PPT storyboarding with Photo Story 3

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

Forgot to add link to a typical layout screenshot of Photo Story 3:
http://www.jensign.com/photostory.jpg
Nice iconic reminders of slide time, and if images have been modified and
if/where sounds are included etc..

- Mitch

To add some references, a very useful site on Movie Makes and Photo Story
is:
http://www.papajohn.org/
- Mitch

"Mitch Gallant" wrote in message
...
Forgot to add link to a typical layout screenshot of Photo Story 3:
http://www.jensign.com/photostory.jpg
Nice iconic reminders of slide time, and if images have been modified and
if/where sounds are included etc..

- Mitch

Mitch;

Thanks for posting this Definitely going to keep the parts that work g

I was on that Radar Chain form 1956-1994 Per Ardu Ad Astra

--
Please post all follow-up questions/replies to the newsgroup
Email unless specifically requested will not be opened
Do Provide The Version Of PowerPoint You Are Using
Do Not Post Attachments In This Newsgroup
Michael Koerner [MS PPT MVP]


"Mitch Gallant" wrote in message
...
|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
|
|
|
|

"Mitch Gallant" wrote in message
...
To add some references, a very useful site on Movie Makes and Photo Story
is:
http://www.papajohn.org/

Yeah, PapaJohn's a good guy. I don't think there's a PhotoStory group, but
you might want to try
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsof...sxp.moviemaker and
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsof...indowsxp.video -- I know he
posts quite frequently in those groups.

As far as I'm concerned, you can crosspost to this group and those if you
want, as I suspect many reading here would be interested in the answers to
your Movie Maker and Photo Story questions also. They're a bit off-topic,
but I think they're still very relevant.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/powerpointannoy/
PPTLive! Sept 17-20, 2006 http://www.pptlive.com

As far as I'm concerned, you can crosspost to this group

Amen to that. This is good stuff, Mitch, and there should be plenty of people
here interested in reading it. Now. Later.

Thanks for the post and keep 'em coming.


-----------------------------------------
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

"Echo S" wrote in message
...
"Mitch Gallant" wrote in message
...
To add some references, a very useful site on Movie Makes and Photo Story
is:
http://www.papajohn.org/

Yeah, PapaJohn's a good guy. I don't think there's a PhotoStory group, but
you might want to try
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsof...sxp.moviemaker and
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsof...indowsxp.video -- I know he
posts quite frequently in those groups.

As far as I'm concerned, you can crosspost to this group and those if you
want, as I suspect many reading here would be interested in the answers to
your Movie Maker and Photo Story questions also. They're a bit off-topic,
but I think they're still very relevant.


Thanks for that infor. I fwd'd the link of this discussion to PapaJohn.
I noticed in my DVD authoring software (Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3SE) that
there is capability to storyboard directly within that app (didn't notice
that until I had already storyboarded using Photo Story :-)
I didn't see any "preview what this will roughly look likeon your TV" in
MovieFactory before committing to burn to DVD. That might have showed the
edge problems.
I also have CyberLink PowerProducer DVD Gold authoring tool, but for some
reason it will not open .. as I posted he
http://www.cyberlink.com/english/cs/...=CS000 334921
I have expended about as much time as I can on solving that problem.
For anyone who can REALLY provide the silver bullet to help solve my
PowerProducer Gold hang for me, there is a gratis complete JavaScience web
site content CD ready to be shipped as a reward

I think sometimes when people user PowerPoint for too long, it tends to
blind people as to the only way to go as the source slide authoring
approach. But as I said, I am working with power-PowerPoint lovers so I must
conform :-)

- Mitch

"Mitch Gallant" wrote in message
...

I didn't see any "preview what this will roughly look likeon your TV" in
MovieFactory before committing to burn to DVD. That might have showed the
edge problems.

When you create stuff for TV display, you want to put nonimportant parts of
the pictures in the margins because, while that area may show on some TVs,
it may not show on others. And, as far as I know, there's really no way to
tell ahead of time. So some products (Adobe products being some of them)
have what's called a "safe area" indicator you can turn on. One's for
titles, one's for margins. Anything inside the margin area will show on most
(all?) TVs, and anything inside the "title safe area" is where you want any
text to be if you want to be sure it will show on most (all?) TVs.

I don't know the ULead products, but you might look for something like a
"safe area" option in them.

I think sometimes when people user PowerPoint for too long, it tends to
blind people as to the only way to go as the source slide authoring
approach.

Totally agree. (I might say "source screen authoring," though.)

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/powerpointannoy/
PPTLive! Sept 17-20, 2006 http://www.pptlive.com

I think sometimes when people user PowerPoint for too long, it tends to
blind people as to the only way to go as the source slide authoring
approach.

Hey buddy, you come into The Hammer Store, you get Hammer Advice. You wanna know
about screwdrivers, ya go to Screwdrivers 'R Us.

What can I say? Guilty as charged.

-----------------------------------------
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

When you create stuff for TV display, you want to put nonimportant parts of
the pictures in the margins because, while that area may show on some TVs,
it may not show on others. And, as far as I know, there's really no way to
tell ahead of time. So some products (Adobe products being some of them)
have what's called a "safe area" indicator you can turn on. One's for
titles, one's for margins. Anything inside the margin area will show on most
(all?) TVs, and anything inside the "title safe area" is where you want any
text to be if you want to be sure it will show on most (all?) TVs.

I used to have all that info for 35mm slides, but if somebody can supply the
safe title and safe margin areas for 4:3 pages, I can prolly whip up a little
macro that toggles safe area indicators on/off.


-----------------------------------------
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================