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View Full Version : Completely Photo to TV (WinX or……)


Stpaul
July 11th, 2006, 05:26 AM
Recently I have been jumping heavy into Album Creator software...I started simple with one menu and burning to SVCD VCD DVD MPEG… the type I wanted and submenus with tons of interactivity. I have gone from little no editing and manipulation of audio and video clips to all sorts of special effects and tweaking. add background music and effect pics

The programs I have tried..…

1) WinX Photo to TV 4.0.2 (http://www.winxdvd.com)
2) Photo DVD Wizard (http://www.winxdvd.com)
3) Smart Pix Manager (http://www.winxdvd.com)
4) Max Album Creator 3.5 (http://www.winxdvd.com)

They all have their quirks and advantages, but one thing I have to state is that most all are quite buggy and require frequent trips to user forums to work through issues.

Photo DVD Wizard (http://www.winxdvd.com) is the least professional quality out of all of them with very simplified approach and very little room to screw up. In response it tends to have the least options and border on the cheesy. I think the program can be hard for 30-60 dollars, but it is more famous for being bundled with certain Pioneer..… The program is easy to follow with the tutorials but is full of stagger and glitches… I recommend having less than 100jpg photos to transcode in once. Also keep clips on same drive that is well defragged. Glitches happen when replay on family player I found. Also if the clips are strewn about there is more likely a chance it will give a DVDerr code during the writing to file or disk..…
Overall I give it C+..…. for beginners I give it a solid B..….

WinX Photo to TV (http://www.winxdvd.com) software is far more professional and I believe retails right around 60 dollars. ease of use is not quite there as it does take some playing around to figure some stuff out and three steps to complete, Once you get the hang of it the functionality is incredible. Think of some of the best menus you have seen in photo professor and this can nearly be attained. It was bundled with encode engine which has some very sweet transition features to give it even more of a flare. The more photo you have the bigger the value. Most of my bugs were fixed with the upgrading version...However I have noticed that when chose mpeg clips are brought in if they are in NTSC standard and 16:9 stander television mode the program will transcode slowly but with higher quality. If it isnt in it does not have slow happen. The problem is that it does a horrible job and usually leaves audio pops. this may be high picture quality related but in all other programs I could not do it with same file in same standard mode. So make sure when you capture mpeg clips that you stop and think the balance between quality and efficient if this is going to be used in Photo to DVD...If so definitely make sure it is NTSC....
Overall I give the program a solid A-...For beginners I give it a B
I will add the others later.....

Stpaul
July 11th, 2006, 11:10 PM
:cool: Why no persone intreste in Photo To TV or the DVDSlide showe ?


Why no discuss there?:confused:

Carbone
July 12th, 2006, 07:43 AM
For several reasons, maybe :

- Many of us have Mac, so all those applications (if I am correct) aren't compatible with our computer.
- The vast majority of Windows users have adopted ProShow Gold (or ShowGold Pro, or something else..) and it seems to suit their needs.


Ray

Stpaul
July 16th, 2006, 11:00 PM
Your post is grateful & helpful !!

:) Tanks for u !

Grant
July 16th, 2006, 11:14 PM
StPaul

Sorry I some how over looked your post. I am a Mac and PC guy but I do use ProShow Gold. There was a slight learning curve but once you over come that it is very powerful and easy to use.

You can look at all sorts of shows and download a demo version:

http://www.photodex.com/

Good luck!

--

graficalicus
July 17th, 2006, 08:46 AM
If you're a Windows user, Sony Vegas (http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/products/vegasfamily.asp) is, IMO, far & away the best, easiest & most versatile DVD package out there. I also have older versions of the full Adobe Premiere & After Effects, but this just blows them away. I use it for all the tutorial videos on my site, as well as other DVD projects (slideshows, home movies, compilations, ...)

There's several degrees of this software, but the Vegas Movie Studio+DVD Platinum (http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/Products/ShowProduct.asp?PID=983) package retails for around $129 and includes Sony's Acid music editor (for MP3s and voiceover recording) as well as their DVD Architect package for easy DVD authoring.

Pro packages are Vegas 6 (for about $450), Vegas+DVD (for around $650), and another home user edition for +/- $89. The platinum edition has really met all my expectations, though, and is worth the extra $40 just for Acid.

Note that these prices are direct from Sony; you can probably find it much cheaper online or through a discount retailer like Sam's or Costco here in the States, or Amazon.com.

As far as I know, there's not a Mac version of any Sony software (but you guys have enough cool software already :cool: )

Carbone
July 17th, 2006, 01:14 PM
There's a ton of slideshow software for the Mac. Recently, I discovered a little apps bundled with Toast which lets you do very, very nice slideshow. You can control the Ken Burns effect (the moving of a picture) start and end point, you can put several pictures on the same slide, etc. Motion pictures is the name of the application.

There's also Photo to Movies. And, iLife with iPhoto and iDVD for making slideshows.

Ray