Slideshow Fotomagico vs. Photo to Movie

I've searched a lot of forums and thought this one might have a few "high-end" users with some experience with slideshows. Most of the reviews comparing these 2 programs are 2 years old and both programs have changed a lot..including their prices. Looking at both these programs and it seems the express version of Fotomagico and the regular version of Photo to Movie cost the same yet P2M seems to give you more options in how to export your show. Can anyone comment on that, particularly the export options in fotomagico? Thanks.

Never used photo to movie ot pro show gold, used imovie and idvd many times in the past. the pro version of FM gave me access to aperture, but there is a snag with its implementation. When using FM's media browser, you can only see at a project level. This is insufficient when a project can contain 1500 images. I wanted visibility at a narrower sub-smart album view, however the devs claim aperture does not pass that information to their app. So i'm back to exporting specific images for DVD export. FM has a few limitations as i said, but it has been robust, fast and configurable enough without tearing your hair out. I do want twin audio and 2+ images-up per slide...I think there is a trial run for FM, if so give it test drive.

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PSE9 Can't create a slideshow with .jpg photo and .mov video

Hi
I don't find some informations how to make a slideshow where I can use my .jpg photos AND my .mov vidoes - both are coming from my Panasonic Digitalcamera.
I bought PSE9 because everywhere is written that this is the right product to create a slideshow / Diashow... with photos and vidoes.
But if I want use the "Diashow" I get the information that this is only for windows player and all my .mov videos which I can play in the PSE9 are NOT in the Diashow.
Knows everyone how I can come further with my holidayvideo???
Thanks in advance
Herlinde

guess PRE will work fine for your mov files. ...

PHOTO TO MOVIE slideshow can go into MobilMe Gallery?

If I make a slideshow with an application other than iPhoto or iMovie, would I be able to put that slideshow into my MobilMe Gallery? I have PHOTO TO MOVIE and would like to upload a slideshow made from it.
~L

In addition to Terence's suggestion you could import that slideshow movie into iMovie and export it out of iMovie to MobileMe in several sizes for those with different internet connection speeds. This demo page has an example: Adding a MMe Gallery from iMovie 09.

Problem using "Photo to Movie" and "Toast 8 Titanium" for dvd slideshow

I used photo to movie to compile a 20 minute collection of photos for a relative's funeral. All the files were still photos (no video) but I added 4 songs (that I had in iTunes).
When I go to "create movie", I normally select NTSC for toast, but when I do so toast gives me an error saying "filename.dv is an unsupported format and cannot be imported".
I just went throw this process a day ago for a wedding slideshow (using same computer and workflow) and it worked fine!!! What could be causing this?
I have downloaded all the latest updates of both toast and photo to movie.

I finally figured out (after 8 hrs of troubleshooting) that there was one photo in there it didnt like. When I finally found the photo (by process of elimination) and replaced it, everything worked fine. Just wish the error messaging would be more specific to help me locate the problem!

Drop Saved Slideshows to Photo or Movie Section?

I have 2 saved slideshows I created in iPhoto. What is the best way to use iDVD to get both of them onto one dvd?
I have tried using Magic iDVD and dropped both slideshows into the photo section. I named the dvd, but I cannot see a way to name the two slideshows there. They just show up as Slideshow 1 and Slideshow 2. Is there a way to create names for them?
I tried dragging them into the movie section, and the dvd worked. The only problem is that some of the photos in the slideshow (particularly ones that were cropped) had dark around them, rather than filling the screen. While those were moving across the screen (or in or out using Ken Burns), the edges were shaking quite a bit, and that is very distracting.
So, let's start at the point where I have 2 Saved Slideshows in iPhoto. What is the best way to get them to iDVD, and then the best way to get them onto one dvd with the titles I want, and best quality?
Joe

I would reccomend not to partition, there really is no need.
Format as Mac OS Extended; I don't journal but some people do.
You can certainly use the drive as your scratch disk and as storage.
I just create folders for what I need; so a folder for the scratch disk/media drive a project. I make a folder called Video and this is what I set in FCE System Settings. Captured video goes there and it creates the other folders like Render files. I also create separate folders for Music, Pics, Titles whatever else I need for the project. I keep the actual project files on the system drive where FCE lives
On the same HDD you could have other folders for things like music libraries, old project files, any other kind of media you want. Remember, you will always use all the extra space you can muster so by not partioning you are giving yourself the max amount of room possible
I work with large, multiple projects so at the is point I have drives that are strictly for storage but this just a space issue. Starting out, I had multiple folders on the same drive with no issues. Just keep track of where everything is

Photo to Movie Slideshow compression problems

Hello!
I am trying to compress a slideshow that has come out of a program called Photo-To-Movie for DVD. But the quality is not good when i have motion in the frame inspite of all different bit-rate, vbr, field order, motion estimation setting variations.
Actually the motion is not so flickery on TV, but it should be viewable on a computer screen also. I notice that the flicker is worse when the motion is vertical.
Photo-to-Movie has Full Quality DV (NTSC) setting on, so the picture coming out of there is top-notch. Seen through a Quicktime player the slideshow is also alright.
Does anyone has any suggestion what to try more?
I use latest Compressor and DVD studio pro and Photo to movie.
Thanks in advance!
Timo

Try a flicker filter in FCP or a blur deinterlace in Compressor. A blur deinterlace filter followed by a mild edge sharpening may be all you'll need (try a setting of 5 to 10 for the edge sharpening filter).<small><hr width="75%"><small>If this suggestion helps in any way, a confirmation or acknowledgment would be appreciated, since that would also help others who may be having the same difficulty. Do for others as you would have them help you.<center>Thanks for sharing, Waymen.</center></small>

What is the best program to create a rehearsal dinner slideshow with audio, photos, and text?

I am about to make a slideshow/movie for my sister's wedding that includes photos, music, and text/titles. Is imovie the best for this? keynote? or perhaps some other app I am unaware of? Thanks for your input!

There are many ways to produce slide shows using iPhoto, iMovie or iDVD and some limit the number of photos you can use (iDVD has a 99 chapter (slide) limitation).
If what you want is what I want, namely to be able to use high resolution photos (even 300 dpi tiff files), to pan and zoom individual photos, use a variety of transitions, to add and edit music or commentary, place text exactly where you want it, and to end up with a DVD that looks good on both your Mac and a TV - in other words end up with and end result that does not look like an old fashioned slide show from a projector - you may be interested in how I do it. You don't have to do it my way, but the following may be food for thought!
Firstly you need proper software to assemble the photos, decide on the duration of each, the transitions you want to use, and how to pan and zoom individual photos where required, and add proper titles. For this I use Photo to Movie. You can read about what it can do on their website:
http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/phototomovie.php
(Other users here use the alternative FotoMagico: http://www.boinx.com/fotomagico/homevspro/ which you may prefer - I have no experience with it.)
Neither of these are freeware, but are worth the investment if you are going to do a lot of slide shows. Read about them in detail, then decide which one you feel is best suited to your needs.
Once you have timed and arranged and manipulated the photos to your liking in Photo to Movie, it exports the file to iMovie as a DV stream. You can add music in Photo to Movie, but I prefer doing this in iMovie where it is easier to edit. You can now further edit the slide show in iMovie just as you would a movie, including adding other video clips, then send it to iDVD 7, or Toast, for burning.
You will be pleasantly surprised at how professional the results can be!
To simply create a slide show in iDVD 7 onwards from images in iPhoto or stored in other places on your hard disk or a connected server, look here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1089
I haven't rried using Keynote, but that may also be a possibility.

Ken Burns vs Photo to Movie test

I did a quick simple test to see how iMovie's Ken Burns and Photo to Movie manage high resolution, high frequency still images as their input:
I made a 3150x1728 (5 megapixel) TIF image. I chose that particular ratio because it completely fills both NTSC and PAL 16:9 frame when imported to iMovie HD 5-6's widescreen project.
I inserted 1 pixel thin horizontal and vertical black stripes at every 100 pixel. That kind of thin (high frequency) lines tend to flicker on a TV unless they are blurred.
Then I imported the still to a widescreen NTSC (I chose NTSC for Karl, Fred, Kirk and other NTSC-geared geeks iMovie HD 6.0.3 project and applied a 2 second 1-5x zoom to it.
I did a similar zoom with Photo to Movie 3.2.2's High Quality export setting and compared the results...
Well, the iMovie zoom-in was quite interesting: at modest zoom factors many stripes were omitted and the stripes disappeared and appeared as the zoom progressed! Some stripes were rendered grayish, but they were always 1 pixel thin (a recipe for flicker on a TV!). Only near the end of the zoom-in, all the stripes appeared and begun to grow thicker (and non-flickery on a TV).
The Photo to Movie zoom-in was much "duller": all stripes were preserved and they were slightly blurred (which prevents flicker on a TV).
The winner: Photo to Movie.
The input TIF and 2 second output .dv files are below (to my surprise the 15 MB input zipped to only 1.8 MB with this material). I turned ON the high quality display for you in the .dv files, but verify that the setting sticks when viewing them with QuickTime Player Pro. You can advance one frame at a time via the left/right arrow keys.
http://www.saunalahti.fi/~shmhav/kenburnstest.zip

Discussing DVD playback on a TV, Matti said:
The output that used the original TIF as its input
was full of artifacts and lots of flicker with the
moderate zoom factors. Gaussian blur was also quite
bad while the 875x480 downsampled TIF was very
peaceful. Of course the 875x480 was somewhat fuzzy
with the extreme zoom factors.
Photo To Movie's Higher Quality setting was very
peaceful with practically no flicker on the TV.
I admit that this is an artificial and a very
difficult test image. But I have seen the same
artifacts with real JPGs as well if there are hard
lines in the image (buildings, wires, waves, fine
patterns etc).
I've seen similar results here too, burning perhaps a hundred DVDs in the last few weeks. The goal was to compare DVD slideshows created by iMovie, Photo to Movie and FotoMagico. Matti's conclusions look familiar.
My tests used photos that are the most difficult for iMovie to handle, lots of hard lines, buildings, wires, fences, roof lines, etc.
When the goal is to burn a DVD, Photo to Movie consistently delivers good quality with a variety of source images. The quality is good across a range of image sizes and content. If you like working in Photo to Movie, you can be quite confident you'll get good results.
But I like working in iMovie, so the goal of my tests was to find a way to make iMovie work better. The solution was to downsize the image before importing it to iMovie.
As Matti suggested, iMovie delivers good results if the source image is downsized before importing to iMovie. Virtually all flicker is eliminated by downsizing to 640x480 (NTSC) or 768x578 (PAL). (Downsize less if you plan to use a 2x or greater Ken Burns zoom.)
Downsizing is easily done with iPhoto's File > Export command. It takes just a few seconds to export new copies of photos at the new size.
So is Photo to Movie "better" than iMovie for slideshows? Sometimes Yes, if you don't want to resize problem images. But often not, at least from my tests. iMovie can deliver fine results too. And to be fair to iMovie, it has other advantages.
Note: Our tests may have little in common with the pictures you often shoot, the people pictures, the landscapes, the other "soft" images. They are WAY easier for iMovie to handle, and may not require downsizing. It depends on the photo's content.
Karl

I have created a slideshow using i Photo. How do I burn it to disc so that I can play it on my DVD?

I have created a slideshow using i Photo.
How do I burn it to disc to play on a DVD.
I cannot access i DVD.
Is this the problem?
I have exported the slideshow as a movie quick time file.
What do I do next???

If your Mac is a new one, like mine, then it comes with a version of iLife that doesn't have iDVD and if so, there isn't an easy way to burn a DVD from iPhoto or iMovie that will play on a normal DVD player. There is quite a bit of correspondence about this, but I couldn't find a good answer, apart from this:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18460085#18460085
I ended up buying (via Amazon) a boxed version of iLife11, which has all the same software I already have, but with a copy of iDVD with it.
Seems to work well with iMovie, but at the moment, my copy of iPhoto has crashed - see:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18943719#18943719
Having only just transferred from a Windows machine to a Mac, it seems incredibly arrogant for Apple to think people don't use DVD players anymore.

IPhoto slideshow to iDVD gives poor movie quality

Hello,
I would like to take an iPhoto 08 slideshow and turn it into a DVD disc.
iPhoto's feature: "Share > Send to iDVD" is really great, except that it converts my slideshow to a compressed QuickTime .mov file.
I really, really do not like what the QuickTime compression is doing to my image quality.
I seem to recall that iPhoto was once able to export as an uncompressed .DV file. But I can no longer find that feature or workaround.
Does anyone know of a way to turn an iPhoto slideshow into a .DV file? Or, at least some kind of video file that iDVD will recognize and which does not use compression (like AVI or something?).
Thanks in advance!

Another 3rd party slideshow application with many export options is PhotoPresenter. It has Full Quality option for exporting which is 768 x 576. It also has over 25 animated themes. This demo page has examples of some of them.
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto (iPhoto.Library for iPhoto 5 and earlier) database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've created an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger or later), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 6 and 7 libraries and Tiger and Leopard. Just put the application in the Dock and click on it whenever you want to backup the dB file. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.
Note: There's now an Automator backup application for iPhoto 5 that will work with Tiger or Leopard.

IPhoto 6 or Photo to Movie

Hey all,
I'm a new Mac user and do like iPhoto 6 quite a bit for making slideshows with all the slick transitions and the Ken Burns effect. I ran across Photo to Movie and am wondering if anyone has had recent experience with this program? What's that general consensus when compared to iPhoto 6? Is it better/worse/indifferent? Any thoughts are much appreciated!

Hey all,
I'm a new Mac user and do like iPhoto 6 quite a bit
for making slideshows with all the slick transitions
and the Ken Burns effect. I ran across Photo to
Movie and am wondering if anyone has had recent
experience with this program? What's that general
consensus when compared to iPhoto 6? Is it
better/worse/indifferent? Any thoughts are much
appreciated!
Hi saavy seamonkey! I hope you love your MacBook! (I am confident you will.)
I have also been wondering about Photo to Movie, so tonight downloaded the demo (did you see the free trial button at:
http://lqgraphics.com/software/)?
I played with it a bit, made a small slideshow. I found on playback that some slides were a tad jerky, which is not a good deal. Not sure if things like that would happen on the full version or when burned or saved, though.
I like that it can be manipulated. In iPhoto's slideshow I am kind of frustrated in that the Ken Burns effect decides which sections of a photo IT will zoom around on. And for close-ups, often it cuts off tops of heads or other vital body parts -- OR -- in the fiddling party I shot last weekend it actually zoomed in on a few crotches. Definitely NOT something I can burn and share!
So Photo to Movie looks like a good value - but I, too, would like to hear more reports from others.
Best,
Patty

Best way to export from Photo-To-Movie to iDVD?

I'm trying to create a playable DVD that will be shown on flat-widescreen televisions of a slide show that was made in Photo To Movie.
In exporting that slideshow, P2M gives you a lot of choices. I've been experimenting a little and it seems that for purposes of importing the slideshow into iDVD 6, using Apple Intermediate Codec produces slightly sharper images on the playable DVD and fewer jagged forms/edges, at least when compared to H.264.
I've been exporting using the AIC at dimensions of 852 X 480 but I've NOT checked the interlaced box in the QuickTime Compressions Settings screen.
This guy here not only checks the interlace box but he exports at the HD dimensions of 1280 X 720. http://blog.progravix.com/?p=456
Any advice? What are your thoughts?
The objective is to use iDVD 6 to get a P2M slideshow into a playable DVD.
Thanks!

Hi Klaus,
This slideshow is actually going to be used as the background video to the menu of a DVD created in iDVD 6.
I infer from what you are saying that iDVD's "native format" is DV and not Apple Intermediate Codec or H.264 etc.
Now that you mention it, of course that's the case.
One can actually export directly from P2M to an "mov" file using the DV Widescreen codec.
If I've got the slideshow already edited and tweaked the way I want it in P2M, would exporting it to iMovie HD 6 as a DV result in any improvement in visual quality?
It's the visual quality at this point that I'm concerned about. Using AIC resulted in an improvement (fewer "jaggies") than H.264. Perhaps DV Widescreen will be even better than AIC.
Many thanks again for responding! It's guys like you that make this forum an incredibly helpful resource.

Photo to Movie - a little jerky

Hi - im sorry if im in the wrong forum, but I think this is the closest match. And its regarding third party software but I know you guys a such a knowedgable bunch
Ive just bought Photo to Movie (great app) and exported a DV slideshow 16:9 at its default 29fps. However, after ive burnt to a DVD some of the transitions appear a little jerky on the longer pan/zoom shots.
I was wondering if this was to do with the frame rate maybe? Ive always been a little hazy on the subject of framerate - but should I be using 25fps and does it make a difference that Im exporting for a UK tv rather than the US pal?
Or am I talking rubbish
thanks in advance for your help
Nick

I dont use Photo to Movie but if you are operating in the UK then your projects should be in PAL which is 25 fps and not 29 fps (which is for NTSC). See if that makes a difference.

Photo to Movie software - Worth it?

I have seen the software app Photo to Movie referenced here many times in a positive light. I know it is available in a basic version for free download but was wondering if anyone who has the full paid version can comment on the value of the additional features. Normally priced at $49.99, I see they are offering it for $29.99 one day only... tomorrow Feb 29th as a Leap Year sale. I am planning to purchase unless someone is aware of any downside to the app in general or the paid version in particular. Thanks!
http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/newsletter_200802.php

Well I'm the one who usually refers to it and have used it for 4 or 5 years very happily. It gives you a great deal of control over the "Ken Burns" effect and is way ahead of anything that iPhoto will do. You can cut very precisely to the Music and with QuickTime Pro export to pretty much any size you like - even HD. It's easy to learn, easy to use and can really add to your Slideshow.
There is no "basic free download". There are no "additional features" afaik. There is a free trial period, after which you must purchase the software.
I've recently moved on from PhotoToMovie, I'm now using Final Cut Express - which is rather less convenient, but I wanted to learn to work with a more hard core editor. I can heartily recommend PhotoToMovie, and at the special price tomorrow I say go ahead and buy it.
Regards
TD

What is the best software for burning a large slideshow with 500 photos and music to DVD?

What is the best software for burning a large slideshow with 500 photos and music to DVD?

Are you talking about strictly burning an already put-together slideshow or composing one and then burning it?
My all time favorite slide show maker is Photo to Movie; you can then burn it from there or get it into iMovie and/or iDVD for the "finishing" touch. My favorite burn software is Toast, although you can use iMovie, iDVD, and Finder as well.
http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/phototomovie.php
http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/toast/titanium/

Slideshow Fotomagico vs. Photo to Movie

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