Elements 5 slideshows

[trivets12]

Hi,
If I create a slideshow in Elements 5 is there any other way I can burn it to DVD as I don't have Adobe Premier Elements? If it is saved as a wmv file, can Windows Media Player write it to DVD?
Thanks
Trudy

[TonyW]

I haven't checked out the slideshows in PSE5 yet so I might be wrong but I haven't seen anything that suggests that DVD video creation got added.

Windows Media Player won't do it but if you have a CD burner you may already have a program that will. I recently took my laptop on vacation with PSE4 but forgot to load my usual Slide Show maker (Proshow Gold). I wanted to make a DVD video and was pleasantly surprised to find Sonic MyDVD that came with my laptop would take wmv files and create a DVD. It worked just fine.

Tony

[whitefriars]

There are various programs that can convert wmv files to dvd. I don't know of any with a freeware license though. The best I have used is Nero Ultra, which allows you to create menus, and use layered PSD files created in Elements to create a Professional looking DVD. If your looking for somehting a bit simpler (and cheaper) I would recommend DVD Santa. DVD santa has converted every video format I have thrown at it to DVD sucessfully. I think it costs around $30 for a full license but you can try it free, unfortunately the unregistered version leaves a rather annoying watermark at the bottom of the screen, but you could use it and see how you get on... Oh and by the way, I figured I would join this forum as I have spent the past 6 months testing Elements 5, and I don't think there is anything it can do that I havn't done with it.... Hopefully I'll be quite helpful!

Sam.

[ATR]

Trudy,

I am still with Photoshop Elements 3.0, but have been doing a lot of homework on Photoshop Elements 5.0.

Until proven otherwise, this is my understanding:

If you are interested in TV viewing of slideshow, other than VCD, you create your slideshow in 5.0, send to over to Premiere Elements and the like for the making of the DVD-VIDEO (MPEG2). Major difference here between 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 appears to be that 3.0 and 4.0 require writing to wmv before sending off, whereas 5.0 does not.

As for the burning software within Photoshop Elements 5.0.....
It will now allow you to burn to CD AND DVD, and this burning will allow for multisessions. I found that under their feature titled Back Up. This is interesting because:
With the 3.0 version you could burn to CD AND DVD within the program, but no multisessions.
With the 4.0 version you could only burn to CD and no multisessions.
But keep in mind, that when you burn to DVD within the 5.0 version, you are burning files to DVD not creating a DVD-VIDEO (MPEG2) that is playable on the TV.

From what I can determine, you can still create a VCD within Photoshop Elements 5.0 that is playable on those TV/DVD players that support VCD.

As I said this is just search info, not first hand working with an actual Photoshop Elements 5.0.

ATR