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CommentsAll opinions are very welcome. Here is my project in a nutshell: excerpts from individual interviews with 20 women with a specific chronic illness recorded with microtrack 24/96 in WAV format will be the audio. Digital photos of the women will be the visual. I want to do a sound driven slide show with the interview excerpts, photos, maybe some music, and I need to be able to add text (names, introduction, etc.). Perhaps 25 minutes in length. The product is to be then put on a DVD and included in a book with the transcribed full interviews, a couple thousand copies. I am using an iMAC OS X. I have done little slide shows with iMovie, using Garage Band – that’s it. I am not a pro (my field has been public health) and have ambitiously committed to produce this piece. I would love to share the final product with Transom, though for the moment it is only in Spanish. Maybe English to come. So, any advice on the best program for this production will help me make a crucial decision. thank you, Jenifer
September 17th, 2008
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Hello Jenifer,
I looked into exactly the same sort of issue a while back. Essentially, what you (and I) want to do is to turn the usual slideshow software on its head: there are many software programs out there where you *start* with photos/movies and then insert sound at appropriate junctures.
I’ve found none that allow you to start with *sound* as a base for adding visual material. It’s a shame. Such a reverse procedure seems like a logical (and needed) capability that one would think some software developer would have taken up by now.
Dave
Jennifer,
I’ve used video editing programs to do this. I’ve worked with both Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere. They allow for multiple audio tracks as well as video tracks and they both will let you put still digital images on the video tracks and do dissolves, etc. between them. they are also fairly robust audio editors so you can get your audio edited exactly and them adjust the length of the images to fit the audio.
Don
Hello Don,
I assume that Jenifer, like me, uses a Mac (she mentions GarageBand, etc.). That casts a somewhat different light on the matter. Sony Vegas seems to be Windows-only. Adobe Premier has recently offered a Mac version (but, at $800 it’s far beyond where I want to go).
And so, for practical purposes, the situation remains as I described it. The search for a (moderately priced) program to layer/insert photo stills (I have no use for video for this sort of thing) over audio (segmented or continuous) is still to bear any fruit.
Dave
Don and Dave,
thanks for the responses. We got into the heat of the matter quick. I do use an iMac. Perhaps I will have to use a less-than-perfect-program for my needs. Experience with Soundslides and a project like this anyone? I eagerly await Transom reader opinions, ideas and experiences. The clock is ticking and I have to chose a program soon. Should I rephrase the question? What are my best options on a fragile budget? – might be the better frame…
Jenifer
Hi,
There are several less expensive programs for the Mac that do similar things:
• Still Life, $?
• Fotomagico , $50
• Photo to Movie , $50
Still Life is discontinued, but you can download the latest version here; but I don’t know if it can be registered.
I have only dabbled with these tools, so I can’t vouch for them.
Robert
Robert, thanks for the info. I checked out the demo and wonder if this program is good for voice tracks. I am wondering if I need to first create a voice track, editing all 20 interview excerpts into one track using a separate program (needing later to construct the rythym I will need to tell a story along with the photos that are complementary, not principal, with some text and black segments (no image) with voice on top for making the audio the principal conductor in this piece). Have you played with this program using any narrative recorded audio? thanks again,
Jenifer
Fotomagico and PhotoToMovie both are less expensive, yes, and for Macs. I’ve tried them both along with Pixelmator (can’t say I haven’t looked).
Unfortunately, all of them are designed to start with *visuals* as primary components along the timeline. Audio elements then are "sliced" into this basic visual structure.
If anyone has found software (for Mac) designed with *audio* as the grounding for later visual dressing up, I’d like to hear.
Dave
I forget about pricing, I am in education and get educational pricing here at work. I haven’t used Adobe Premiere Elements so I don’t know how many audio tracks it will work with but couldn’t one put together the fine tuned audio for what Jennifer wants to do in Audacity and then drop that in a basic video editor like Elements and add the stills to fit the audio? You can also run Vegas or Vegas Movie Studio (the low cost version) on your Mac in Parallels or VMware Fusion. I’m also on a Mac and that is what I’ve been doing for the last year as I am still more comfortable with Vegas than Premiere.
Don
Virtual emulation might seem the best way to go based on your experience. The two Windows programs you mention: Adobe Premier Elements = $100; Sony Vegas = $55. [Of course, these and other prices I'll mention are official retail and may be found at much less.]
But, wait. Naive as I was about this emulation business, I thought you buy the emulation software and you’re ready to go. Nope. You also need what’s called an OS "appliance". What’s that? For those like me, "that" means also buying Microsoft Office (or just Word maybe). The, cheapest, "Home" edition of Microsoft Office (for Mac) is $131 (and its regular versions retail for $200 and up). You first must have this stuff in order to "emulate".
Then, the Mac emulation software itself. There were three I found that seem to have proved reasonably good: Parallels ($80), VMWare Fusion ($80) and Crossover ($60). Crossover, unlike the first two, doesn’t require Microsoft Office; however, its developers say they have no idea whether their software will work with Vegas and so we’re back to the high priced emulation spread (Premier Elements).
I haven’t gone though the permutations to see what total costs could be involved. Needless to say, a few hundred dollars?
Someone (Jenifer?) with some loose change around may want to try out the Windows software in emulation mode. As for me, I’ll pass for now.
Dave
PS. Dropping the cleaned up audio into "Elements" to place photos, etc. (I assume you mean Photoshop Elements) won’t work.
Soundslides is pretty much the industry standard for this http://soundslides.com/