HOWTO: DVD Slideshow

[Unterseeboot_234]

With the popularity of digital photography I would have thought there was a solution for a DVD Slideshow. Not yet. I've searched the web and the 'buntu Forums. I would like to share what I've learned and hope somebody can correct me or make this better.

I used a friend's Nikon D90 to shoot on HiRes. The resulting photos are remarkable in detail, but also remarkable in file size -- each photo was 5+ megs. I used ImageMagick to convert to resample at 72dpi and 720 x 480 format for NTSC. I wrote the python script to automate a whole folder of 500+ pictures. The conversion took about 30 minutes, but the resulting jpegs were sharp in details, even in the shadows. If you are interested in the script, post to this thread. ImageMagick has its own script engine, but I prefer python.

ImageMagick should have also made the mpeg, but ImageMagick needs temporary files and while trying to make 300 photos into an mpeg I maxed out a 30gig partition. The video could not be made. Not to mention I banged the ceiling on my AMD64 CPU.

I did find dvd-slideshow in the Synaptic repositories. You need dvd-slideshow and you also need dir2slideshow -- not in the repositories. I got a deb from Dir2slideshow. dir2slideshow writes a script for you to use with dvd-slideshow. Both programs are command-line. Use the tutorial I found at this blog: Command-line Slideshow

From that results, which I previewed with xine, I burned with ManDVD.

There is an outdated GUI for dvd-slideshow, but I could not get it to work with Ubuntu's version of gamba. I realize this is a "bandaid" fix, but it works. I hope some of you find it useful.

[igorzwx]

perhaps, picasa can do such things too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasa

[Unterseeboot_234]

But my suggestion is for a universal DVD using optimized photos, from a digital camera, and viewable on DVD players or computers. I do recall Picasa. It is a great indexer.

[rgb1701]

Try-

http://www.dvdstyler.de/


Q DVD Author states:
"You can generate a dvd-slideshow."
"You can create a full blown DVD without knowing the command line tools."

http://qdvdauthor.sourceforge.net/

[Unterseeboot_234]

I welcome any and all comments upon this subject... I have search for a more comprehensive solution many, many times. Video production eats your time away.

I have tried everything from the repositories and suggestions for other packages. My experiences were some don't recognize external USB devices, some manufacture a DVD that won't run on a playback machine.

You need to optimize the huge digital photo files with ImageMagick. This should be a bulk operation. To drag each photo into a DVD software and let it convert results in high-contrast visual results. kdenlive will make a slideshow, limited to 85 slides and like I said, if you didn't optimize, the results are contrasty.

dvd-slideshow makes any length slideshow, you can loop a background audio track. I wished it had interactivity buttons in the final product. If I didn't want a DVD, I would use OpenOffice Presentation.

ManDVD has its problems. We have to be perfect configuring the thumbnails and other setups until ready to burn media. ManDVD won't let you change any setup. If you want to change something, you start over.

So, Linux is known for not having a comprehinsive video solution. We have to use multiple tools. That could change with JavaFX, maybe in a year's time. JavaFX promises interactive random-access video which should revolutionize game programming.

I will be watching for anybody's suggestions or comments, and thank you Forum. The Forum beats the man pages command any day.

[rgb1701]

I welcome any and all comments upon this subject... I have search for a more comprehensive solution many, many times. Video production eats your time away.

I have tried everything from the repositories and suggestions for other packages. My experiences were some don't recognize external USB devices, some manufacture a DVD that won't run on a playback machine.

You need to optimize the huge digital photo files with ImageMagick. This should be a bulk operation. To drag each photo into a DVD software and let it convert results in high-contrast visual results. kdenlive will make a slideshow, limited to 85 slides and like I said, if you didn't optimize, the results are contrasty.

dvd-slideshow makes any length slideshow, you can loop a background audio track. I wished it had interactivity buttons in the final product. If I didn't want a DVD, I would use OpenOffice Presentation.

ManDVD has its problems. We have to be perfect configuring the thumbnails and other setups until ready to burn media. ManDVD won't let you change any setup. If you want to change something, you start over.

So, Linux is known for not having a comprehinsive video solution. We have to use multiple tools. That could change with JavaFX, maybe in a year's time. JavaFX promises interactive random-access video which should revolutionize game programming.

I will be watching for anybody's suggestions or comments, and thank you Forum. The Forum beats the man pages command any day.

Did you try Q-DVD Author and DVD Styler?

[Unterseeboot_234]

QDVD is non-intuitive and really gets frustrating at the point where you add movie clips. It looks like I will wrestle with that program again and try to make it work. The official tutorials for QDVD suk. I did find this:

QDVD HowTo www.linuxforums.org

QDVD is possible to do multi-level menus.

manDVD is limited in what formats it will work with and moreover, the formats acceptable to manDVD, the user has to provide perfect files with the proper bitrates for audio and vid bandwidth, the audio must not have any gaps.

I think it was K3B (I don't have it installed now). K3B took one peek at my hardware, doesn't see the external USB DVD burner and turns off half the features to make a video. What good is that? It should at least produce an ISO.

I'll look at DVD Styler, but I noticed kDenLive and Kino are set up to work with DVDAuthor / qDVDAuthor.

But, one thing about it. Nero only burns DVD+R. The Linux programs go ahead and format a DVD-R and produce a DVD. Nero makes a coaster for you with DVD-R.

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I've used Kdenlive for this. You can add a folder of images to a project and it creates a slideshow for you. It also has a built in DVD creator.

It's still a bit buggy but the result turned out alright.

[vingb]

Hey, I have interest in the script.
thx

[Unterseeboot_234]

A couple (or two) of notes

kdenlive is limited to 85 slides. Make many folders if you want a big slide show.

QDVD works, but...
1. Once it starts crashing, it keeps crashing. I'm trying to locate the hidden temp file that runs QDVD and delete it and maybe the crashes will stop.
2. QDVD will happily accept any audio format you pass in and not convert it. Should you get to the final DVD, it won't have sound unless you gave it muxed mpeg with .AC3 audio format.

manDVD still gives predictable results provided you have clean mpeg video. manDVD converts any audio to .AC3. QDVD needs a button to do this, but it doesn't have one. QDVD's purpose in life is to write a shell script and then run the shell script. One could edit the DVDauthor .xml file, but QDVD won't stop at the script, it keeps going forward and makes the DVD folder structure -- a lot of wasted time before you can edit.

The best mpeg, quality, sound, colors is exporting from cinelerra. You export (render) in yuv4mpeg [video only] to .m2v file format, then export .AC3 formatted audio. Then a command-line mux the audio and vid together using ffmpeg. Here is a tutorial, disregard his advice about Microsoft .wav audio unless you use manDVD. Cinelerra Export to DVD

Really and truly Cinelerra gives the best results because it has its own internal engine manipulating the vid before handing it off to ffmpeg. Other video editors are trying to make ffmpeg / mencoder do the work.

I have a small stack of coasters proving some of this to myself.