Slideshow changes image aspect ration

Thomas:

Which slideshow formats have you tried? 4:3, 16:9 widescreen. Although there will be black bars either at top or on the sides the images will be displayed in their entirety. This is with the scale to screen turned off. I tried this with a panoramic, widescreen and normal sized file.

Do you Twango?

TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.

The 4:3 setting in the Slideshow Format menu still showed all of the different files in their fullest. I think that would work.

Are you talking about going to iDVD with the slideshow to burn a DVD disk? If that's the case then you can build the slideshow entirely in iDVD and select the Scale Photos to TV Safe Area option. Then all of the aspect ratio files will be scaled accordingly.

Ah yes. True, the KB effect is not available in iDVD. You might try creating the slideshow in iMovie,setting it to widescreen. But anything you do with iMovie or iPhoto and send to iDVD will have about 10% of the width and height cut off due to the overscan effect. You can't scale a movie file to the TV Safe Area like you can still image files.

There is a way to resize the movie image to the TV Safe Area. Here's how:

Masking Movies to the TV Safe Area for iDVD
The mask should be 640 x 480 pixels and the movie 514 x 386 (I arrived at this figure by making a snapshot of the TV save area of an iDVD project with Snapz). You can set this size after you’ve joined it with the mask movie with Quicktime Player Pro.
Import the black mask jpg file into iMovie and and export it as a .mov file at the same length as your movie (there may be a way to not have to create a specific length mask for each movie but I haven't found it. If the times do not match the movie file will be synced to the length of the mask movie).
Open the mask movie in QT Player Pro and then open your regular movie and make it the front window of the two. Now you'll need to run a QT Player AppleScript titled "Merge Movie 1 into Movie 2". You can get it from this Apple site: Quicktime Player Scripts.
Then run the script. You can then run the merged movie to check it out. Your movie will be located in the upper lefthand corner of the window when played.
When you open the Movie Properties window from the Window menu for the combined file you’ll see the following:
Video Track 1: the black mask
Video Track 2 : your movie file
Tween track: Have no idea what this is.
Sound track: self explanaotry
Black mask.
To set the size of your movie to the correct size select it in the Properties window and click on Visual Settings pane. Then enter 514 in the first field and hit enter. With the Preserve Aspect Ration box checked the other size will automatically be set.
To center the video track in the center of the mask select the Video Track 2 item and plug in a offset of about: 60 & 40. You'll probably have to play with that to fine tune the centering. Doing the math and subtracting the movie dimensions from the mask dimensions and dividing by two just didn't get it perfectly centered. I'm sure I'm missing something here.
Now save as a new self contained movie after checking the High Quality box at the bottom right.
You can not import it into iDVD for preview and burning. One drawback is that you can't invoke the TV save area for a movie in iDVD to check it out. But you can mark it on the monitor screen while viewing a menu or slideshow and then play the movie to see how close you came.

Here's the MacWorld page on that process: http://www.macworld.com/2006/02/secrets/marchmac911/index1.php

You don't have to add transitions in iMovie one at a time. You can select multiple clips and the drag the transition you want to them to batch add.

I don't particularly like the KB effect so I have a bias for using iDVD directly. You can add Title and/or comments to the slides with iDVD. One drawback is that if you select that option all of the slides get the files Title brought in. So if you want only a few it makes it tedious to remove the titles/comments from those you don't what to have them. We're hoping they let is turn it one for selected images in future versions. Good luck.

I have no advice to give you as I ran into the same problems myself in trying to combine several slideshows created in Iphoto exported to IDVD.
I cannot imagine that the writers of these two programs had much communication. I am very impressed by the slideshows one can create in Iphoto complete with Ken Burns effect (selectively) and the full range of options available. Wouldn't you think that you can hand over the completed slide show (not the album) to IDVD and they would faithfully reproduce your slideshow?
I was very disappointed in the very sterile results as well as the fact that the images came nowhere near filling the TV screen. The options in IDVD are very primative compared to those in Iphoto. I am not impressed with IDVD, obviously. They have made it about as difficult as possible.
By the way, I could not combine film rolls in Iphoto as the "create film roll" is greyed out. However this is a mere inconvenience. I have OS X 10.4.7 and wonder if version 10.4.8 fixes any of these problems.

Mac31:

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.

By the way, I could not combine film rolls in Iphoto as the "create film roll" is greyed out. However this is a mere inconvenience. I have OS X 10.4.7 and wonder if version 10.4.8 fixes any of these problems

That option is available only when you're in the main library. You can't use it if you're in an album.

Regarding getting the iPhoto slideshow intact into iDVD all you need to do is select the Share->Send to iDVD menu option while in the slideshow mode. That creates a .mov file, puts it in your Movies folder, opens iDVD and adds that movie file to iDVD.

Do you Twango?

TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.

G5 Dual Core 2GHz, 2G RAM, 250G HD; G4 Dual 1Ghz, 1.5G RAM, 80G HD, Mac OS X (10.4.8) 22 LCD Display, 200G & 160G FW HDs, Canon S400, i850 & LIDE 50, Epson R200

Yes. Duh. Typo. Thanks for pointing that out.