Making your own WDW DVD - Super Cheap - Super Souvenir

[Star Wars Guy]

On our last trip to WDW, I took 448 digital pictures. Now I don't know about you, but since I've had my digital camera, I'm more apt to burn them off onto a CD and maybe only look at them once a year if I'm lucky. With the help of a friend's DVD burner, I took all those pictures, dug through my library of Disney music and created a great DVD that really is fun to watch. If you or someone you know has a DVD burner, they probably have the software to do this. It's really just a simple picture slideshow with a soundtrack, but when you have random screen transitions, it makes it a little more interesting than just having the same transition between pics.

The music you select is very important to help make everything flow good and stir the emotions. Just to give you an idea, my opening screen has an picture of all of us sitting on a bench at the CBR bus stop. In each corner of that picture, I put an icon of one of the parks - Cinderella's Castle, Tree of Life, Sorcerer Mickey's Hat, and Spaceship Earth. I also put text on that image of the Date of the trip and where we stayed (May 2003 WDW - Caribbean Beach Resort.) The opening music is Brian McKight's "Remember the Magic" (used by Disney a few years ago for their marketing). Let me tell you, when this plays and we see our pictures of our trip, eyes well and heart strings zing. When our Animal Kingdom pictures are showing, you hear the Tree of Life area music "Oasis Garden", for Epcot pictures you hear the Epcot Opening announcment and music, etc. For the very last segment I had the finale from Fantasmic. I got lucky and one of the last pictures I took of the trip was of the partners statue in MK. It shows right when Mickey says "Some imagination, huh?"

I have the pictures show in order that I took them to also give a chronology of our trip and what we did. Based on a 5 second interval between pictures, I figured up times where one day's pictures would begin and end. This helped me figure out what music to put and in which order it should play. Unfortunately, the free software that comes with the burner doesn't let me get it to an exact science. Other more expensive software will probably allow you to do that. There's a little overlap in musical cues, but I got very close.

The running time turned out to be about 40 minutes, but we've already watched it twice and I'm sure I'll be something we watch many times over, especially when we get close to our next trip to WDW.

Just thought I'd pass along this neat idea.

If you're interested in doing this and have questions, feel free to ask.

 

[kimbac3]

I'll have to remember that after our Dec trip.
Thanks!!
kimba

 

[debbiedoo]

I plan on doing this with our upcoming trip. I have an imac. How did you get the icons??? With the crop and edit feature??

 

[Star Wars Guy]

Yes, I had cropped them out of other photos I had taken on the trip and pasted them onto that picture.

 

[greenyskp]

I <3 you.

I've been doing this for years. All of my family members give me all their pics after every vaca. and i make them one of these. Im making my mom one as I speak with photos of her and her mom when she was a kid. For mothers day. There is just something about music with pictures. It gets to everyone.

What id like to know, is if youd be willing to share your fantastic music collection? Id give you money. PM me if your interested....

 

[debbiedoo]

Yes, I had cropped them out of other photos I had taken on the trip and pasted them onto that picture.

Thanks!! And where did you get all the music?? CD's from the park?? TIA!!!

 

[kimwim8]

What is the name of the software you used? Did you buy a specific type of blank DVD's to use?

I was looking into purchasing software that costs around $100, but if I can avoid that, I'd be so excited.

We just got a Dell Laptop a couple months ago with a DVD burner....so I probably have some kind of software on it.

A good friend of mine just moved to Maine (from NJ) and I want to put together a slide show with music of the pics I have of the 2 of us from the past 20 years.

Any help is appreciated!

 

[Star Wars Guy]

The software used was just the basic stuff that came with the burner. I don't even know what it's called, but there aren't many bells & whistles with it.

As for the music, if you have the Official Album: Disneyland/Walt Disney World, you can grab a bunch of what I used from it. The other stuff I found various places around the net. I know there's another post here that has the site where you can download most of the rest. Here's a list of tracks that I used from the Official Album:

Fantasyland Castle Medley
Finale from Fantasmic
Fantasy in the Sky

Besides the ones already mentioned in the original post, other Disney ones I used were:

Dancing Bubbles (from Fantasmic)
Epcot Medley
Peter Pan Queue music
SpectroMagic Medley (all piano music, very nice)

 

[WDWguru]

I make a DVD of each trip we take with video sections and slideshows. I usually separate the pics into character photos and other photos. I have several Disney CDs and select music depending on the mood I want.

I do a lot of DVD authoring professionally so I have a pretty high-end setup (typically use Final Cut Pro to edit and DVD Studio Pro for the DVD programming on my Mac) but if I just want a quick-and-dirty DVD to produce quickly, I'll use iMovie and iDVD. I can't get the same professional result, but they do the trick in a pinch.

 

[Forevryoung]

Ooooh sounds great! I'm definitely going to do this. Probably better for me than scrapbooking all those pictures after printing them out! That way I can make a copy for the other family who is taking me along!

 

[Miller1412]

Making these DVD's is the whole reason I went digital in the first place. We look at them all of the time. I use a combo of photos and digital video with the music added and transitions...it makes a fabulous keepsake. I use Roxio Easy Media Creator 7.

 

[kimwim8]

I use a combo of photos and digital video with the music added and transitions...it makes a fabulous keepsake. I use Roxio Easy Media Creator 7.

This is the software I was looking at. Is it user friendly? I'm not the best at figuring this kind of stuff out!

TIA!

 

[debbiedoo]

The software used was just the basic stuff that came with the burner. I don't even know what it's called, but there aren't many bells & whistles with it.

As for the music, if you have the Official Album: Disneyland/Walt Disney World, you can grab a bunch of what I used from it. The other stuff I found various places around the net. I know there's another post here that has the site where you can download most of the rest. Here's a list of tracks that I used from the Official Album:

Fantasyland Castle Medley
Finale from Fantasmic
Fantasy in the Sky

Besides the ones already mentioned in the original post, other Disney ones I used were:

Dancing Bubbles (from Fantasmic)
Epcot Medley
Peter Pan Queue music
SpectroMagic Medley (all piano music, very nice)

Thanks so much!! Did you buy the CD at the parks?? The official one?? If so, I will be on the lookout on my upcoming trip. I have all the tools in my imac G5---For anyone else who has this computer and needs any advice--just ask. This can be done on this computer. See I knew that my fancy gadget would come in handy

 

[Star Wars Guy]

I didn't buy the CD in the parks, but I'm pretty sure that I got it at a Disney Store.

Since I just returned last week from Star Wars Celebration 3, I've got to put a new one together for those pictures. Deciding on which Star Wars tracks to use from all of the soundtracks will be the hardest part.

 

[smoochie]

On our last trip to WDW, I took 448 digital pictures. Now I don't know about you, but since I've had my digital camera, I'm more apt to burn them off onto a CD and maybe only look at them once a year if I'm lucky. With the help of a friend's DVD burner, I took all those pictures, dug through my library of Disney music and created a great DVD that really is fun to watch. If you or someone you know has a DVD burner, they probably have the software to do this. It's really just a simple picture slideshow with a soundtrack, but when you have random screen transitions, it makes it a little more interesting than just having the same transition between pics.

The music you select is very important to help make everything flow good and stir the emotions. Just to give you an idea, my opening screen has an picture of all of us sitting on a bench at the CBR bus stop. In each corner of that picture, I put an icon of one of the parks - Cinderella's Castle, Tree of Life, Sorcerer Mickey's Hat, and Spaceship Earth. I also put text on that image of the Date of the trip and where we stayed (May 2003 WDW - Caribbean Beach Resort.) The opening music is Brian McKight's "Remember the Magic" (used by Disney a few years ago for their marketing). Let me tell you, when this plays and we see our pictures of our trip, eyes well and heart strings zing. When our Animal Kingdom pictures are showing, you hear the Tree of Life area music "Oasis Garden", for Epcot pictures you hear the Epcot Opening announcment and music, etc. For the very last segment I had the finale from Fantasmic. I got lucky and one of the last pictures I took of the trip was of the partners statue in MK. It shows right when Mickey says "Some imagination, huh?"

I have the pictures show in order that I took them to also give a chronology of our trip and what we did. Based on a 5 second interval between pictures, I figured up times where one day's pictures would begin and end. This helped me figure out what music to put and in which order it should play. Unfortunately, the free software that comes with the burner doesn't let me get it to an exact science. Other more expensive software will probably allow you to do that. There's a little overlap in musical cues, but I got very close.

The running time turned out to be about 40 minutes, but we've already watched it twice and I'm sure I'll be something we watch many times over, especially when we get close to our next trip to WDW.

Just thought I'd pass along this neat idea.

If you're interested in doing this and have questions, feel free to ask.

I did this. I went to microsoft.com and downloaded windows movie maker for free. I then added some music and the outcome. Priceless

 

[mom2dnk]

Another great FREE program is Photo Story 3 from microsoft.com You can make CD's to play on a computer or convert it to DVD. All complete with music and transitions.

I did this. I went to microsoft.com and downloaded windows movie maker for free. I then added some music and the outcome. Priceless

 

[TwingleMum]

I'm a real newbie at this digitial stuff. How long do these DVDs last? 5 years? 10 years?? I mean they dederiorate more than a traditional photo does, right?? Thanks for the insight.

 

[Miller1412]

I'm a real newbie at this digitial stuff. How long do these DVDs last? 5 years? 10 years?? I mean they dederiorate more than a traditional photo does, right?? Thanks for the insight.

They do get scratched, deteriorate, etc, but the beauty is...you have it saved on your hard drive, so you can burn another one. A Lot of people save their photos, digital projects to a seperate hard drive or another source to keep it safe.

 

[Star Wars Guy]

They should last just as long as any other DVD you have as long as you take care of them. I wouldn't trust a copy on your computer to be your only backup either. One good crash of your hard drive and everything is gone. Make sure you make backups of the original pictures to a CD or other medium just in case.

 

[Madi100]

I make a video CD that also plays on our DVD player. I have a HUGE collection of Disney songs, and it makes it a lot of fun. I made a video CD for my grandma's 80th birthday of her life. I've made a few different ones.