Alexconstan

DaveG, Gotcha, thanks! That setup will work for me. However, my concern is with trying to produce a high-quality DVD that others (i.e., clients and/or family members) can take home and play on their setup with minimal efforts - basically providing them a DVD they can drop in their player without hooking up a PC. Maybe my expectations are too high and the PTE DVD will be acceptable to others. I used PTE for quite a while back in 2000-2002, but then started to use my DVD editing/authoring software to produce slide shows on DVD so others could watch at home on a TV. I was not very pleased with the quality of the final product then, knowing that it was rendered to AVI, but that seemed to be the best at the time. Recently, I had read several great reviews about the latest version of PTE and the quality of DVD slide shows. I had expected (hoped?) that this latest version would produce what I had been waiting for - a high-quality slide show on DVD that produced photo quality similar to what I see on my PC monitor. Although I think the DVD slideshows I produced this week with PTE are a little better in quality than that produced with Pinnacle, I am still longing for what I was originally anticipating. Not sure if there is another program out there that does this. Thanks again for your HDMI suggestion, I can definitely use that at home to review photos with clients. I just hope they do not expect the quality of the EXE show on the Sony to reproduce on a DVD. Alex

Thanks everyone for the quick help! I think Peter told me what I needed, but didn't want to hear. That is, when converting to DVD format we cannot (at least with this current technology) retain the detail and sharpness we see on our PCs with the EXE files. I am not positive, but the quality of the DVD slideshow I made with PTE may be similar to those I have made in the past with my Pinnacle Video software. This is only from memory because I was disappointed with that qulaity and I was hoping that the Pinnacle slideshows, which were converted to AVI format, could be improved with the PTE software. Just to be clear, I am not using the USB port (or any port) on my Bravia TV to show the slidesshow, I am using a high-end DVD player (I tried both upconverting and traditional DVD players). The reference I made to the USB port is that I know my Bravia TV can show incredibly sharp photos when I display the photos in JPG format from a USB memory stick (and then use the TVs internal program to sequence all the files on the USB stick in a slideshow). I realize that my expectations are likely too high for photo/video output, but is it possible in the near future to make DVD slideshows that retain the quality that I see when I view the EXE slides show? Will producing an HD DVD slideshow do this with PTE 5.5? Thanks again, Alex

Hi All, I hope you can help me with a concern I have on the sharpness of the DVD slideshows. I have successfully made PTE slideshows in EXE and DVD formats. I use Nikon dSLRs and professional grade Nikkor lenses, so my pictures are very sharp and of ample resolution. My PC monitor is a 26" wide screen LCD (NEC 2690WUXi) which is 16-bit and shows my photos beautifully. The photo quality of my PTE EXE files (in 16:10 and 4:3 formats) is absolutely stunning. However, after creating a DVD video and watching it on TV, the quality is not nearly as good as my PC monitor. My TV is pretty decent - a Sony 40" Bravia XBR LCD HDTV. When I view my photos on this HDTV monitor via a USB stick, the photos are pretty darn close in sharpness to my PC monitor. The DVD slide shows created in PTE are not nearly as sharp. I have tried 4:3 and 16:9 DVD formats, I have tried progressive and auto "video types" and think the progressive results in a slightly better quality. So here are my questions: 1) Am I doing something wrong of missing something? Or is this to be expected after converting to DVD format? 2) Not everyone who I share DVD slide shows with has a 16:9 format TV. I know that I can put 2 different slide shows into one DVD project with PTE, but in doing this can one slide show be in 16:9 format and can the other one remain in 4:3 format? That way the viewer can select his/her format from the menu screen based on the type of TV they have. Thanks very much for your help!! Alex