Pan through a still

[towtruck]

Hello all, been a while...

I have a large (many pixels) still, and would like to create a short video segment which basically consists of a pan, from one side of the still to the other, of just a vertically small part of the original still.

If possible, I would like to start out by zooming in from the still to the smaller portion which will constitute the first frame of the pan.

I can obviously do this manually (i.e. creating many small stills from the larger one and putting them together), but would like to know if any of the software (including AviSynth) will handle this.

Thanks in advance!

[SLK001]

I'd use Adobe AfterEffects to do this. AviSynth can do this, but the scripting is very advanced.

[mats.hogberg]

A very simple approach would be to use (free) MS Photo Story 3 - you can set any rectangular area in a picture as start position and any other rectangular area as end position, and have it make a pan from start "point" to end "point" zooming in or out as needed. Save out as high bitrate wmv.

/Mats

[towtruck]

Thanks to both of you!

I suspect that AfterEffects might give me slightly better quality, but it seems the PS option is better for a limited budget.

[mats.hogberg]

The limitation of PS3 is it only saves as WMV, whic may be a pain to convert to anything useful. If they only could have DV export at least, like WMM...

Mats

[towtruck]

... but I can import the WMV into WMM and then export as DV-AVI, so no problem, right?!

[Veyron]

"Slide Show Movie Maker 3.7" is probably the program you need. And it's free.
It's also a bit tricky to use but it will give you the option to export to any wfw codec available. Just select the "Speial Picture setting" and then "Picture move" and you will get started. However, remeber to rename the project every time you export before you hit the button, since the program will remove any file with the same name whitout asking.

[guns1inger]

If you use photostory, get Papa John's templates for it, as they improve the quality of output substantially over the crappy soft ones that Microsoft supply.

[Midzuki]

Well, here goes the Avisynth way to face the problem:

filename = "2bwk.avs"

# "000.png" = 1024x768 sqrpxls
#
ImageSource("000.png", end=249, fps=25)
ConvertToYV12
Tweak(bright=12.0)

filename = "avs-animation-demo.avs"

srcklip=AVISource("2bwk.avs")
#
part00=Animate(srcklip,0,249, "BilinearResize", 256,192,0,0,1024,768, \
256,192,0,0,512,384)
#
part01=Animate(srcklip,0,249, "BilinearResize", 256,192,0,0,512,384, \
256,192,512,0,512,384)
#
part02=Animate(srcklip,0,249, "BilinearResize", 256,192,512,0,512,384, \
256,192,512,384,512,384)
#
part03=Animate(srcklip,0,249, "BilinearResize", 256,192,512,384,512,384, \
256,192,0,384,512,384)
#
part04=Animate(srcklip,0,249, "BilinearResize", 256,192,0,384,512,384, \
256,192,0,0,512,384)
#
part05=Animate(srcklip,0,249, "BilinearResize", 256,192,0,0,512,384, \
256,192,0,0,1024,768)
#
UnalignedSplice(part00,part01,part02,part03,part04 ,part05)

+++++++

avs-animation-demo.avi

[anubis13]

just about any video editing program will do this with a few simple keyframes

[olyteddy]

You can also check out 'Rostrum Camera' from these guys: http://www.price-media.demon.co.uk/. I used it once.

[Midzuki]

anubis13 wrote:

just about any video editing program will do this with a few simple keyframes

Correct. The demo clip that I uploaded contains only 5 keyframes.

++++++++++++++

[towtruck]

Thank you to all who responded. So far, I've only had a chance to try out PhotoStory3 (I have kids), and found it quite simple to use... actually I wouldn't mind a bit more control, but for my purposes it is fine.

Gunslinger mentioned getting better templates from Papa John's. After looking into it I think he meant 'profiles'; as in the various video profiles used to render the final video. On the appropriate place on Papa Johns site it says that the profiles are for PS3 only, and not for use with WMM. At first I thought that meant you couldn't import a video created using one of these profiles into WMM, but now I'm pretty sure it just means you can't add these to the WMM list of profiles.

The link is here. I'll give it a go tonite and see how much it improves video quality.
http://www.papajohn.org/PS3-Saving.html

Thanks again to all. I'll probably try all of the techniques sooner or later.

[guns1inger]

Papa John also has WMM profiles that are better than the supplied ones. That said, the best output option from WMM is DV-avi, and then convert elsewhere for your target format.

[anubis13]

[quote="anubis13"]Midzuki wrote:

The demo clip that I uploaded contains only 5 keyframes.

can you hook me up with that girl's phone number :P

[Midzuki]

anubisTheGod13 wrote:

can you hook me up with that girl's phone number :P

eight-six-seven-five-three-O-nine

============

[towtruck]

So.... her name is Jenny???

[towtruck]

I promised to try the profiles I downloaded from Papa John's, and what a difference!

We all love to take our jabs at Microsoft, but it's hard to understand how even they can put out crap that bad. The profiles from Papa John's are infinitely superior.

Over and out.