Windows DVD maker----why bother !!!

Problem---DVD's burnt with Windows DVD maker will not fianalize amnd will not
play back on normal household players

Having spent a considerable amount of time and money (on blank media) trying
to produce a DVD that will play on my normal Panasonic player I have given
up. If you Google this problem there are many people out there with the same
problem so why cannot it be "fixed" once and for all by MS.

I have been trying to burn a photo slide show from Windows Live Photo
Gallery but all it does is spit out the disc at 98.8% completion. The DVD -R
plays perfectly on the PC but not on the stand alone player.

I even tried changing the Burner and media types but they all gave the same
problem. The disc is just not finalized.

I can burn DVD's with third party software and these play just fine,
equally, If I use XP pro all is well so it is down to Vista I am afraid. I
have the latest sp1 version of Vista and all drivers etc. are up to date.

In view of the above can anyone reccomend some decent software that will
burn DVD's properly with Vista AND produce slide shows from jpeg photos ??


--
thanks in advance for any help
Peter

pafos wrote:
> Problem---DVD's burnt with Windows DVD maker will not fianalize amnd
> will not play back on normal household players
>
> Having spent a considerable amount of time and money (on blank media)
> trying to produce a DVD that will play on my normal Panasonic player
> I have given up. If you Google this problem there are many people out
> there with the same problem so why cannot it be "fixed" once and for
> all by MS.
>
> I have been trying to burn a photo slide show from Windows Live Photo
> Gallery but all it does is spit out the disc at 98.8% completion. The
> DVD -R plays perfectly on the PC but not on the stand alone player.
>
> I even tried changing the Burner and media types but they all gave
> the same problem. The disc is just not finalized.
>
> I can burn DVD's with third party software and these play just fine,
> equally, If I use XP pro all is well so it is down to Vista I am
> afraid. I have the latest sp1 version of Vista and all drivers etc.
> are up to date.
>
> In view of the above can anyone reccomend some decent software that
> will burn DVD's properly with Vista AND produce slide shows from jpeg
> photos ??
========================================
(scroll down for some links that may help you
with Windows DVD Maker)

You can use Movie Maker and/or PhotoStory 3
to create your slide shows.

PhotoStory 3 For Windows
http://tinyurl.com/4f869
or...
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...y/default.mspx
(this is an XP app but many users report success
running it on Vista)

The following freeware might be your solution for
creating Video DVDs.

DVD Flick
http://www.dvdflick.net/

Be sure to read the Guide:
http://www.dvdflick.net/guide.php

If you have problems downloading DVD Flick...
try the following direct link:

http://tinyurl.com/3wcglh
or...
http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/sour...up_1.3.0.2.exe

Save the file to a folder on your hard drive and
install from there.

Tutorials:

DVD Flick Tutorial
http://beginwithsoftware.com/videogu...ick-guide.html

Burn Any PC Video Format into DVD
http://www.freevideoworkshop.com/dvdflicktutorial.htm

Windows DVD Maker:

Windows Vista -
Help and How To:
Windows DVD Maker
http://tinyurl.com/yusbhl
or...
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/win...=&qu=dvd+maker

Windows Vista -
Windows DVD Maker:
Burn a DVD-Video disc
http://tinyurl.com/38qgzd
or...
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...93e6f1033.mspx

Windows Vista -
Burn pictures and movies to DVD-Video
disc using Windows DVD Maker
http://tinyurl.com/3xtcfs
or...
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...a60261033.mspx

--

John Inzer MS-MVP
Digital Media Experience

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

Hi John

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply. Using Windows Movie Maker and
burning with DVD Flick worked just fine for my purposes. For your info DVD
Flick will not burn files created with Windows Photostory3 (Codec problem).

What does annoy me is that I have spent good money on converting to Vista
only to have to use other software to do a job that is supposed to be part of
the OS in the first place. Vista shouts Multi Media but soemtimes fails.

Why cannot MS sort out these small niggles. This burning problem is well
known and has been around a long time.

Peter

pafos wrote:
> Hi John
>
> Thanks for taking the trouble to reply. Using Windows Movie Maker and
> burning with DVD Flick worked just fine for my purposes. For your
> info DVD Flick will not burn files created with Windows Photostory3
> (Codec problem).
===============================
Sorry, I should have mentioned that you
can import the PhotoStory .wmv files into
Movie Maker and when you save them
from there they will work.
===============================
> What does annoy me is that I have spent good money on converting to
> Vista only to have to use other software to do a job that is supposed
> to be part of the OS in the first place. Vista shouts Multi Media but
> soemtimes fails.
>
> Why cannot MS sort out these small niggles. This burning problem is
> well known and has been around a long time.
>
> Peter
===============================
Easy way out is just to search for solutions
that do work.

--

John Inzer MS-MVP
Digital Media Experience

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk