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Ask HN: Best Slidehow Making Tool?

5 points by ddemchuk 18y ago

My girlfriend is graduating from college in June and her family wants me to put together a slideshow of images and music that's about 7-10 minutes long to play at a party for her. I want to be able to have a nice backdrop/theme of some sort with some basic transitions and maybe some titles every few pictures, nothing crazy fancy though. I also want to convert and burn the final slideshow to DVD to make sure things work as easily as possible the day we show it. I was playing around with Animoto.com and it seems pretty cool but I was wondering if anyone had other solutions out there for this type of project? Thanks

mcav 18y ago
Before I got into programming, I made several graduation/wedding/memorial videos for people. It was an incredible mess. I had to scan each photo into a [slow, old] flatbed scanner, manually rotate them, and save them. Then, I would tediously add each photo to a slide in Corel's presentation software (the WordPerfect company). But it wouldn't enter the photos fullscreen, so I had to drag each individual photo to fill the entire slide's area. Then I had to try to sync the music with it. I had to sit there with a CD player, run it direct-line to VCR, and manually move the volume/tracks on the CD to match with the video that was playing onto the VCR. Augh. Thank god for iMovie and the like nowadays. Not sure how to address your question now though... iMovie/iPhoto might do it but I don't know if you're on a mac.
- ddemchuk 18y ago
  I'm on Windows unfortunately. I would imagine there's got to be good online solutions but all I've found so far is animoto.com like I said...
  - kirse 18y ago
    It's actually ridiculously easy to use... http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=D6BA5972-328E-4DF7-8F9D-068FC0F80CFC&displaylang=en http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=D6B... You may not need to download it, but this is the latest version for Vista. Just slap in each photo, drag a transition between each, import an audio track and it takes like 10 seconds to make a DVD with it.
wenbert 18y ago
My friends have tried using iPhoto once for a bar party. We just hooked it up with projector and speakers. iPhoto is good since the transitions are cool enough and you can play music during the slideshow. If you do not have a Mac then borrow one from your friends ;-)
jsterce 18y ago
Microsoft PhotoStory + Windows Movie Maker might do the trick for you. If you need more power and can't find an online solution, ProShow Gold is great. Kind of pricey though.
quizbiz 18y ago
Just use powerpoint and hook speakers to your ipod. Our ears will naturally match the flow of the music with transitions.