SHARE LIFE WITH FRIENDS. (Photo2VCD)

Member Name: thingywhatsit

Product:	Photo2VCD
Date:	20/12/05 (302 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Super easy program functions.

Disadvantages: None whatsoever.

PHOTO2VCD

When I originally bought this program, I bought it just before Christmas, I wanted to make VCD’s for friends for presents, including some of their favourite photographs and had a hiccup with the professional version and contacted the support team who were extremely helpful and gave me a link to download the latest version of this program, with all the enhancements they had since added, and giving me a code to open the program with, having checked up that I was indeed a paying customer.

Free trial is available of this program although it is limited to just showing you how it works, and all CD's burned during the trial period have a name bar over the photographs on the VCD. For people who want to give it a try, then the trial period serves its purpose, and does give you a chance to accustom yourself with program useage.

PRICE : 39 DOLLARS 95 (£20.87 using today’s conversion rate.

WHERE TO GO TO GET THE PROGRAM ?

http://www.photo2vcd.com/
and if you would like the disc as well as the downloaded program, discs are available as an optional extra.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Windows 98 upwards
256MB of ram (minimum – recommended 512MB
Windows compatible sound and display of 800 x 600 resolution or above.
SPACE FOR PROGRAM : 100 MB of available hard disc space
CD writer

FILE FORMAT SUPPORT can be seen on their website.

WHAT DOES THE PROGRAM DO ?

In simple terms, the program enables you to gather photographs and video clips onto a CD, which can be viewed on a television, via a DVD player, and the one thing that I like here is that you only need a CD write drive as opposed to a DVD write drive. This means that you can share your holiday experiences, make a VCD of baby photographs, family albums, and generally have a wider audience for your photographs and reduce your printing costs by being able to share those memories or special photographs with people that do not possess a computer, whilst having a DVD player.

DOWNLOADING

The downloading of this program is relatively short and once downloaded and installed, you need to register with the registration number supplied in an email from the website. On a 56K connection I downloaded the program in around 20 minutes.

INSTALLATION

Installation is simple. Merely follow guidelines on the screen.

GETTING STARTED

When you open this program, there are many features, which take a little while to get accustomed to, although just by curiosity I found that the options that were available were wider than on the original Photo2VCD professional, as I will explain later.

Firstly you are greeted by a screen which asks you if you would like the program functions explained. I found this extremely useful.

The program gives you the option to add photographs and here I have found that JPEG format is the most effective. Press the add photograph button and you can browse until you find the photographs that you like. I have discovered that if I wish to include a whole file of photographs this can be done, and was irritated by my first attempts where I added one photo at a time. My shortcoming, not theirs.

HAVING ADDED PHOTOGRAPHS

There are options after having added your photographs, i.e. what kind of transition you would like and here there are many to chose from, although I found the most effective was “random” which makes viewing more interesting. There is also the addition of photo effects which is new, and which means that a photograph can be panned in and out, or zoomed either backwards or forwards and whilst this works rather well on sharp photographs, I found that on pictures that are not too good, this tends to distort the image, although really does enhance good photographs. I used the panning in and out on baby photographs, and it adds a new perspective to the VCD, whilst on VCD’s of places, I tend not to use any photograph effect and find that the photograph itself is sufficient.

You also have the option of adding text which can be useful, although I am not keen on this feature. I have used it a few times on VCD’s to explain before and after scenarios, although I prefer that the photograph speak for itself.

EDITING PHOTOS

Editing your chosen photographs is a very good feature and allows you to crop images to fit better with the VCD although the editing is limited. This is not really a photographic program and the enhancements you can make are limited to changing the colour to black and white, cropping, keeping the original aspect ratio which is important as if this option is not used, photos can become distorted to fill the TV screen and here I noticed how much weight I put on in a matter of seconds ! For photographs that are taken in portrait form and kept in original aspect ratio, there will be a backdrop and here you can chose a colour that suits the images that you are using. I found that the easiest thing with editing is that you can run through all your chosen photographs in order and decide whether their presentation is right, i.e. if pictures need rotating, whether keeping the original ratio of the picture is important, etc.

ADDING SOUND

Here, you can add either voice recordings or music to go with your VCD, and I have really had fun with this feature. I like music that flows with the pictures, and have found that the whole atmosphere of the VCD can be changed with differing types of music.

LOOPING

You have the choice of looping the VCD which means that the photographs continue to be shown and the music continues to be played until manually stopped. I believe this is a neat way to go, since on VCD’s with few photographs, it means that the length can be determined by the person viewing.

MENU DESIGNER

Here you can design the menu, which will be displayed on the television. Roxio have a menu item and it is very professional though extremely impersonal. Here, you can place a photograph in the background and make your VCD more personal, divide the VCD into chapters, or albums, and include menu buttons to access each album. There are also many templates on the net that can be downloaded directly from Photo2VCD site by means of a Download button on the Menu page of the program. The choice of templates to download is vast and very imaginative. Here too, you can chose a piece of music to go with the Menu.

PREVIEW

When you have gathered all your photographs together, edited them with the easy editing button that takes you from one image to the next, and are happy with the order of the photographs and the effects you have applied to them, you can preview what will come out on the VCD and the preview gives you a television screen that shows you exactly what you have achieved.

BURNING THE CD

Here, with a traditional CD writer, you produce a CD that can be played in a DVD player, and whilst the information is being stored on your disc, all the processes of changing the format of the photographs is shown. This means very little to me, except that at least I can see the progress. When the CD is finished, you are told that the CD has been created successfully.

HICCUPS

The only real hiccups for me are ones that you can improve yourself as a user. Adding one photograph at a time is tedious, although it does give you a chance to take a look at the photographs one at a time, and sometimes adding a whole folder has its drawbacks, as you may have to delete photographs in that folder that really do not fit. At least this way, you can see the photographs and chose, which is probably as quick as going through and deleting photographs added a folder at a time. I now prepare my file in advance and add the whole prepared folder. It is much easier.

Getting the menu to display properly was difficult to start off with, but playing around with the possibilities showed me that it is more practice than a fault of the program.

COMPARISON WITH OTHER PRODUCTS OF THIS KIND.

I have a Roxio Easy CD and DVD creator and the DVD section on the Roxio is less user friendly than this package, in that it demands that you change your desktop resolution which I actually find irritating. I also find that editing options on this program are an added plus, and that being able to create my own menus makes this program easier to personalise. Out of the two, I would chose this program as one which is stable, easy to use, and which produces stunning results. All of your photographs are stored on VCD/SVCD format.

AM I PLEASED

Yes, customer support is superb, the program makes super CD’s which make great gifts.


Rachel

Summary: A super program that has yet to be bettered by competitors.

Variety of features:
Reliability:
User friendly:
Installation:
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