DVD Slideshow Keeps Freezing

[jj95]

All,

I am relatively new to Premiere Elements, but have encountered this problem several times already.

I am in the process of making a slideshow DVD (my parents 40th wedding anniversary is right around the corner).

I have assembled the DVD (a slideshow of about 450 pictures) in Premiere Elements, and put some music over the top of it. The whole DVD runs about 38 minutes (2 chapters, which I will explain more later).

FYI, I have a Dell XPS400, 2.8ghz Viiv processor, 4gb of RAM, 1tb of HD space.

The first chapter is various slides (some compiled of multiple pictures, but mostly they are single shots). This chapter runs about 34 minutes. Each slide shows for roughly 5 seconds.

The second chapter is essentially the same photos, but dubbed with Trans Siberian Orchestra's "Wizards in Winter" - its the same rougly 450 pictures, but I set each picture to be 13 frames in length, so that it would end roughly the same time the music ended. (I thought this would be pretty neat way of letting Mom and Dad watch the slidehow in 3 minutes vs 34 minutes.)

My problem: The DVD keeps freezing. On the first chapter, it hangs a few times. Most of the time it picks back up after a few seconds. The 3rd time it freezes (same point each time I play it), it will not recover. I have played it in 2 different DVD players, same result. I can Fast Forward over this spot and it resumes OK, but thats not really the best solution.

The second chapter is more of the same. It never freezes "permanently" like the first one did, but it hangs many times, sometimes when it picks back up the song has skipped 20 seconds (and I assume it skipped 40+ pictures in the process). On a whim, I tried adjusting the frame length to each picture to 15 frames. It WAS better, but still a lot of skipping/freezing.

I have a friend who used to do some professional/home business DVD creation, and he recommended against using Premiere Elements for anything but editing - he preferred a different software bundle for chaptering, menuing, etc., and yet another for burning. This seems a little excessive for the non-professional that I am, but I am at a loss as to what to try next.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks!
Jeff

[Barb O]

I suggest that you read the following FAQs over on the Premiere Elements forum at the Adobe site

What resolution should still photos be?
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bb8822c

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bb815fb
What should I do to prepare still images for use in my Premiere Elements projects?

[jj95]

Thanks for the advice, I will certainly give that a shot, especially on some of the pictures that I know are too large (such as those from my digicam).

Dumb question - but what is a recommended way to lower resolution? My digicam is a 4mp, but I dont know what is the "best" (or quickest/easiest) way to save one of those files at a lower resolution, such as 720x540.

Thanks again!

[Barb O]

Jeff,

I reread your original post again and now I am not convinced that your photo resolution is the most significant cause of your current problem of freezes.

Now if all your 450 photos were 4 MP, I conclude that it could cause a problem - just not sure that photo resolution is the direct cause of THIS problem.

1- to answer the question on how to downsize the resolution

Photoshop Elements has two methods from which to choose.
In the Editor you can use Process Multiple files and it has a choice to resize.
In the Organizer, you can use File > Export which works on multiple files at once and has a choice to resize.

If you don't have Photoshop Elements, then whatever photo editing software you have probably has a similar function.

The more time consuming task will be replacing the photos currently in your slideshow with their down-rezed equivalents.

2- for your overall problem with the skipping

My suggestion is that you take the text of your original post here and post it to the Adobe Premiere Elements forum

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bb574e6/

so that you can get comments from several very experienced people. When you post there please do specifically identify which version of Premiere Elements you have. I might guess v3 since you said you are new, but it is better to be explicit.

[jj95]

I will do that, thanks!

I went through and dropped the resolution on all the photos. It made a HUGE difference. It only skips twice now, once VERY briefly, the other it freezes for a few seconds and picks back up. But MUCH MUCH better than it was before.

Thanks for your help!
Jeff