Created SlideShow Video Wont Play On DVRs

[Lacene]

Hello all, this is my 1st post. I've searched under both "Project Creator" and "slideshow" and haven't found any threads that addresses my issue, so sorry if this is a question already dealt with.

I have PSP X3...we are having a family reunion, and decided to create a DVD slideshow of past and present family members to show on a TV screen. The idea was to use a DVD player to play the slideshow, and hopefully be able to give out DVDs of the slideshow to family members at the reunion.

We have been able to create the slideshows using Project Creator: the slideshow consists of typical jpg files scanned using a typical scanner/printer of old photographs. The slideshow is a default .AVI container, which all 3 DVD players we have tried to use state they support AVI. However, none of the DVD players have been able to play the slideshow, saying "disc error", or "disc is not compatible for playing or recording".

My question is, do we need to use the actual Corel PSP X3 program, in order to make the slideshow work? We are able to connect a laptop to a widescreen TV for showing at the reunion, but this would kill our ability to hand out DVDs of the slideshow to family members, as they would 1) need a PC, and 2) need Corel PSP X3 in order to make the slideshow play.

Has anyone else stumbled into this problem? Surely there should be a way to make the video play for typical DVD player support. We have used a Sony, Panasonic, and a Memorex DVD player, with the 1st two options being fairly new, DVR devices. Any help is greatly appreciated.....

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums,

I'm going to guess that your DVD players will play "avi" containers using the DivX codec. There are DVD players that can play what's called DivX Discs, which are not standard DVD video discs. In fact I think the file should have the *.divx extension. AVI is a container, or wrapper, that holds anyone of over 800 different video formats, ie; codecs, used to compress and decompress the files.

Most stand-alone DVD players must use the ISO 9660 standard, which is the root of the disc must have a VIDEO_TS folder, that contains your video files (MPEG-2), wrapped in a *.vob container file. There should also be *.ifo (info file for menu navigation, subtitles, ect. ), and *.bup (a back-up file for the *.ifo, should it become corrupt and unreadable by the player).

Project Creator is a joke. It seems that Corel has released a few of them recently. If you want to create a DVD then use a program meant for that. PSP is a photo editing/manipulation program. There's plenty of programs around for creating video DVDs, and you could even use what's provided in Windows.

If you have a DVD player that will read "avi" files I'm also guessing that you could just burn your photos onto a DVD data disc, which is noting more than a backup disc. Pop the disc into your DVD, and so long as your photos are what the player supports, which is most likely JPEG, then it will play them as a slide-show.

Corel has VideoStudio where you can produce some pretty impressive slideshows. Proshow Gold, is suppose to be about one of the better, affordable programs that is good at producing photo slideshows.

[df]

I agree, Project Creator is a joke and a waste of hard disk space. Windows Movie Maker Live is better, Windows Media Maker XP blows it out of the water. And it's free to anyone who wants to download it.

[Lacene]

Thanks for the replies. We ultimately turned to the Movie Maker Live program that was pre-installed on our PC to edit our photo scans, downloaded to a DVD, and let the DVD player play the slideshow, as you suggested above. We have uninstalled PSP X3 from our PC and returned it to the store for a refund. Thanks again....