need help creating slideshow dvd

I have been tasked (by my wife) with creating a slideshow dvd as a surprise for her friends wedding. I am fairly new to mac and even newer to ilife products. Here's what I hope to do:

create a dvd with multiple "chapters" each containing a slideshow
(ch1-kid pics / ch2-HS&college pics / ch3-pics of the couple, etc..)

i would like to have the option to play all "chapters" in a row or be able to pick an individual one from the dvd main menu

i would like to have at least 1 song per "chapter", from what i've investigated there isn't an easy way to do this right? outside of mashing mp3's together using some audio software

i would like to use the fade-to-black transition for the slideshows with the ken burns effect (unless someone can point me to something better)
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so far i have created a couple of test slideshows in iphoto, exported them to idvd. in idvd, chose a template, added pics to the main menu and added a menu option to start the slideshow i created in iphoto.

is this the best way of doing things? it looks like you can create slideshows in iphoto, imovie, and idvd. which is the best? iphoto looks like it has the most options to me.

i havent burnt the dvd yet is there anything i need to watch out for (i see that people use toast to burn, why not use idvd)? Anything that I am missing or that I can do easier or better? Any help would be appreciated.

I'm in the process of finishing off a slideshow of a friend's wedding photos. I used iPhoto to create the slideshow with transitions to music, etc, then exported it to iDVD. My menu is simple, with just a play button, so I'm not sure how you'd set it to play from different points, although I'm sure this is possible somehow.

I burned a test DVD this morning to try it out on the TV. It wouldn't burn for ages, until I realised it was because there wasn't a button on the menu page. There's no error message or anything, just a little exclamation mark on the content page, so watch out for that.

MartinS said:

I'm in the process of finishing off a slideshow of a friend's wedding photos. I used iPhoto to create the slideshow with transitions to music, etc, then exported it to iDVD. My menu is simple, with just a play button, so I'm not sure how you'd set it to play from different points, although I'm sure this is possible somehow.

I burned a test DVD this morning to try it out on the TV. It wouldn't burn for ages, until I realised it was because there wasn't a button on the menu page. There's no error message or anything, just a little exclamation mark on the content page, so watch out for that.

Click to expand...

After messing around, I've figured a lot of stuff out although I still need help on a couple of points.

1. Multiple movie files (from slideshow's exported to idvd) played continually. How do I merge multiple movie files into chapters of one movie file? FYI i have 1 .mov files, i want to have them play continuously on the dvd, but also be able to jump forward the the next chapter. and also be able to choose 1 particular chapter from the menu also

2. as someone else on this forum has also seen, bad quality on the dvd. it looks great on slideshow in iphoto. i then export to idvd which creates an .mov file that i choose within idvd to add to the dvd. then i burns it to disc, i play the dvd on tv (widescreen HD w/prog scan dvd) or my laptop and i see poor quality on the dvd. i don't know what i could be doing wrong since there aren't a lot of options during the entire creation process. the quality is bad in color depth and artifacting (i think that is the name) there are horizontal lines on the screen as the photo is panned and zoomed (ken burns effect). it looks ok to normal non-technical person, but I expected much much better quality. any hints?