Where get good advice?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike Fox
  • Start date Start date
You guys are great, and your advice and discussions were very helpful.

I'm good to go on photo editor software. Same for burner software
with Nero 7, but need help on burners and formats. Computer DVD
burners are complicated beasts, and I've read stories that there
compatibility issues between them and DVD players for TVs.

Would you have some ideas on where to go for help on burners and how
to burn compatible DVDs?

Thanks

Mike
 
You guys are great, and your advice and discussions were very helpful.

I'm good to go on photo editor software. Same for burner software
with Nero 7, but need help on burners and formats. Computer DVD
Click to expand...

I use Nero 7 also and am quite satisfied with it. Roxio also works
well, but I can only speak for the earlier versions as I've not used
the latest. There are also some conflicts between Nero and Roxio if
both are installed. However as I recall they'll warn you about the
software problem and you can skip installing the conflicting parts. "
burners are complicated beasts, and I've read stories that there
compatibility issues between them and DVD players for TVs.
Click to expand...

There are and there that includes the dyes and reflective layers.
According to reports some players will not accept disks from specific
recorders and some have trouble reading highly reflective media and
dye combinations while others have problems with the darker.
I've not seen a listing, not any real studies done so some
player/burner conflicts may be due to the disk problem instead, or
even configuration problems. It is a real crap shoot currently as to
what will work with what.
Would you have some ideas on where to go for help on burners and how
to burn compatible DVDs?
Click to expand...

The vast majority of burners being sold today are the dual layer type
and the prices have become quite reasonable.. They'll burn CDs, DVDs,
and dual layer DVDs. If you have one of the incarnations of windows
XP they should be plug-and-play.

All 4 computers here have the earlier, dual layer NEC 3500 drives and
I've had no problems recording DVDs and playing them in an older Sony
tape and DVD player. They are also Blu Ray (sp?) compatible, but who
knows what will end up being the standard.

I also have the system set up with Dazzle for capturing and editing
programs to DVD, but I haven't had the receiver hooked to it in nearly
a year. It works better than the VCR and is handier with the
exception of this computer being so busy I don't want to use it for
recording. OTOH a few hundred DVDs take a whole lot less space than a
few hundred VHS tapes.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Good Luck,

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
 
Mike Fox ([email protected]) wrote in
You guys are great, and your advice and discussions were very helpful.

I'm good to go on photo editor software. Same for burner software
with Nero 7, but need help on burners and formats. Computer DVD
burners are complicated beasts, and I've read stories that there
compatibility issues between them and DVD players for TVs.
Click to expand...

You'll also need software to *manage* your library of scans. Just so you
can find them back, not just by number corresponding to your physical
archive(s) but by content (who's in it, when was it taken, where... etc.)

After testing and discarding several programs, I'd advise IMatch. Go to
http://www.photools.com/ to learn more.
 
Mike said:
Would you have some ideas on where to go for help on burners and how
to burn compatible DVDs?
Click to expand...

Believe me, I'm not an authority, but I have used +R DVDs on my player
here (GoVideo) and they worked as well as could be expected (VHS to DVD
not a lot to brag on there other than I was able to media shift <g>).
Just told Nero what I wanted to do, and burned the needed info on the
disk. Even did a menu or two.

Tom
 
Mike Fox said:
You guys are great, and your advice and discussions were very helpful.

I'm good to go on photo editor software. Same for burner software
with Nero 7, but need help on burners and formats. Computer DVD
burners are complicated beasts, and I've read stories that there
compatibility issues between them and DVD players for TVs.

Would you have some ideas on where to go for help on burners and how
to burn compatible DVDs?
Click to expand...
You should be fine with Nero 7 for DVD burning - for some reason I will
fathom when I get time, it just won't install properly on my machine, so
I am still using Nero 6, which is fine except for dual layer burns.
Since those disks are still relatively expensive, I haven't spent much
time getting Nero7 to work.

Most DVD players will display images that are recorded in jpeg format in
directories, so it's fairly straight forward making compatible files -
just burn an image of the relevant directories. Of course, if you want
to stream the slides into some sort of pre-programmed slide show, ie. a
movie of stills with artistic transitions between frames etc. then you
need something that will create an mpeg sequence on the DVD. The
closest I have come to doing anything like that was creating a movie
sequence from scanned frames of cine film, and I used Adobe Premier to
create the mpeg file.

One of the things I would suggest when burning DVDs for display on TVs
is *NOT* to make the images too high resolutionm because this will slow
down the slide show update rate on the TV, often by an annoying amount.

Most DVD players still only handle jpegs at standard TV resolutions
(640x480 pixels - even on PAL, which is capable of more). A few DVD
players are appearing that are HDTV compatible, but that is only
1920x1080pixels at most (and usually only 1280x720 pixels). So scale
your images to fit into those pixel sizes - ie. smaller than 1920x1080
pixels.

The images will still display if you make the DVD files bigger than
this, such as the native resolution of the Nikon scanner, but they will
be very slow to update on the TV screen. The best solution is to create
a bunch of DVDs with full resolution files and then a TV display DVD
with downsampled copies at the sort of resolution that a TV can handle.

It takes my Panasonic DVD player about 30seconds to resample and display
a jpeg saved at the full resolution of the Nikon scanner - compared with
almost instant display of a 640x480 downsampled jpeg.
 
rafe b said:
A bunch of us guys live in a retirement home, and together, we have 10
of thousands of 35mm slides. We want to copy the best of them to DVDs
and sent those to our kids.
Click to expand...

[Snip]

The Nikon LS-5000 has an optional bulk loader for slides.
Probably your best bet for now.
Click to expand...
It does need a bit of nursing to feed some slides (and a slight adaption
with an old credit card), but is quick & easy compared to feeding them
one by one by hand. I found that the few Nikon 5000s that came up on
Ebay were too close to the best new price I could get one for, so I
brought mine new. However I got an SF-200 slide feeder via Ebay for
less than 50% of the best new prices.

The LS-5000 works with both the SF-200 and the SF-210. The SF-200 works
with the LS-2000 as well, but the SF-210 is LS-4000 & LS-4000 only.
Click to expand...

I think there's a typo in that last line. <:-))

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
 
Mike Fox ([email protected]) wrote in


You'll also need software to *manage* your library of scans. Just so you
can find them back, not just by number corresponding to your physical
archive(s) but by content (who's in it, when was it taken, where... etc.)

After testing and discarding several programs, I'd advise IMatch. Go to
http://www.photools.com/ to learn more.
Click to expand...

I just use a spread sheet and logical and naming conventions.
The sides and negatives are kept in archival sleeves in notebooks.
With the slides I keep one set of DVDs right in the front and back of
the books. So those DVDs and slides are kept together.

With the negatives I keep a Book and group number. Any prints made get
the same book and group number on the back although it could be put in
a bottom corner like a signature using any one of a number of photo
programs such as PhotoShop or PaintShop Pro.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
 
Marjolein said:
([email protected]) wrote in

NOW you tell us. And I've already bought a scanner (not done much scanning
with it yet). I'd better call my doctor this Monday...

:)
Click to expand...

Better late than never. I have scars on my back to prove my point. <g>

As demonstrated JUST in this thread, scanning involves a LOT more than
just getting a good scanner. Let's look at what have been brought up:

- how to burn DVDs
- how to organize scans

Browse this group's archive and you will find other time/money sinkers
such as:

- how to keep the film flat
- how to remove noise
- how to extend dynamic range
- how to correct color and tone
- how to color manage
- how to (or NOT to) use a third party sw
etc., etc., etc.

Of course, none of these are necessary or significant if you are
satisfied with low resolution or small size scans. And there's nothing
wrong with it. But then, why would you need something like a Nikon 5000,
etc.?

My advice is to be prepared before diving in.
 
You guys are great, and your advice and discussions were very helpful.

I'm good to go on photo editor software. Same for burner software
with Nero 7, but need help on burners and formats. Computer DVD
burners are complicated beasts, and I've read stories that there
compatibility issues between them and DVD players for TVs.

Would you have some ideas on where to go for help on burners and how
to burn compatible DVDs?
Click to expand...

Just to add to what others have said, I would suggest getting an "all
format" DVD drive. These days most cover the gamut but sometimes leave
out DVD-RAM. Interestingly, DVD-RAM format is the best regarding
organization of data because it's very similar to a hard drive and a
lot of additional error correction is implemented. Of course, DVD-RAM
lags in terms of durability so it's not suitable for archiving.

I myself got an external USB burner recently (LG GSA-2164D) and so far
so good, but it's early days so this is not a recommendation as such
but more of an illustration in terms of what specs to look for.

As for DVD-ROM there is a Beta vs VHS thing going on as the market is
split into two camps +R and -R. Modern burners can do both so it up to
you do decided what to use. After mulling it over I went with +R. One
article which influenced me was this:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/113

As far as blanks go there is practically no price difference between
+R and -R. In terms of dyes "phthalocyanine" and "azo" are considered
to be most durable. But don't believe any promises of 100s of years!
That's all guesswork. So make duplicate archives and check them on a
regular basis to see when they need to be "freshened up".

Also, check the recent thread called
Subject: Re: Easy tips for scanning slide for print media?
There were some good sites and other interesting information on the
subject of DVDs.

Don.
 
([email protected]) wrote in
My advice is to be prepared before diving in.
Click to expand...

Which is exactly why I *haven't* really started scanning yet - apart
from a few preliminary tests to 1) check the thing works, 2) scan a
perfectly exposed negative and check what needs to be "done" with it
(minor digital camera noise removal) and 3) scan a couple of seriously
underexposed negatives to check what _can_ be "done" with it.

Most of the rest of the time (between ten and now) has been spent
finding proper software that I can afford and that will help me in my
"Digital assets management" (DAM): notably a browser program (XnView for
now) and a cataloguing program (initially ThumbsPlus, but I've now
wholeheartedly adopted IMatch). A requirement for both types of programs
was that they need to handle many image formats, not just "photographs".

My next step was to organize some storage - I now have just set up two
400G networked drives (where one will be a mirror of the other, using
software - since RAID is more than twice as expensive).

The *next* step now will be how to organise scans and other image
material - I have many sources that all need to be catalogued and
classified together, but will each need their own organization and
associated workflows. Spent most of today doing other things while the
back of my mind is churning over that problem. I may start to do some
"tests" next week.

Only when all that is sorted out will I "dive in". (Meaning starting to
do serious scanning tests, and sorting out the practical things like
color management, image formats (NEF/TIFF/both), etc.) And once I've
done that I can look at how to burn DVDs (I have a burner - sitting in a
computer that can't really handle it; I need a new computer anyway, but
just a larger, and faster, HD in that computer might do the trick). With
the 400G drive(s) I have some room to play with before the DVD burning
becomes a burning question. ;-)

So... taking baby steps, taking my time... but I'm getting there.

(Oh, and I'm also now seriously considering getting a digital camera as
backup for my analog one - which would also come in handy for a project
I've just started on - providing yet another source of images to be
stored, processed and catalogued...)
 
Roger ([email protected]) wrote in
I just use a spread sheet and logical and naming conventions.
Click to expand...

It depends on your image content, I'm sure. If spreadsheets work for
you, fine - but it would never work for me.

In IMatch I'm developing my own category trees and all together I
already have over 3500 categories, and it's not nearly finished yet.
About half of that is a taxonomic tree to properly catalog any living
creature I've photographed and of which I've been able to identify what
it is (as far as it goes, sometimes not closer than a family, but in
some cases it may be a subspecies). Then there are all the travel-
related subjects, with location, ethnic groups, customes, clothing and
decorations, building styles, religion, etc.

I *think* in hierarchies of categories, not just keywords, and IMatch
allows me to use exactly that - perfect "brain match" for me.
 
I hadn't thought of that. One should get a DVD player with the same
resolution as your HDTV and resample to that resolution. Oh, and then
there's the problem of the 9/16 screen or 1.77 ratio to the 35mm of
1.48.

Mike
 
Does Nero have a decent module to create a slide show with sound?
Ultimately, we'd like to get all our kids together and show the DVD
with their childhoods and catch their comments with a tape recorder
running and then put the comments on the DVD with the slides.

Mike
 
What lovely straight incisor teeth he has - though it looks like his
left upper canine is missing it's point...
Click to expand...

That was due to an unfortunate accident when he was much younger (and
smaller) It's still sharp and I have the scars to prove it. (Nothing
I didn't earn though) I tried to catch the "peak of the yawn" and he
darn near turns wrong side out, or it looks like he's going to. Both
ears go flat and almost touch.
Glad I'm not a bird. Is he
Click to expand...

We had to raise our bird feeders to over 6 feet off the ground and he
can still pick one off the feeder. Actually I've seen him pick one out
of the air at about six feet.
any particular breed of cat?
Click to expand...

The only thing particular about him is what cat food he'll eat.
When a kitten he looked much like a Oriental except for the markings.
(can't remember the name, but not Siamese) Large ears, large eyes,
small head. All he would have needed was the tan coat. As he aged his
head grew to fit the ears and eyes. Loves kids and hates dogs. My
grand daughter could carry him around in a fashion that would cause me
to be losing precious bodily fluids, yet he'd give nary a complaint
while the other old cats would go into hiding.

We really don't know what *breeds* (note that's plural) are in his
background but I'd guess the oriental, Main Coon, and about 50% barn
cat.
We had recently lost Smoky http://www.rogerhalstead.com/smoky.htm .
who was the smartest cat I've seen. He minded better than most
peoples kids. He did not have a cats personality.

My wife and her best friend had left on their daily bike ride (she
rides about 3000 miles a year...maybe more) when I received a phone
call. A kitten had been chasing them down the road. They found where
it had been staying, but they said it was a stray also. Sooo... To
make a long story as short as I can, I brought him home, put an add in
the paper, no one claimed it, we got it's shots, had *him* given an
*attitude* adjustment and he's still here.

http://www.rogerhalstead.com/newcat.htm My favorite is "Disbelief".
You'll see what I meant about "large ears".

When we brought him home he was so near starved we weren't sure he'd
make it as he couldn't keep any food down, but after a couple of days
things changed. He hasn't quit eating and growing since. 16# and over
40" from toes to toes and that was nearly two years ago.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
 
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