Nerovision7..VCD's Bad quality

[rivrbyte]

Hiyall!
I have a 1.2 GHz AMD processor with 256 SdRam ,WindowsXP Home(sp2) Nvidia Geforce MX 4000 as a AGP card. using NERO Ultra 7 software. I wanted to make a Video CD (VCD) Slide show using Nerovision4, about 75 .Jpgs and a few mp3 songs as some background music.

I also used the 800x600 medium 16 Bit display it said worked best. Is it the 4:3 ratio? Can I change it to make it look better? Video mode-NTSC.

When I replayed it back on my DVD player,it was the most terrible quality ever..the music sounded great,bit the pictures looked distorted and kind of broken up. Was it because the proceesor is too slow,the AGP is not very fast,the 256 memory,or all the above?

Eventually I want to get a faster processor and at least 2 giggys of Ram,and a current AGP card or express when I can afford a new computer,but am I stuck with this poor quality of VCD's for now with what I have?

What would be the ideal set up for me to think about,since when I do get new stuff, I want to be able to transfer old Analog (vhs)Camcorder tapes to a DVD with the best (analog) possible. There are Camcorder to DVD plug in cords to transfer,but are they as good as the Bigger software Video Editing products? Thanks for answering my myriad of questions.

[General Winters]

Several things to consider re VCD (ntsc)

Video quality is very low, 352 x 240 pixels

Still picture resolution is not a lot better, 704x480 or 352x240

I don't have Nero 7 to test it out , but you may want to convert any pictures you have to the correct resolution yourself , using whatever photo editor you normally use, instead of letting Nero do it by itself.

Good quality high resolution images are going to look poor converted to such a low rez, but at least converting them yourself, means you can make sure any pictures are cropped/adjusted as you want them for best effect.

[rivrbyte]

Thanks for the reply there, General!

I do have photoshop and only edit, crop,
and reduce file size for e-mails. I use a Canon G-6 Digital Camera and use the high res setting on it for more editing capability,if needed.

I was looking at the pictures I used for this slide show and some were 2.5M,2.9M,771K,and 889K,among other different sizes. Someone told me to have my Desktop resoulution to 1024x768 16 Bit. Does this make a difference with the output resoulution on a Slideshow?

Ok, this is what Iv'e done wasting a DVD disc and three CDRW's. I tried to burn on a (TDK-16x DVD+R disc) a SCVD. The setting for the the Encoding mode to "2 PASS VBR", setting to "HIGH QUALITY",Sample format to "PROGRESSIVE", but the Video format,Bit rate,and resolution buttons were not enabled. I did have a 4.3 or a 16.9 option. I Put on 75 .jpgs pictures and two MP3 songs..(used the "FIT MUSIC TO SLIDESHOW") approx. 5 minutes. The output playback on DVD player is the same as the regular slide show.

Then I tried the MiniDVD 720x480. My choices were Dolby digital 5.1 (even though I have 2 speakers on puter, thinking it might sound better on a DVD with a great 5.1 Dolby for the music),Dolby Digital 2.1,Automatic,and LPCM.
This would not play back on the DVD player - Said it was the wrong type of disc.

The player is a Panasonic S-29 which plays back DVD Ram,DVD Video/video CD/CD,DVD-R.DVD-RW/+R/+RW,CD-R/CD-RW.

This is all too new to me making a decent slide show with background music,but I don't know what I'm doing wrong...unless I need a program to neutralize or convert this Nero Format into a universally recognized file that windows media player or any other DVD playback software could read this. Thanks again