Question on Converting Slideshows--How Do You Keep Quality High?

Okay,

I had started a thread a few days ago looking for information on putting a slideshow together in iMovie (thanks to all that helped with that). I've since finished it, but now I've got a whole other host of questions. =)

Here's my situation: I've put this slideshow together on my Powerbook, and while I can burn CDs on it, I can't burn DVDs. Currently, I don't know anyone else who has a mac that can burn DVDs--all of my friends/family members have PCs. Ultimately, I'd like to get this slideshow off my mac, and onto a DVD.

Questions:

1. Does anyone have any suggestions for how best I might do this? (vague, I know)

2. I've noticed that when I tried Exporting the slideshow (into a quicktime movie), I lost a LOT of image quality. Is there a way to avoid losing image quality while still transferring the slideshow both to a PC, and then to a DVD? The slideshow looks great when I just play it back in iMovie--it'd be a shame if that's the only place where it actually looks presentable.

3. If it's not possible to retain image quality AND transfer it to a DVD, is there any other way that I might at least get it transferred to, and playable on, a PC without sacrificing image quality?

I know these are some messy and complicated questions, but I'd appreciate any advice you could lend me.

TIA,

Michael

1. Buy and external DVD burner

2. I still have not perfected making images look good on a television set, not only the "look" but even just getting them to show the entire image and not just "most" of the image when it shows up...

3. Are you not wanting the people viewing on PC to have access to the files (say a 800x1000 pixel JPEG)? If that is not an issue, simply copy the files onto CD and they can view them in a slideshow on their PC using an image viewer. Most systems come with an application that will do this.

Odin_aa said:

1. Buy and external DVD burner

2. I still have not perfected making images look good on a television set, not only the "look" but even just getting them to show the entire image and not just "most" of the image when it shows up...

3. Are you not wanting the people viewing on PC to have access to the files (say a 800x1000 pixel JPEG)? If that is not an issue, simply copy the files onto CD and they can view them in a slideshow on their PC using an image viewer. Most systems come with an application that will do this.

Click to expand...

Okay, well doing #1 would solve the problem, but unfortunately, it's not an option right now.

As for #2, if I CAN get it to a DVD, then I suppose I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. If it just doesn't look good enough on a TV, by then I will have found a way to get it to play well on someone else's comp.

3. I don't care who has access to the images, I just want this slideshow presentation to be able to play, in good quality, on a PC. If the DVD-route doesn't work out, I'll need it to play on a PC as my fallback plan.

mpf said:

Okay, well doing #1 would solve the problem, but unfortunately, it's not an option right now.

As for #2, if I CAN get it to a DVD, then I suppose I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. If it just doesn't look good enough on a TV, by then I will have found a way to get it to play well on someone else's comp.

3. I don't care who has access to the images, I just want this slideshow presentation to be able to play, in good quality, on a PC. If the DVD-route doesn't work out, I'll need it to play on a PC as my fallback plan.

Click to expand...

Okay, update again: I've gotten the slideshow to play at high quality on a PC by just burning the 3 files (.mov, media folder, and iMovie project file), and copying them to the PC. From what I understand, however, it's difficult/impossible to burn a dvd of the slideshow when it's in that format (with the 3 component files), so I'm curious as to whether I can compress them all into one .mov file (or, ideally, an .mpeg file or one that burns to DVD on a PC) without losing image quality. My PC-using friend is pretty tech savvy, and he thought it might be possible to use an application called Frags (sp?), which will allow him to record the audio and video of what is being seen on his monitor, which he can then save into a PC-friendly format that he can burn to DVD, but I didn't know if any of you had any other suggestions. All are welcome and appreciated,

Michael

mpf said:

Okay, update again: I've gotten the slideshow to play at high quality on a PC by just burning the 3 files (.mov, media folder, and iMovie project file), and copying them to the PC. From what I understand, however, it's difficult/impossible to burn a dvd of the slideshow when it's in that format (with the 3 component files), so I'm curious as to whether I can compress them all into one .mov file (or, ideally, an .mpeg file or one that burns to DVD on a PC) without losing image quality. My PC-using friend is pretty tech savvy, and he thought it might be possible to use an application called Frags (sp?), which will allow him to record the audio and video of what is being seen on his monitor, which he can then save into a PC-friendly format that he can burn to DVD, but I didn't know if any of you had any other suggestions. All are welcome and appreciated,

Michael

Click to expand...

Does anyone know if you can compress the three iMovie slideshow files ((.mov, media folder, and iMovie project file) into one .mov file without losing image quality?

Well it would be tough. There is one very big limitation: resolution. Take my MacBook Pro for instance. It has a resolution of 1440x900 while a DVD has a resolution of 720x480 in order to play on a television. That right there is the cause of the problem. Now, if you could get an HDTV and a DVD player that would playback say h.264 or some other high resolution codec, you would be in business, but since that is unlikely, you are kinda stuck.

If anyone does know of a way, please tell us, because I too am frustrated.

I find it much easier to make the slideshows in iPhoto and burn them with iDVD. The quality is terrific on PC's and TV's. I'm not sure if any PC programs can burn .img files, but if they can then you can export the file in iDVD as a .img and burn it on a PC to a DVD

trpnmonkey41 said:

I find it much easier to make the slideshows in iPhoto and burn them with iDVD. The quality is terrific on PC's and TV's. I'm not sure if any PC programs can burn .img files, but if they can then you can export the file in iDVD as a .img and burn it on a PC to a DVD

Click to expand...

I had started the slideshow in iPhoto, but I ended up using iMovie because it allowed me more control of the durations of each slide (so I could match it to the music), and I enjoyed being able to use the different transitions.

I ended up exporting the presentation to iDVD, which consolidated the presentation files into one .mov file without losing any quality. But since I don't have my own dvd burner on my mac, I wasn't able to get it onto a DVD. Well, my friend WAS able to get it on a dvd, but the timing with the slides and the music was off (though I think that was just human error).

If you do a bit of research online, you can find apps that will convert .mov files into a format that can be burned to DVD using a PC. In the future, however, I'll probably end up upgrading my laptop so that I have iDVD and a DVD burner.

Cashmonee, what about hooking your macbook pro directly to the tv so that you could use it as the monitor to show your slideshow? Would that help? Or is that still the same issue?

mpf said:

Cashmonee, what about hooking your macbook pro directly to the tv so that you could use it as the monitor to show your slideshow? Would that help? Or is that still the same issue?

Click to expand...

Yes, as long as it is an HDTV. A regular television is limited to 480 vertical lines. But even most HDTV's don't have as good a resolution as a MacBook Pro does. I really would love to find a good solution. I have yet to actually hook up my MBP to my HDTV for slideshows. I will do that as soon as I get it back from Apple and let you know the result.