I take HD pictures and use Mac Photos as my library. I use albums to sort a series of slides into a slide show. Playing the slideshow on my large screen goes fine, but when I export the slideshow and an mp4 file I lose a significant amount of HD detail. It seems the export wants traduce the file size and does not ask me.
Anyone with a good alternative?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15
I just found what I consider to be the best slideshow creation app available: PhotoStage. Why I like it so much is because it's very similar to iMovie HD 6 from way back in the day. PhotoStage, like iMovie HD 6, lets you easily add transitions between slides, adjust transition speed, add text to a slide, animate it if desired, and add multiple audio tracks (fading out of one and into the other much like iMovie did). Although not as sophisticated as iMovie it does have all of the features in a somewhat similar GUI. I've kept am extreme SSD with High Sierra on it so I could boot into it and use iMovie HD 6 and iDVD. Now I can do the slideshow portion of that in the latest system
There are many video authoring apps available at the App Store. Just go there and search for "video DVD". Most offer free, demo versions which put a watermark on the final output. You can test them by saving the project as a disk image and playing the disk image with DVD Player. This saves on DVD discs. When you find the one that works best for you the watermark is removed on the purchased version.
I have no idea as to the longevity of Blu-Ray discs. I know they are expensive so I use regular DV D discs when I make a video DVD. My eyes are old and I can't tell the difference.
ADDENDUM: when I first answered I didn't closely check out Photos regarding output of slideshows. If you're running 10.15 still you may not have it but with Big Sur you can get one of these resolutions upon export:
Since we're all users like yourself here we are not privy to the answer. You can call Apple at the number at the bottom of this page and try to get an answer from Customer Support.
I'm sure there are 3rd party slideshow apps that can do what you want. PhotoStage is one and it's free. FotoMagico is another but not free. There are others and Google is your friend.
Blu-ray is already pretty much obsolete. How many people do you know still buying them?
People stream now. Most modern TV’s can play videos on memory sticks, or have built in YouTube apps. Or have set top boxes of various types that can do the same. I’d be using those form of media now rather than Blu-ray.
Recordable optical media also seem to be pretty fragile, and don’t last long.
As an example, here is a 1080P slideshow I made with a combination of Photos and iMovie uploaded to YouTube...
Thank you for your prompt and helpful answer. I have experimented a little with NCH PhotoStage and though the user interface is not quite as smooth as Apples it does seem to do what I require.
I like to make my slideshows into movies and that is where Photos really falls down on the job, it strips away the detail when making mp4 output files. In PhotoStage it looks like you have control! I also like the audio control.
My next question is, on output media. Small slideshows can go on a HDTV DVD, but larger ones require BluRay. Do you have experience with NCH ExpressBurn BluRay? I also want menus for the user to select which of several slideshows on the BluRay, but all the menu systems I have tried have problems. Can you recommend a burner app I should try?
Or will BluRay discs be obsolete soon? Any recommendations here?
Hi T,
Thanks for your addendum.
I am exporting at what apple calls HD or 1080pixels, however when I airplay my slideshow directly from photos the resolution is better than when I airplay the exported m4v file. Do you think Apple may one day support 4K or even 8k exports?
I date from the time we used a projector and a large screen for superb slide shows.
Blu-ray is already pretty much obsolete.
Optical media has gone the way of the floppy disk and the Zip drive. Don't waste your money.
I am exporting at what apple calls HD or 1080pixels,
This is what everyone calls HD. That's the standard for it. No one here knows what plans Apple have for exporting, if any.
why does apple not support HD slideshows
