A place to seek advice and answers on those particularly challenging issues.
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I have been really impressed, since version 4, with the Slide Show maker in the 'Create' section of PSE. There is a limitation, of course, and that is that the best quality slide show that a Windows PSE can make is a .WMV file - for use on WIndows Media Player. It's good, but......

While WIndows users can (or should) have Windows Media Player, Mac users wouldn't have it (an assumption, as Mac users have traditionally stuck with QuickTime. But QuickTime is also available and commonly used as a regular extra, like Shockwave, on a Windows machine. So really QuickTime is the more widespread program - everybody and his/her dog has it (I think) because you'll often come across a QT movie on the web.

So ideally, QuickTime would perhaps be the better choice if you are putting a slide show together - and if you had a slide show on a memory stick or DVD, you'd be just about certain to be able to take it to any other computer and it would run. Not so the WMV - which in any case has its own interface which is not what people want to see when viewing your masterpieces, whether they be holiday snaps or an arty sequence with music.

Question, then...... several of you have PSE running on a Mac - what are the options for saving your slide show when it's produced? I'm thinking it should be QuickTime - in which case I wish that were an option on a Windows PSE.

Same subject, slightly different question.......

This weekend I'm going to a day-long AV show. All local amateurs but, having seen it last year, it's top quality, with well-chosen music, smart transitions and captions/titles. And you don't see any Windows Media Player or QuickTime interfaces. That's because the shows are usually made on one of the 'specialist' titles, like ProShowGold or Pictures to Exe. Both of them make slide shows that are self-executing and need no further support. They run on a laptop are are displayed on a digital projector to a big screen.

It does seem a shame that Adobe won't go the whole way and let you make 'standalone' slide shows, but I'd be interested in your opinions.
PSE6 on WinXP, Pentax K10d...... and now a Canon G10.

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Totally agree I use memories on Tv and just love it, easy to use
etc etc
Adobe surely could come up with something similar
I also use memories on tv and really like it. It is so easy to use!!!
Oh, Yes!

I tried out the slide show in PSE4 when I first started, liked it when I saw it running on my PC, cut it to a DVD and was really disapointed with the results.

I found some references to ProShowGold, boutht it and am perfectly happy, especially with the fact that I can produce high-quality shows to run on PC, DVD player, etc.
John
Well I went to that Audio Visual show on Saturday and I noticed that one was running as a wmv file, so all the setting up, resizing windows and running it was done by the laptop that controlled it all and was an unnecessary and very messy part of it. By far the majority were using ProShowGold and a few were running from Pictures-to-Exe. One or two used Proshow 'Standard' and one used ProShow Producer. Not too sure of all the names but the ProShowGold had good transitions, frames and music/narration controls, while Producer apparently has complete control over the music production, timing and a few other things. A brief discussion on the merits of each ensued and the ProShowGold came out as the favourite. I must say I like the idea of multi-tracking the sound, so that you could have music, sound effects and voice narration running together, but 'Producer' is expensive for just the occasional show. I expect you could get freeware or shareware sound production programs that could multitrack, run a track on the cheapest program and that would save the extra money.

Some links:

Photodex ProShow Producer $249.95 http://www.photodex.com/products/producer/
Not cheap and much more than most would need.

Photodex ProShow Gold $69.95 http://www.photodex.com/products/proshowgold/
Middle of the Road - seems to have all you'd need and probably some things you don't.

Photodex ProShow Standard $29.95 http://www.photodex.com/products/proshow/
Fairly basic, as you'd expect - but it's not short on features and the interface in uncannily similar to the PSE slide show controls. Good enough price to learn on and then upgrade to Gold later - if indeed you need to.
All the above have free trials, though I haven't checked any out.

Pictures to Exe - the Deluxe version is $39 but there seem to be cheaper versions around. It appears to do just about anything that ProShow Standard or even Gold can do, but it was rated below them by the contributors to the AV show I attended. http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/index.html

Being a member of a photographic club that actively participates in AV shows, I think it's about time I joined in, so I'm going to give the ProShowGold a try.
PSE6 on WinXP, Pentax K10d...... and now a Canon G10.

Gallery
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