[Eaglerapids]

I downloaded Proshow Gold, was going to try the fully functional 15 day trial to make sure it worked ok on my system and that I liked it before spending that much money on it only to find out after the work assembling a bunch of pics and of installing it and getting it all setup....that it has a big ole ugly banner across the bottom of the screen. Jeez guys (Photodex) give me some warning the fully functional version is actually worthless. It's a pity, it looked like some nice software but I immediately uninstalled it.

[Eaglerapids]

In the end I went to best buy and picked up a program called Xtreme Photostory 8. Which not only has all the options you want such as transitions, dvd menus, and effects but it was pretty much hassle free. For 39.99 you cant go wrong.

I checked this program out and it is pretty cool, works well.
But Nick SD I see a very evident loss in quality of a DVD slideshow. It's actually looks better on my tv, my computer monitor really shows the lo res of the files. Are you saying that your pictures look as good in the burnt slideshow as they normally do displayed on screen?

[emalvick]

I checked this program out and it is pretty cool, works well.
But Nick SD I see a very evident loss in quality of a DVD slideshow. It's actually looks better on my tv, my computer monitor really shows the lo res of the files. Are you saying that your pictures look as good in the burnt slideshow as they normally do displayed on screen?

Just to jump in a bit here...

A burnt slideshow for DVD will only be as good of resolution as the DVD can show, which depending on your target format will be something like 480, 720, or 1080 pixels high.

Now on a TV any of these formats are going to look ok as DVD's usually do. However, on a computer the software is going to be upscaling it to your full monitor resolution, which is possibly bigger than your TV's resolution (my monitor is at 1200 pixels high while my TV is at 720), which does bring significant artifacts.

Now I would suspect that if you make a Blue Ray format DVD, the artifacts would be much less and the image would look much better on your monitor (and better on your TV), but I think at this point people are burning standard DVD's more often than Blue Ray.

[Eaglerapids]

Ah ok Emalvick, thank you.

[SteveC]

Worth having a look at Pinnacle Studio 12. Can combine stills, HD movie clips, music and garphics into a pretty professional production . Needs a high end processor to handle HD 25 frames/minute though. Price not bad - approx £80 in UK.



Steve

[Eaglerapids]

Funny you should mention that, I got an e-mail offer from Pinnacle for Studio 14 Ultimate bundle download version for $130, normally $350, they say. I've been checking around trying to figure out if it does good slideshows. The thing is I have little need for video and even if this is a great deal is it that much better than Proshow Gold which is $70?