How to make a Slideshow

[Jennie]

Does anyone have any suggestions on what program to use to put a cd slideshow together to music?

 

[Alfred D.]

Does anyone have any suggestions on what program to use to put a cd slideshow together to music?

Under what operating system, Jennie? XP? Vista? OSX?

 

[Rhys]

On Windows you can put slides together with music using Microsoft's free Windows Movie Maker. You then burn that to a CD as a slideshow for DVD players with Sonic.

With Apple you just use iPhoto or iDVD and it'll add the music to the slides and burn it as a video CD if you so wish.

 

[Bthornton]

You might want to give photodex a try, it's a great system!

 

[Jennie]

I have mac osx- so I will try iphoto but can you only view the slideshow on a mac?

 

[Sandspur]

My favorite system is to use Keynote (It's part of iWorks) $79.

Keynote offers a lot more templates and options than you get with iPhoto. But iPhoto will do the job too, of course.

Both can be exported into several formats that are usable on any system, not just Mac.

 

[Rhys]

I have mac osx- so I will try iphoto but can you only view the slideshow on a mac?

You can make the slideshow in quicktime and it's viewable on any system that has quicktime running.

 

[Big Mike]

I use Proshow Gold, from Photodex. Best slideshow software I've ever used.

 

[jakedoza]

I use Proshow Gold, from Photodex. Best slideshow software I've ever used.

+10

I'd agree.. though the burning side of the software sucks.. the creative side works great and you can get some awesome effects from it. Being that I use to work for photodex, one may think I have some bad things to say about them, but the product is pretty solid except for the burning side of it. I personally use the Proshow Producer for any shows I make.

 

[Bthornton]

+10

I'd agree.. though the burning side of the software sucks.. the creative side works great and you can get some awesome effects from it. Being that I use to work for photodex, one may think I have some bad things to say about them, but the product is pretty solid except for the burning side of it. I personally use the Proshow Producer for any shows I make.

I use Proshow Producer but don't have burning issues. What's it do with the burning?

 

[Big Mike]

I haven't burned a lot of shows, but I've never had a problem with that. The only problem I've had with it, was trying to output to Flash. Anything bigger than 200x300 and set to a decent quality level would freeze me up.

 

[jakedoza]

There were some big burning issues with compatibility with burners and different DVDs and such.. the biggest problem was that the software would just lockup in the middle of a burn.. or get a skippy video from the burn.
The other big problem is that people would make these huge picture shows on a laptop or poor quality machine and the machine would choke on rendering or just take for eeever. Rendering video is a big deal and takes a work hog machine to output if you want it done fast. As far as I know they still have not gotten the video card to do the rendering.. its all done with CPU..

The flash output was always a problem.. Photodex introduced flash output because the photo community wanted it not because they wanted it. Flash itself is not written to handle high video quality. You are better of rendering it to a wmv or a mov file or even using the standard photodex video px file. Personally I use the wmv output when needing to put video on a webpage, but there in itself is a problem because the video quality is so good that the video file is huge and takes a long time to download.. people tend to get impatient with loading times... bottom line is.. you cant have quality with small videos. I would never advise to use the flash output with the photodex software.

 

[Big Mike]

Thanks, I appreciate the 'inside' info.

 

[Jon, The Elder]

Yes, thanks again. Your comments answered a lot of niggley little questions I had about the output side of an otherwise very nice program.

 

[jv17]

well if you are trying to make a photo video with music in it, windows movie maker is the easiest. I used that before in making a gift to my gf. It's like a powerpoint though..