I'm trying to use WinOnCD 3.8 to create photo albums to play on my new Cyberhome ADL 528 DVD player (with latest firmware). This seems to work OK (and very nicely!) if I limit the contents of the disc to just a couple of albums containing a small number of images (around 40 images each), but it seems that there are some limitations.

The WinOnCD manual says that there is a limit of 99 albums on a disc, but gives no indication of a limit of the number of images per album, or of the total number of images spread across all albums on a disc. However, I tried creating a disc with 4 albums, containing between 40 and 105 images each. This disc refused to load in the DVD player.

I found an article on a web site that specifies a maximum of 99 images per album, so I tried a disc with 4 albums with between 40 and 97 images each. Again, the disc refused to load in the DVD player.

Do you happen to know what the limitations of these WinOnCD photo albums are?

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can offer!

-- Steve Gunn (no@spam.com), September 06, 2002

Answers

I would recommend that instead you limit your photo VCDs to 99 images per CD rather than per album. Just put one album of up to 99 images per disc and you should be OK. I think technically photo VCD has a limit of 99 images per disc, although some DVD players and some burning software may let you exceed that. Looks to me like your DVD player is enforcing the standards. Another small bit of advice - some DVD players won't play photo VCDs at all, even if they support VCD on CD-R without problems. That's not your problem, but I just wanted to warn you in case you tried to play a photo VCD on a friend's DVD player and it refused to play it.

-- Root (root@yahoo.com), September 06, 2002.

Thanks for the answer!

It's a bit disappointing really. I had expected to be able to fill the CD up with loads of images contained in up to 99 different albums. I presume there is no way around this limitation? With different software maybe?

-- Steve Gunn (no@spam.com), September 06, 2002.

Actually, to answer my own question, I've found that Ulead DVD Picture Show allows 99 albums of up to 99 images each on a VCD. It seems to me that the only drawback compared to WinOnCD is that you don't get the thumbnail preview of the contents of the albums.

Anyone have any ideas of other packages that provide the best of both of these worlds?

-- Steve Gunn (no@spam.com), September 09, 2002.

Actually, I believe that the standard (VCD 2.0) is 99 per segment and 99 segments per disk (those are maximums). The problem is your software. Try another (ie: Photo2DVD, Pinn. v.8.0, Unlead, etc..) and I think the problem will disappear. The wife and I travel a lot . . . worldwide . . . I'd go nuts if my photos of India needed over 100 CDs, so I feel your pain.

-- Carl (carolusallardt@hotmail.com), October 08, 2003.

I had the same problem. winoncd photo album refuses to play images as a slide-show when the images exceed 99 images. I have to try buring with fewer images. However, use a software called Videowave III. It's a bit cumbersome, but it works very well to create a photo album as a slide-show and when recorded on a CD as an Mpeg file, you can play it on a dvd or a vcd player with ease.

-- p (puju02@yahoo.co.uk), January 07, 2004.