DVD Slide shows?

[rhiday]

I have recently started making some VCDs of recent trips, but am concerned that I will run out of space on the CD to do my next (very large) presentation. Is there a way to burn the slide show to a DVD so that it will work in a regular DVD player (like a VCD does?).

[ATR]

VCDs that you have been making work on your DVD player because your DVD player supports VCD (has a Compact Disc Digital Video logo on box). Some, like my DVD player, do not support VCD aka MPEG 1.

You will need to get your presentation into a DVD-Video (MPEG 2) format in authoring the DVD. What programs do you have for doing that? Remember that your DVD player needs to be compatible with the DVD disc (+ or - R/RW) as well as the format of file (DVD-Video) that you are putting on this DVD disc during the DVD authoring (encoding/burning process).

More information to follow if needed.

ATR

[rhiday]

I am really trying to just stick to using PSE4 for this process. I have other programs available, such as Roxio Easy Media Creator, but was hoping that there was a way to do it with PSE. I understand your points, and they are helpful, but I guess the bottom line is that PSE won't do it. Am I reading you correctly as to that specific issue? Rob

[ATR]

rhiday

With Elements 4.0 and 3.0, your only choice is a Creation Outputted As wmv file. You can burn this wmv file to a compatible DVD disc, but most DVD players do not support this file type format. So, you need software to take this wmv file and get its contents to fit on a disc in a format that is supported by your DVD player (DVD Video/MPEG2). This authoring of the DVD includes encoding (compressing the material to fit the disc space/time) as well as the actual burning to disc.

That all has to be done somewhere.

Choices:

(1) All in one software. Many seem to take this route. The software that came with my DVD Writer falls into this category. Roxio Easy Media Creator may fall into this group (I am not sure). Premiere Elements 2.0 can be used as an all in one as well as in conjunction with Elements 4.0. Some seem to feel that 2.0 is an overkill for slideshow making. I have Premiere Elements 2.0 and am in getting to know the software stage.

(2) If you have Elements 4.0 in combination with Premiere Elements 2.0, you have several choices of burning to disc, to folder, exporting for file conversion.

(3) You may be able to take the wmv slideshow and have Roxio Easy Media Creator do the rest. Check it out.

Major considerations, how long is your slideshow, what does your DVD player support disc-wise as well as file format-wise. Check out quality and time that it takes to get to the finished product by the various routes.

I have tried to cover the "works for me aspects" of this topic. Hope that it answers some of your questions.

ATR

[rhiday]

your answers and thoughts were very helpful. thanks a lot. I will take your advice to heart. Rob