Wedding Slideshow on DVD

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<p>Hi all<br>

I hope this is in the correct forum and I hope you can help! I am looking for guidance on the <strong>best way to create a DVD from Fotomagico. </strong>I am a wedding photographer and want to give my clients a DVD slideshow of their images.<br>

There is a fair amount of info out there but I am struggling to make real sense of it all. I have the following: Fototmagico, iMovie 08, iDVD, iPhoto 08.<br>

The images I am using in Fotomagico are approx 3mb-5mb in size - are these too big? And does the file size affect the export quality? There will be approx. 40-50 slides per slideshow so how large will the slideshow be and will this fit on a DVD?<br>

Also how long will this take to render? (is a few hours normal??) Sorry for the endless questions! I'm really struggling :-(<br>

I want to play the DVD slideshow on a widescreen TV but don’t know what export type I should use or what settings should be in place.<br>

Please please please can you advise me on how large my files should be and the <strong>best</strong> <strong>export</strong> method to use to maintain the <strong>best</strong> <strong>level</strong> <strong>of quality. </strong>

<p>I really appreciate any advice you can offer as I am now becoming really frustrated :-(<br>

Thanks a million!<br>

Aisha, UK</p>

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<p>I do this all the time. I use JPGs exported from RAW at 300 DPI at max (10) setting out of lightroom. The videos I make are around 20-24 minutes, with about 250-300 images with music. After saving, I export using the fotomagico "share" -> HD Movie ->1080p and 30fps and save it on my main drive which has a ton of free hard drive space (I think this is pretty important).</p>

<p>It takes around 10 hours for the export to complete. I was having issues in the past with crashes during export, but lately, its been pretty solid and no problems.</p>

<p>After that, I use iDVD to make a menu, with music and sample photo, then drop the mov file into that. (The mov file is around 600MB.<br /> I don't bother saving the project in iDVD, but rather just export it as a VideoTS folder. (under File in iDVD).<br /> <br /> From there I use Toast to burn it to a DVD. (there is an option in toast for burning Video TS files).<br /> It sounds like a lot, but really, it is a painless series of steps and the results are excellent. I watch/show the DVDs on a smasung 46" 720P DLP through a Sony Blu Ray player and it is 100% smooth on the movements and the photos are super sharp.<br /> I just finished making one yesterday as a matter of fact, and I'm making another today.<br /> Let me know if you have any more questions - OH, and I'm using ver 2.6. I have tried upgrading a few times to ver 3, but they seem to have taken out the random feature from 2.x (or changed it or something).<br /> Best,<br /> Hooman</p>

<p>BTW, my JPG sizes average between 4-5 MB</p>

<p>Fotomagico is a great program, but it does take forever to render. Maybe you could look into something like Final Cut Express to do your slide shows. Just as much work, but the rendering would be faster. But, between iMovie and iDVD, you can do pretty much all of what you are asking. Final Cut would take you to the next level, but it's not as intuitive or as easy as Fotomagico. Rendering for me on Fotomagico takes about 4 hours for a thirty minute show with music. Also, when I really want to customize, I use Sony Vegas and DVD Architect, but they are PC only and unless you want to run Bootcamp or Parallels, this is not much of an option. I think you have all the tools you need, maybe go to Apple's website and look at some of the tutorials available to you.</p>

<p>Hooman, Rich, guys thank you for your prompt responses and much needed advice! Hooman I will have a go at your methods and see how I get on, thank you, Rich will definitely look into Final Cut, was considering this also. thanks again, will be back 'when' i get stuck!!<br>

aisha.</p>

<p>When you say Final Cut I am not sure if you mean Final Cut Express or the Final Cut Studio Pro Suite? I believe Final Cut Express (FCE, the lesser expensive option) still included LiveType, a title generation program which when used will propel your slideshows to another level. The Suite will include Motion which can do a lot more but also has a much higher learning curve. However, the Suite also includes a host of other applications used in creating stellar DVDs. All of that said, FCE and FCPS will essentially use the same rendering engine. And rendering will always be processor intensive no matter what program you use. Now the FC family will balk at these large file sizes (or at least do better by a properly managed file size). HDTV at best is 1920x1080 in <em>resolution</em>. This is what FC is worried about. An image with 1920x1080 pixels will be roughly 400-500 MEGABYTES. Significantly smaller than your current images with absolutely no loss of quality (unless zooming in on the image in which case if you could double you resolution yet still have a MUCH smaller file size). I imagine it might speed up the rendering of other programs as well. Just remember it's all about resolution: not file sizes, DPI or anything else (DPI doesn't even factor into it!). I suppose I should mention for the record that Adobes After Effects would be the "best" slideshow software. But it's rather expensive for one program and a very steep learning curve.</p>

<p><em><strong>I should mention for the record that Adobes After Effects would be the "best" slideshow software</strong></em><br>

Not sure why you would think that. After Effects is great for what it does, but for a slideshow, it's like bringing an elephant gun to shoot a rabbit. And too convoluted for the purpose. But, Sony Vegas with the Ultimate S plugin from Vasst will not only put your slideshow together, you can add motion backgrounds, special FX, markers for DVD creation and actually create DVD ready files from the timeline and it will tell you the best bitrate to use to fit onto your DVD disc.</p>

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<p>After Effects is great for what it does, but for a slideshow, it's like bringing an elephant gun to shoot a rabbit</p>

 

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<p>Perhaps, and to each their own. It's not ALL that difficult once you get use to it (here's a tutorial: http://library.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/slideshows/index.htm). Essentially, After Effects will use the Animation Codec to create your slideshow. Compression would be done via another program. There are several advantages to the animation codec but it does create a HUGE file size. And, since the OP is on a Mac, they won't get much use out of Sony Vegas ;)</p>