View Photos on DVD

[Dave]

I have been downloading my digital pictures from my camera to my computer,
editing them, and then burning the photos to CDs and viewing them on my
computer. Recently I purchased a Panasonic DVD player and am very happy
with the quality of the pictures on my TV. My question concerns the way the
photos appear on my TV. They appear randomly instead of in the order they
are on a CD. I have tried renaming the photos and also numbering them and
not putting them in folders, but they still appear randomly on my TV. It's
been suggested to try a third party program to burn the photos to CD but
that seems like the long way around for just this incontinence. It doesn't
seem like it should be that hard to view my photos on DVD in the sequence
they are burned to the CD. Appreciate any input on this.

Dave

 

[Guest]

I can't imagine how you could write the photos to DVD differently if they are
displaying in truly random order. Do they display in different order each
time with the same DVD or just not alphabetical according to filename. Maybe
they are sorted by date created or modified.

In any case, if you cannot overcome the DVD player's random "feature" then
you are left to using a 3rd party program. Why not give Photo Story 3 a try?
It makes amazing slide shows. Then use your DVD software to burn the
resulting video to DVD.

 

[Dave]

Really don't want to use a third party program because I'm happy with the
way I can burn my photos to CDs now. When I mentioned writing photos to a
CD differently, all I meant was that I've tried using alphabetical names one
time and number the pictures 1, 2, 3, so on another time and the DVD player
still seems to play the photos randomly. It's not that big a deal and the
photos all show up clearly. I just wondered why this should happen when it
doesn't happen when I view them on the computer.
Thanks,
Dave

 

[Dave]

Mark,
Just had another thought as far as your first answer. Maybe the DVD player
reads the metadata date from the camera and no matter what I do to change
the names or numbers of the photos, it won't help. I've got a note in to
Panasonic asking about this but haven't heard from them yet.
Dave

 

[Yves Alarie]

We need a little help here to help you.

1. What is random? We need to know this. When you load the CD in your DVD
player and it shows, say, picture # 1, 6, 57, 7, 12 as the first 5 pictures,
we need to know if the exact same order is followed when you close this
session and you play the CD again.
Same #1, 6, 57, 7 and 12 as the first 5 pictures in your first session or
something else?

2. Give us the exact file names of the first 5 pictures on your CD as
displayed by your DVD. At least we can try to see if there is a pattern. The
name of the file we want is the name of picture # 1, 6, 57, 7 or 12 as in
the example above displayed by your DVD, and then the name of the first 5
files on this CD as you read it with XP.
Give us a list like this:
The order of opening from my DVD player is:
First photo: file name
Second photo: file name
etc. for the first 5 photos displayed by your DVD.
Then, when I read the CD with XP, the name of the first 5 files are:
First file: file name
Second file: file name
etc for the first 5 files on this CD.

I agree with you, no need to try some third party software to copy to CD
when you can do it with XP. But the key here is to find out how to control
the order on your DVD. If you answer YES to question 1, the sequence is
always the same, but not the order I want (what you call random order) then
I suspect your naming of files is incorrect. If you answer NO, I get a new
sequence of pictures every time I play this CD with my DVD player, then I
would look in the DVD manual. Maybe you are in a particular mode of showing
at random instead of numerical/alphabetical order.

 

[Mark Coffman]

Yeah, I thought that if it "appeared" to be random, but was the same order
each time you put the DVD in the drive, then maybe it is sorted by something
else that you can use to set your order.

Mark

 

[q_dise]

I'm using Photo2DVD Studio and have been please with it so far. It have
a nice slideshow with music, and It doesn't appear randomly as you
mentioned. If possible just have a try.
Good luck.

 

[Dave]

Appreciate the help! You've got some good questions here and I'm going to
try the same CD a few times and see exactly how the pictures do come up. By
saying random I originally meant that the pictures come up on my TV in a
different order than what I had burned them at. Now you've got me wondering
about how they would come up time after time. I'm going to try a few CDs
and few times and get back to you on how they come up.
Thanks,
Dave

 

[Yves Alarie]

Your description of "random" is fine. No big deal.
But it is not "random" if you get the exact same sequence each time you play
this CD in your DVD. If you get the exact same sequence, then your DVD is
reading "something" consistently to display the photos, but not in the order
you think the pictures should be displayed, so we have to find what the
"something" is.
Asking these questions is simply a way to determine what the "something" is
that your DVD player uses to display the order of the photos and see if we
can change this to what you want.

 

[Guest]

Dave - did you ever resolve your issue - I'm new to digital phtolography and
am experiencing the same issue. I have been able to re-sequence some of my
photos on the burned disk, but others don't play on the DVD in the correct
order. I know it's reading something other than title, since I re-titled
them, but I can't figure out what it is.

Craig