DVD photo slideshow software?

November 9, 2005 4:47 PM

I need to make a DVD photo slideshow - ie you stick the DVD in your common-garden DVD player, and it gradually goes through the photos on there. Can you please recommend any freeware software that'll do this? Everything seems to charge, and I'm a cheapskate ;-) Ta!
posted by badlydubbedboy to computers & internet (9 comments total)

If you know anyone with a Mac, you could make a slideshow using iDVD. (iDVD is part of iLife, which costs US$79 but also comes bundled with most new Macs.)
posted by mbrubeck at 5:44 PM on November 9, 2005

What OS? If Windows, then the MS built-in will do slideshows.

The Windows Movie Maker isn't so terrible, for MS. There's add ons as well for more transitions and eye candy. WMM does like to save in only WMV or AVI though.

There's also a free version of Photo Story. This makes VCDs.

Burning to DVD can be tricky if you don't have any good burning software that will transcode AVIs into VOBs (DVD player format). The best bet is to pony up $5-$10 for Nero 6 Suite 3 OEM or similar. That (or version 7) will do all your burning and transcoding. You can find it for $4 sometimes.
posted by meehawl at 5:58 PM on November 9, 2005

Some dvd players can actually do this. (Even cheap ones.)

Maybe yours can!
posted by meta87 at 9:05 PM on November 9, 2005

I create slide shows for various customers using PhotoShow Gold. It is commercial software, but I have not found another commercial or free software equivalent in quality, ease of use, or reliability.

If you don't need the features or quality of PhotoShow Gold, and there is an immense difference in the two in the end product, just about any of the above will work.
posted by sequential at 10:05 PM on November 9, 2005

I had to do this a few years back. Ulead CD / DVD Picture Show is your answer, its cheap, and all you do is drag photos to the program and it does the rest. Really easy.
posted by skrike at 9:47 AM on November 10, 2005

Without doubt, VSO Software's PhotoDVD is the best bit of software (on Windows) I've ever seen to do this stuff. Free trial available. It'll set your pictures to music, panning in and out and zooming across them all the while. It really livens up otherwise dull photo shows. Recommended!
posted by hjd at 11:43 AM on November 10, 2005

Google's excellent free photo organizer Picasa will also allow you to burn slideshows to either CD or DVD.

When you choose the photos you want to include in your slideshow and click the "Gift CD" button, I believe it writes a data CD or DVD. However, my father was able to take a DVD I burned and view the photo slideshow on his (admittedly somewhat newer) home DVD player. And of course the slideshow will run on your computer as well.

That said, I will echo meehawl's sentiments that Nero is a very good catch-all multimedia burning application, although I have not used it to make any photo slideshows.
posted by driko at 11:45 AM on November 10, 2005

The problem with using Picasa or any of the programs that just dump a bunch of JPGs and AVIs onto a disc is that you are relying on a non-vanilla DVD/VCD player to parse a disc and display what it finds. Which is, admittedly, quite common for most DVD players these days. I even have a $30 Philips 642 that will play any AVI/DIVX file it finds on the disc. Very handy for BitTorrent downloads. But I digress.

These nice DVD players are non-standard enough that you may find a relative with an older or more standard DVD player who will phone you to tell you they cannot see anything on the disc.

For maximum, iron-clad compatibility across all DVD players, you have to code into VOB format, with DVD IFO ToCs. Which is why you need something like Nero or one of the other DVD burning softwares referenced above.

Can I play my Picasa DVD on my DVD player?
Although Picasa can copy files to DVD media using both the "Backup" and "Gift CD" buttons, Picasa does not create DVDs that can be played on DVD players.
posted by meehawl at 12:48 PM on November 10, 2005

IrfanView (essential software for image browsing, batch processing and basic image manipulation) will do the job.
posted by BobsterLobster at 1:41 PM on November 10, 2005