Just wondering if any of you archive your photos onto DVD in a format that has enough quality to watch on your HDTV. I have a ton of family slides going back to the 50's that I want to archive, so I picked up a Nikon film scanner that can do 4000 pixels. I guess I'll need to get some software that converts jpg or tiff files into DVD video, but I'm totally new to this. There appears to be a bunch of programs available for burning a DVD slide show, but none of them mention the quality you'll get in a large screen application. I have a 65" RPTV, and I'd like the images to look as crisp as possible. Any thoughts or suggestions?
Thanks,
Ken
Photo Archiving on DVD
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MadeInAlaska
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donshan
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I have transferred a number of digitized photos made with a Nikon slide scanner into video burned onto DVD. I use them as still frames mixed in with the video and struggle to keep quality up. Invariably a lot of quality is lost. Among the problems is you can start with an excellent high pixel count computer file of your photo, but creating a MPEG file for a video DVD loses pixels due to compression designed into the DVD system. This shows up most often to me as loss of shadow detail- shadows just go all black. Still pictures displayed on any TV have to have a nominal 30 frames per second. If you want your picture to show for 10 seconds about 300 copies of the same picture are burned onto the DVD.
The fact that you want to display on an HDTV does not get you much since the DVD video standard is a SDTV video format. This is typically equal to a 640x480 pixel still photo. Starting with more pixels in your still will either result in automatic downsizing or may choke the software creating the DVD.
Once true HD DVD burners become available better resolution will be available.
If you mean storing still pictures in a COMPUTER file format on a computer readable DVD, and then using a high quality computer screen projector with software like PowerPoint, I have seen some good slide shows. If you become proficient in the use of Photoshop to adjust contrast, saturation, and levels on the picture file results can be terrific. Quality again suffers from using too much jpeg file compression.
However good projectors are pretty expensive. I have seen some projectors that do double duty- both computer display and TV display. I have seen a couple of cheap ones that were at our church that were very poor picture quality. I am sure if you spend enough you can get a good projector. They are extensively used in business conference rooms, churches and auditoriums today. But this is not your regular HDTV set with a 480p DVD video player.
The fact that you want to display on an HDTV does not get you much since the DVD video standard is a SDTV video format. This is typically equal to a 640x480 pixel still photo. Starting with more pixels in your still will either result in automatic downsizing or may choke the software creating the DVD.
Once true HD DVD burners become available better resolution will be available.
If you mean storing still pictures in a COMPUTER file format on a computer readable DVD, and then using a high quality computer screen projector with software like PowerPoint, I have seen some good slide shows. If you become proficient in the use of Photoshop to adjust contrast, saturation, and levels on the picture file results can be terrific. Quality again suffers from using too much jpeg file compression.
However good projectors are pretty expensive. I have seen some projectors that do double duty- both computer display and TV display. I have seen a couple of cheap ones that were at our church that were very poor picture quality. I am sure if you spend enough you can get a good projector. They are extensively used in business conference rooms, churches and auditoriums today. But this is not your regular HDTV set with a 480p DVD video player.
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MadeInAlaska
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Thanks for the info Don. You're right, DVD is 480p at best, not HD. I was hoping, though, that the photos could look as nice as some movies do on progressive scan. To clarify, I do want to archive the pics for preservation, but I also want to display them on my tv, and my families tv's which are not HD at the present.
From what I can gather there are two ways to display the pics on tv. First, you can create a "movie" made up of stills. I hadn't thought of that, but I suppose you're right, 300 times for ten seconds. The problem I have with this method is the quality loss from compression you mentioned, plus knowing which format to burn in. There's DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, and DVD-ROM. My DVD player will only accept DVD+R, which isn't really standard from what I can gather. If I can I'd like to be able to burn these pics for my use and send them to family, but the formats don't seem to be settled yet.
Second, I've read that some DVD players will display picture files (jpg's) on cd or dvd, but some of them put a cap on maximum pixel size. After scanning my slides are approximately 3900 x 5800 which should look awesome if they aren't compressed. I'd be willing to buy a new DVD player with picture viewing capability if it gives good results, but it would be nice to hear of someone's experience.
Maybe you're right, maybe I should wait for HD DVD.
Thanks again for any comments or thoughts.
Ken
From what I can gather there are two ways to display the pics on tv. First, you can create a "movie" made up of stills. I hadn't thought of that, but I suppose you're right, 300 times for ten seconds. The problem I have with this method is the quality loss from compression you mentioned, plus knowing which format to burn in. There's DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, and DVD-ROM. My DVD player will only accept DVD+R, which isn't really standard from what I can gather. If I can I'd like to be able to burn these pics for my use and send them to family, but the formats don't seem to be settled yet.
Second, I've read that some DVD players will display picture files (jpg's) on cd or dvd, but some of them put a cap on maximum pixel size. After scanning my slides are approximately 3900 x 5800 which should look awesome if they aren't compressed. I'd be willing to buy a new DVD player with picture viewing capability if it gives good results, but it would be nice to hear of someone's experience.
Maybe you're right, maybe I should wait for HD DVD.
Thanks again for any comments or thoughts.
Ken
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chuckken
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MadeInAlaska...look into the LiteOn LVW-5005 dvd recorder. It uses every format [DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, CD-R, CD-RW] as well as JPEG/MP3 and has cool menu editing capability. I just watched our Halloween party (digital camera to CD-R disk) on my 65" Display. They also have the new LVW-5006 out at radio shack...It's the same unit with an added 3 hr recording mode.
Happiness is a state of mind, not a place of existence.
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MadeInAlaska
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donshan
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Chuckken made a good suggestion I was not familiar with. Since I don't have one of these new DVD players I may go beyond my knowledge here, but a few thoughts.
I should be possible to design a DVD player with internal hardware to read jpeg files and display them as a "freeze frame", syncing to the monitor at the required 29.97 frames per second. This might still limit to a 640x 480 pixel resolution. However if they could provide circuits to sync to an HDTV display the 720p frame is 1280 x 720 pixels and the 1080 i and p frames are 1920x 1080 pixels. Still a lot less than the 4000 pixel resolution on some scanners, but pretty good.
Check it out and let us knnow.
I should be possible to design a DVD player with internal hardware to read jpeg files and display them as a "freeze frame", syncing to the monitor at the required 29.97 frames per second. This might still limit to a 640x 480 pixel resolution. However if they could provide circuits to sync to an HDTV display the 720p frame is 1280 x 720 pixels and the 1080 i and p frames are 1920x 1080 pixels. Still a lot less than the 4000 pixel resolution on some scanners, but pretty good.
Check it out and let us knnow.
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chuckken
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Ken...yes, they are JPEGS...I was astounded at the clarity of the pictures on my 65" display. My wife and I were looking at them on our computer and all of a sudden I remembered that the LiteOn has JPEG capibility so I put the disc into the LiteOn and fired up the 65" Tosh and Man!... looked good!MadeInAlaska wrote:Thanks for the tip on the LiteOn ChuckKen, I'll look into it. Just out of curiosity, what file type are you using on your CD-R? Are they JPG's?
Thanks!
Ken
Happiness is a state of mind, not a place of existence.
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MadeInAlaska
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Cool! That's what I wanted to hear! Anyway I'm still exploring this, and I'll bet I'm not the only one who is. Why drag out an old slide projector and screen when you've got a 65" HD RPTV sitting there?
It looks like Samsung has a new version of its upconvert DVD player coming soon (941?) and I think it's going to play all sorts of formats, including TIFF files. That would be good I think, because there's no compression in the TIFF format like there is in JPEG. Still, I suppose the DVD player is going to perform it's own compression, but I'm not certain if that's true or how it works.
It's been frustrating to research this, because there's not much info available. I suppose that will change, and already is judging by the capabilities of the new DVD players.
Thanks again for your comments!
It looks like Samsung has a new version of its upconvert DVD player coming soon (941?) and I think it's going to play all sorts of formats, including TIFF files. That would be good I think, because there's no compression in the TIFF format like there is in JPEG. Still, I suppose the DVD player is going to perform it's own compression, but I'm not certain if that's true or how it works.
It's been frustrating to research this, because there's not much info available. I suppose that will change, and already is judging by the capabilities of the new DVD players.
Thanks again for your comments!
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chuckken
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MadeInAlaska...No problem, the unit was recommended to me on this very forum...below is a link to where I bought mine...(there are some specs to check out)...They have very excellent service. I ordered it on wed and it was at my door Sat...(standard ground shipping).
http://www.compuadds.com/product.asp?prodcode=D-LVW5005
http://www.compuadds.com/product.asp?prodcode=D-LVW5005
Happiness is a state of mind, not a place of existence.
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jcousins
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Viewing pictures on HDTV
MadeInAlaska: Another option for you to consider. I have a laptop and have connected my HDTV as an external monitor. I can use any slideshow package on my laptop (Media Center, MS Picture Manager, etc) and the pictures display as crisp as ever on the HDTV. If you have Photoshop (or equivalent) and create 1920x1080 versions of your pictures, you will have an awesome, full screen slideshow setup! 