The following topic thread was hijacked from the VegasVideoPro forum as a thread that has since died...here is just a bit of its content for review:
Original thread begins here:
The Subject: SOT Slide slow
Posted by: DaveT2
Date: 8/5/2012 9:24:19 AM
Need your opinions. I have about 300 Pictures to put on a DVD. I don't plan on doing any zooms or pans. Just straight.
Does the DVD slideshow function have any advantages over putting on the Sony Vegas timeline and rendering them out.
This is a reunion DVD and I already have video and another slide show of older pictures. These are pictures taken at the reunion so I am not trying to be artsy.
Thanks
Dave T2
Reply by: PeterDuke
Date: 8/5/2012 6:32:30 PM
For group watching, it is best, I think, to have automatic step on after a certain time, say 5 seconds. Then you could have music as well if you wish. However if I am the only viewer, I would like an indefinite time on each slide, and the ability to manually step on when I am ready, dependent on the slide's content. Something like a Powerpoint presentation.
Leawo make a Powerpoint to DVD converter with this capability. I think it works by turning each slide into a menu page. The disadvantage was that it superimposed the previous/next buttons on the slide. There may be a way to hide them, but if so, I don't know how. Also, can you have 300 menu pages in a DVD?
Then there is the issue of captions for each slide, but maybe for a reunion, these would be unnecessary. I like captions to not obscure the image.
I have yet to find a simple program to create the equivalent of the old photo album, where you can turn pages at your leisure and read comments if you so wish. I tried using Vegas for this, where each slide had a chapter mark, so that you could skip quickly if you wanted, but the skip was so sluggish on my player that I might just as well have let it step on by itself anyway. However, it was a lot of work to create. I used Vegasaur to insert the file name and shooting date automatically. I can't remember now whether it also inserted user comments from the EXIF header as well.
Message last edited on 8/5/2012 6:42:06 PM, by PeterDuke.
Reply by: DaveT2
Date: 8/5/2012 6:48:13 PM
Peter,
Thanks. I just made it 3 videos in Vegas. I added the names using Photoshop.
You can hide the menu buttons by using transparent colors. I have done that before for shorter slide shows. Use Right and Left for next and previous and up for return to menu.
I am not going to put music on, my first slide will tell them to play their favorite music and enjoy the pictures.
Dave T2
Message last edited on 8/5/2012 6:48:53 PM, by DaveT2.
Original Thread ends here:
************************
I find that there is often a need to include a large number of photos into a given presentation - but forcing the client to watch them by a step through slide show or even a rendered ken-burns style video can be a painful audience killer.
My preferred method to create productions of this type is to create a hybrid Blu-ray/Bd-Rom or DVD/Dvd-Rom title. In the video presentation I create a high-lights summary style video with the feel for what can come later in the multiple still photos.
In the ROM portion of the disc I borrow on the techniques that web-style authors have done in the past by creating an html based coded presentation where the viewer can scroll through photos, seeing six to thirty picture panes at a time. They have the option of seeing EXIF data, or photo names accompanying the presentation. In this way the client audience can absorb the content of a 300 photo presentation within a couple of minutes, while keeping it interesting.
There is a large amount of software on the market that can quickly automate this type of production - some flash based, others simply rely on proprietary executable code, or even just basic html. You can take a group of photos and assemble this kind of product for your production faster than you can drag them to the VegasPro timeline.
Original thread begins here:
The Subject: SOT Slide slow
Posted by: DaveT2
Date: 8/5/2012 9:24:19 AM
Need your opinions. I have about 300 Pictures to put on a DVD. I don't plan on doing any zooms or pans. Just straight.
Does the DVD slideshow function have any advantages over putting on the Sony Vegas timeline and rendering them out.
This is a reunion DVD and I already have video and another slide show of older pictures. These are pictures taken at the reunion so I am not trying to be artsy.
Thanks
Dave T2
Reply by: PeterDuke
Date: 8/5/2012 6:32:30 PM
For group watching, it is best, I think, to have automatic step on after a certain time, say 5 seconds. Then you could have music as well if you wish. However if I am the only viewer, I would like an indefinite time on each slide, and the ability to manually step on when I am ready, dependent on the slide's content. Something like a Powerpoint presentation.
Leawo make a Powerpoint to DVD converter with this capability. I think it works by turning each slide into a menu page. The disadvantage was that it superimposed the previous/next buttons on the slide. There may be a way to hide them, but if so, I don't know how. Also, can you have 300 menu pages in a DVD?
Then there is the issue of captions for each slide, but maybe for a reunion, these would be unnecessary. I like captions to not obscure the image.
I have yet to find a simple program to create the equivalent of the old photo album, where you can turn pages at your leisure and read comments if you so wish. I tried using Vegas for this, where each slide had a chapter mark, so that you could skip quickly if you wanted, but the skip was so sluggish on my player that I might just as well have let it step on by itself anyway. However, it was a lot of work to create. I used Vegasaur to insert the file name and shooting date automatically. I can't remember now whether it also inserted user comments from the EXIF header as well.
Message last edited on 8/5/2012 6:42:06 PM, by PeterDuke.
Reply by: DaveT2
Date: 8/5/2012 6:48:13 PM
Peter,
Thanks. I just made it 3 videos in Vegas. I added the names using Photoshop.
You can hide the menu buttons by using transparent colors. I have done that before for shorter slide shows. Use Right and Left for next and previous and up for return to menu.
I am not going to put music on, my first slide will tell them to play their favorite music and enjoy the pictures.
Dave T2
Message last edited on 8/5/2012 6:48:53 PM, by DaveT2.
Original Thread ends here:
************************
I find that there is often a need to include a large number of photos into a given presentation - but forcing the client to watch them by a step through slide show or even a rendered ken-burns style video can be a painful audience killer.
My preferred method to create productions of this type is to create a hybrid Blu-ray/Bd-Rom or DVD/Dvd-Rom title. In the video presentation I create a high-lights summary style video with the feel for what can come later in the multiple still photos.
In the ROM portion of the disc I borrow on the techniques that web-style authors have done in the past by creating an html based coded presentation where the viewer can scroll through photos, seeing six to thirty picture panes at a time. They have the option of seeing EXIF data, or photo names accompanying the presentation. In this way the client audience can absorb the content of a 300 photo presentation within a couple of minutes, while keeping it interesting.
There is a large amount of software on the market that can quickly automate this type of production - some flash based, others simply rely on proprietary executable code, or even just basic html. You can take a group of photos and assemble this kind of product for your production faster than you can drag them to the VegasPro timeline.