Slide type easy identification in Slide or Timeline views

[SeismicGuy]

I actually asked about this in another thread (Ken Burns effect) but here it is again.  In the overall file panel any files that are video (mp4, mov, etc.) show up with little filmstrip symbols (see illustration below).  It would be very useful for the filmstrip symbol to also show up when adding the files down to the Slides or Timeline panels.  It would make it much easier to distinguish between what slides are jpg's and what slides are videos.  The reason being is that you might want to make a certain change (like slide duration) apply to all of the jpg's but NOT to the videos and this would make it much easier to select just the jpg's.  

[goddi]

I agree. Putting an indicator in the Slides is really where it would help.

Gary-

[SeismicGuy]

Just to be crystal clear on what I am suggesting, here is the equivalent Timeline from MOTV and it is clear which slides are jpg and which are videos.  I believe the Timeline view in PTE AV Studio is really the place where much of the editing decisions are done so this would make sense.

[davegee]

How does MOTV handle a situation where there are multiple short video clips and also multiple still images in the slide?

DG

[SeismicGuy]

It was extremely easy.  You can either hit the Multi-Pictures Slide button (see below) and drag whatever you wanted into the box that opened or you can just select a bunch of jpgs or videos and then hit the Multi-Pictures Slide button.  Then within the Multi-Pictures Slide box there was a dropdown that had all sorts of images premade templates to have the images/videos do various things ranging from a simple side-by-side of the images to various overlaps, random tiles, even a circular carousel effect.  The jpgs would show as a jpg and the videos would still play as videos.  All in all MOTV was an absolutely amazing program with and incredibly simple and intuitive approach given the very complex slides that could be created.  I am concluding that all of the things that MOTV was able to do (and probably more) is doable on PTE AV except hardly as intuitive.  Seems like you need to get much more "in the weeds" using PTE AV where the creators of MOTV did all the dirty work for you hidden behind the scenes.  It is a real shame that they stopped supporting the program a few years ago since it was much ahead of its time.

[Barry Beckham]

Perhaps the pleasure in creating something special is the fact that we like to do it ourselves.  I don’t see how you can have sophisticated software with the appeal that keeps it popular, without a learning curve to go with it. Personally, I don’t like to hand over a creative subject to a computer, but I have no problem with software that offers that automation to those who want it. However, there is something in that old saying that Jack of all trades tend to be masters of none.

 

[stranger2156]

10 hours ago, davegee said:

How does MOTV handle a situation where there are multiple short video clips and also multiple still images in the slide?

SeismicGuy, 

As far as I understand, you didn't answer the question, but how does MOTV handle the simultaneous display of photos and videos on a slide thumbnail? I can also understand if the slide will have a very small video icon somewhere in the corner, if it is present in it, but dividing the slide show exclusively into "video / photo", in my opinion, is completely unjustified. In addition, the content of the slides can be very varied, and PTE does an excellent job of displaying it on slide thumbnails (see the picture where we see a frame from the video, as well as numerous thumbnails with a photo). And the main thing, again in my opinion, is the O&A window, and not the sketches in the main program window, for making any decisions when editing. The thumbnail gives only a preliminary idea of the content and in the PTE program it is quite informative.
P.S. I would like to see a thumbnail of a slide in MOTV, when it contains 2-3 photos and one video.

Paul

 

[wideangle]

Paul

Your observation about the slide thumbnail showing a frame from a video is not foolproof. If the video started with zero opacity, no video frame would be displayed.

I agree that the O&A window should probably be the window for making the main editing decisions, but that wasn't quite what seismicguy wanted.

Regards

wideangle

[stranger2156]

I am still interested in one question, and I think that not only me. Unfortunately, the author of the topic does not give an answer to it.

10 hours ago, stranger2156 said:

P.S. I would like to see a thumbnail of a slide in MOTV, when it contains 2-3 photos and one video.

 

[wideangle]

Hi Paul

Yes I’d like to see that too. 

Regards

wideangle

[davegee]

I think he might have answered it elsewhere. Apparently, such a slide is converted to a video by the software and inserted as a video. It would then have the movie frame.

DG

[SeismicGuy]

3 hours ago, davegee said:

I think he might have answered it elsewhere. Apparently, such a slide is converted to a video by the software and inserted as a video. It would then have the movie frame.

DG

Yes I had similar questions on a few different threads so missed this one.  Here is how a slide looks in the analogous Slide View that is multi-picture with 6 different images:

And here it is in the Timeline View:

 

 

And after double-clicking the slide it brings up the ability to edit it.  Here is an example with the Key Frames indicated and the first slide in position and the other one entering from the right:

 

[SeismicGuy]

20 hours ago, Barry Beckham said:

Perhaps the pleasure in creating something special is the fact that we like to do it ourselves.  I don’t see how you can have sophisticated software with the appeal that keeps it popular, without a learning curve to go with it. Personally, I don’t like to hand over a creative subject to a computer, but I have no problem with software that offers that automation to those who want it. However, there is something in that old saying that Jack of all trades tend to be masters of none.

 

Hi Barry--I quite enjoy your tutorials and have to say that the sophistication of PTE AV is quite something.  But I will have to respectfully disagree with the necessity of there being a steep learning curve in order for something to be worthwhile. Yes if you are a professional and are developing a slide show that has to be spot-on perfection with music, effects, etc. timed to the millisecond then yes, you really need to learn all of the ins and outs of this program.  But there are a lot of folks just looking to create a nice presentable slideshow to show friends, family, etc.  You could get pretty close to perfection with MOTV but doing so didn't require a steep learning curve.  Plus another nice thing about it was that the interface was highly graphical and intuitive and getting help on a specific task was also quite easy.     

[Barry Beckham]

Remind me where MOTV is now? 

[stranger2156]

Found this program and played with it for an hour. What can I say ... about the creative process in it, as we are all accustomed to in PTE or PSP, you can not even think about it. A fairly simple and intuitive "Lego constructor", where everything is prescribed within the strict framework of presets. It is not entirely possible to make a show in one slide, where you will have both pictures and video at the same time. Keyframes are a relative concept in the program, you can only set the fixation of the beginning and end of the effect from the preset. I still haven't found how to trim the video. A picture slide can be easily changed in both transition time and slide time. Alas, the video slide time does not change. You can set a time for the end keyframe, but the video will continue to the end on a black background. Output quality is limited to 720x480 for DVD. You can select a group of files from the list on the track and display the entire group in an MPG video, then it will be one slide on the timeline, with a sequence of frames one image and / or one video at a time. I made the following conclusion for myself, the MemorisOnTV program has a completely different philosophy and concept of creating a slide show. It cannot be even closely compared with PTE, and SeismicGuy needs, apparently, to retrain and get better acquainted with a new program for him, if he wants to work comfortably in it. This is, of course, my subjective opinion and I do not impose it on anyone. so, no offense, as they say.

P.S. I have no great desire and time to enter into any discussions on the above. It was just my opinion and the topic is already closed for me. ))

Best regards,

Paul

[SeismicGuy]

11 hours ago, Barry Beckham said:

Remind me where MOTV is now? 

There are a lot of great programs and apps that are not longer around for a variety of reasons.  Codejam was planning updating the program back in 2012 but the specific issue they had was licensing Bluray at a reasonable price.  My impression is that they were a smallish operation appealing to hobbyists like me that were just looking to put together decent looking slideshows for pleasure use.  Their price was more than fair but there was plenty of free competition for this such as Windows Movie Maker, etc.

 

 

11 hours ago, stranger2156 said:

Found this program and played with it for an hour. What can I say ... about the creative process in it, as we are all accustomed to in PTE or PSP, you can not even think about it. A fairly simple and intuitive "Lego constructor", where everything is prescribed within the strict framework of presets. It is not entirely possible to make a show in one slide, where you will have both pictures and video at the same time. Keyframes are a relative concept in the program, you can only set the fixation of the beginning and end of the effect from the preset. I still haven't found how to trim the video. A picture slide can be easily changed in both transition time and slide time. Alas, the video slide time does not change. You can set a time for the end keyframe, but the video will continue to the end on a black background. Output quality is limited to 720x480 for DVD. You can select a group of files from the list on the track and display the entire group in an MPG video, then it will be one slide on the timeline, with a sequence of frames one image and / or one video at a time. I made the following conclusion for myself, the MemorisOnTV program has a completely different philosophy and concept of creating a slide show. It cannot be even closely compared with PTE, and SeismicGuy needs, apparently, to retrain and get better acquainted with a new program for him, if he wants to work comfortably in it. This is, of course, my subjective opinion and I do not impose it on anyone. so, no offense, as they say.

P.S. I have no great desire and time to enter into any discussions on the above. It was just my opinion and the topic is already closed for me. ))

Best regards,

Paul

Not sure what problem you had mixing jpg and video slides in a single slide.  I am attaching a rendered multi-picture slide that includes jpgs and a couple of videos that rotate around in a carousel and the videos still act as videos--took me an entire 20 seconds to do this.  If I was doing a real "show" I would spend some time tweaking things in the multi-picture side. 

As pointed out above, the target audience for this and other similar software at the time was really folks that wanted to quickly assemble a bunch of jpgs and videos to show friends, family, etc.  The presets in MOTV were great starting points and it was easy to tweak them without too much effort.  In fact the more time you spent with the program the more you discovered you could do.   PTE seems like the opposite philosophy where you really need to dig in deep right off the bat.  The plan for MOTV was to update things like resolution to Bluray quality but I guess they figured the effort was not worth it or they lost interest.

I have no argument with the fact that PTE is much more sophisticated in terms of the tweaks and level of precision but I guess it comes down to usability.  If I want to create a slide where, say 4 images float in to certain positions it just seems there are a lot of steps in PTE versus the single button present for MOTV that took about 5 seconds to accomplish.  

[Barry Beckham]

If the usability of the software was as popular among users as it’s suggested, it would still be around. 

[SeismicGuy]

4 minutes ago, Barry Beckham said:

If the usability of the software was as popular among users as it’s suggested, it would still be around. 

Not worth debating or theorizing why they are not around.  My guess is that for their particular audience (folks wishing to put together a presentable slide show for fun in an hour our less) there were umpteen other alternatives that were either free or cheap.  If you are interested I can send you the program and you can use my license (no big deal since the company does not exist anymore) and then you can judge for yourself.   

As I said it took me about 20 seconds to assemble a rotating "carousel" of several jpg and videos on a slide.   I am guessing that a newcomer MOTV might take about 15 minutes to do so.  How long would it take a newcomer to do the same thing with PTE and how long for an experienced user? Again, I think PTE is definitely a superior program given the level of tweaking and precision that can be accomplished.  But not so much in terms of usability right out of the box.

Doug

[Barry Beckham]

 

[SeismicGuy]

As usual an excellent presentation for an excellent program.  I am curious though how long it would actually take to produce a slide composed of say 6 or 8 images that rotated in a circle like a carousel. I don't know if that is a standard style/theme(?) built into the program but suspect there are folks that have produced some downloadable preset style or theme (I still get confused with the lingo sometimes) that can be imported.  A number of preset effects, some of which are pretty complex, were built into MOTV and I am guessing this is also the case for many of the other currently available slideshow programs out there.  I don't see it as a flaw if various effects are built in and easily accessible with a dropdown or button as long as the effect can be massaged and tweaked to serve a particular purpose.  The nice thing is that at least you would have a starting point where 80% of the work was already done for you.  

A (poor?) analogy would be if I were using a spreadsheet program and frequently had to add a column of numbers.  I can create a formula every time (=C1+C2+C3. . . ) or I can go to the ribbon bar on Excel and hit the "AutoSum" button.  The program is not any better or worse since there is a "preset" button that will sum up a row or column of numbers but having such a button just adds to the usability.  

[davegee]

DG

[SeismicGuy]

I assume this is something that is not built into the program but, rather, was designed by you and is downloadable and can be imported--yes?  What I am suggesting is that many common type of effects (e.g., animated tiling of images onto a slide, flowing/zooming of the images on the slide, the carousel effect you produced, etc.) could be integrated into the program.  I guess there being a group of experienced users who innovate these effects and making them available for downloading and importing sort of accomplishes the same thing.  If you had not noted that you had created such a style, I would need to search for "carousel" in the forum and would presumably find yours.  Still it just seems like it would be easier to have variations of the most popular ones already built into the program without the need to search, download, and import.

[stranger2156]

45 minutes ago, SeismicGuy said:

Still it just seems like it would be easier to have variations of the most popular ones already built into the program without the need to search, download, and import.

When there is no desire to create something in the program yourself (due to lack of time or, perhaps, due to poor knowledge of the program), then you have to pay when someone else will do it for you. Whether it's users or program developers. The developers limited themselves to basic styles and transitions, they just don't have enough time to distribute packages with styles or transitions as well. But we have users who do it, and even for free. You just need to search the forum. Agree, this is a small "payment" for their work. ))

Paul

[Tonton Bruno]

13 hours ago, SeismicGuy said:

 I am curious though how long it would actually take to produce a slide composed of say 6 or 8 images that rotated in a circle like a carousel.

I tried this morning and it took me less than 15 minutes from scratch, but I am an advanced user. For a beginner, it is something difficult but there are several tutos explaining how to achieve it.

[stranger2156]

5 minutes will be enough after 14 months of acquaintance with the program. ))