Project Making VCD/DVD

Putting Video on Disk (VCD,SVCD and DVD)

Report 1 - "Putting Videos on Disk".

Part 1: "Do you really need Video CD"

By Richard Balsillie

Note: After further experimentation, the suggested form of final output varies from that discussed at the SIG meeting on 27 January.

For this article, a basic knowledge of Microsoft Powerpoint is assumed. As in most Windows-based programs, there are alternative paths and shortcuts to menus and commands.

There are times, when because of incompatibilities between the equipment we have (or don’t have), and that of our audience, we need to find other ways of sharing our work.

One way is to render your finished video as an MPEG-1 move, and burn the resulting file onto a CD-ROM. The user can then open the video in Windows Media Player or similar program.

Note: Unlike when rendering to tape, it is better to have little or no “black” lead-in to your MPEG-1 movie.

Using Powerpoint you can take this concept further to make a more professional presentation with a more user friendly pathway for the user, and provide interactive menus to additional videos, pictures and other files.

Publishing the Powerpoint presentation as a web-page allows most users to access your work.

In my example, the user first encounters an opening slide. This has a nice background and title. It includes instructions on where to click to view the movies; and for each movie, its title, a still picture from the movie, and a short synopsis. As the slide is opened music is played.

 


The key is that each of the pictures is hyperlinked to a slide containing the appropriate movie. Click on the picture and you are taken to the movie slide.

 

Each movie is inserted into its own slide, positioned and sized for optimum viewing. The user clicks on the viewing area, and the movie plays. In my case, the background is the same as for the opening slide, but it need not be. On each movie’s slide an action button is included to return to the menu slide.


Now, let’s see how it is done:

1. Open a new folder for your movie show, (and rename it eg “MyMovieShow”).

2. Select the MPEG-1 files, the still pictures and the opening music (.wav file) you wish to include. Make a copy of each of these files and paste them into the folder.

3. Open Powerpoint with a blank presentation.

4. Set the slide size to “On Screen Show” (24cm wide by 18cm high) [File/Pagesetup…].

5. Open the first slide.

6. Insert a background [Format/Background…].

7. Insert your main title (eg “My Video Show”), and the instructions: “Click on the picture to view the video)”.

8. Insert each movie title and synopsis1.

9. Insert the still picture for each movie next to the title [Insert/Picture/From File…].


10. Open the slide sorter [View/Slide Sorter].

 

11. Insert a new slide (Slide 2) [Insert/New Slide].

12. Click on the new slide and Insert a background [Format/Background…].

13. Insert the first movie [Insert/Movies and Sounds/Movie from File…].

14. This may appear as a box of hazy lines.

15. Resize this box to about 16 cm wide and 10 cm high, and centre.

16. To give the playing area some definition, you may like to insert an unfilled box from the drawing toolbar to make a frame.

17. Insert the instruction “Click below to play movie” 2.

18. Insert an action button [Slide show/Action Buttons].

19. Set the properties to hyperlink to the next slide.

20. Place this in the lower right corner in an appropriate size.

21. Next to the action button, insert the instruction: “Click to Return to Menu ”.

22. Open the slide sorter, and copy Slide 2. Paste a copy of this slide for each further movie to be included in the movie show.

23. Click on Slide 3, and click on and delete the first movie. Insert the second movie, and resize and centre.

24. Repeat for each further slide.

25. Open the first slide (the menu) and click on the first picture.

26. Insert a hyperlink to Slide 2 [Insert/Hyperlink/Place in this Document/Slide 2].

27. Repeat for each other picture, (with the appropriate slide number).

28. In the slide sorter, copy the first slide and paste a copy after each movie slide3.

 

29. Save your file as a web-page. [Save as/Webpage (*.htm; *.html)/Publish].

 

30. In the Publish Dialog window, click on All browsers listed above” and “Open published web-page in browser”, then “Publish”.

 


You will note that the folder “MyMovieShow” will contain your *.htm file plus a folder “MyMovieShow_files”.

31. If you are satisfied, burn your *.htm file and “files” folder onto a CD_ROM.

Footnotes

1) It is recommended that you use only the basic Windows fonts. Other fonts may not render properly in html.

2) In Powerpoint it is possible to set objects such as sounds and videos to open as soon as the slide is open. However, it appears that when published as an *.htm file, this command does not work, and it is necessary to click on the object or its icon on the screen.

3) It is possible to hyperlink each of the movie slides back to the first menu slide. However, I found this did not always work. Alternating copies of the menu slide with the movie slides with each hyperlinked to the next slide was a simple workaround. The hyperlinks which had earlier been set to specific movie slide numbers were automatically updated when the copies of the menu slide were inserted.

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Project Pinnacle

Making the best use of Pinnacle Studio

Richard Balsillie's tip on:

How to resolve the problem of unexpected head movements which result as a consequence of the editing of the video of a person speaking.

This came up when I was working on the video for my presentation on Magic for Kids.

 

Part of this video has me talking to camera. Because I am human and tend to make mistakes, it took me quite a few takes to get through my script.

 

When I finally stitched it all together, I was quite happy with the flow of the dialog and sound, but after inserting cutaways, I was still left with a number of transitions between consecutive clips. Some of these are OK with no perceptible visual difference between one clip and the next. Others though show a slight but noticeable difference in head placement.

I have inserted fades in some cases (between major thoughts and ideas), but the script does not allow for any more cutaways. My choices seem to be jump cuts, which are noticeably jerky, or dissolves, which, as you will see tonight, create a momentary blurriness around the head. I would interested to hear of the experiences or thoughts of others.

 

The lesson I have learned from this is that if I make a blooper in my monologue, I should re-take it from the top (at least of the thought or idea), and not from the start of the last sentence.

Alternatively, I could wear a head brace.