Hi Todd,
The plasma screen sounds interesting, although quite expensive.
The slide creation program I am using is Slides and Sounds Plus from InMedia (
www.inmediapresents.com) although I believe they have ceased selling the product. It is remarkably easy to use with many varied transitional effects and you can add sound to it quite easily. The Mac version also allows fade in/fade out of music.
Now I am familiar with the program I can put together a slide show of 200 to 300 images in around 20 to 30 mins, but I limit the transitional effects to around 5 or 6 different types.