DVD Creation Software

I need help if possible.

I sell my prints at markets and I am about to start at a new market where there will be more tourists who cannot easily carry a print with them. I purchased Proshow Gold to put together a DVD but have been disappointed in the end result. The functionality is fine but the images on the final result are very soft.

Can anyone recommend a good high definition program that will easily incorporate music?

The other question is – I am going to sell these so music copyright is an issue. Does anyone know where I can buy simple background music tracks at a reasonable price?

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Originally Posted by Peter Ryan

Can anyone recommend a good high definition program that will easily incorporate music?
The other question is – I am going to sell these so music copyright is an issue. Does anyone know where I can buy simple background music tracks at a reasonable price?

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I have to agree about Proshow Gold. I only use it for show promotion slide shows on TV screens, and it's passable for that.
For photographic purposes I use Lightroom, but that's a hefty outlay just for slides.
There are sites on the web where you can download royalty free music, although it's not very inspiring stuff.

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Originally Posted by Clactonian

I have to agree about Proshow Gold. I only use it for show promotion slide shows on TV screens, and it's passable for that.
For photographic purposes I use Lightroom, but that's a hefty outlay just for slides.
There are sites on the web where you can download royalty free music, although it's not very inspiring stuff.

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Hi Mike,

Thanks for that. I find it frustrating with ProShow as it has the potential to be really good.

I use ProShow Producer extensively but Gold is similar. Gold does give you the option of outputting your show to Blu-Ray (with suboptions of 1080p, 1080i, 720p and two others). Other HD output options include self-contained EXE file and HD video file (including AVI and MPEG4 AVC among others). I'm sure you realize that standard DVD is not particularly good quality - 720x480 or 720x576 depending on country. Even so, I have found that standard DVD looks great on a HD big screen TV (with no upscaling).

There are many programmes which will incorporate photos and images but the danger is that unless the purchaser has the same software they may not be able to open the disc.

How do you intend that the viewer should play the DVD?

I have, previously, created music/photo discs using MPEG but the image quality is slightly reduced and they can only be viewed on a computer screen, not printed successfully.

I used video editing software (MGI but there are many options) which support still photos.

The discs that I produced didn't have any copyright issues as the music was composed and performed by a friend; otherwise I suspect that eventually, when you become famous, someone like the performing rights society will be after you for some royalties.

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Originally Posted by Peter Ryan

I need help if possible.

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People tell me I need help all the time. It used to just be the family, but now others are saying it too. Personally, I think it's all your fault! ;)

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I sell my prints at markets and I am about to start at a new market where there will be more tourists who cannot easily carry a print with them. I purchased Proshow Gold to put together a DVD but have been disappointed in the end result. The functionality is fine but the images on the final result are very soft.

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It probably just has a poor down-sampling algorithm. Can you not optimise the photos for Proshow before compiling them?

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The other question is – I am going to sell these so music copyright is an issue. Does anyone know where I can buy simple background music tracks at a reasonable price?

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http://triplescoopmusic.com/

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Originally Posted by Peter Ryan

I need help if possible.

I sell my prints at markets and I am about to start at a new market where there will be more tourists who cannot easily carry a print with them. I purchased Proshow Gold to put together a DVD but have been disappointed in the end result. The functionality is fine but the images on the final result are very soft.

Can anyone recommend a good high definition program that will easily incorporate music?

The other question is – I am going to sell these so music copyright is an issue. Does anyone know where I can buy simple background music tracks at a reasonable price?

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I use Nero 6(on XP) and 9(on Win7) - "Create DVD slideshow". It's fairly intuitive, and adding music is easy. The quality is pretty good, but you may want to sharpen quite aggresssivley. The end resullt will play on a DVD player; You'll need to choose the format - NTSC(largely, the Americas) or PAL(most of the rest of the world)

The process is very fast - a few minutes, at most.

Thanks all for your input.

Ben I am looking to sell DVDs to tourists at the market. Most could not carry a print away with them. I am not interested in selling images that can be downloaded and printed later just a DVD for viewing. Most would want to watch the DVD on TV or computer. This is a relatively new area for me and I am not sure about some of the terminology you use. Which do you think is the HD output method for the purpose at hand?

Geoff, I have a friend who can compose something and I have been looking at some royalty free sites. I am sure I can cover this off now.

You could try this music if your into 14th century French Renaissance:

http://www.jsayles.com/familypages/e...l%20Selections

I think the simplest solution for TV viewing is a Blu-Ray disk. Of course, your customer will need a Blu-Ray player, which people do not yet have universally. So maybe you also need to be able to provide a standard DVD for those people. For PC viewing the best is the EXE file. If you have specific questions regarding ProShow you can ask me (I'll try to answer) or you can try a ProShow forum - http://www.proshowenthusiasts.com/ - which has the real experts. And they are as friendly as this site.

Sony Vegas (the cheap base version,. not Pro) also comes with DVD creation software called DVD Architecture.

For royalty free music, have a look at Pond5

HTML Code:

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http://www.pond5.com/index.php?ref=kymata">Pond5 Stock Footage

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(they do video but music and sound fx too)

Sorry, I messed up the HTML code :rolleyes: please copy and paste the web address.

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Originally Posted by benm

I think the simplest solution for TV viewing is a Blu-Ray disk. Of course, your customer will need a Blu-Ray player, which people do not yet have universally. So maybe you also need to be able to provide a standard DVD for those people. For PC viewing the best is the EXE file. If you have specific questions regarding ProShow you can ask me (I'll try to answer) or you can try a ProShow forum - http://www.proshowenthusiasts.com/ - which has the real experts. And they are as friendly as this site.

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Thanks Ben,

I will go back to the manual and try out your recommendations as well. I have one asked Proshow for support and I must say they were great. I will have a look at the link you gave me as well.

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Originally Posted by timo2

Sony Vegas (the cheap base version,. not Pro) also comes with DVD creation software called DVD Architecture.

For royalty free music, have a look at Pond5

HTML Code:

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http://www.pond5.com/index.php?ref=kymata">Pond5 Stock Footage

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(they do video but music and sound fx too)

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Thanks Tim,

I will follow this through as well.

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Originally Posted by benm

I think the simplest solution for TV viewing is a Blu-Ray disk. Of course, your customer will need a Blu-Ray player, which people do not yet have universally. So maybe you also need to be able to provide a standard DVD for those people. For PC viewing the best is the EXE file. If you have specific questions regarding ProShow you can ask me (I'll try to answer) or you can try a ProShow forum - http://www.proshowenthusiasts.com/ - which has the real experts. And they are as friendly as this site.

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Can you tell me Ben the size of the image file you would normally use for DVD viewing on a HD big screen TV?

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Originally Posted by Peter Ryan

Can you tell me Ben the size of the image file you would normally use for DVD viewing on a HD big screen TV?

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If you mean the size of the file to use when creating the slide show then the answer is it doesn't matter. Use the full size image as it comes from the camera. The software automatically reduces the images to the appropriate size based on the type of output you select. For a standard DVD every image will become 720x480 or 720x576. For other types of output the image size would be different. You don't need to concern yourself about it since image reduction is transparent to you. I should also add that the size reduction only occurs for the output file. Your original slide show file (the file with the .psh suffix) still uses the full size images.

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Originally Posted by benm

If you mean the size of the file to use when creating the slide show then the answer is it doesn't matter. Use the full size image as it comes from the camera. The software automatically reduces the images to the appropriate size based on the type of output you select. For a standard DVD every image will become 720x480 or 720x576. For other types of output the image size would be different. You don't need to concern yourself about it since image reduction is transparent to you. I should also add that the size reduction only occurs for the output file. Your original slide show file (the file with the .psh suffix) still uses the full size images.

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Thanks Ben, I also went back and re-read the manual - always a good start. I am starting to get a better appreciation of this end of things. I will keep working on it.

I use Sorenson squeeze, maybe a bit expensive but worth it.

http://www.sorensonmedia.com/video-encoding/


For editing I use Avid media composer.

http://www.avid.com/us/products/medi...tware/features