Video and Pictures to EXE

[22Eric]

I wish to make PTE5 presentations with a mix of dissolved stills and movie pictures. My problem is with the moving pictures. I don’t have experience with creating them, nor converting them for PTE5

At the moment I am in the (perhaps ideal?) position where I do not have a camcorder to capture my moving pictures. However, there is nothing in the specs of camcorder that will tell me whether a particular model is suitable for my purposes.

I am quite attracted to the Panasonic SD5 as it seems to promise high quality and the SD card system should be robust and easy to transfer to computer. It store images via “MPEG4-AVC/H.264 (AVCHD standard compliant)”

Can anyone tell me how I can determine whether any particular model (and the Panasonic in particular) will be suitable foe my purposes.

I previously tried adding (Compact camera) clips to a PTE version 4 project. I abandoned it because the clips were 640 x 480 and the projector’s resolution was 1024 x 768. This meant that the projector detected the change in resolution and so interrupted the flow for about 4 seconds until it changed to 640 x 480 (rather than run the clip inside a Window. At the end of the clip there was a similar interrupt as it reverted to XGA.

I seem to need to insert an AVI file into PTE5. Do I need Video Builder?

I’m sorry if I have asked a few questions – I’m sure I am not alone with this situation. Any pointers appreciated.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Eric,

You have hit on one of the primary reasons why PTE doesn't directly support video clips; the large change in resolution between normally low resolution video and high resolution still slides.

There are two ways to use video with PTE and frankly neither are completely satisfactory because the program really isn't designed to do this. The first way is to use a video decompiler to break the video down into separate files - usually jpg - which can then be played back in sequence at a reasonable frame rate of perhaps 150ms per frame. This means you would have your still frames with whatever animations followed by a movie sequence made of still frames followed by more stills, etc. It's not difficult to do this but the number of frames in your slide list can become quickly problematic if your video clips are very long.

The second way with PTE is to use Video Builder and create an MPG II file then a third party video mixer to combine the video clips and save back to MPG II then burn the combined show to DVD. Video Builder does let you add video clips as separate chapters to a DVD show but not in an integrated way in a single slideshow.

Some good video decompilers are very inexpensive - here is the one I use:

http://www.onestopsoft.com/

Normally I wouldn't suggest using a different program because PicturesToExe has the very highest quality output of "any" presentation slideshow software, but if mixing video with your slides is a major part of what you are intending to do you may want to try a different software program for this particular purpose such as Proshow Gold:

http://www.photodex.com

Proshow let's you drop in video clips seamlessly into your slideshow programs. The down side is image quality which isn't nearly up to PicturesToExe standards for executable slideshows, but if you are mixing in video it really doesn't matter because the show will generally be degraded to 800x600 pixel true resolution for rendering then for executable shows interpolated back to whatever screen resolution you choose for your slideshow. This has the end effect of greatly softening the images and a loss of resolution. Of course if DVD at NTSC or PAL resolution is the final product it really doesn't matter because the resolution will be degraded no matter which sodtware you use.

So essentially, you have two ways to do this. One - using PTE which is awkward or try Proshow Gold for doing slideshows where you need to mix in a number of video clips.

It really doesn't matter a great deal which video camera you use as long as the output is digital rather than analog. So most of the new video recorders will output digital - just choose one which has the resolution and zoom and stabilization features you like.

Best regards,

Lin

I wish to make PTE5 presentations with a mix of dissolved stills and movie pictures. My problem is with the moving pictures. I don't have experience with creating them, nor converting them for PTE5

At the moment I am in the (perhaps ideal?) position where I do not have a camcorder to capture my moving pictures. However, there is nothing in the specs of camcorder that will tell me whether a particular model is suitable for my purposes.

I am quite attracted to the Panasonic SD5 as it seems to promise high quality and the SD card system should be robust and easy to transfer to computer. It store images via "MPEG4-AVC/H.264 (AVCHD standard compliant)"

Can anyone tell me how I can determine whether any particular model (and the Panasonic in particular) will be suitable foe my purposes.

I previously tried adding (Compact camera) clips to a PTE version 4 project. I abandoned it because the clips were 640 x 480 and the projector's resolution was 1024 x 768. This meant that the projector detected the change in resolution and so interrupted the flow for about 4 seconds until it changed to 640 x 480 (rather than run the clip inside a Window. At the end of the clip there was a similar interrupt as it reverted to XGA.

I seem to need to insert an AVI file into PTE5. Do I need Video Builder?

I'm sorry if I have asked a few questions – I'm sure I am not alone with this situation. Any pointers appreciated.

[22Eric]

Many thanks Lon for taking the time and trouble to reply.

I think I will stick with PTE5 and go for lesss integration.

Thanks