Photo DVD Maker support center

Once you successfully place an order for Photo DVD Maker, you are supposed to receive a confirmation email with the license key for registering the program.

You can download the Photo DVD Maker program from our website.

If you order the backup CD, you can install Photo DVD Maker from the CD. Since the backup CD may take about 10 days to deliver, you can download it from our website if you cannot wait to use the program.

You don't have to worry about losing the program and license once you bought them. You can download Photo DVD Maker from our website at any time. And you can restore your license by using our License Key Auto Retrieval Service. Or you can contact us to retrieve your license key.

If you want to burn the slideshow to DVD or VCD, you have to take the disc capacity into consideration. The storage capacity of standard DVD disc is about 4.7 GB, while the storage capacity of VCD is roughly 800 MB. One 4.7G DVD-R disc can holds more than 1,000 photos with background music.

So the number of photos that can be added to one slideshow DVD depends on

1. The quality of photos
2. Interval time between photos
3. The file size of background music

Case 1: 1398 photos have been added to the slideshow DVD project, and there is still free space.

Case 2: The slideshow project with 1398 photos apparently oversize the capacity of one 800MB VCD. In this case, you have to reduce the number of photos in the slideshow to fit the disc capacity.

If the music you wish to add to photo slideshow is protected by DRM or other measures, you should remove the protection before adding it to slideshow. You can use NoteBurner Audio Converter or NoteCable Audio Converter to convert the protected to MP3, WMA or WAV, and then add the converted music to photo slideshow.

We offer more DVD menu templates for download online. There two ways you can get to the download page:

1. Click the "Choose Menus" tab in Photo DVD Maker, and then click the "Get More Templates" button at the right bottom.

2. Click this link Download DVD Menu Templates

Yes. You can add titles at the beginning of the photo slideshow, and add credits in the end of the photo slideshow. With this feature, you can create film-like photo story movies.

Click the tab “Organize Photos”, and then click the “Album Theme” tab. In this section, you can add title and credit message to the photo slideshow.

Title with effects at the beginning of the photo slideshow

Credit message in the end of the photo slideshow

1. Repair ASPI Driver

Windows NT/2000/XP users please download ASPI Driver, and save the file to the program files folder of Photo DVD Maker. By default, Photo DVD Maker will be installed to C:\ Program Files\Photo DVD Maker Professional. Change the disc volume if you install Photo DVD Maker to other file folder.

2. Try other burning applications

You can save the photo slideshow as ISO image, and use other notable burning applications, such as Nero, to burn the slideshow to DVD.

3. Use good blank discs

Some brands of blank discs may work better with your drive than others. Check the disc manufacturer's website for the brand of blank discs you are using. Many brands post lists of drives that have issues burning to their discs. They may also publish tips on how to troubleshoot burning issues.

You can use the chart below as a general guideline to assess what types of CD-R media are compatible with different drive types.

Drive Type	Drive Type Logo	CD-RW Speed Range	Media Type Supported
Multi Speed Drive		1x ~ 4x	Multi Speed CD-RW media
High Speed Drive		4x ~ 16x	Multi Speed CD-RW media High Speed CD-RW media
Ultra Speed Drive		16x ~ 24x	Multi Speed CD-RW media High Speed CD-RW media Ultra Speed CD-RW media

If Photo DVD Maker cannot recognize your CD/DVD burner, or there’s burning error while burning DVD/CD disc, please try the following solutions:

1. Do not save a copy of source photos on CD or DVD disc.

Click the tab “Burn Disc”, go to the “DVD/CD System” section, and then de-select the "Save original image file on disc" option.

2. Make sure there is enough hard disc space to store temporary files of the slideshow project.

Click the menu “View >Options”, in the General section you will see the status of the temporary folder. If the free disk space is not enough to store the photo slideshow project, please click the “Remove All Temporary Folder”.

3: Try different burning engines

Please try different combinations of burning engine and burning engine driver modes. Click the tab “Burn Disc”, and “DVD/CD Recorder Options”, you can

Choose one of the burning engines:

• Integrated Burning Engine
• AnvSoft Burning Engine

Choose one of the Burning engine modes:

• Windows Native
• ASPI Driver

Please review the following checklist to see what possibly could be the problem and how to fix it.

1. Does your video player support the disc type?

DVD players can play DVD, VCD and SVCD discs.

VCD players can only play VCD and SVCD discs. Note that VCD player can not play DVD discs.

2. Do you select the right TV system?

Before burning the slideshow as DVD/VCD movies, you should choose a TV system, NTSC or PAL, so that the encoding of the slideshow video complies with the TV system standards used in your country.

NTSC (National Television System Committee) is the analog television system used in the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and some other countries.

See the complete list

PAL (Phase Alternating Line) is a color encoding system used in Europe, Austria, New Zealand, China, India, south-east Asia, west Asia, North Africa, Brazil and large parts of the world.

See the complete list

When you transfer widescreen pictures to video formats while preserving the original aspect ratio, the so-called black bars appear.

There two types of black bars: Pillar boxing and Window boxing.

Pillar boxing is the display of an image within a wider image frame wider by adding lateral mattes; for example, a 4:3 image has lateral mattes when displayed on a 16:9 aspect ratio television screen.

A pillar boxed image: displaying 4:3 picture in 16:9 screen

Window boxing occurs when an image appears centered in a television screen, with blank space on all four sides of the image, such as when a widescreen image that has been previously letter boxed to fit 4:3 is then pillar boxed to fit 16:9.

The picture quality of slideshow is determined by a combination of various factors. You may have to trade one thing to get others.

To get better slideshow quality, you can:

1. Choose high quality pictures for making slideshows. This is the most essential and critical measure.
2. Choose “Excellent quality, slower encoding speed” to burn the slideshow.
3. Turn off Pan and Zoom effect
4. Turn off transition effects
5. Burn slideshow to VCD 2.0 Still Image Disc. Still image has better quality than moving pictures. The slideshow in VCD 2.0 is still slideshow, only without transition effects or background music.

An ISO image is an archive file of an optical disc using a conventional ISO (International Organization for Standardization) format. ISO image includes all the data of files contained on the archived CD/DVD.

Step 1: In the “Burn Disc” tab, choose DVD as output format.

Step 2:De-select the “Burn to DVD+R/RW DVD-R/RW CD-R/RW”option.

Step 3: Select the “Create Disc Image File”.

Step 4: Specify a file folder to store the ISO file, and give the file a name

The write time for burning disc depends on several factors, file size, drive speed, data rate, etc. Take burning a single layer DVD+R disc for example:

Note: Burning photo slideshow from Photo DVD Maker to DVD/VCD disc will take longer time than standard burning, because the photo slideshow have to be encoded into MPEG videos before burned to disc.

In the Transition & Music section, right-click any of the transition effect between photos, and choose “Disable all transitions between photo slides”.

If you want to disable transition effects for most of the photos, but still wish to add some effects to some photos, you can disable all transitions first, and then add transition effects to selected photo slides.

If you want to publish the photo slideshow created by Photo DVD Maker to YouTube, please follow these steps:

1. Create a slideshow with photos and music (narration)

2. Click the Burn Disc tab

3. Choose YouTube Uploadable Movie as the Output Format.

4. Click Create Now button to export the slideshow in YouTube video format.

5. Log in your YouTube account and upload the slideshow video.

Note that videos longer than 10 minutes cannot be uploaded to YouTube. Please keep the length of the photo slideshow movie within the 10-minute limit.

If you want to publish the photo slideshow created by Photo DVD Maker to MySpace, please follow these steps:

1. Create a slideshow with photos and music (narration)

2. Click the Burn Disc tab

3. Choose MySpace Uploadable Movie as the Output Format.

4. Click Create Now button to export the slideshow in MySpace video format.

5. Log in your MySpace account and upload the slideshow video.

If you do not like a DVD menu at the beginning of the photo slideshow, you can click the tabs "Choose Menus > Menu Navigator", and de-select the "Use DVD Menu” option.

To save a photo slideshow project, click the menu “File> Save”. Or you can press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + S to save the project.

To restore a photo slideshow project, click the menu “File > Open”. Or you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + O to open a saved flash slideshow project.