Photo Story 3 + Sonic Plug-in

[MH112358]

I've developed a love-hate relationship with PS3 and the DVD-burning
plug-in (available from Sonic at www.sonic.com/products/photostory/).
At first I was deeply disappointed by the fuzzy image quality of
finished PS3 story projects, but then I found PapaJohn's custom
[1033] profiles on his very helpful Web site, www.papajohn.org (follow
the Photo Story links in the left frame). The improvement was stunning.
But when I purchased and installed the Sonic plug-in in order to burn
my projects to DVD, I found that it used a [1033] profile of its own,
one that was as bad (or worse) than the PS3 originals. And the Sonic
profile seems to be a protected file. Editing it disables it.

Another problem with the Sonic plug-in is that when it burns a DVD, it
creates a temp file in the Documents and Settings folder on the C:
drive, a file that is as large as the PS3 project. If you want to burn
a 4.7GB photo story, you need 4.7GB free space on your C: drive, and
the program offers no way to change the location of the temp file to a
roomier drive.

PS3 offers great features, but if you want a quality result, take the
trouble to add one or more of PapaJohn's custom profiles. Then find
some program other than the Sonic plug-in to burn your DVD's, at
least until there's an improved version. It works smoothly, but the
end result is a huge disappointment.

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[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

I purchased the plug-in the first day it was available, and have been
testing various things...

..... in my case Sonic's MyDVD 4.5 was the software that came bundled on my
laptop, and it couldn't open the disc burned by the plug-in for further
editing. The disc played fine in my DVD player, but I couldn't change
anything on the disc, not even the typo I had in the title.

I've upgraded from MyDVD 4.5 to 6.1 to be able to take the disc from
there... this is my week for further testing. My next newsletter will be on
this topic.

Yes, all the software works OK, but unless there's a compelling reason to
get the plug-in, it seems best to use one of my profiles and put the money
for the plug-in into something else.... I might change my mind this week as
I explore it further, but that's where I am at the moment.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3 - www.papajohn.org
Photo Story 2 - www.photostory.papajohn.org
..

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

Another note about the plugin, if upgrading to a newer version of MyDVD.

Installing MyDVD 6.1 resulted in the serious crippling of the Sonic Photo
Story 3 DVD plugin... I recovered by doing a full uninstall of the plugin
and reinstalling it again after the v6.1 installation was completed.

The installation wizard for v6.1 checks that a previous version of MyDVD is
installed and does the removal.. it does the same if there's a prior version
of the Sonic Update Manager.... looks like it should give you a heads up to
remove the Plugin, do the v6.1 install, and then reinstall the plugin.

It's all working well again... the Plugin and the new v6.1, but it was a big
hurdle in the process.

--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3 - www.papajohn.org
Photo Story 2 - www.photostory.papajohn.org


..

I purchased the plug-in the first day it was available, and have been
testing various things...

.... in my case Sonic's MyDVD 4.5 was the software that came bundled on my
laptop, and it couldn't open the disc burned by the plug-in for further
editing. The disc played fine in my DVD player, but I couldn't change
anything on the disc, not even the typo I had in the title.

I've upgraded from MyDVD 4.5 to 6.1 to be able to take the disc from
there... this is my week for further testing. My next newsletter will be
on this topic.

Yes, all the software works OK, but unless there's a compelling reason to
get the plug-in, it seems best to use one of my profiles and put the money
for the plug-in into something else.... I might change my mind this week
as I explore it further, but that's where I am at the moment.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3 - www.papajohn.org
Photo Story 2 - www.photostory.papajohn.org
.

I've developed a love-hate relationship with PS3 and the DVD-burning
plug-in (available from Sonic at www.sonic.com/products/photostory/).
At first I was deeply disappointed by the fuzzy image quality of
finished PS3 story projects, but then I found PapaJohn's custom
[1033] profiles on his very helpful Web site, www.papajohn.org (follow
the Photo Story links in the left frame). The improvement was stunning.
But when I purchased and installed the Sonic plug-in in order to burn
my projects to DVD, I found that it used a [1033] profile of its own,
one that was as bad (or worse) than the PS3 originals. And the Sonic
profile seems to be a protected file. Editing it disables it.

Another problem with the Sonic plug-in is that when it burns a DVD, it
creates a temp file in the Documents and Settings folder on the C:
drive, a file that is as large as the PS3 project. If you want to burn
a 4.7GB photo story, you need 4.7GB free space on your C: drive, and
the program offers no way to change the location of the temp file to a
roomier drive.

PS3 offers great features, but if you want a quality result, take the
trouble to add one or more of PapaJohn's custom profiles. Then find
some program other than the Sonic plug-in to burn your DVD's, at
least until there's an improved version. It works smoothly, but the
end result is a huge disappointment.

<<Reply to the group. No e-mail accepted.>>