Not sure if I am being too ambitious as I have only made a couple of simple audio slideshows up to now.

I am making slideshows with hundreds of photos from my daughters visit to Australia & New Zealand last year. I have used 'My DVD' in Creator 8. It is all done and looks great, but the problem is with the biggest menu that contains 500 photos and 6 audio tracks. In preview, a couple of the tracks sometimes sound distorted. When I go into the menu edit option, I sometimes get the message 'Videowave 8 needs to close' and then everything closes down.

I haven't tried to burn the project yet, and I am hoping that I don't have problems with that, but I need to find out what the problem is with the audio first.

Is it possible to open this project (that has been totally created in 'My DVD') in 'Videowave', and would I then have more scope? I have opened 'Videowave' but I don't know where to find my DVD project!

You can't open a MyDVD project in VideoWave.

Update the drivers for your audio card/chip, or you could just burn your production, to a DVD, and see if the audio is ok on the DVD.

I assume that you are running XP. If so, go into Windows start, run and type in dxdiag, then OK. When the window opens, go to the Sound Tab. Move the slider all the way to the left. Listen to the slide show that gave you the distortion to see if that helped.

Vista does not have the same controls.

Thanks for your responses.
I tried the dxdiag thing but there was still some distortion, although much of the audio is OK. So, I then tried burning to disc, twice, but both times I got the error message '8007000e Error while Encoding Menu'. The 'overall progress' showed 100%, and 'Current task: completed 100%'.

Any ideas?

Where did you get the music and in what format? See if anything here will help; the error code is different but may give you some ideas.

Also, when you go to burn the project, select to burn it to an image file (ISO). Name the file and select the location where you want it created. When (if) it encodes, use Creator Classic to copy the ISO file to your blank DVD.

Please put your computer specs in your signature (My Controls at the top of this page) so we can see if your computer is up to the task. That error is often related to you video card/chip whose drivers are out of date or just won't handle the program.

In MyDVD, click on Tools/Options, and set Render with, to Software. Then try again.

I would bet that you have an onboard video chip. Check it out, and let us know what chip/card you have.

Thank you both for your responses again, and so quickly.
I went into Tools/Options and 'Render with' was already set to software.
I have tried to put my computer spec on the signature but it is difficult to know where to find everything, and some of it is Greek to me! Anyway there is a little more info there now.
Followed your link to a similar error code, and carried out 5 downloads from Dell that looked relevant, or said 'urgent'. I also downloaded the hotfix for EMC8. Then I tried another burn, and it was successful.
I put the disc in my DVD player and it looked great. Clicked on the biggest menu (6 audio tracks and 500 photos), and it played, and looked fantastic for the first 2 tracks, and then suddenly ended. Tried the second menu of a slightly smaller size, and that one jumped part of the way through, missing out many photos, and the music was then out of sync. The 3rd & 4th menus are quite small and they played without problems.
The tracks on the first menu, which is the most problematic, are M4A's apart from one track which is MP3.
I did burn it to an image file, but I don't have 'Creator Classic'.

You don't burn to an image file with Creator Classic. you do it with MyDVD or DVD Builder; it is one of the burn options. You should see three different options there.

If you don't have Creator Classic, then you do not have the full Easy Media Creator 8 program. What do you have? If I remember correctly, every version of EMC has had Creator Classic since 7 (that is the one I started with).

I sometimes have difficulty choosing the correct words, and names for IT things. I did copy a previous email that said 'Also, when you go to burn the project, select to burn it to an image file (ISO).' I had already done this when I used 'My DVD', where I had created the project, to burn the disc.
I have 'My DVD Premier Suite 8' which I downloaded from Roxio.

Then you should have Creator Classic but you may have "Disc Copier". Use that to copy the ISo to your blank DVD.

When you made the ISO file, what location did you specify for it to be encoded to? (poor grammar but I think you know what I mean.)

I just saved the iso file to My Documents/My DVDs. Thought that would be the easiest for me to remember.

When I go into 'All Programmes' & hover over 'Roxio My DVD Premier 8' The following are the options that I can see. DVD & VIDEO - Cinemagic; Cineplayer; Media Import; My DVD; Videowave. ORGANIZE - Media Manager. PHOTO - Media Import; Photo email Assistant; Slideshow Assistant. TOOLS - Disc & Device Utility; Express labeler; Label Creator. HOME.

So I can't see anywhere to copy my iso file into.

Permier must be the lite version of EMC 8.

Since you were able to make the ISO file, try one of the free programs that will allow you to copy that ISo to a DVD. If you go to c/net downloads, there are a lot of them. For example this one.

The only version of EMC 8, that had all programs, and had full function of all programs, was EMC 8 Deluxe.

The only good thing about EMC 8 was, it introduced the ability to create panoramas. with your pictures.

Hi,

I did use that link, and downloaded the free software. It burned the ISO file, but although the contents of all 4 menus were burned onto the disc, the actual menu page that shows the 4 'buttons' was missing.

This must be the meaning of the original error message on 'My DVD' - '8007000e Error while encoding menu'.

So the ISO file must not have the menu included because of the error in trying to encode it.

It's quite strange that an ISO got created when you got an error message while encoding the project.

Anyway, maybe you can use this freeware VLC media player to preview the ISO and see if it exhibits the same issue you observed when you burned it earlier. Just download the software, and launch it. Then drag the ISO file from Windows Explorer and drop it on the VLC application. It should launch the video.

Let us know the outcome.

I downloaded the VLC Media Player, and opened the ISO file. It went straight to one of the 4 menus and started playing it, but the sound was very distorted. I found the button on the VLC player to go to the menu page, but it did not do this.

I've just been playing the disc that was burned using the free software that I downloaded, and have found that only part of the contents at least one menu were burned to the disc. So it is not just the menu page that is missing it is also big chunks of the content. When it was encoding on 'My DVD' I could see the whole of the contents of each menu in the preview pane, so there seems to be 2 separate problems here. Encoding the menu page; and burning the total contents of each menu that appeared to have been encoded successfully.

Can you make a smaller project out of it and save as another project? That is, just have one title (remove the other 3) and save it with another name. Then reencode and burn as an ISO file. Preview using VLC. If it works fine, add the 2nd title to the project and save as another file. Reenconde and burn. I guess you see where I am heading on this one.

I could try that. It will mean burning each new project each time, so I will be using more discs. I think I will postpone that to another day. It's 1710hrs here in UK, and I am turning square eyed!

No, that is not what Jess suggested at all!

You will burn NO Disc if you follow his suggestion, yet you will know for sure if it is going to work.

Then build up from there.

I have found that the free VLC download has made itself the default player for all the music stored on my computer. The tracks that I have tried to play are all distorted on this software. How do I revert to the way they were?

Uninstall it. There is a tab or option page (I am not in front of PC now with VLC) where you indicate if you want it to be the default player for some media formats. I only use this for video or to check out ISO image before burning to a disc.

Edit:

I am now in front of PC with VLC. Open VLC then select Tools|Preferences. Click on Interface. After doing the steps mentioned in the image below, click Apply.

Click to view attachment

Thanks all of you - you are so good sticking with me. I found that if I click on 'Burn' in My DVD, I could uncheck the box that says burn to disc, and just save it as an ISO file.

Through a process of elimination, as suggested, I have found which menu on the project must be causing the problem. Using 'My DVD', and different menu combinations, the contents of each menu were encoded, then recorded, but then as soon as it tried to encode the menu page itself towards the end of the process, I received the same error message each time - '‘8007000e Error while encoding menu’. That was until I tried it with the first menu omitted, and leaving in the 2nd, 3rd & 4th menus. When the first menu was omitted it encoded, then recorded, the contents of each of the other 3 menus as usual, then it successfully encoded and recorded the menu page which I could see on the preview pane for the first time. No error message this time.

Now I have to find out what is the problem with the first menu as it previews OK on My DVD. There are 497 images, and 6 audio tracks lasting 23 minutes. I have set the pics to fit to audio, same as on all 4 menus, and it all plays OK on the preview.

The 2nd menu has 288 images, 5 audio tracks and lasts 21 minutes; 3rd menu has 58 images, 1 audio & lasts 4 minutes; 4th menu has 93 images, 1 audio and lasts 3 minutes. There are no problems in encoding the menu page with these 3 menus included.

I have just previewed menu 1 (the troublesome one), and the sound does sound a bit distorted on one or two tracks. This has happened before, but then it plays OK next time. I remember in one or two of my earlier previews it was skipping tracks or it just stopped playing audio. I have deleted tracks, and reinserted them. It does not seem to be a consistent problem.
At the end of the preview (in MY DVD), I got a message saying that there was an error in Videowave and it had to close. I remember that I have had this error before but not sure if it was always at the same point.
It seems that the audio on menu 1 is the problem, unless I am mistaken.

If my math is correct you have a slideshow with 936 pictures lasting 51 munutes. This averages about 3 secs per picture. Do you really think that is watchable - you will hardly be able to recognize a slide before the next one appears.

What happens if you only use the 1st menu and its pcitures and leave out menus 2-4 and their pictures?

It has been quite difficult creating this DVD. My daughter & her friend each took hundreds of pics when they visited Australia & new Zealand, and I had to combine the 2 lots together. I have already removed many many pics from this DVD project. It all looks great if I could just solve these final problems.

Three seconds is quite quick - but they are young & get bored quickly! (They can always use the pause button at any time). Otherwise I have to either remove more images, or include more audio, and I think menu 1 is long enough already.

If I just leave in menu 1, it encodes & records, but then the error message pops up as soon as it tries to encode the menu page. If I remove menu 1, the menu page is encoded successfully at the end of the encodings of menus 2-4.

I would make 2 different video DVDs. One for Australia, and one for New Zealand. The reasoning is obvious, if you analyze the time of video.

You have a video that screams the pictures through. Why not make 2 videos, and have lengthen the time that the photos show on screen? It will no doubt be more enjoyable, to your audience, than making them sit through one hour of watching "fast forward" photos.

Just my opinion.

I am sorry but I would not want to watch that slideshow - having the slides flash by that quickly would make me lose interest very quickly. Obviously you cannot be using any effects such as transition, pan & zoom which are what creates interest when watching the slides.

Another thing I would do is create each slideshow as a separate project using Videowave and save each project as a VW dmsm file. Then I would launch myDVD and add each VW project using "Add new movie" This will create a menu item for each slideshow project.

How did you create the slideshow in my DVD? Hopefully you did not use the "Add Slideshow" wizard because that has several limitations and users have reported all sorts of problems.

Hello all. I value your opinions , and thank you for your responses. I had thought recently that maybe I could have created each menu in Videowave, and whether I could then import them into My DVD. I haven't used pan & zoom as I wasn't sure how it would look. Being a beginner I didn't want to complicate the project too much as there were so many pictures.
If I slow the slideshow down I will need more music, so they will have to sit through the viewing for longer unless I remove more photos. Perhaps this would be the best option. (I have difficulty in choosing tracks - that is one of the most time consuming parts of building the project. I have asked for suggestions, but they only came up with a couple)
The two biggest menus are 'Australia' and 'New Zealand', and I have kept them on one disc as the whole project is only taking up less than a third of a DVD disc. I would rather keep them on one disc, rather than two separate discs unless there are any great advantages of having two.
Trouble is that it does look good on the preview apart from the audio sounding a bit iffy on menu 1 (Australia). The encoding of the menu also seems to be affected by menu 1. I am visiting my sister at the other end of the Country for the forst time in 3 years and I was hoping to have something ready. It just seems so close to being finished. I could always use this disc as a snapshot DVD of my daughter's holiday, and then start another one at a later date with slower slideshows. If I start again now using Videowave I would probably run out of time as I would have to start removing many pictures from the original file that contains all their photos.
myguggi - To create a slideshow in My DVD I just had to import photos. Then to edit, such as removing images or adding soundtracks, it takes you into 'Slideshow Assistant'. You can add transitions from there, and 'fit to audio' as well as 'pan & zoom'.

I have deleted a few images & added more audio, to slow down the slideshow - although it really wasn't so bad! Everything looks great on the preview, so I tried to burn to disc. It didn't recognise the blank DVD despite encoding the whole thing a couple of times, & saving new ISO files. I then tried to burn the most recent ISO to the free download software, and at first that didn't recognise the blank disc was there either. Then I had what looked like a successful burn. I opened menu 1 on the DVD and it played the first couple of tracks perfectly, and then jumped almost to the end of the slideshow missing out many images and 5 tracks of audio. It also did this on menu 2.
It had all seemed to have encoded successfully, as I could see everything on the preview pane as it was encoding.

This is all turning out to be much, much, more time consuming, and a bigger headache, than I could ever have imagined.

Perhaps 'My DVD Premier Suite 8' just sounded too good to be true.

I decided to start building menu 1 all over again but in Videowave rather than in My DVD. It has taken hours, and it is almost done. However, there are 7 minutes left without audio, and when I go into 'add audio' in 'Timeline' it takes me through all the motions, but it does not add the track. I have tried different tracks with no luck. It added the first few tracks to the production no bother.

So near, and yet so far away.

Again.

For best results add a wav audio file.

You cannot add music with DRM protections like those you "rented" from on-line music sites like ITunes, etc. You can only add music that you rip from a CD or from other non-DRM protected sites.

Thanks Steve. All the tracks that I am using are MP3 format, with no protection. I have successfully added seven, but now it just won't add them as music tracks any more. After more hours of trying, I have found that it will add them in the 'sfx' area (whatever that is!). I can then just line them up with the tracks in the row above and it all plays successfully.

Strange, as all the tracks in the production are the same kind.

For my next production in Videowave (menu 2 of my original DVD), do you know if there is a way that I can add all the photos from the menu 2 that I created in 'My DVD'? That would save me hours of work as I would have to try to pick all the same ones from the original 2 files, and then knit them together again in order. The photos that I used for menu 2 are in an ISO file as well as in 'My DVD' project.

I know it is a littler late for a technical jargon lesson but.....

A slide show in My DVD or a project or video file you add from Video Wave or other are called Titles.
Specific points within that Title are called chapters.
Things that you are actively working on in Video Wave are typically called projects.
A DVD has a top menu and perhaps some sub menus if there are too many titles to add on the Menu page.

I get a little confused with the term "Menu" especially when there is a number after the term. Perhaps the use of Menu item could be a substitute for Title.

The use of two (or more) of the audio tracks is a good way of adding music especially if you want one piece of music to fade into another for an almost seamless audio track. Double click on the tracks to add fade in/out. Move the tracks left or right to line up with the indicators of the audio volume. Set them so that one starts fading out at the next starts fading in.

Larna referred to the Videowave activity as production (post #33), which I believe is the terminology used by the software. MyDVD activity is the one called project.

You and Larna are correct, VideoWave uses Production to open existing, to save a new one, or for the settings.

I am still learning technical jargon, and sometimes struggle to find the correct word, or to understand when I see it written. So I do appreciate any help, or any correction when I get it wrong. I am a beginner to making DVDs, and I am learning such a lot.

I have now made the two main Titles in Videowave, and added them to the project in My DVD after deleting the original Titles that had been created in my DVD. All looks great, and it all encoded successfully, but it did not burn at the end. So I tried to burn from the ISO using free downloaded software, but that hasn't worked either. So near, yet again, but really stuck at the moment. I had really wanted to take the disc to my relatives when I travel on Sunday to visit them. If anyone can help with this burning issue it would make all my work worthwhile.

Interestingly, I originally created the whole DVD in 'MY DVD' as I didn't know any better. It took up just over 1GB of disc space according to the info along the bottom of the screen. Now, since creating the 2 largest Titles in Videowave, the whole project is just over 4 GB. (but still under the full capacity of a DVD disc.) I had even reduced the number of images, so it could be that 'My DVD' doesn't really produce large Titles properly. There is certainly more manoeverability, and features, in Videowave. Wish I'd know that before I started, but I hadn't thought that you used Videowave for photos.

Another thing I didn't know when I purchased My DVD Premier Suite 8, is that it is a watered down version of EMC8. For instance, your suggestion to double click on an audio track in Videowave opens up 'Audio Trimmer', and that does not have any facility to fade in or out. I have been using some other audio software to do this, and to clip parts of tracks for particular photos. This makes it difficult to get the exact length that is needed to fit the images, but I am really happy with the completed project.

I just need to be able to burn it now.

PS My burner isn't recognising any blank DVDs any more.

Does Windows? Go to my computer, right click, select properties, hardware, device manager. Look under Cd?DVD drives. Are they listed? I see that you have XP.

It says that the device is working properly. I have tried several blanks - Panasonic DVD-R, but neither Roxio nor VLC recognises that there is a disc. I just burned 4 disc this week but some of the content was missing as it was before I created the Titles using Videowave. This seems to be an intermittent fault with this Driver as it has happened before (see earlier posts), but I don't know why it corrected itself. I did wonder if other things going on with my PC may affect it, such as Windows updates.
I have just thought of a possible solution to my immediate problem, but I don't know how to carry it through. I have a DVD burner on my laptop, and I have the saved ISO file on my Desktop. Do I just go out & buy a memory stick big enough to take the ISO, and then burn it using my laptop?
I'm running out of time.

Nothing is ever straightforward.

I have been out & purchased a memory stick 8GB. When I try to copy the ISO file to it, I get a message saying that the following information may be lost if I continue copying - ':Roxio EMC Stream:$DATA'.

I have not continued as I am worried that all my hours of work may be scuppered. Should I be worried?

As long as you don't delete the original iso file on your hard drive, there should be no problem.

Information here about that Stream:$DATA

I have finally burned a DVD successfully!! .......... and just in time to take with me when visiting relatives.

It looks great on TV. I have learned a lot, but also have more to learn. Thanks to everyone who replied, and for your help.

The main thing to remember for anyone else new to My DVD is to create each Title in Videowave and then add it to My DVD by clicking on 'Add new Movie'. Please do not try to do what I did, & create everything in My DVD. It will not work. Even if it looks good on a PC, it will not burn successfully if using many images and several audio tracks. This could have saved me hours of time & frustration.

I still have the problem of my DVD burner on my desktop not recognising blank discs again, but that is something to tackle another day.

'til the next time - best wishes to all.