Want to watch my jpegs burned onto DVD on TV

[Uncle Scotty]

Hi,

I am running Windows Vista on my PC and burned a DVD of jpegs using
the burn icon in Windows Explorer. I intended these images to be
watched via a DVD player on TV, but they cannot be viewed.

Is there a way to do it with what I already have?

Thanks, Scott

 

[TheNetAvenger]

You have written the Jpegs to the DVD as DATA and many DVD players don't
support the DATA format used.

So use Windows DVD Maker or Windows Movie Maker to make them playable on
standard DVD players. You can add the photos to Movie Maker by dragging and
dropping them on Movie Maker or Open Windows Photo Gallery, and select "Make
a Movie" after you have chosen the pictures you want to use.

(With Movie Maker you can tell it to automatically make a movie of the
pictures, adding in animations, and transition effects automatically which
is kind of nice, and you can also add music to the background.)

 

[Uncle Scotty]

So, Windows DVD Maker and Windows Movie Maker are both available as
part of Windows Vista?

Many thanks, Scott

 

[TheNetAvenger]

They should be, however I am not certain if they are in Vista Basic or Vista
Business editions. But Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate, they are
there.

 

[Uncle Scotty]

Ok, I create a movie with Moviemaker by taking all the jpegs I want
for each slideshow and adding them at once. I set my output format to
DV-AVI/NTSC and output the whole thing to my computer. I have 6
folders of slides, which I need for organizational purposes, hence I
created a total of 6 movies. I then burn my 6 movies onto a DVD with
the Burn link provided in Windows Explorer.

But, alas, my TVs DVD player cannot show the films. What am I doing
wrong? Am I using an incorrect setting or tool in burning the DVDs? Am
I making the movies correctly?

Thanks, Scott

 

[Adam Albright]

Ok, I create a movie with Moviemaker by taking all the jpegs I want
for each slideshow and adding them at once. I set my output format to
DV-AVI/NTSC and output the whole thing to my computer. I have 6
folders of slides, which I need for organizational purposes, hence I
created a total of 6 movies. I then burn my 6 movies onto a DVD with
the Burn link provided in Windows Explorer.

But, alas, my TVs DVD player cannot show the films. What am I doing
wrong? Am I using an incorrect setting or tool in burning the DVDs? Am
I making the movies correctly?

DVDs are MPEG-2 format, not AVI. It sounds like you ended up only
burning a data disk, not compliant DVD files. If you have either the
Home Premium or Ultimate version it includes a DVD application by
default called DVD Maker. If you don't have those Vista versions you
need to use a third party application to make a DVD.

Just so we're clear... SOME DVD players can play a slide show of
JPEGs. This form of DVD or CD is burned as a data disk. In that case
all you need to do is drag JPEG files to the CD/DVD from whatever
folders they're in on your computer. That's it, you're done. Playback
is limited to whatever features your particular DVD player supports
assuming they support playing JPEG images. Many don't. The ones I have
animate the images and play a crude slideshow presentation either by
stepping through them one at a time by pushing the advance button on
your remote or selecting an option to play all of them one after
another. Nothing fancy.

Now if you want a REAL sideshow where you drag a bunch of images to
the timeline of Movie Maker or a similar application and add
transitions between the images and perhaps add a sound track that
requires what I said in the beginning either DVD Maker part of Home
Premium and Ultimate or using a third party application that can
convert the JPEGs into a compliant DVD format. Then nearly any DVD
player should be able to play them.

 

[Uncle Scotty]

All I need to make is a simple slide show, no transitions or other
effects. I have VISTA Home Basic. So, I guess I need a 3rd party app.
Is NERO burning ROM SE something that can do what I need? If not, can
you recommend some reliable products? Anything shareware or do they
not exist or do a crappy job?

Thanks, Scott

 

[Adam Albright]

All I need to make is a simple slide show, no transitions or other
effects. I have VISTA Home Basic. So, I guess I need a 3rd party app.
Is NERO burning ROM SE something that can do what I need? If not, can
you recommend some reliable products? Anything shareware or do they
not exist or do a crappy job?

I'm going to guess you don't want a lot of bells and whistles or want
to spend a lot of money on some third party application. While I
haven't tried it myself I've heard that Photo DVD 2.0 is pretty good.
It's shareware, so you can try before you buy and see if it meets your
needs.

Either Nero or Easy Media Creator the two main third party
applications will also do what you want and lots more but they're both
close to $100 while the one I mentioned is about $25.

http://www.burnworld.com/software/photo-slideshow/index.htm

 

[Uncle Scotty]

One question to clarify something. Is it the way that the movie is
created or the way that you burn the movies onto a DVD that makes them
MPEG-2 compliant or both?

Turns out I do have VISTA Home Premium and do have DVDMaker. The
problem with DVDMaker is that it doesn't seem to allow you to create
more than one movie.

Meaning, I have 6 different folders of jpegs that I would like to turn
into 6 different movies (and ideally store 4 of the movies in one
folder that I would like to name and the other 2 in another folder I
would like to name). All I have found with DVDMaker is that it only
allows you to dump all the jpegs into one folder that it creates and
doesn't allow you to rename.

Any tips? Scott

 

[Adam Albright]

One question to clarify something. Is it the way that the movie is
created or the way that you burn the movies onto a DVD that makes them
MPEG-2 compliant or both?

How the file is encoded AFTER you are done editing it. Microsoft's
Movie Maker is incapable of creating a MPEG-2 file directly. It hands
the job off to DVD Maker IF you have either Home Premium or Ultimate
version of Vista. If you don't have either, you need to use some third
party application.

A good video editor doesn't care what type the incoming source file(s)
are. In fact better video editors allow a mixed bag on the timeline so
you can combine any number of different file types like AVI, DivX,
MPEG and even throw in some JPGs and the end result with be a combined
file encoded as something else. The process is called transcoding
since the incoming files are transformed into another format.

A video editor should be able to convert (encode) to whatever format
you tell it. The encoding process is called different names depending
on what product you're using, like "publishing" in Movie Maker or
"rendering" in Vegas (what I use).

Encoding typically changes:

1. frame size (physical dimensions) like from 320x240 to 640x480
2. frame rate (how many frames play per second)
3. transcoding (changes source file type to some different type)
4. bitrate (effects quality by altering compression rate)

A MPEG-2 compliant file takes one of two common formats. Which one you
want depends WHERE you live in the world. The main choices are NTSC or
PAL each of which have well established specifications so a
"compliant" file plays in any DVD player or most anyway.

The main differences between the two standards are frame size and
frame rate. You can learn more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL

Turns out I do have VISTA Home Premium and do have DVDMaker. The
problem with DVDMaker is that it doesn't seem to allow you to create
more than one movie.

I don't have it, so can't say how limited it is. Again specifications
come into play. The CD/DVD specs are spelled out in great technical
detail in several industry books, curiously known by color. There's a
blue book, red, yellow and so on that spells out how things should be
in order to be "compliant".

They are VERY technical in nature and nobody making a DVD or CD really
needs to know about the technical particulars. If interested:

http://dvd.wwwdotorg.org/specs/specs.html

Meaning, I have 6 different folders of jpegs that I would like to turn
into 6 different movies (and ideally store 4 of the movies in one
folder that I would like to name and the other 2 in another folder I
would like to name). All I have found with DVDMaker is that it only
allows you to dump all the jpegs into one folder that it creates and
doesn't allow you to rename.

Any tips? Scott

You're talking about what's commonly called Chapters. Like in a book,
works in a similar way on a DVD. You generally set up a main menu
page, that has links, often thumbnails to "chapters" elsewhere. The
idea is you can click on a thumbnail and get taken deeper in a single
long running movie that's ten minutes into the movie or twenty or
where any number of smaller videos start.

So yes, the specs supports what you want to do. You could have 6
different movies, each with it's own thumbnail that clicking on start
play of that particular movie. If DVD Maker does that or not, I don't
know since I don't have it.

There are many third party products that do. It's called DVD
Authoring. Such features may be part of some video editing packages or
sold separately.

What would be a good choice depends on how fancy you want to get.

For about $80 Sony's Movie Studio based on Vegas, (what I use)_
combines an excellent video editor with excellent DVD Authoring.
Download a sample and play with it to see if it meets your needs.

Warning. If you do, you'll NEVER go back to clunky Movie Maker. It is
that much better.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/studiofamily.asp