshow: Seaworld
Menu: London
.
.
.
etc

If proshow gold is not capable of this which other dvd slideshow creator program is?

[kndreyn]

Ulead's DVD Slideshow will do multiple shows on a DVD. I have Proshow Gold but haven't used it enough yet to see if it will do it too. Check your private messages Tommy

[tommykjensen]

Ulead's DVD Slideshow will do multiple shows on a DVD. I have Proshow Gold but haven't used it enough yet to see if it will do it too. Check your private messages Tommy

Yes check Your own private messages.

You have been reported to Pekka for ditributing pirated license keys!