What kind of discs do I buy?

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Guest

Brand new to Photo Story, (brand new to burning CDs for that matter). Getting
ready to creat first slide show and want to copy it to a disc to play on a
regular (TV) DVD player. I have a brand new computer that has a 16X DVD+RW
drive. So my questions are: 1) is there a particular kind of disk I need to
be buying? 2) Do I have a DVD burner (16xDVD+RW) or just a CD burner? 3)
From what I read, if I have the DVD burner, the video quality will be better,
true? Thanks for any help...

Steve in Seattle, wishing I was on the road to Hana...
 
Can you provide more details on the burner or the make/model of pc. It
sounds like you may well have a dvd player and cd writer combo.
 
You have a combination CD/DVD burner.
You can purchase CD-R or CD-RW discs. The difference is you can erase a
CD-RW and use it again. With a CD-R, everything written on it is permanent.
You can use CD-R or CD-RW to make a VCD.
With DVD, you have 4 different formats:
DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW.
Your drive is DVD+R (or +RW) so you would use such discs. Most recent DVD
player will play DVD-R (or -RW) and DVD+R(or +RW) but I would check the DVD
player manual for a confirmation.
Here is a short article about the DVD formats:
http://peripherals.about.com/cs/cddvdcdwriters/a/aa062303a.htm/
I have not used Photo Story 3 yet to make a VCD (only PS 2). However the
help file for PS 3 indicates (look under saving file for diffent purposes)
that you cannot copy directly to VCD from PS3 (this was available under PS2)
or DVD (not available under PS2), you need to save the file and then use
independent software to make a VCD or DVD.
My own experience with PS2 is very good. As long as you look at the file on
your PC. Making a VCD to play on my TV via my DVD player produced "mediocre"
results. Not worth the effort.
Since PS3 is quite new, wait a bit. One site to visit is:
http://www.eicsoftware.com/PapaJohn/PhotoStory/PS.html
He is updating his site about PS2 to include PS 3 and he should have the
best tips about it.
 
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