How to make a simple slideshow?

Hi

Simple can mean so many things

Simples - if quality is of no concerne

- Start a new iMovie project

- Import Your 400 photos here

- add Music

- Share to Media Browser and as MEDIUM (ev. large - BUT NOT HD or other resolution - as final DVD will lose even more in Quality)

- Open iDVD and import SlideShow movie from MEDIA-button / Videos

- Save as a DiskImage

- Test it with DVD tool - OK ?

- Then burn from iDVD or rather use Disk Util tool (no new recalculation) and

onto a High Quality DVD - Memorex, Noname etc cheap brands usually DO NOT work for Video-DVDs

onto a DVD-R (as they play on older DVD-players)

AND set down BURN SPEED to x2 or max x4 (Best is NOT Best it is fastest and WORST = Lot's of Burn Errors)

If You need QUALITY then You need to understand the Limits of DVD as STANDARD. It can only (whatever program used) deliver Interlaced SD-Video Quality at it's best.

If that is Your need then prepare the SlideShow movie in a program that can deliver this as

- iMovie 1 to HD6 ( iM'08 and onwards discard every second line in the picture - no help possibly)

- FinalCut any version

- FotoMagico™ - My favorite tool - included in the Roxio Toast™ bundle - to me great value for money.

If You need even better

- Save SlideShow as a HD-movie and onto an USB-Memory and play this on a flat screen TV

- Play from a Mac-Book to HD-TV or HD-Projector

- Burn as a Blu-Ray disk (Roxio Toast™ + if more than 20 minutes You need a BD-Burner and BD-disks)

Good Luck - Yours Bengt W

There are many ways to produce slide shows using iPhoto, iMovie or iDVD and some limit the number of photos you can use (iDVD has a 99 chapter (slide) limitation).

If what you want is what I want, namely to be able to use high resolution photos (even 300 dpi tiff files), to pan and zoom individual photos, use a variety of transitions, to add and edit music or commentary, place text exactly where you want it, and to end up with a DVD that looks good on both your Mac and a TV - in other words end up with and end result that does not look like an old fashioned slide show from a projector - you may be interested in how I do it. You don't have to do it my way, but the following may be food for thought!

Firstly you need proper software to assemble the photos, decide on the duration of each, the transitions you want to use, and how to pan and zoom individual photos where required, and add proper titles. For this I use Photo to Movie. You can read about what it can do on their website:

http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/phototomovie.php

(Other users here use the alternative FotoMagico: http://www.boinx.com/fotomagico/homevspro/ which you may prefer - I have no experience with it.)

Neither of these are freeware, but are worth the investment if you are going to do a lot of slide shows. Read about them in detail, then decide which one you feel is best suited to your needs.

Once you have timed and arranged and manipulated the photos to your liking in Photo to Movie, it exports the file to iMovie as a DV stream. You can add music in Photo to Movie, but I prefer doing this in iMovie where it is easier to edit. You can now further edit the slide show in iMovie just as you would a movie, including adding other video clips, then send it to iDVD 7, or Toast, for burning.

You will be pleasantly surprised at how professional the results can be!

To simply create a slide show in iDVD 7 onwards from images in iPhoto or stored in other places on your hard disk or a connected server, look here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1089

Good afternoon,

You mentioned that the photos were already put together with music -- that sounds like you've created a slideshow in iPhoto. If so, you can get around the 99 photo limitation by exporting the iPhoto slideshow to a Quicktime file (which iDVD can handle). Here are instructions: http://help.apple.com/iphoto/mac/9.5/#pht6d9758b0

John

If you're running iPhoto 9.4.3 or earlier export the iPhoto slideshow as Medium or Large. Launch iDVD, create a new project, select a theme and drag the exported Quicktime movie into the menu window being careful to avoid any drop zones.

Follow this workflow to help assure the best qualty video DVD:

Once you have the project as you want it save it as a disk image via the File ➙ Save as Disk Image menu option. This will separate the encoding process from the burn process.

To check the encoding mount the disk image, launch DVD Player and play it. If it plays OK with DVD Player the encoding is good.

Then burn to disk with Disk Utility or Toast at the slowest speed available (2x-4x) to assure the best burn quality. Always use top quality media: Verbatim, Maxell or Taiyo Yuden DVD-R are the most recommended in these forums.

OT