Notes on Creating a Digital Slide Sequence 

There are many programs available to create a slide show for viewing on a PC or TV screen.

Programs such as  ProShow Gold , Pictures to Exe and Vegas Movie Studio are exceptional and very effective.

They are all able to synchronise sound with slide and video images together with a variety of transitions.

The choice of software depends on what you want to do, how you want to show your sequence and your preferences for synchronising the sound.

For DVD output and an intuitive layout, it is difficult to fault ProShow Gold.
It can also output in various video formats and as a self contained computer executable file .
Sound, video and slides can be edited within the program.  Sound clips can be tied directly to individual slides.
Slides and Captions can be superimposed as layers.
The ProShow Producer version provides Key Point control of motion and video output to HD formats.

Pictures to Exe5  uses the computing power of the graphics card such that the final images tend to be sharper and transitions are usually smoother than with ProShow.  Output and most features are similar to ProShow Producer. Unfortunately the program is not as intuitive, in my opinion, and all sound editing is external to the program. This can make editing for close synchronisation a lot more difficult.

Sony Vegas Movie Studio is designed as a video editor but works just a well with still images. It has great flexability with the advantage that up to four audio tracks can be displayed giving precise synchronisation with up to four video tracks. It is, however, a little more complex to use than ProShow or Pictures to Exe and output can only be as a video file.
 
High Definition Video up to 1920x1080 is becoming available and programs such as Vegas Movie Studio will already output to this definition. Recording to disc is generally not available but using computer storage and a high resolution monitor, impressive sequences can be shown in wmv or avi-mp4 format.

Summary May 2008
If you are mainly interested in output as a DVD, then I suggest you try ProShow Gold..
Competition work and commercial sequences may benefit from the slightly higher quality of Pictures to Exe given a suitable high resolution monitor or projector.

Photodex - ProShow Producer is still my preferred program mainly because I find the editing of sound so much quicker.and I can mix in video..
I  can create an exe file for showing via my projector at 1280x720, a standard DVD disc for distribution to friends and 1280x720 format video to feed my television via a Pinnacle Show Center 200.

Some of my experiments with all three programs demonstrate that sequences can now be made at the full HDTV resolution of 1920x1080..

However, note that the majority of 'HD ready' televisions in the UK, including mine, have a native resolution around 1280x720 so cannot take full advantage of 1920x1080 .

Resolution Guide                                  Pictures To Exe v ProShow

© Keith Biggs LRPS