I'm working with a musician to put together a DVD of my images and his surround sound music for home theaters. Since it is so expensive to do Blu-Ray disks for HDTV we are aiming at the standard widescreen TVs, hoping to hit a larger market. I also want to do one for standard TVs as well. I know nothing this area and need some help figuring out what size and resolution I should prepare my images to. Someone told me that for the widescreen version I should prepare the photos at 853x480 pixels at 72ppi, but that seems far too small. Any thoughts or suggestions?
Erik, if you're a Mac user, take a look at Fotomagico. The software can lead you through putting a complete DVD together for standard screens and HDTV, and the company also offers a Blu-Ray service (see here).
Erik - Most HDTVs 42" or larger, and some of those smaller, these days have a resolution of 1920x1080. The other possibility would be 1280x720, but that's less popular except on smaller sets. The actual screen resolution may vary, depending on technology, but these are resolutions that will be supported as an input.
Given that though, I think Guy's idea of using some sort of DVD production software is a good one.
(As an aside, note that the ppi is totally meaningless - the pixels are all that matter. A 42" TV and 60" TV will typically have the same resolution, so the ppi doesn't mean anything. ppi and dpi are meaningless in just about every usage, except for printing.)
Erik,
I have not yet done a blu-ray DVD, but have shot things in HD (1920x1080), edited in HD and then when I render the movie I can choose the resolution. This way I have the original in HD and if in a year the price of the blu-ray comes down and more people are using it, then all I have to do is re-render the movie at this higher resolution. Also, if you are going to do any zooming or panning of your images, they need to be a little larger so the cropped image is still HD quality. I would probably pick the longest side of any picture and make it anywhere from 2000 to 2500 pixels. If you choose to edit in standard Def., I usually make the longest side 1200 pixels. This gives me lots of room to zoom or pan.
Posted by Jim Sabiston on June 9, 2008 at 10:44 PM
Erik,
I've done some video work of my photos set to music for slide presentations and also for circulation among friends and family. I have spoken to my favorite artist (Robert Fripp) for rights to use his Soundscapes as background music for saleable versions, but I have not pursued this too aggressively yet.
One big reason is the 'in-between' tech spot we have been in for the last couple of years. HD (Blue-Ray will become the de-facto standard apparently, but is a long way from being common yet) leaves us in an awkward spot. Most dvd recording tech is just catching up to the new hd formats, but the people who own players are relatively few. Standard resolution is easier, more common and less expensive, but the quality of the image suffers badly, especially after you seen the results in hd format. It is hard to go back!
My solution is to make standard format dvds for my friends, most of whom have not seen hd yet (but this is changing rapidly) and hd files for playing on a computer. Warning: Even some computers struggle with the cpu load of processing the hd video files. I tried to play a 10 minute presentation hd video on my work computer and totally flattened it! It never made it to the first frame and it choked. My solution is to play the hd on my newer, more capable computer. If I want a picture screen , I use the pc option on my 40" lcd set via the computers video connection and WOW! That works very well, but is more trouble than a dvd (but the results are worth it!). I probably won't get serious about the general marketing until the hd players are more common.
I use Adobe Premier Pro editing software and really like it. One of the (many) nice features is that I can set up a slide sequence, add and edit music and high quality special effects and then save the file. I can then open the file and record to whatever format I happen to need at the moment. I use Nero for burning the dvds. I've used several programs in the past and the Premier Pro/Nero 8 combination is the only combination that has given me 100% reliable results avery time. It is not the least expensive route, but I lost many hours to cheaper programs crashing during a compile and burn run. As the video processing is massively cpu intensive and as a result very slow, a failed burn run can be supremely frustrating.
Nero currently offers a Blue Ray burn option, but you will need a compatible burner to go with it. I've used neither and can't comment on this part. I was hoping HD would win over Blue-Ray! Can't win 'em all.
Discussion
5 repliesGuy
Given that though, I think Guy's idea of using some sort of DVD production software is a good one.
(As an aside, note that the ppi is totally meaningless - the pixels are all that matter. A 42" TV and 60" TV will typically have the same resolution, so the ppi doesn't mean anything. ppi and dpi are meaningless in just about every usage, except for printing.)
I have not yet done a blu-ray DVD, but have shot things in HD (1920x1080), edited in HD and then when I render the movie I can choose the resolution. This way I have the original in HD and if in a year the price of the blu-ray comes down and more people are using it, then all I have to do is re-render the movie at this higher resolution. Also, if you are going to do any zooming or panning of your images, they need to be a little larger so the cropped image is still HD quality. I would probably pick the longest side of any picture and make it anywhere from 2000 to 2500 pixels. If you choose to edit in standard Def., I usually make the longest side 1200 pixels. This gives me lots of room to zoom or pan.
I've done some video work of my photos set to music for slide presentations and also for circulation among friends and family. I have spoken to my favorite artist (Robert Fripp) for rights to use his Soundscapes as background music for saleable versions, but I have not pursued this too aggressively yet.
One big reason is the 'in-between' tech spot we have been in for the last couple of years. HD (Blue-Ray will become the de-facto standard apparently, but is a long way from being common yet) leaves us in an awkward spot. Most dvd recording tech is just catching up to the new hd formats, but the people who own players are relatively few. Standard resolution is easier, more common and less expensive, but the quality of the image suffers badly, especially after you seen the results in hd format. It is hard to go back!
My solution is to make standard format dvds for my friends, most of whom have not seen hd yet (but this is changing rapidly) and hd files for playing on a computer. Warning: Even some computers struggle with the cpu load of processing the hd video files. I tried to play a 10 minute presentation hd video on my work computer and totally flattened it! It never made it to the first frame and it choked. My solution is to play the hd on my newer, more capable computer. If I want a picture screen , I use the pc option on my 40" lcd set via the computers video connection and WOW! That works very well, but is more trouble than a dvd (but the results are worth it!). I probably won't get serious about the general marketing until the hd players are more common.
I use Adobe Premier Pro editing software and really like it. One of the (many) nice features is that I can set up a slide sequence, add and edit music and high quality special effects and then save the file. I can then open the file and record to whatever format I happen to need at the moment. I use Nero for burning the dvds. I've used several programs in the past and the Premier Pro/Nero 8 combination is the only combination that has given me 100% reliable results avery time. It is not the least expensive route, but I lost many hours to cheaper programs crashing during a compile and burn run. As the video processing is massively cpu intensive and as a result very slow, a failed burn run can be supremely frustrating.
Nero currently offers a Blue Ray burn option, but you will need a compatible burner to go with it. I've used neither and can't comment on this part. I was hoping HD would win over Blue-Ray! Can't win 'em all.
Good luck with the project.