I’m fairly new to this software but have created my first slideshow which I think looks pretty darn good. I downloaded the new 5.4 version since the old version wouldn’t open anymore. My problem is in sharing. I want to give copies of this to friends to view in the comfort of their home. My first thought was to use the Standalone option. Most are probably not on a Mac so I figured this would be the choice. I went through the menu choices it to burn a DVD. Everything seemed to work fine. When I got home I tried to open it from my Xbox. Said I needed to update before it would play. Then tried my DVD player and after spinning for a long time the little window said Data something and would not play. Then I put the DVD into my Mac laptop. It started up full screen like it should but only played the first bit of video I’d placed as an intro. Then it just remained blank.
Now I’d think burning a standalone version should play for anyone right? Am I missing something? Is it time to try tech support?
The Standalone Player actually is a Mac-only application that plays back your slideshow in full resolution and at full frame rate giving you the best playback experience. But because this player is an application and only runs on a Mac you rather need to create a movie file which can be burned as a video DVD by 3rd party applications like iDVD or Roxio Toast. Please take in account that videos on DVDs are of poor image quality compared to what you see on your computer screen when running the show in FotoMagico.
If Standalone player is a Mac only app then you’re limiting your audience quite a bit. Also if burning to DVD lessens the quality of the slideshow what is the point of this software? I bought this thinking I could create a good slideshow to share with anyone in good quality. Apparently I should have done more research when choosing a slideshow creator.
The best way to share a slideshow is to upload it to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo or other video platform. There are a couple of advantages to this:
You can upload a 4K slideshow in the best possible quality and the platform will take care of making sure you can play it on a device with lower resolution
It can be played on almost any modern device, including smart phones, smart TVs and computers of any flavor
The operator of the platform makes sure that your friends can view the slideshow and you have to do less troubleshooting for people who can’t play the slideshow
You can’t loose the storage device and it doesn’t take up space on your device
You can send your slideshow around by email or text message
If for any reason you want to send it to friends or family without access to YouTube, Facebook or Vimeo, you can render a video file in high quality and copy it to a USB stick to send them.
We do not recommend DVDs any more due to the complicated nature of figuring out how to properly create them and the low quality of the video. Also, most new computers do not even have a DVD drive any more.
@geo The Stand Alone Player (FotoMagico Pro only) is an unique feature that allows you to create a real Mac app that plays back this very slideshow. You can just copy this Stand Alone Player to another Mac and it will play back there. (I recommend to make a “.zip” archive first before transferring it!) The benefits are that you will get the highest resolution possible (original image files and movies are used for the playback) at the full speed of 60 frames per second required by the computer screen. An exported movie file just can transport the resolution and frames you specified when exporting. The downside of a Stand Alone player is that it only runs on a Mac.
Read more about the Stand Alone Player in the online documentation here: