Leopard Image Viewer(s) Recommendation?

Question

I'm kind of the family (large family) archivist, and have probably close to a 100 CDs of digital and scanned photos and such (backed-up to an external firewire drive, of course).
Since my Apple G3, OS 9 days, I've used a FANTASTIC program called BigPicture. I still use it on my iMac 17" flat-panel (with the domed base), using Tiger (it runs under Classic.)
I bought an Intel MacBook this July, with Leopard, and of course, it won't run Classic (or BigPicture).
So I'm looking for suggestions for an alternative Image Viewer. I'm more than willing to pay. I've checked all the free ones at Versiontracker, and have found then all to be wanting:
http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/graphics/image-view
I don't want to use iPhoto, even if it would do what I want, because these pictures and such are on CDs, and I don't want them on my computer in an "iPhoto Library".
Nothing built-in to Leopard (Preview, Quicklook, etc.) suffices either.
Here is what BigPicture does (among other unimportant-to-me-things): (Check the screenshots below!)
1. You can load in a folder, a bunch of folders, or an entire CD of pictures.
2. It displays the images at their correct size, or, if the photos are larger than your screen, scales them down to fit your screen (you can zoom in, or out, by clicking the + or - button at the lower bottom-right mini-menu THAT DOESN'T OBSCURE THE PICTURE). There is no highly annoying thumbnail view or "tree" to the left or right or anywhere else.
3. To move to the next picture, you tap the space bar. Elegant simplicity!
4. You can "mark" a picture by moving your mouse to the top of the screen and selecting "mark" (there's a keyboard command, too, but I've never used it, or click the "M" at the bottom right of the screen, where most of the menu actions also exist). Once you've gone through all the pictures, you can "move" "delete" or "copy" the pictures you've "marked". (Not that it'll actually move or delete them if they are burned to a CD.) This is great if "little" nephew Jethro is finally getting married, and you want to gather pictures from his childhood that will embarrass the heck out of him at the wedding reception, and these are spread about in folders on a couple dozen CDs--this is also where the simple spacebar toggle comes in VERY handy.
5. It runs full-screen slideshows, either in the order of the pictures, or randomly, at a duration you choose, in seconds, and the slideshow runs repeatedly until you quit. Of course, by "grabbing" the lower right corner, you can make the slideshow smaller, so it doesn't take up the entire screen.
Oh, the other thing I really appreciate is at the lower left, it tells how many pictures you've loaded into the program, and what # picture you are on.
Here are a few screenshots of the no-longer-available program:
Elegant simplicity!
[IMG]http://i33.tinypic.com/r10lci.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i33.tinypic.com/2i6l4dv.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i36.tinypic.com/f069tv.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i36.tinypic.com/34qvih2.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i38.tinypic.com/29uzh0.jpg[/IMG]
Can anyone recommend a program that does all of this with such elegant simplicity? It'd be great to take my MacBook to family reunions and such to run slide-shows.
Thanks.

Answer 1

I would very strongly recommend iviewmedia from (dare I say) Microsoft, available from http://www.iview-multimedia.com/
It will do 99% of what you requested, it is elegant, fast and very efficient.
It also catalogues off-line media (CDs).
On top of images it catalogues, previews and plays all other media types.
I used it at work and absolutely loved it. Very friendly, very professional.
edit> It is called Expression media now.
Message was edited by: i.3d