View Full Version : Viewing stills on TV?
Preckle
29-07-2002, 5:12 AM
Is it possible to view photographs on my TV when they have been stored on CDR / CDRW. I have a DVD/home cinema system with a lot of free input connections at the rear.
Stuart Wright
29-07-2002, 6:44 AM
Yes. If your DVD player plays Video CDs (VCDs) then you can burn your pictures onto a CD formatted as a VCD or Super VCD.
Then you just pop the burned VCD into the player and hit play. The quality on mine is surprisingly good. My photos are all 1600x1200.
Hope this helps.
Stuart could you expand a bit on this please? Like will your ordinary PC CD writer burn video CDs in a format that a DVD player (mine's a Pioneer 737) will recognise. Where do you buy writable VCDs anyway? What and where are the resolution limitations in the chain, supposing that you are starting with a high -say 5 mega pix- image? Finally should we just wait for an agreed format and cheaper DVD writers to do the job?
Don't know how you have the time to take pics with all the other stuff you do. Cheers John
The blank CDs are just regular CD-Rs.
The trick is in the CD writing software. Do do a slideshow, it is as simple as:
1) Buy or download Nero ( www.nero.com )
2) Select Video CD as your CD type
3) Drag & Drop your jpg files into the CD contents.
4) Burn the CD
5) Stick it in your DVD player. Press Step >> to go fowards, Step << to go back.
The images are converted (automatically by Nero) to a resolution of 704*576 for PAL VCDs and 704*480 for NTSC. It is meaningless to have greater resolution because neither the TV nor DVD player will handle it. This is the same resolution as moving DVD pictures. You will fit over 1,000 images onto a VCD.
Nigel you're a star. My CD creator Adaptec 5.1 Platinum doesn't seem to be able to convert Jpeg to Mpeg but downloaded Nero - as suggested - does it a treat Pics now viewable at maximum convenience and fair quality. Thanks ++ John
Duncan Harvey
06-08-2002, 3:32 PM
IIRC Nero wont let you do more than one "album" per VCD
So you are stuck with 99 or so photos.
I use Uleads DVD Picture Show which has (again IIRC) a limit of 99 albums each containing 99 pics.
I find this to be better than Nero.
Have a look at PictureToTV it lets you archive your digital photos into a VCD playable disc (CD-R or CD-RW) accompanied with cool transition effects and music.
more info here http://www.picturetotv.com
Spent the weekend trying several software packages.....
'Photos on CD and DVD' 29.99 from PC World.
AVOID....awful pic quality. Nice transition FX
'Picture to TV' from www.picturetotv.com
Better than the above, but still, pretty awful pic quality.
Again, nice transition FX
'DVD Picture Show' 19.99 from PC World (www.ulead.co.uk)
EXCELLENT, the best of the bunch. VCD pic quality looks like DVD!
Lacks the transition fx of the first two but doesn't create a movie out of the stills like the first two do. Also, much faster at encoding/burning.
To be honest the transition FX become tedious after a few minutes so you can certainly live without 'em.
Haven't tried Nero 5 or any of the usual CD Burner packages.
Do any of the packages allow you to make 'albums' so that you can skip say from photo's of one day out to another day out, but without having to skip through all photos in the first album. I guess the same idea as a DVD with menus?
Just bought a Fuji 2800 Zoom which is superb, and would rather distribute photos to family on CD than have them printed!
Yes, usually they allow for 99 albums, but this will depend on the amount of photos and the limitations of disk space on a CDR.
Xusia Of Delos
28-08-2002, 12:56 PM
Excellent recommendation Kevo. I downloaded the evaluation version of "Ulead DVD Pictureshow" and was so impressed with the ease of the whole proceedings, have purchased the full product.
Also played with Ulead DVD Picture Show now and recommend it. After just 5 mins I had created VCD's to distribute to family with music, captions, albums and various time delays to escort photo's. Some of family are now converting to digital photography based on what I have done in that 5 mins!