Encoding Slideshows takes a long time

[cycletourist]

I've made my first DVD slideshow using Nero Vision Express (the quality of VCD and SVCD was not so good, so I am making DVD slideshows).

Finally, .... a great way to share my digital photos with others - including some nice music.

What bothers me is that it took over 20 minutes to encode a slideshow with just 24 pictures in it (the duration of the slideshow is ~7 minutes).

Is that necessary? Should I use another program? I'm wondering how long it will take when I make one with 100 photos.

Is that just the way it is?

(Windows XP-SP1 P4-1.6GHz 256MB RAM)

Thanks,
Chuck

[fransk]

Hi Chuck,

I started too with slide shows. Nero Vision Express (NVE) uses for some reason huge amounts of vitual memory (swap or page file - the hard disk is continuously rattling but there is no obvious reason for this amount of disk usage). My PC is similar to yours, with 512 MB ram. It crashed when preparing a show with 350 images after 10 minutes or so.

the quality of VCD and SVCD was not so good

You're right. But that has only to do with the video standards. Take a look at the help file of NVE. VCD images are just a lot smaller than a TV-set can show and enlarged on-screen. SVHS is better but are not very sharp due to compression. DVD quality is the best you can get.


You might have a look at PixPlay (www.xequte.com). It creates a video of the slide show and does not limit the number of pictures to 99 for one title. There is no DVD support yet, but you can store the slide show video to disk and use Nero (NVE) to create a DVD from one or more slide show video's.
The companion product DIJI Album has more slideshow features, but needs PixPlay to create a video slideshow.

[cycletourist]

... Nero Vision Express (NVE) uses for some reason huge amounts of virtual memory (swap or page file - the hard disk is continuously rattling but there is no obvious reason for this amount of disk usage).

My system ran out of virtual memory (popped up a warning) and then Nero came to a halt (even though the elapsed time kept going. I wasted a lot of time figuring that out the first time. I'm going to email Ahead/Nero about it.).

I was successful when I increased my minimum virtual memory setting to 1152MBs (which plays havoc with other apps - slows them way down as they use all that VM when minimized and have to page it all back in .... ugh.)

the quality of VCD and SVCD was not so good

You're right. But that has only to do with the video standards. Take a look at the help file of NVE. VCD images are just a lot smaller than a TV-set can show and enlarged on-screen. .....

Except that when I make a VCD with Irfanview, the images look as good as they do in my graphics program (except for a bit of blur). So I'm not sure I really understand this yet.

Pix Play looks interesting - like it may be what I need - and pretty affordable, too. (I can't get Irfanview to include audio - and it has no transitions.)

I assume that I make a DVD by creating an Mpeg and then using Nero to make that a DVD.

I'm also going to check out VCDEasy and Slideshow maker - http://www.joern-thiemann.de/subpage...ssmm/index.htm

Thanks for the informative reply.

Chuck