So I'm trying to make a slideshow out of wedding pictures. I can make the slideshow itself, save it to video format, and it looks great. I'm using Sony Vegas Movie Studio 10. (Also tried out Photostage Slideshow Producer).
The problem occurs when I burn the video to dvd.
If I save the file as data, a TV dvd player won't read it (I've tried many formats, mpg, avchd, avi...)
If I burn the file to dvd format, the burning software recompresses the video and lowers its resolution to dvd resolution which is, I think, around 720X480. Any DVD player will play it, but the pictures look AWFUL on the TV!!
What can I do??
I don't see myself burning them to blu-ray simply because not enough people have blu-ray players yet.
You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The standard resolution of a TV is not good enough for photos, and that's what you're getting on your DVD. I suggest you give up the idea of making it play on a TV, and set it up to run on computer only, and you get your resolution back.
no you're wrong. If I put pictures on a dvd as data (jpegs) and read them on a dvd players that can read jpeg (most of them can) the pictures appears very nice and sharp on my 47 inches TV.
The problem comes with the standard dvd resolution which is too low, but there has to be a way, I mean when you buy a movie on dvd it still looks great on an hd tv, not blu-ray great, but still very nice. So why is my slideshow movie coming out so ugly?
There are probably several settings in your Sony Vegas software that could improve the quality of your DVDs. I don't have Vegas so you will need to check your manual or perhaps a Vegas user can chime in here regarding settings specific to Vegas but here are some generic things to check:
- Whatever you are using to re-sample your images in Vegas may be doing a poor job. Check to see if there are higher-quality re-sizing/re-sampling filters available to you or perhaps options for a higher-quality re-size/re-sample on the filter you are using now. It may also be helpful to use jpegs for input that are closer to the DVD resolution - in other words, do at least part of the re-sampling before import to Vegas. 720x480 is about the max size in pixels for a full-screen image but if you are doing "Ken Burns"-style panning and zooming, you may want to import jpegs with dimensions larger than that.
- I would suggest creating the DVD as 480P (progressive) rather than 480I (interlaced). If the viewer's TV won't display progressive material, the DVD player will convert it to interlaced. If the viewer's TV permits progressive material though, they will probably see a better image.
- Make sure you are using a high-enough quality setting for when you create the DVD. The max bit rate for DVDs is around 9.8 Mbps (combined audio/video) but for maximum compatibility, I would use 8 Mbps maximum. Two-pass, variable encoding will probably give you the best quality with the most efficient use of space.
Beyond that, I don't think there is much you can do except go to Blu-ray or create files that can only be played on a computer. There MAY be some DVD players out there that play computer video files, similar to the Jpeg play function you mentioned but I doubt there are many. It would be a mistake IMO to assume that the viewer had that capability on his or her DVD player.
Ultimately, your DVD should be able to look about as good as any commerical DVD. A Ken Burns DVD like "The Civil War" or "The National Parks" would be good benchmarks.
