Slide Show Help?

goldenimage wrote on 11/20/2001, 9:25 PM
Hello. I purchased Video Factory for the mpeg plug in only to find that SF is having problems.

So I just upgraded to VV3.0. I never had the opportunity to learn to use VF so I am completely new to this.
I am making a still photo slide show of large jpegs. Can anyone share their experience to save me some time and trouble?

(I just download the 200 pg manual...But its not much help because the program is meant more for motion images.)
I am using Dazzle to maintain image quality.

Thanks in advance,
Jackie

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 11/20/2001, 9:44 PM
First, not sure what you mean by "using Dazzle to maintain image quality?" Dazzle is not a high quality tool by any stretch, but if it's what you got, it's what you got.
As far as a still image slide show, either Video Factory 2 or Vegas 2.0 or 3.0 can easily do this. Where is the output file going to go? On the web? On VHS tape? To CD/VCD/DVD? All would be treated differently.
You mentioned you bought it for the MPEG plug, so assuming that you are using this for output to VCD, SVCD, or DVD, you'll want to make the photos fill the entire screen area, won't you? You can either take all the photos into a photo editor and resize them/crop them to a size of 360x240, 72 dpi, or you can just import them into Vegas and crop them there.
For sake of rendering/output time/color management, you'll want to be sure to not have files any larger than they need to be, ie; 72 dpi to 100 dpi resolution is as large as they should be. Larger files sizes are only cumulatively more difficult for your computer to handle, and unnecessary.
Make sure you use the NTSC/Broadcast clamp plugin if this is destined for VHS or other broadcastable media. Not important if only destined for computer viewing or DVD.
As far as making the photos appear to move, Vegas can easily do that, or you can just have smooth dissolves, or plain hard cuts on your pix.
Hope this helps a little bit.
Cheesehole wrote on 11/21/2001, 12:37 AM
the still-photo-resolution has just been discussed at great length for DV purposes so you can check out that thread... if your target is DVD then keep your photos nice and large. 720x480 is the smallest you want your photos to be. bigger resolutions will allow you to pan/zoom on your photos to add some life to your 'slide-show'.

what i usually do is drop a music track on the timeline, then drop photos one by one onto the timeline and adjust their length to go in time with the music. seems pretty straight forward to me!

tips for going to MPEG-2 for DVD:
- cuts will compress better than transitions, but transitions are still ok.
- MPEG isn't designed to compress still photos, so you'll still have some motion artifacts in your stills. one way to avoid this is to put your own motion into the photos with slow zooming out and panning. this advanced feature of vegas is covered in the manual. see setting keyframes.
- before your final render, put a 'median filter' on your video track with a very low setting (experiment) to soften the most detailed parts of your photos. this will compress much nicer to MPEG-2 with less noise.

- ben (cheesehole)