Which "free" screen capture programs are you referring to? I have not seen
anyone getting acceptable results. I myself use Camtasia Studio,
www.techsmith.com, it works very well - but it's not free (except for a
30-day trial period).

Read this FAQ for more information: http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00156.htm

If your presentation has no animations, a free possibility ist to use File -
Save as JPEG and use the DVD players photoshow capabilities.

Best regards,
Ute

There is no such thing as a free lunch! A free trial one is much
better!
An option is to use Windows Movie Maker but you would have to start
from scratch and insert all the pictures onto it. I believe Windows XP
and Windows Vista came with this free software so you probably have
it. You click on Import Media and select the pictures you want (press
Ctrl to select individual pictures). You can then use the Auto Movie
button to add credits, music and transitions to your movie. Then burn
it to DVD.

Windows movie maker and  screen capture programs is a free and easy
way, but you can not retain animations transitions and audio track
that a really PowerPoint should have. Your presentation will be a dull
thing.

The only way to do this is to get specific PowerPoint to DVD software.
The best I've found is this one:
http://www.ppt-to-video.com/powerpoint-to-dvd-overview.html

this was is $79.95 and is one of the few products that didn't mess up
animations, transitions and music.

Hope this is helpful.

You can download this program for a trail use
http://www.geovid.com/Presentation_to_Video_Converter/

If you are looking for a "free lunch" the best bet is probably Camstudio
which is an early version of Camtasia and is open source. Obviously not as
good as Camtasia but it's not bad.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/camstudio/

Thanks for all the input, the show is basically images with transitions, we
are going to build it using Windows Movie Maker, which Mr. Gates has so
generously included with XP!