Slideshow Software

unnnh....ummmmm.....POWERPOINT....unnnngh...ummmmm

 

iMovie

It does an excellent job of this exact thing.

 

sorry, but that was some funny shiat

 

huh?
(when you say "dvd file" I think iso of DVD or VOB file, and I know that's not what you're talking about)

1) Is your slide show going to be comprised of just digital images?
2) Or will there be any text?
3) Are you going to be projecting in front of a large group of people?
4) When you say "dvd file" do you mean that you are going to want to build a dvd containing the slideshow of images with an audio track?
5) Can you elaborate on this more?

-- droxford

 

Well, if you're going to project in front of a group of people... for convenience, ease of use, and manual control over slide transitions, I'd probably recommend PowerPoint. But that will probably make a very large PPT file and may be a little tricky for you to create and setup.

If you are going to burn to a dvd, well... that's a completely different animal.

First you mention compatibility. Most modern dvd players will support both dvd-r and dvd+r formats (I won't cover re-writeable formats). But older dvd players may only play one format and not the other. Or the really old ones will not play either format (will only play commercial dvd's). There's not much you can do to avoid this.

You can choose to do one of two things. Either you pick a format and burn in that format, telling others who can't view it that they're out of luck (not very polite, but saves you a lot of time, work, expense, and headache). Or you could burn in both formats and make both formats available to people (more time, work, expense, and headache but friendlier to people).

To create the dvd...
If you just want to move from slide to slide with an audio track and no transitions, most of the popular burning software will do this (like Nero). However, if you want control over nice transitions, you'll need to "author" the dvd. To save you the expense and learning curve of using something super powerful (like Adobe Premiere), you might want to try ULead CD & DVD Pictureshow 3 which you can buy for around $41 from a reputable dealer.

-- droxford

 

Just to be clear, are you wanting this to play in a regular DVD player on a television screen -- like a DVD movie? Or are you planning to present this with a computer and projector, like a presentation of sorts?

If I understand what you're trying to do, you're wanting to project this onto a screen or a wall or something like that. If so, I think your best bet is to find a way to use PowerPoint, perhaps with the Producer add-in. Do you know anyone who has PowerPoint 2002 or 2003? And if you're wanting this be a kind of presentation, I wouldn't put it on a DVD in order to present it; I'd store on the computer.

If you are wanting to use a computer, and you don't know anyone with PowerPoint, you might try OpenOffice. Impress (which is the part of the OpenOffice suite that corresponds to PowerPoint) is not as polished as PowerPoint, but it is free. I don't know if it would accomplish what you're trying to accomplish or not.

 

Actually, I missed part of what you said -- and droxford's reply. As he pointed out, there are a lot of potential problems with putting it on a DVD to play in a standard DVD player. Do you have access to this DVD player now, or at least the make and model so that you can look up what it can and can't do?

 

nero's been rather quiet since the whole escapade with the Christians.

 

There's an awesome one that someone at work uses for a slide show that gets shown to the incoming students. I'll find out what it is and let you know.