How best to create slide show of old pictures with voice ove

[alexcomp]

I am in the testing stage of this process. I have Sony TRV730 with wide angle lens. I want to capture old snapshots with voice annotation. I have set my camera on a tripod that allows the camera to point straight down to a worksurface and can zoom in or out to fill the frame depending on size of photo. Voice annotation in this mode works quite well.

It occurs to me that it might be a smoother process for the people who will do the voice commentary if the pictures were already filmed and then played while the elders made the commentary. Then the voice over could be dubbed into the pre-existing tape.

It would be nice if I could do this on the camera itself but my camera manual makes no mention of dubbing audio to and existing tape, (the manual however does make mention of a "main" and a "sub" audio track in the Digital8 format but no instruction on how to use it or if it can be used on the trv730).

With two elderly parents and several boxfulls of old photos, this is an extremely worthwhile application and I would like to do it right. Anyone who has done this or has thoughts on the best way will be appreciated.

[Beretta]

For working with normal photographs, I'd recommend Ulead Media Studio Pro.

Take your photos, scan them in, and save them in a non-lossy format (bmp, tif, psd, etc)

Figure out what resolution you need for your video (NTSC 352x240, Pal=320x240) and then resize & crop your photos to EXACTLY that size using some graphics editing software (I prefer Adobe Photoshop 6.0) If you don't do this step, when you drop the photos onto the Ulead timeline, it will stretch/squeeze them to the selected size, and of course, your photos will look all distorted. (There are methods to fix the distortion, but you have to do it photo by photo and it takes forever)

Open up MediaStudio, set your resolution and frame rate, and in the preferences set the default time for stills. (It is in frames/second (not time) so you'll need to do a little math. If you are using NTSC it is 29.97 frames per second, if you are using PAL it is 25fps (IIRC)) Example: Using PAL 10 seconds per photo would be 250 frames as the default time.

To get your phots onto the timeline, you just drag n drop them (simple!) Once you have got all your photos in and arranged how you like, and have set the transistions you want to use (if any) generate the video using the MPEG-1 VCD template.

If you are like me, you'll need to play the MPEG so you can keep your voice in synch with the pictures that are on the display while you record your audio.

Record your voiceover to a raw wav (PCM format) of the proper bitrate (VCD is 224kbps) drop it onto the MediaStudio Pro audio timeline, and rerender your video. It is at this step you can also correct any minor glitches in your synchronization, by stretching/shrinking the time duration for individual photos to match up with the audio.

Personally, I think the MediaStudio MPEG encoder sucks ass, so at this point I would suggest rendering to a NON-lossy format (Like HuffYUV) and then using TMPGEnc to do the final MPEG conversion

Presto!

This is the method I use (and it is what I do for a profession) if anyone has a better method, I'd love to hear it (anything that makes life easier is welcome!)

[vitualis]

If you use Adobe Premiere, your life will be much easier. Unlike Media Studio Pro which ridiculously can't maintain the aspect ratio of the original picture, Premiere can.

Thus, you don't have to bother with resizing/cropping to VCD framesizes.

Furthermore, there is an issue of aspect ratio that nobody seems to pay attention to. I wrote about it here: http://www.geocities.com/medinotes/vcd/mpeg_still_images.html#aspect_ratio

I can attest that it is important even if you don't really notice it with your eyes (one or two female friends saying that your VCD photos make them look fat -- for PAL -- is enough to change the error of your ways ).

I actually wrote a post on this (making Photo VCD) a while ago. Apart from what I posted, there are a lot of good suggestions in this thread from other posters too. Take a look...

I see that the original article has been deleted (older than 4 months). The original post detailed how to use PhotoShop automation to automatically correct the aspect ratio problem for a whole batch of images as well as how to create a video clip of the photos in Premiere.

If anyone's interested, I'll post it again.

Regards.

_________________
Michael Tam

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: vitualis on 2001-11-05 22:30:43 ]</font>

[Beretta]

Yah, I'd like to see it. I'm certainly open to new ideas that will make my job easier

[vitualis]

Okay. Here was the original post:

Part of this is repetitious in terms of the aspect ratio thing, but I described using PhotoShop automation to fix it as a batch. I once tried this with about 600 images. It took about 5 minutes on my Celeron 300A to convert them all to the correct aspect ratio as saved it to BMP. Imagine doing this by hand!! It would take hours.

-----------------------------------------

Tutorial on creating VCDs from photo images
http://www.vcdhelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=38352&forum=1&

Introduction
Many people have asked on this forum how to put images (e.g., photos) onto a VCD so that it can be viewed on the TV with a VCD/DVD player. The best way is to use Nero as it can burn the images as mpeg stills which allows the maximum TV resolution for the images. However, there are some compatibility issues. Some DVD players don't like these discs. Furthermore, there cannot be background music while viewing these discs. Although WinONCD3.8 and ?Easy CD Creator 5 allows background music, this is poorly supported and many players will not play these discs correctly.

Thus, the best way to put photos or images onto a VCD (with music) is to turn these images into an MPEG composition. Although the high resolution images are not achievable (unless you create XVCDs), background music, nice transitions between pictures, etc., more than covers for this deficit. Furthermore, compatibility is guaranteed.

Issues and some theory
Although you could just composite the images and create an MPEG, an issue that few people have raised before in this forum is that of aspect ratio.

The aspect ratio on a standard TV is 4:3 (1.33).
However framesize for NTSC VCD video is 352x240.
The framesize for PAL VCD video is 352x288.

That is, the "pixels" for a TV are NOT SQUARE.

What are the ramifications of this?
On the PC, we think in terms of square pixels. Pictures on your PC monitor are drawn in square pixels.

For PAL:
352x288 (in square pixels) has an aspect ratio of 1.22, which is less than 1.33. Thus, on the TV, the picture seen on the PC will actually be stretched horizontally --> people will look "fatter".

For NTSC:
352x240 (in square pixels) has an aspect ratio of 1.47, which is more than 1.33. Thus, on the TV, the picture seen on the PC will actually be compressed horizontally --> people will look "thinner".

So that the image looks "right" on the TV, this must be corrected (by resizing the image) on the PC before loading it in any authoring software.

For PAL:
Resize the image by setting the width to 91.67% of the original.
- calculated from: (352/28 / (4/3)

For NTSC:
Resize the image by setting the width to 110% of the original.
- calculated from: (352/240) / (4/3)

Now, this could be done manually for all the images. But if there are hundreds of images, it would undoubtedly drive the ordinary person insane. I will describe a way to do this with the "Automate" tool in Adobe Photoshop (v5.5).

Summary of the method
- Adobe Photoshop
- Creation of "Action"
- Resizing settings
- How to use the automation tool
- Adobe Premiere
- Loading settings
- Still image settings

Software used
- Adobe Photoshop (v5.5)
- Adobe Premiere (v5.5)
- VCD authoring/burning program (e.g., Nero, WinOnCD, VCDImager)

Method - Beginning
Load up Adobe Photoshop. Firstly we need to open a non-BMP file. One of the included samples in Photoshop is a good example (e.g., "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 5.5\Goodies\Samples\Dune.tif" )

Creating the new "Action"
Click on the toolbar: Window --> Show Action

A window on the right hand side with two tabs should be present: "History" and "Actions". It may have been there before. The Action tab should be selected.

On the bottom of this little window, there is a row of buttons. One of the middle buttons looks like a little folder. Click this to "Create new set". Name the set "Video Editing". Click OK.

Now, click the button next to it -- "Create new action". Name the action PAL Resize. It should be in the set of "Video Editing". You don't need to do anything with Function Key or Color. Click "Record".

The "Record" button is now depressed. From now on, anything done will be recorded until the "Stop" button is pressed.

Resizing
Click on the toolbar: Image --> Image Size

Some of the settings need to be changed. Firstly, UNCHECK the "Constrain Proportions" option. The little diagram of the chain linking the width and height should now be gone. The "Resample Image" option should remain ticked and the method should be "bicubic".

Now on the top options for width and height ("Pixel dimensions&quot, first change the units to "percent".

Now for width change it to: 91.67 (this is for PAL)
For height: 100

Click OK.

Set default save directory
Click on the toolbar: File --> Save As

Now, go to the directly where you want all your resized files to be saved (e.g., C:\Temp ). Now make sure that you set the filetype to save as BMP. Now click "Save".

A dialog box with "File Format" and "Depth" will come up. Choose "Windows" and "24 bit". Click OK.

The image is saved as a Windows BMP because Premiere doesn't import JPEGs. Furthermore, if the original file was a JPEG and you resaved it as a JPEG, you would incur a generational loss of quality.

Now close the image (i.e., File --> Close or click the [x] in the top right hand corner of the window with the image.

Click the "Stop" button on the "Actions Window". This should be the left most button with a square in it.

What the Actions Window should now look like
\/ PAL Resize
> Image Size
> Save
> Close

Creating an Action for NTSC
Essentially, it's exactly the same steps as above. You may want to name the action "NTSC Resize".

When doing the resizing of the image, set the width (in percent) to 110.

Using the Batch Automation Feature
Click on the toolbar: File --> Automate --> Batch
Choose the following settings:

Play
- Set: Video Editing
- Action: PAL Resize (or NTSC Resize)

Source: Folder
- Choose: click here and select the directory with your source images
- Override Action "Open" Commands (leave unchecked)
- Include All Subdirectories (up to you)

Destination: None (the Save command was in our action so we don't need to set a destination)

Errors: Stop For Errors

Click OK. Then Photoshop should load each image in turn, resize it and then save it as a BMP file in your chosen folder.


Using Adobe Premiere to create a composition
Adobe Premiere is still the best program for doing this as:
- Direct export as an MPEG with the Panasonic MPEG Encoder plug-in (excellent quality) or you can frameserve it with AVISynth to any stand-alone encoder.
- Can "maintain the aspect ratio" of you image so that the image isn't stretched to fill the whole frame (a key feature missing in Ulead MediaStudio 6)

New Project Settings
Load up Premiere. Use the following settings:
For PAL:
General Settings:
- Editing Mode: Video for Windows
- Timebase: 25
- Time Display: 25 fps Timecode
Video Settings:
- Compressor: None
- Depth: Millions
- Frame Size: 352h, 288w, 4:3 Aspect unchecked
- Frame Rate: 25
- Recompress unchecked
- other options should be greyed out
Audio Settings:
- Rate: 44 kHz
- Format: 16 Bit - Stereo
- Type: Uncompressed
- Interleave: 1 Frame
- Enhanced rate conversion: Best
- Logarithmic audio fades unchecked
Keyframe and Rendering Options
- Optimize stills checked
- Field setting: No Fields
- All other settings unchecked

For NTSC: all settings the same as for PAL except:
General Settings:
- Timebase: 29.97
- Time Display: I'm not sure but it's not 25
Video Settings:
- Frame Size: 352h, 240w, 4:3 Aspect unchecked
- Frame Rate: 29.97

When the settings are correct, it may be wise to SAVE them.
Click OK when done.

Still image settings
It's important to set the follow settings. This is simply as it makes life easier. Otherwise, you would have to change the settings for each still individually.

Click on the toolbar: File --> Preferences --> General/Still Image

The settings that are relevant are:
- Default Duration: Set the number of frames you want for each still
- Lock Aspect (have this ticked! -- otherwise the image will be stretched to fill the whole frame)

Click OK when done.

General Premiere usage
- File --> Import --> File to import your images.
- Drag them onto the Timeline to create your video clip
- Transitions can also be dragged onto the timeline to give some nice effects
- Obviously, you can also import audio files (they have to be in wav I think) and drag them onto the timeline
- The intricasies on how to use Premiere is beyond this tutorial

- File --> Export --> Movie to create your MPEG (you will need to have installed the Panasonic MPEG Encoder plug-in)

Tip:
If you are happy with not having any special transitions between your images, then File --> Import --> Folder. This will load the whole folder into the Project window. Then drag the folder onto the timeline and it will put all the images one after another (for the specified duration) on the timeline.

Discussion
Although you may not want to use Adobe Premiere to make your MPEGs, the resizing step with Photoshop should be undertaken. Otherwise, the image on your TV won't quite correspond with your original.

This was written by Michael Tam.
I can be contacted by e-mail at dr_mtam@yahoo.com

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Regards.

[mikk]

i'm guessing that since u're dealing with photos u would like to have 4 times as much resolution.

it seems to me that u won't be having any motion, so u can use still images. just scan the pictures into your computer at a size of 768x576 (704x528 for NTSC). then resize them to 704x576 (704x480 for NTSC). don't keep the aspect ratio when u resize.

record the audio on its own on your pc. divide it up into parts for each photo.

now use my tutorial to help u the rest of the way:
http://www.geocities.com/mikk999/VCDStills.htm

u should put high res scans as bmp or tiff files on the cd too - just in case the old photos get lost or wear out.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: mikk on 2001-11-11 07:34:47 ]</font>

[vitualis]

There's advantages and disadvantages of both methods.

As you stated, with the audio + still method, you get high resolution pictures which look great. However, you can't get nice image transitions between photos. Furthermore, you can't have a continuous music in the background between photos. Similarly, any commentary doesn't flow continuous between photos.

If you create a photo disc with movies but a SVCD (where the aspect ratio issue is now of prime importance!), the difference in resolution between a still and the movie is not as significant, especially on most common TVs.

Regards.