I have been tasked with putting some digital photos into a presentation - on DVD to be presented on a digital projector. My only experience of doing this was with a Microsoft package which seemed to reduce the image sharpness. Any suggestions as to what I should try - preferably free software.
Microsoft Office Powerpoint and Openoffice (free) Impress can both accept most formats of digital photos. If you don't already have PowerPoint I would recommend the OpenOffice suite for this, there is loads of free help available for it too.
formatting link
you say 'reduce the image sharpness' I suspect that this meant that the image resolution was reduced or it was too heavily compressed. JPGs for instance can be saved at various quality levels, which equates to compression, and this does lead to a grainy appearance. Depends on the number of pictures/slides to be put on the DVD, but I would expect you could get an enormous presentation on one with very high resolution images.
It's better to set the size of the images to match the slides outside of the presentation package, rather than let it do it's worst to scale your photos. I use Gimp for this.
If the DVD player that the disk to be played on can display jpg files then you just need to write them to a CD using WIndows own builtin burning software.
For several years I did some simple presentations for someone - had to be MS Powerpoint. The issues that this had where it produced gigantic file sizes and could not display reliably were unbelievable. (More recent versions were, I believe, somewhat better.) Standard trick was to export it to a PDF. Displaying PDF presentations worked very well. OpenOffice supports Export to PDF from Impress.
Used to include both the Powerpoint & the PDF on the CDs so they could choose.
Failing that, something like Nero has the ability to create a DVD video that runs a slide show of images. That will work on an bog standard DVD player.
Is the DVD to be used just as a data transport medium, with playback being from a PC/Laptop linked to the projector running software to display a slideshow?
Does the DVD need to be played in a DVD domestic DVD player that feeds the projector?
I'm currently building the latter with Windows Movie Maker (free) it's basic but more or less does a competent job. Of course SD television as in DVD is only 720=D7576 (
Is the DVD to be used just as a data transport medium, with playback being from a PC/Laptop linked to the projector running software to display a slideshow?
Does the DVD need to be played in a DVD domestic DVD player that feeds the projector?
I'm currently building the latter with Windows Movie Maker (free) it's basic but more or less does a competent job. Of course SD television as in DVD is only 720×576 (
Movie Maker will do what you want provided you don't want anything to clever or captions/titles in particular places. The positions and how they come and go on screen appears to be fixed for each of the options provided. For my project I'd love a caption type "title" that fades in and out rather than the simple cut that the only provided caption type does. There are loads of whizzy animations that should never have seen the light of day but very few options on simple basic titles/captions.
I've yet to try burning this particular project to DVD but the kids have done things in the past succesfully and the DVD playing in the doemstic DVD machine. The gotcha is forgetting to finalise the disc so that ordinary players can play it.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.