Allowing Manual Transition in DVD

[rdomaschuk]

Hi everyone,

I tried searching but, I suspect, because I am new to the software I am not using the right terminology in the search...

Anyway, I just started using PicturesToExe to create slideshows and am really enjoying it. However, I think I may have out-smarted myself and was hoping that someone could help answer a question:

I decided to try adding my price list to the client's DVD so that, when clients finished watching the gallery, they could immediately refer to the prices of albums, prints, etc. I took my album price list, which is in PDF format, and created a separate JPG for each page and created a new slideshow for it. I set the slideshow to not automatically play the slideshow but, instead, require the viewer to click a button or key to move forward.

During the preview, it behaved the way I wanted it to.

The problem arose when I burned the DVD. I slid the DVD into the player, everything pulled up on my TV, and the gallery itself played fine. But, each page of the price list only showed for about 4 seconds before automatically flipping to the next slide/page. I can set a different rate for the slide to change, but I want the viewer to have to manually go to the next page/slide.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much and Happy Friday!

Rob

[Lin Evans]

Hi Rob,

I'm afraid you've run afoul of the issues of a "smart" machine (computer) and "dumb" machine (DVD Player). Executable files can be very interactive in that you have controls such as the keyboard and mouse which send "interrupts" to the operating system which can turn on and off various functions in real time.

DVD's and CD's have very little interactive capabilities, primarily because they are "canned" programs. Even when you use a computer and attached DVD player to play a DVD, you can't just send an interrupt via this "canned" type program which will control actions.

The bottom line is that if you want to furnish the code to your clients via DVD, to play on a computer, then you don't want to actually create a DVD show, but rather copy the executable show to the DVD and either play it via the "autorun.inf" file or better yet a batch file to copy the slideshow to the user's hard drive and run it from there. This way your client will have complete control over the slideshow via the navigation bar, etc.

Unfortunately, there is no way to really control a DVD slideshow which is really nothing more than an executable slideshow converted to a video. So just use some software such as "Copy To DVD" to copy your executable slideshow to DVD or CD media where it can be run as an executable program.

Best regards,

Lin