This is good if you just want slide shows.
Get PHOTO STORY 3 FOR WINDOWS free from Microsoft and do a lot more.

kEN  –  13 years ago  –  Βρήκατε αυτό το σχόλιο χρήσιμο? ναι | όχι (+58)

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Installed well on my Windows 7 x64.
You can use your name during registration. (That's always a plus.)
I dragged and dropped 10 pics and an MP3, selected a video output from a large selection (I chose .avi) It quickly created a video. My default media player is VLC but the audio was very choppy so I opened it with Windows Media Player and it worked perfectly!

This is a great program. I know Windows Live Movie Maker (which comes with Windows) does the same thing so I made the same project with both. 4Media Photo Slideshow Maker had more options for video output format and quality. Windows Live Movie Maker has more visual options.

I found 4Media Photo Slideshow Maker to be easier and a better interface than Windows Live Movie Maker. This is definately a keeper but 4Media Photo Slideshow Maker should add more video effects to make it unquestionably better than Windows Live Movie Maker.

Tip: If your pics are very large you will need a good batch photo resizer to make them smaller so the images will look the best quality because the program has to fit the pics to the size of the movie.

Thanks. Two great software giveaways in a row!

Craig  –  13 years ago  –  Βρήκατε αυτό το σχόλιο χρήσιμο? ναι | όχι (+43)

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It crashes for me when I'm adding new files – tried 4 times, with .jpg and .png files. I’m using Windows XP. At this point I cannot use this software.

Volodymyr Frytskyy  –  13 years ago  –  Βρήκατε αυτό το σχόλιο χρήσιμο? ναι | όχι (+40)

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John [#9] asks about recording narration over a background audio track, setting volume for each, having variable duration for each image, & being able to go back & redo or fine tune portions without starting over... features beyond what 4Media Photo Slideshow Maker offers.

Basically what you're after John is a NLE, a video Non Linear Editor rather than an app just for slideshows. The way they work for the most part is you import your images to the time-line or story board, & set the length of time each image appears. Your background audio would go on 1 track, & you'd record your narration on another -- you might use volume envelopes or split the background music track to lower the volume when you're speaking. If your NLE allowed 3 audio tracks you could also add sound FX when/where you wanted them. When you had the picture durations the way you wanted [I think from what you posted, John, you want to vary duration to match narration] you could add the transition FX between images, setting the transition duration & optionally adjusting any settings available for the transition you chose. You could also BTW add things like pan & zoom, image FX etc., & many NLEs will let you add an overlay track [or tracks] for anything from text to graphics, stills, animation, whatever you like. You can preview at any time, & once you've got things the way you want you can render the project to a video file with audio combined or separately [many DVD/Blu-Ray authoring apps want separate audio & video]. Off the top of my head maybe a couple of decent examples of the sort of things fairly easily possible are the main menus for retail DVDs with motion & stills combined, & the intros for some of the HBO series [like Carnival if you remember that one -- whether you liked the series or not, the intro made a big impact in the video world].

If that sounds like a bit of work OTOH, it is. Slideshow apps are made to be simpler, easier, faster alternatives giving you a subset of an NLE's features. NLE's themselves vary on how much help they'll provide -- some come with an app to generate the background music tracks, some automate or use wizards or have templates for overlays etc... generally the lower cost NLEs have more of that sort of stuff, but also leave out some of the power & flexibility you'll see in more pro level software. NLE's also are more limited in the output formats provided -- it may be surprising but the more expensive the NLE, it seems the fewer input/output choices you're given. Vegas Pro for example likes still images in jpg or png, is relatively poor encoding to AVC, & won't encode to several other formats at all.

As far as free NLEs go, there's WAX & Lightworks Beta AFAIK... *nix has a few, but not Windows. Sony Vegas has home versions that are sometimes very low cost, even free after MIR, the same as Corel/Ulead video apps. Roxio & Nero both include fairly nice NLEs in their suites -- Roxio's is faster encoding, has more FX etc., & is generally easier to use, but Nero's is closer to pro apps with more flexibility... Both have been on sale in the $35 range, & Nero is sometimes free after MIR [Note, if you buy & register one of the Nero OEM packs sold on-line for ~$3, you will get reduced upgrade pricing offers more than paying back your $3 investment]. Many people like the Pegasus TMPGEnc apps, though sales are rare. Cyberlink, the company behind PowerDVD has quite a few apps, & you'll very occasionally see the last version suite offered free on-line -- if you think you might be interested keep your eyes open as they've just come out with PowerDVD 11, so they may be updating their other software too, & who knows, maybe offering the old version for free again. That said, I anxiously grabbed one of these packages when it was free, & found the features & capabilities so limited I've yet to use any part of it. Adobe has their cut-down version of Premiere, & a combo pack with Premiere & Photoshop Elements has often been on sale, while around the 1st of the year Premiere Elements itself went for ~$40 straight from Adobe. If you want HD video however, many of these apps either leave it out entirely or charge extra like Roxio, so make sure to read all the fine print as this is not always made obvious, e.g. it took me an hour or so on Adobe's site to find out that Premiere Elements doesn't do HD, period. Finally, if you're interested in authoring DVDs or Blu-Ray you may like Roxio, Nero, & some of the Sony packages that come with DVDA better than many alternatives -- none of the 3 are perfect, especially when it comes to Blu-Ray, but they're among the easier to use apps that can give you a DVD &/or BD [from the same project] with pro grade results.

mike  –  13 years ago  –  Βρήκατε αυτό το σχόλιο χρήσιμο? ναι | όχι (+27)

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@1 Same here after installing and adding photo's i get a error and the program terminates. Also i am using Xp pro sp3.

For detailed error info see image below:

http://tinypic.com/r/kdone0/7

JustMe  –  13 years ago  –  Βρήκατε αυτό το σχόλιο χρήσιμο? ναι | όχι (+24)

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