Difficulty Transferring Fotomagico DVD Disc to TV

I have prepared an outstanding dvd disc for my son’s birthday complete with pictures and audio. Saved the program under my documents and then burned a disc, which plays well on my Mac but not my HD TV. I have tried all the setting options thinking one would be the key to playing with my blue ray player and tv. So far, I have had no luck and the folks on the support team haven’t figured it out as yet either. Anyone have a solution for me? Thanks in advance for your assistance.

I as well am muddling through trying to find the best settings to burn to DVD so it plays on a widescreen tv without too much blur/jerkiness etc. I did find in the documentation that was somewhat helpful. Have not tried the steps yet.
http://boinx.com/fotomagico/support/tutorials/dvdtutorial/#dvd_creation

Oedog: Thanks for the tip. I hadn’t seen the explaination and will review it tomorrow. Hope it helps because I’ve tried everything the support staff has given me.

Please note that this tutorial is out of date but still have some useful tips in it. Read the section “0. About Quality” and “1. Basics” of this page too!

Hi Achim,
Yes the documentation is somewhat out of date but still relevant.

So in reading and trying all the different methods in the documentation particularly Section 0 which states:

'Q: I have completed my first slideshow. What settings do I have to use to create a DVD at the highest quality possible?

This is by far the most frequent support request regarding FotoMagico. What users really mean to ask is this: “How do I get the quality I see with FotoMagico to a DVD to be presented on a DVD player and TV set?” Well - you can’t. No kidding. It’s technically impossible. It would be like playing a classical symphony at Dolby Digital® surround sound quality over a telephone and expect the person on the other end of the line to hear the same as you’re hearing. It simply doesn’t work.

But - you still have a number of acceptable options to share your slideshow with audiences who don’t have a Macintosh with FotoMagico installed on it. On the following pages, we’ll show you how to accomplish that and what settings to use for the different options in order to get the best possible quality. Exporting slideshows is a highly complex subject with quite a few pitfalls. Wrong expectations often lead to disappointment about the resulting export quality. Understanding the basics helps you to avoid these disappointment due to wrong expectations. Please read all paragraphs carefully to make sure you understand the details correctly.

Note: If you need maximum quality for your FotoMagico slideshow there is only one way: Doing a live presentation with FotoMagico on a reasonably powerful Macintosh with a good graphics card. ’

So this is disappointing. My client is looking for high quality DVDs to hand out to potential members to their golf and country club that I took the photos for and put together with FotoMagico.

I use a 12.3mp camera. What size image should be loaded into Fotomagico is my first question? I loaded some where I receive an exclamation mark saying that the image is too large. Is there a rule of thumb as to the size of image that is optimal for FM?

I have tried some of the tips set-out in the documentation i.e. 30fps, tried setting HD 720 and HD 1080 in Slideshow/Settings and then similarly when generating the HD movie. Setting Framerate at 30fps making the assumption that it will be played on a HDTV. Checking ‘Motion Blur’ etc. Still when burned NTSC (i’m in the u.s.) to DVD - terrible quality (using Toast Titanium 10).

My next step is to put the .mov file on a data dvd and attempt to burn to DVD using Adobe Premiere Elements, or maybe get someone with Final Cut Pro to do it for me. Has anyone else tried this?

I share your disappointment. I put together a 200 plus slide show with audio that I wanted to give to my son for his birthday. After I experienced problems burning a dvd that would work on the tv, the Fotomagico support suggested the option of starting a new presentation on IDVD, which I think is an Apple product. I would have started with IDVD and never bought Fotomagico if I thought it wouldn’t transfer for TV. I just wasted about a week’s worth of time.

@oedog: Image size: It is depending on how many pixels you are going to use in the slide show. If you want to show it on a large computer display with huge resolution you should use the original files. the exclamation mark means that it will take some time to load those big images into the graphicscard and therefore you can’t have slides with short display duration time. If you showing the images for a longer period it should work anyways.

Export: The problem with NTSC/PAL-DVDs is that they are by definition poor quality standard compared to what you usually get, when watching HDTV. Thats because NTSC has got 0.3 mPixels in resolution (640x480 pixels). If you export HD720 in FotoMagico it get converted down to NTSC by Toast or iDVD if you create a NTSC project there.

It is a total different story when you have the ability to burn a blue ray disc where you can have HD720 which have 0.9 mPixels or HD1080 with 2 mPixels.

On the other hand: You can create a data disc (which usually can’t be played in a DVD player) where you can burn your slideshow in HD1080 as a movie file and hand this to your friends. They will be able to watch your slideshow in high quality on any PC when the used video codec is installed.

@Stosh: iDVD don’t have all the features FotoMagico provides to generate a pro looking slideshow. I suggest to export an HD movie file and burn it to a data disc.

I went over to a local Apple store and they were able to burn a disc, from the program I had created that will play on my tv. I even was able to burn a disc at high quality (didn’t think it would fit on one disc). I will say that the photo quality stretched on a 42-46 inch hd tv is not as good as my 27" Mac (not sure about the size but it is desktop). Very pleased. It can be done!