I use EMC9 to make photoshows and I like the features and usability that it affords. Everything is very professional except the picture (still digital pix) quality that is lost when a great picture is placed in Videowave. I understand that is the design of the program. The pictures that I am using are professional photos that are perfect and when placed in Videowave (before Mydvd or any other production work) are terrible. When produced they look as bad on the DVD as they do in Videowave. My expectations may be to high for a program under $100. If I have to spend alot more for a professional program I will but I do like EMC9 for it's features and would rather not.

Is Roxio going improve this with a patch or new release?

I would asume you are probably right that a program for slightly less than $100 would be now where near the quality that some professional programs costing in the thousands can do. I have produced quite a few Videowave slide shows and burned them to DVD's and have shown them to lots of people and have had nothing but good comments about what they have seen.

As far as an update goes, Roxio has said they will have an update to the EMC 9.0 program, but it hasn't been posted yet. But I doubt very seriously that the update would change the photos you are seeing now in your previews of Videowave or MyDVD programs.

Frank...

They already have - High Definition via Blue Ray --. Remember that in making a slide show, you are making a standard defintion TV - DVD. 720 by for mpg2 files. You could use one of the slide show transitions in the Slide Show Assistant under photos (3 step) one offers higher resolution slide shows for images with the loss of some of the transitions and audio features. Try Video CD..

Has absolutely nothing to do with the program price, but the limitations of a video DVD. As steve points out, the resolution is 720x480. Period - can't be any better regardless of the application price. The 'best' option that MyDVD has to offer is in teh slideshow wizard called 'high resolution CD'. This can only be burned to a CD and with no transitions. It uses the built-in ability of your DVD player to show JPEG images. The output would still be limited to standard video, but looks better because there is no compression like MPEG.

The ONLY other option is to invest in high definition Blueray burner and player plus HDTV.

I suggest that price DOES have something to do with it as most of the very high priced "professional" programs will offer way more options that will inhance the final product as compared to a less than $100 program. If it's merely the resolution you are talking about and nothing else, I agree. But that isn't the only thing to consider. I guess my point is that if you take those same photos to a professional company and ask them to produce a DVD with the highest quality resolution that's possible (Example: store bought professional DVD's) then I suggest that DVD will be a higher quality. But you will also probably pay through your wallet to get it that way too.

Frank...

Be more specific. EXACTLY what does the more expensive apps offer to make the quality better? The only thing I can think of would be mulit-pass encoding, but even that is offered in cheaper apps. I have one that only costs $59 that will do it and even some shareware will , too. But most 'average' users aren't willing to wait for multi-pass encoding which takes much longer. Most even complain about single pass taking too long.
I wouldn't bet on it if it was a VIDEO DVD. Most of those services use the same type of software we do. There are many other types of discs like Kodak picture CDs that some DVD players can playback. Again, MyDVD's high rez CD would do about the same thing.
But we weren't talking about those. If I had a few million dollars, I could probably produce a DVD just as good (quality wise LOL). Commerical DVDs are created using computer 'farms' consisting of thousands of machines. Just a few minutes of video can take DAYS to render. I read an article once about the first Pixar movie and that only a few seconds of the movie took a whole day to render. Not what most home users would accept regardless of quality.

I'm not sure Gary. I am not knowledgeable enough to know what programs these producers are using to make their DVD's. (My suggestion is that it isn't EMC) But I can see what the difference is when I make a DVD using EMC the best quality I can and play it on my new TV, and then play a comercially made DVD on the same TV. I can certainly notice a difference in quality.

I do know that the professional producers of DVD's make a glass master of their program and then produce thousands of additional ones from that master. And they have hardware that can produce these additional ones hundreds at a time and very fast.

I guess the original OP's problem is just not seeing the quality of the "perfect professional" photos he used and then sees when he makes a DVD using them.

You are way more knowledgeable than I am at this stuff Gary, but many times, my eyes can see things that I cannot explain.

Frank...

Thanks to all for their responses. Many times I go into the forum and just read awhile, It's enlightening.I have been reading up on production s/w and it seems that what you all are saying is correct. Most that I have seen are using mpeg2. If I understand this it reduces the pixels to usually 720 x something.

This site has a lot of info. http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html

I tried my first 16:9 production the other night with pro photos and was disappointed with the results. (I didn't have a widescreen tv until I bought my new computer monitor) It may look better in 4:3. That could be one problem. That big screen strains the limits of a 720 x whatever photo. Some of the photos the pro gave me were the vertical shots (portrait acclaimation) that really look like crap in 16:9. I may be better off to use them on the overlay tracks and fade in a out from side to side or put 2 or more up on separate overlay tracks at the same time so as to not expose the poorer quality that the vertical shots provide. The horizontal (landscape acclaimation) are always much better.

Oh by the way.... I think it was a ggrussell post I was reading about needing a widescreen monitor (1440x or better) to use the dock feature with effects, transitions etc.............thanks man. I bought a 22 widescreen and I have died and gone to heaven using Videowave now.

Thanks again to all. What a great resource you folks are to those of us using this software.

tihso

Thanks very much tihso for that link. Very interesting, especially Part [1.3] What's the Quality of DVD-Video ?. That pretty much explained a lot of what I was thinking but had no idea of the technical aspects.

You are certainly right regarding this forum as a great place to increase your knowledge of not only Roxio's programs but many other topics as well Many times just getting to talking about something on the forum will lead to a lot of good information. This thread is a great example of that.

Cheers
Frank...

You're welcome, but docking should work with any resolution HIGHER than 1024x768.

Gary,

Right. I was using a 17" square crt at 1024x768. I looked at the 19"w/s but had to have the 22 when I saw it. 1680x1050.

Frank,

Here's another interesting link
http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/DVD-Copying---The-basics

and another
http://www.videohelp.com/

tihso