The Phota Video Player is available to play Video files that might be associated with an Album introduction or with individual photos.  A button on the Navigation Bar accesses the Video Player, and such buttons also appear beside photos that are accompanied by Videos (if buttons are not hidden).  A Slide Show can be configured to automatically play Videos when encountered.

The Video Options screen provides parameters that control how animated Phota scenes are captured to Video files or as sequences of still image files.  (Press the button on the Navigation Bar to access.)  Either AVI or WMV (Variable Bit Rate or Contstant Bit Rate) Video files can be produced.  Still Image Sequence files can be saved in most common image formats.  Optionally, an Image Sequence Control File can be created along with an Image Sequence capture to contain timing data for each frame, allowing much more precise control over animation of the still images.

Just press the button on the Navigation Bar to initiate recording.  The Capture button will change to while recording.  Press again (or hit the Esc key) to stop capturing.

Image Sequences can be played as animations with the Image Sequence Player, accessed via the button on the Navigation Bar.  The Image Sequence Player also provides options to record to AVI or WMV Videos while playing animations.  Particularly when using a Sequence Control File, better efficiency and more precise control over timing is possible, often resulting in captured Videos of greater quality.

DVD Creation

Phota is not currently able to create DVDs directly.  Primarily this is because the MPEG2 technology used to encode DVDs is proprietary, and that would make it necessary to pay royalties to the several companies that own related patents.  However, Phota does provide the capability to create Videos and Image Sequences in formats that can fairly easily be converted into DVDs by other programs (like Windows DVD Maker).  Another excellent program for creating DVDs from Video files is DVD Flick, which is freeware (http://www.dvdflick.net/)  This makes it quite practical to produce high quality DVDs of Phota 3D Gallery Slide Shows that might then be viewed on TVs with standard DVD players.