Combining video & still photos

[Toot]

Well, it took me a while to find a program where I can convert my movie/video files to what I need (AVI,DVD,MPEG, VCD, etc), with multiple choices. Now I am looking for a program where I can combine short video's with still photos, and easy to use. I have tried using the movie maker, but my files are too large and it only burns onto a cd, that I can see. I want to burn them onto a dvd, preferrably. Does anyone have any suggestions???

[Mr Yuck]

What version of movie maker do you use? I cant see any files being too big, I work with 10gb avi files in movie maker sometimes.

Instead of saving directly to dvd, you can save to the computer, then use another program to burn the DVD.

What is your price range?

[Toot]

ok....don't laugh...the version I'm using is only 2.1.4026.0. It came with the computer and I have never updated it. My price range is hopingly under $100 or less. Good idea about saving it to the computer first. I just never think of things like that.

[Ronnoco]

I use Power Point, but I find that it is a lot of work and there are a lot of considerations.

Your images, the transitions, the text, and the videos all take up ram memory, which means you need a fair amount in your laptop or desktop. The program loads up as much as it can into a cache for speed and as you progress through the presentation it empties and adds new images or videos to the cache. If you move faster than the computer can handle from one image to another then the computer gets bogged down and you need to wait. Program not responding is also a possible error situation.

So you need to compress your images to take up less ram and therefore to load faster into the cache to be ready for the screen. The short videos need to be spread out in your presentation to give the computer time to load them without interfering with the images in between. Transitions and animations depend on the speed of your processor and/or your graphics card. Too many transitions close together will slow down your presentation too.
In some cases it is also worthwhile making some images and videos less than full screen size in order to save ram and speed up some parts of the presentation.

A considerable amount of precise planning and adjusting is necessary to produce a great presentation that also matches the capability of your computer to show it at the requisite speed. Obviously if you cannot show it at the necessary speed on the computer, it will not record at the required visual speed onto a DVD either.

Ronnoco

[Skyman]

movie maker can incorporate still and video, as can almost all video editing software. since movie maker is a free download from micro$oft i recommend you upgrade. what exactly do you mean your files are to large? is that with the completed video or the video you are loading into movie maker? any video editing application will require a resonable amount of ram to run smoothly, most of them are stable enough that they can run at lower than optimal ram levels but you need to be patient and allow the computer time to render the required files. if you are using movie maker save the file as an avi (using the settings for your region i.e. pal or ntsc) and use a burning program such as nero or roxio to put it onto a dvd. if you can get yourself a copy of premier you will have more options in terms of manipulating still images and you will have the option to export your video directly to dvd.
Let me know how you go, and i it could be helpful to know your computers specs (if you don't want to post them send me a private message)
Simon

[nigel1500]

hi, for under $100 you can buy a program called adobe premiere elements 2. I used this program for a number of years and was very please with the result. I no longer use it as i have upgrade to adobe premiere pro 2 (very expensive). Since i used premiere elements 2 a new version has hit the shelves but from what i can see just get premiere elements 2.

It will take a little bit longer to learn than movie maker as it uses a timeline instead of scenes, but the quailty is very well worth it.

You can very easily stick video and photos together as well as getting up to the higher levels of video editing.
can be used from eager amatuers up to high intermidiate levels.