3D-Album Home

[Frogprintz]

THE FOLLOWING WAS A RESPONSE TO A USER ABOUT THE AUTHORING PROCESS. PERHAPS YOU WILL FIND IT USEFUL.

"As you have discovered, when placing your still pictures into 3D Album, the program blends your pictures into a specific style. However, at this point your album is not a video (in the real sense). You can build and play it as either an html, screensaver, email attachment, or album presentation.

If you wish to save your album to a CD you can do so, but you will need a CD burner and CD burning software to make the CD. Keep in mind that at this stage it is still just a PC presentation and will only play back on your PC.

If you wish to view your album on a TV rather than a PC, you will have to build and Capture your album as a video. This is the purpose of the capture feature. When choosing your video capture settings, you have a choice. I will not explain them all, but here is a brief overview of the most popular formats for U.S. usage:

.wmv - This is a Microsoft format. It is highly compressed in order to reduce overall file size. Compression also reduces quality. This is why larger screen sizes (such as 640 X 480 or larger), look so bad. It is used primairily for website viewing and looks best @ the smaller screen size of 320 X 240. Anything above 320 X 240 will typically look very muddy. You see this format widely used in the Gallery. This format can be burned to a CD but only played back on a PC. MS Media Player is usually the default playback program. You cannot use this format for TV playback.

VCD - This MPEG 1 format can be captured to a CD and used for TV playback through some DVD players. However, VCD's are also highly compressed and typically look rather poor when played back on a TV. Not all DVD players are able to read VCD's. You must check your DVD player specifications to see if it will do so. Even then, other factors can prevent successful playback.

SVCD - This MPEG 2 format provides better quality than VCD (it is not compressed as highly as VCD), but the same playback restrictions apply.

MPEG 2 / DVD NTSC - These formats provide the best quality for TV playback. The file sizes are larger , the video more clear, and the audio better.

Now here is where it can get a bit confusing. After using the 3D Album capture step to convert your album to either a VCD, SVCD, MPEG 1, MPEG 2, or DVD NTSC, you must prepare the blank CD Media (for VCD/SVCD only), or blank DVD Media for playback on your TV through your DVD player. This is what the Authoring process does. Authoring makes your blank CD or DVD disk readable by the DVD player. It also enables you to create a Menu of video clip selections that your audience can choose from. In this sense, it is just like the menu selections you see when you rent a commercial DVD. If you do not author your VCD/SVCD/DVD, it will not play. This is a must do step.

Note: The following is not an endorsement of any particular product. All references are simply used as an example.

3D Album has not bundled Authoring software with it's package. You must acquire this software separately. This is true for all versions, including CS. Sonic's MYDVD is one such authoring application. There are others as well. They range in price from $30 to $1000 for highly sophisticated commercial applications. $30 to $50 is average and very suitable for most people.

Many prefer to use separate applications for their video creations. This includes authoring and editing both video and audio. One can better control their preferences this way. However, some software developers who have created All-in-One applications that include both editing and authoring. Roxio's Easy Media Creator 7 is one such application. It enables you to edit, author, burn and label your CD/VCD/SVCD/DVD's. The advantage of a bundle, is price. If you were to buy separate applications, such as Ulead Video Studio 8, an audio editor, Sonic's MYDVD, CD/DVD burning software, and a Labeling package, you would get better control over the creation process, but the overall cost and learning curve would be higher. For those individuals on a budget and with limited PC skills, the Roxio package is a very good compromise."
_________________
Michael Young
FrogPrintz Productions
Authorized Resellers of 3D Album

[coolpop22]

I try to be careful about putting anything - text or pics- too close to the edge of the display when compiling the album. I have had problems, as others have, that there is a certain amount of cropping that occurs by the time it is authored and viewed on TV. There was even some talk here a couple of revisions ago (CS Version) about incorporating a frame indicator in the styles that would help identify the potential cropping during assembly of the album. Does anyone know if this is still a feature to come?

[sherabby]

I have been experimenting with the 3-d software and have created a few presentations. Would love to get it to dvd to display at my son's 5th b-day party but cannot figure out how to get the file saved to a dvd.
I have both a cd burner and a dvd burner and I do have the roxio's latest version.

I am pretty new to both softwares though and have not had a chance to read up on them and mostly have just been playing around with them and learning that way.

Does anyone know anyway to get my production from the 3-d album to dvd through roxio?
Does 3D Album offer an upgraded software that allows you to burn to dvd that I can purchase?

[Bill Smith]

The version of 3D-Album that you already own contains the CAPTURE feature. With it, you can burn to a DVD that will play on your TV. There are two tutorials that will help you:

How to Burn/Create DVD: http://www.3d-album.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=549

Using DVD Builder in Roxio Easy CD Creator: http://www.3d-album.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=885
Provided by Styler.

If you haven't already done so, update to the latest release.

[Misha]

Hi. I have a few questions:

1. Is it possible to remove 3D-Album logo when creating a DVD movie? (I have 3d-Album picture pro platinum)
2. Which program should I use to burn ready-made albums to a DVD?
I didn't find this operation in the 3d-Album interface.
3. Also, when capturing my album, how many frames should I set,
because when I do not set a frame amount the movie repeats endlessly. I am not sure of the proper frame rate/number.

[Bill Smith]

Misha,

You might want to start with my first tutorial - How to Create Your First Album: http://www.3d-album.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=567.

It talks about setting your albums so that they don't repeat over and over again (which you've already noticed is a problem for converting to video file). The easiest thing is to just go back and change your albums, to set them to play only once. If you have to use the STOP and START FRAME numbers, then you'll want to set the START FRAME to zero. The STOP FRAME will need to set, and then adjusted. You start with the FPS (frames per second) used by your CAPTURE settings and mulitply it by the approximate number of seconds that your album runs, and then you see how it did, and either add or subtract to get it where you want. The other approach is to set the STOP FRAME to zero and then watch the process, and click the stop button when the album finishes and before it starts to play over again.

The second tutorial, mentioned in my posting above, talks about removing the logo, and tells you about using 3rd party tools for DVD authoring.

[CJ_96601]

For better result, output your project as an AVI (DV AVI) instead of MPEG 2. then use your authoring software (mine is APPro) and or any of your converter to convert your AVI to MPEG2 in preparation for DVD authoring.

[Bill Smith]

Yes - DV-AVI is probably better then DVD-NTSC (which is MPEG-2). But, whether you want to create a DV-AVI video file or a DVD-NTSC video file you have to use the CAPTURE feature to do it. Then you can take whichever video file you create and use it as input in a 3rd party DVD authoring program.
_________________
Bill

HOW TO: www.northwestpages.com/3dalbum_tutorial/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/northwestpages
Facebook: www.facebook.com/NWpages