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  • IDVD question

    From Howard Jenkins@hjenkins@attbi.com to comp.sys.mac.system on Tuesday, July 01, 2003 15:24:00
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

    I recently burned a CD of photos for a relative, only to find that she
    has a clutzy PC that has limited ram, and can only put up 256 colors.
    The photos are high res (3-6 MB compressed) and there is no way she can
    view them on her PC. Now I want to make a slide show DVD using these
    pics, which hopefully she can watch on her TV. I have been thru the
    IDVD tutorial a couple of times (I'm running OS X.II.VI) and I'm
    wondering if the picture quality will improve with large file sizes.
    The tutorial suggests that the pictures should be 800x600 pixels. It
    seems to me that this would result in a low quality picture on a large
    screen TV (or a very small picture). Has anyone had any experience with
    slide show DVD's ? Advice and info will be appreciated.

    H Jenkins
    --- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113
  • From Hank Shiffman@hank@disordered.org to comp.sys.mac.system on Tuesday, July 01, 2003 08:35:05
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

    In article <hjenkins-E3BAC5.10235901072003@netnews.attbi.com>,
    Howard Jenkins <hjenkins@attbi.com> wrote:

    I recently burned a CD of photos for a relative, only to find that she
    has a clutzy PC that has limited ram, and can only put up 256 colors.
    The photos are high res (3-6 MB compressed) and there is no way she can
    view them on her PC. Now I want to make a slide show DVD using these
    pics, which hopefully she can watch on her TV. I have been thru the
    IDVD tutorial a couple of times (I'm running OS X.II.VI) and I'm
    wondering if the picture quality will improve with large file sizes.
    The tutorial suggests that the pictures should be 800x600 pixels. It
    seems to me that this would result in a low quality picture on a large screen TV (or a very small picture). Has anyone had any experience with slide show DVD's ? Advice and info will be appreciated.

    Keep in mind that the limiting factor here will be the television, not
    the source images. American TV resolution is less than 640x480. So
    iDVD will be scaling all of your images down to what a television can
    support.

    If you want more control, you can use iMovie to make a video out of the images. That gives you more control over timing, transitions, titling
    and soundtrack. And the quality should be equivalent to an iDVD slide
    show. It's more work, but the results are worth it.

    --
    Hank Shiffman http://www.disordered.org
    Have Opinion, Will Travel hank@disordered.org Mountain View, California
    --- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113
  • From Wayne C. Morris@wayne.morris@this.is.invalid to comp.sys.mac.system on Tuesday, July 01, 2003 18:48:19
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

    In article <hjenkins-E3BAC5.10235901072003@netnews.attbi.com>,
    Howard Jenkins <hjenkins@attbi.com> wrote:

    ... I want to make a slide show DVD using these pics, which hopefully
    she can watch on her TV. I have been thru the IDVD tutorial a couple
    of times (I'm running OS X.II.VI) and I'm wondering if the picture
    quality will improve with large file sizes. The tutorial suggests
    that the pictures should be 800x600 pixels. It seems to me that this
    would result in a low quality picture on a large screen TV (or a very
    small picture).

    No matter what size pictures you use, when they're displayed on your TV they'll be only 720x480. That's the resolution of DVD video, and it's
    closely related to the limits of the NTSC video format used by American televisions. Even a large-screen TV can't handle resolutions much
    larger than that, unless it's an HDTV -- and DVD came before HDTV.

    Computers use square pixels, while DVDs use rectangular pixels, so iDVD
    always has to scale your photos. Larger pictures will scale down
    better, but beyond a certain size there won't be any noticeable
    difference. A 1024x768 photo may look better on DVD than an 800x600
    photo, but a 2048x1536 photo will probably be indistinguishable from a 1280x960 photo.
    --- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113
  • From Jane@jaygee@insightbbNO.SPAMcom to comp.sys.mac.system on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 05:11:17
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system


    The limiting factor is the "video" factor of TV itself - everything
    degrades once it passes through a video circuit into a TV - that's why
    poor fools who dub even a high quality VHS video tape into their
    computer and then burn it to DVD are always disappointed that it never
    looks as clean a factory made DVD. The interlacing scan lines kill clean whites, too.
    --- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113