What is best way to get my digital stills onto CD/DVD

[Wyntha]

I recently bought a Sony DSC-F505V digital still camera and now I have quite a few digital photos on my PC now that I want to burn on either a CD-ROM and/or DVD so I can send them to a friend to look at on his TV using his DVD player.

Now come the questions:-

1. What software can I use to create a MPG (VCD and/or DVD format) of a series of digital stills such that I create a type of slideshow?

2. What settings should I use to:-
a) Retain as close to the quality of the original stills (1856*1392 or 1280*960).
b) Produce the smallest output file possible?

Tips gratefully recieved.

[Ansigod]

Check out www.vcdhelp.com for some good info. There are two links at the bottom of this page:

http://www.vcdhelp.com/burnmpg.htm

that should help you out a bit. I seriously doubt you're going to get anywhere near the resolutions you mention when viweing on a TV though (TV resolution is something like 352x240 or somthing really low like that).

Those links will help you, just don't get your hopes up for sharp images on television.

[Wyntha]

Thanks. I forgot to mention a couple of things.

1. It won't necessarily be a TV that DVD/VCD get's played on. Could be PC monitor and/or hi-res TV in a few years time.

2. Reason I want a small file is for sending the photos via E-mail to friends and family. Is MPEG4 perhaps the way to go.

[Ansigod]

I don't quite understand why you're seeking the smallest output file. If you're making a VCD/DVD/SVCD or somehting you'll be limited by the media standards, not by your content. You say you're sending the images via email... I'm confused. Are you sending images by email or formatting them to be burned to VCD? Or both?

EDIT:

Here's something I saw you might be interested in:

http://www.vcdhelp.com/phpBB/viewtop...=38352&forum=1

[This message has been edited by Ansigod (edited 29 March 2001).]

[Phil Pugh]

WinonCD v3.8 (and earlier?) has a really neat feature that produces high res VCD slide shows (704*576 PAL I believe) from images. It also puts autorun info on the CD. This means that you can view your pictures on a standalone VCD CD-R/RW capable player - or through Internet Explorer on your PC - it's really good.

[Wyntha]

Thanks for info and links. I've got quite a bit of info on this now. Sorry for confusion. In fact I want solution for sending photo set over the Internet and one for VCD/DVD players. So I have the answer for the latter now but still looking for advice on former. I have experimented with Videowave 4.0 where I've loaded by photos into Library and then placed then into output production following which I have output using MPEG4 V1, 850KB streaming rate. I get a reasonably small file with pretty good resolution.