BIOS: Technology Means Business

Ulead Systems, a 15-year company and relentless developer of video, image and DVD software, has updated its easy-to-use and low-cost slideshow creation software. CD & DVD PictureShow 4 (£29.99/$49.95) is a neat software utility for point-and-shoot digital camera users who want a fast and easy way to make a photo album slideshow that can be viewed on a TV screen and shared with family and friends.

CD & DVD PictureShow 4 is designed specifically for novice or first-time users, although it does have a few decent image-tweaking features that should satisfy enthusiasts. And if you don’t want to get involved with the complexities of mixing and matching pictures, video and audio, you can select an Instant-Show theme template which gives you all the aspects of a relatively entertaining slideshow with just a few clicks.

The software’s main control workflow consists of three menus/tabs: Organise, Theme, and Burn. In the organise phase, you import and sequence your slides, then add text captions and ‘props,’ or small image accents to insert into your slides. Once your images or videos are sequenced, you move to the Theme stage to add a menu appearance, background music, and transition and pan-and-zoom effects. Finally, Burn lets you record your masterpiece to an optical disc in either MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 format - the ability to rip to Windows Media files would have been a nice bonus.

In addition to adding special effects to slideshows there’s built-in audio and video trim functionality, intelligent photo enhancement tools, customisable audio and transition settings, as well as DVD menu creation capabilities. With Ulead’s Photo Explorer 8.5 included in the package, you even have a reasonable digital media management solution and easy-to-use tools for acquiring, viewing, organising, and adjusting digital images, as well as managing audio and video clips. This is no Photoshop, but computer newbies will love the program’s ease of use and the eye-catching results.

The growth of both digital cameras and DVD burners has opened the door to a world of slideshow possibilities. People are also taking more pictures than ever, so watching them on TV in the comfort of a living room is a great way to enjoy the memories. CD & DVD PictureShow 4 provides the perfect mix of ease-of-use and customisation, which should appeal to a whole new mass-market segment of consumers.

A key new feature in CD & DVD PictureShow 4 is the Instant-Show theme templates which provide one-click slideshow creation, complete with DVD navigation menus, background music, pan and zoom, transition and motion effects. There are also customisable Pan and Zoom controls, as well as built-in photo repairs with the ExpressFix Wizard for quickly fixing common photo problems such as incorrect exposure, colour cast, saturation, and focus - you can even ‘beautify’ skin.

We also liked the ability to adjust music to the desired length of the slideshow, and the ability to add small clips or sections of audio to a slideshow is also useful if you don’t want music or other type of audio accompanying the entire duration of the slideshow. There’s even a multi-trim video function that lets you select segments from a video file and insert them into a slideshow so you can view your photos and video together on one disc. Unfortunately, you can’t reduce the volume of background music while the narration plays, which complicates the combined use of background music and narration.

CD audio support enables you to add your favourite music from CDs as background audio in the slideshow, and the Audio & Effects interface lets you add multiple audio files to a slideshow, view and change individual transitions between photos, apply different pan and zoom effects, control each photo’s duration and much more. Finally, you can save a photo as a separate file (useful if it’s been enhanced, repaired or customised) and save a slideshow as video file for e-mailing, posting on the Web, or playing on a portable media device or computer using any popular media player. [7]

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