M
Mitch Gallant
I decided to try the storyboarding approach for DVD creation using WinXP's
Photo Story 3.
Here is the procedure I used, and the results for this system:
XP Pro sp2 fully patched. Dell Latitude C 800 850 MHz 512 Meg RAM 12
Gb available HD space
(1) open PPT presentation, saved all images as jpg. I didn't bother removing
the animations or embeded icons for sound etc. This worked nicely. For 22
slides, takes about 4 minutes.
(2) Open Photo Story 3 (dnld'd from MS) and import images, add sound clips
to slides, adjust time delay on each slide (default is only 5 seconds) to
allow sound to play. Adjust so there is no motion (zooming etc..) during
slides and do color balance.
NOTE: I found that for such a long presentation, with my hardware,
previewing near final stage hangs/crashed Photo Story. So, SAVE the Procject
frequently, definitely before you preview it
. I find that if I close
PhotoStory and preview separately in WMP 10, it plays fairly smoothly.
(3) Since I am targetting DVD, saved the video file as "Profile for
creating DVDs" NTSC 640x480 which is WMV Q=98 4:3 aspect ration and 30
ffs. Saving takes about 3 minutes for my config.
(4) Opened Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3SE and tried to import that WMV file
(which is a video file type supported by MovieFactory). Failed! Unsupported
format.
Used WinAVI to convert from WMV to DVD format (.vob). Conversion is
fairly fast with WinAVI. Tried importing this vob into MovieFactory. FAILED
... audio type (Dolby.. ) not supported in MovieFactory. So looked carefully
at WinAVI converter config. The DEFAULT for conversion is audio AC3 (Dolby
digital) so disabled that and selected MPG2 audio. Converted again. SUCCESS.
Ulead MovieFactory accepts that format. COnverts quickly (as close to target
burning DVD format obviously). Created simply DVD setup (chapters etc..).
Content length about 12 minutes. Ulead process and burns DVD (on external LG
MultiSession DVD burner) in about 7 minutes. (Note ... must select 4:3
aspect ratio explictly in ULead MovieFactory!!)
(5) Opened DVD on home DVD player. Results: Images are somewhat blurry.
Text, which was good font size in original PPT are reasonably legible.
Sound voice-overs on tracks are perfect. Transitions that were in storyboard
are very poor in created DVD. Biggest annoyance was chopping around the
edges. (Note recommendations in storyboarding articles about allowing
sufficient border around images slides! )
So this first time experience in Storyboarding PPT images is reasonably
good. It is reasonably labour intensive.
Any comments on this: ?
How would I use Photo Story 3 to ensure that the images quality in final DVD
are better? I noticed that MS Movie Maker, if targetting DVD saves as
uncompressed (large file) AVI. I assume that would help in the final DVD
conversion? I'd like to get to the stage where my images are only limited by
the TV display capabilities and not any intermediate conpression conversion
process in intermediate stages from PPT exported images to DVD gen.
- Mitch Gallant
www.jensign.com
Photo Story 3.
Here is the procedure I used, and the results for this system:
XP Pro sp2 fully patched. Dell Latitude C 800 850 MHz 512 Meg RAM 12
Gb available HD space
(1) open PPT presentation, saved all images as jpg. I didn't bother removing
the animations or embeded icons for sound etc. This worked nicely. For 22
slides, takes about 4 minutes.
(2) Open Photo Story 3 (dnld'd from MS) and import images, add sound clips
to slides, adjust time delay on each slide (default is only 5 seconds) to
allow sound to play. Adjust so there is no motion (zooming etc..) during
slides and do color balance.
NOTE: I found that for such a long presentation, with my hardware,
previewing near final stage hangs/crashed Photo Story. So, SAVE the Procject
frequently, definitely before you preview it

PhotoStory and preview separately in WMP 10, it plays fairly smoothly.
(3) Since I am targetting DVD, saved the video file as "Profile for
creating DVDs" NTSC 640x480 which is WMV Q=98 4:3 aspect ration and 30
ffs. Saving takes about 3 minutes for my config.
(4) Opened Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3SE and tried to import that WMV file
(which is a video file type supported by MovieFactory). Failed! Unsupported
format.
Used WinAVI to convert from WMV to DVD format (.vob). Conversion is
fairly fast with WinAVI. Tried importing this vob into MovieFactory. FAILED
... audio type (Dolby.. ) not supported in MovieFactory. So looked carefully
at WinAVI converter config. The DEFAULT for conversion is audio AC3 (Dolby
digital) so disabled that and selected MPG2 audio. Converted again. SUCCESS.
Ulead MovieFactory accepts that format. COnverts quickly (as close to target
burning DVD format obviously). Created simply DVD setup (chapters etc..).
Content length about 12 minutes. Ulead process and burns DVD (on external LG
MultiSession DVD burner) in about 7 minutes. (Note ... must select 4:3
aspect ratio explictly in ULead MovieFactory!!)
(5) Opened DVD on home DVD player. Results: Images are somewhat blurry.
Text, which was good font size in original PPT are reasonably legible.
Sound voice-overs on tracks are perfect. Transitions that were in storyboard
are very poor in created DVD. Biggest annoyance was chopping around the
edges. (Note recommendations in storyboarding articles about allowing
sufficient border around images slides! )
So this first time experience in Storyboarding PPT images is reasonably
good. It is reasonably labour intensive.
Any comments on this: ?
How would I use Photo Story 3 to ensure that the images quality in final DVD
are better? I noticed that MS Movie Maker, if targetting DVD saves as
uncompressed (large file) AVI. I assume that would help in the final DVD
conversion? I'd like to get to the stage where my images are only limited by
the TV display capabilities and not any intermediate conpression conversion
process in intermediate stages from PPT exported images to DVD gen.
- Mitch Gallant
www.jensign.com