Now of course I am having the same problem with a new slideshow– as well as an inability to create a DVD that will play successfully in my player. It’s only 12 minutes long (+R) but the player behaves as though there is too much data– takes forever to come up with the menu slide and then does not respond to a Play command, although if I make a test show using only 4 slides it works fine. Same problem if I try to use the Wii. How about this one??

I use a Photoshop background for “slides” that is 300dpi and 14″ W x 7.877″ H (16:9) and I use 300dpi scans and camera images sized to be in groupings on the backgrounds. The “TV Safe” margins mentioned above only have meaning to these measurements.

If your iMovie project is done in 4:3 regular TV aspect and you make your iDVD project the same, but your DVD player is set to play in 16:9 widescreen to your widescreen TV, the playback will be stretched horizontally, making everything and everybody shorter and wider. You need to do your iMovie projects in widescreen and make your DVDs, using iDVD, in widescreen also (16:9 ratio of width to height). Another factor — when I do 16:9 ratio Photoshop “slides” of photo groupings for slideshows, playback of Quick Time movies or DVDs on my computer show the full “slides”. But when the DVD is shown on a TV, the top & bottom margin 3/8″ or so and left and right margin 1/2″ or so are clipped. So the “TV Safe” area is slightly smaller than what is displayed on your computer — you need to keep your displayed images away from the margins if you make Photoshop groupings for slides. If a widescreen DVD is shown on a regular TV, it should show the same width as on a widescreen TV but have black bars above and below the image.

I loaded the slideshow jpeg images into an iPhoto Event. I then imported the images into iMovie into the edit window. I prefer doing the Ken Burns effect for individual pictures with people in them – you can control the direction of movement and the extent of zoom in/out. The default Ken Burns was satisfactory to me for most scenic images. I added the sound tracks that I wanted to go with the segments of the show and manually set fade-outs when songs are to be ended sooner than the recordings – I also used Peak LE 6 to customize clips beyond what iMovie setting could do (Garage Band can do similar things but I’ve used Peak since before Garage Band existed). I then added tabs to the spots where slideshow sub-menus were desired.

I exported the iMovie slideshow to QuickTime movies two different ways:

1 – 960×540 (Full) .mov with H.264 compression in “Best” quality. This yielded a 3.73GB movie for a slideshow that was 32 minutes.

2 – 1280×720 (HD) .mov with Photo-JPEG compression in “Best” quality. This yielded a 38.86GB movie for the 32-minute slideshow.

I then created DVDs from each QT movie. Drag the movie into the main themed window in iDVD (not into a drop zone) – the main “Play” button and any sub-menus are created. Add slide pictures to the drop zones for the menu that appears when the DVD is inserted in a player and add music for the menu. Tweak the fonts, font colors & sizes, etc. I then burn to a disk image (in “Professional Quality”) which can be used to burn as many DVDs as desired. BOTH QT movies, 3.73GB & 38.86GB, became 2.53GB disk images – after all, it is iDVDs task to get whatever input it receives to file onto a DVD (and considerable rendering is done for the sake of having a menu and being able to share as a DVD video).

Both DVDs looked good when played on my iMac monitor and both suffered some loss of sharpness when played on my TVs. Both QT movies looked great on my monitor and the 1280×7210 had the advantage of playing in a larger default size (but at a cost of the file being ten times as large).

Here’s the rub. Images going into the slideshow are different in resolution (pixel dimensions) and in quality. The export file of the slideshow (from iMovie in this case) can differ greatly in pixel dimensions, compression methods and quality settings. And there are differences in TV pixel arrays, screen sizes and DVD player sampling abilities.

Both of my DVDs played better on my regular OPPO DVD player than they did on my Panasonic Blu-Ray player. TVs can be 1280×720 widescreen, 1920×1080 widescreen and 640×480 regular TVs. Standard DVD movie resolution is 720×480.

It seems to me that both slideshows, in QT movie format, played very well on my computer and would make good slideshows from a computer to a projection screen. And both movies suffered some by playing to TVs with a DVD player – the rendering the DVD players have to do is a considerable factor in the chain of resolution-changing steps taken above. The final output is only as good as the weakest link in the steps taken. Overall, I am satisfied with the smaller QT movie – either played on my computer or used in iDVD to add menus and burn as a DVD.

And if you are editing movies from digital cameras, you have a whole different array of pixel resolutions going into the steps above and compression schemes and export video formats (.mov, .dv, etc)…

About iLife…I can make great movies in imovie, but when I burn them with iDVD the photos and movie clips all look “squished” and “squatty” on the widescreen TV. I’ve tried creating and burning them in both aspect ratios. I’ve tried adjusting my TV…can’t figure this one out. What am I doing wrong? I certainly don’t like looking fatter than I already am.

1. Imported all the images I wanted to use into iPhoto 09 and arranged them into albums.
2. Launched iMovie, started a new project and used the photo browser to access the albums I had made in iPhoto.
3. Dragged and dropped the images I wanted into iMovie. Shuffled them where required and changed their length for group shots where more viewing time would be required.
4. Added the standard cross dissolve between images. (It really is the only one you should use if you want the result to look even remotely professional.)
5. Added the Ken Burns effect – and, yes, adjusted it for each image. It really doesn’t take long and gives you full control over the start point and the end point for each image… quite important for shots with people.
6. Used the Title browser to add ‘Title,’ ‘The End,’ and various captions.
7. Used the Music browser to add background music from my iTunes library.
8. Under the menu selected ‘iDVD.’ Once the movie of the slideshow had been prepared and when instructed, inserted a blank recordable DVD and hit
9. Tested the resultant first DVD copy in a standard DVD player on a TV… AOK, so then back to the Mac and burnt a few more copies. I now have orders for several more copies which will be as easy and launching iDVD again and hitting ‘Burn’ a few more times. Too easy.

PLEASE HELP I HAVE BEEN STRUGGLING WITH THIS FOR WEEKS

When talking to Apple techs or some hotshot MAC vet, here are the typical responses I get:
“Oh, you want to do professional music, buy Logic.”

“Oh, you want to do real photo editing, you have to get photoshop or aperture”.

“Oh, you want to make a high quality slideshow with no compression, that you can play on a dvd? You, silly, you can’t do that, why on Earth would you want to do that? You, can’t do that on iphoto, idvd, or imovie, you need 3rd party software to do that”.

Switching to Apple 2 years ago has been one of the most incredibly annoying events that I have ever undergone. I hate PC and windows garbage, but when we are brainwashed with Apple phrases saying, “Apple is so easy, even a monkey can do it, etc” are complete lies.

Even down to calling Applecare is a complete waste of time. Out of the hundred times I have called trying to get some kind of assistance, there have been maybe 2 or 3 times that I have actually gotten a resolution to the problem I was calling about.

What it comes down to is, it shouldn’t require “tricks”, “hundreds of attempts”, or a freaking “blog” with a thousand other people complaining they have the same problem about something, and then Apple not having a fix for it.

If I want to burn a high quality dvd slideshow that I can play on my HDTV, am I asking to much? Should I have to research for hours and hours and hours to try and find an answer to this problem? Should it even be a problem in the first place? Why has Apple not taken care of this yet? The end results of any attempted project I have made, have been laughable.

Apple needs to fix these issues.

Just an example:

If I want to make a hi res dvd picture slideshow, there should be an option to do so. A realistic approach for solving this would be: insert dvd, drag pics onto dvd icon, then picking a resolution from a pull down tab (including HD, etc. and in real time telling you how much space you have left to add additional pics), then clicking burn. What do you think Mr. Apple?

No wonder somebody took a bite out of the Apple logo. They were so frustrated with it, they bit a chunk out of it.