Advice Needed: Creating Slideshow Video with your Picutres

I'm looking to create a slideshow type video using several hundred pictures that I have gathered over the past few months. The video is a for a Junior Golf Banquet held at my club, and this is always a special night for the parents/kids.

In past years, I've simply used Windows Movie Maker. However, I've since gotten much more involved in Photography, and the quality of the images when put in this program just flat out suck. BUT, it is VERY easy to use/create videos with text and music. Maybe I don't have a correct setting but the pictures are blurred and not presentable at full screen.

Outside of using PowerPoint (VERY TIME CONSUMING), what are your suggestions? Any free-programs for download? I may be willing to spend a few dollars as I do make about 3-4 videos a year.

Thanks for any help!

Not free by any means , but I like Sony Vegas..

woodsters wrote in post #6352962
Not free by any means , but I like Sony Vegas..

I'll look into it, thanks. Guess there aren't many options.....

Adobe Premiere is a pretty good beginners program.

Sports_Dude wrote in post #6354829
Adobe Premiere is a pretty good beginners program.

Adobe Premiere is a lot more than just a few dollars...then again good software isn't cheap

Some of the ones that the pros have been using are ShowIt Web, ProShow Gold, and ProShow Producer

They aren't exactly cheap, but not too expensive either.

Thanks for the advice. I picked up Sony Vegas - Movie Studio 9 this morning actually.

It's relatively inexpensive, and should do everything I need. Now I just need to figure out the damn program by friday!

ProShow Gold is hard to beat.

I've used PicturesToExe and found it to be pretty good. It's not free (US$49 for the basic version) but it's powerful and easy to use.

woodsters wrote in post #6352962
Not free by any means , but I like Sony Vegas..

+1 for sony vegas - worth the money.

ESMcBlurM3 wrote in post #6360858
Thanks for the advice. I picked up Sony Vegas - Movie Studio 9 this morning actually.

It's relatively inexpensive, and should do everything I need. Now I just need to figure out the damn program by friday!

I have sony vegas movie studio 9 as well. Shouldn't take you too long to figure it out. great program. I might not know all the answers but if you get stuck on anything you can send me a PM and I can try to help you out! Have fun with it. I'm sure you will find yourself using it alot once you get the hang of it.

kab8715 wrote in post #6375408
+1 for sony vegas - worth the money.

I have sony vegas movie studio 9 as well. Shouldn't take you too long to figure it out. great program. I might not know all the answers but if you get stuck on anything you can send me a PM and I can try to help you out! Have fun with it. I'm sure you will find yourself using it alot once you get the hang of it.

Great, I'll actually send ya a PM right now with a little question.

Well, I'm having a little problem that's really bumming me out for my presentation tonight.

All of the images were taken with my 20d in a large file size. I put everything in the video ready to go, and when I "Make the Video", the images really come out poor. Useable, but poor. I'm wondering if I should have resized everything first, or if I'm simply not saving the video to my hard drive in the correct format. Sure hope it's the later, because there is no time to resize each image!

There is a website called www.photodex.com. They have a 2 or 3 levels of slideshow softsware but I use the very basic one which is called called Pro Show Gold and it costs about $70. It is very user-friendly and you can download a free trial. I have Sony Vegas and paid way too much money for it! I really like Pro Show Gold. It is a little bit more limited than the ProShow Producer but serves its purpose. Hope this helps.

I do slide shows for annual HS sports banquets of the teams I shoot for. I recommend ProShow Gold for starters. I recently upgraded to ProShow Producer. My typical slide show is 20 minutes and runs in a loop during the banquet. Most teams mute the audio after a few minutes. 20 minutes seems like a decent amount of time without people getting bored and if they miss something, it will repeat. I set the slides for 3 seconds and a 3 second transition. With producer, the slides can be a lot more elaborate and I extend the time for some.

Thank you for the continued advice. I'm finding Vegas to be "too" in-depth for my needs. I had a hell of time producing GOOD quality pictures, not to mention my computer froze during the presentation. T'was a bad night

ProShow Gold and Producer is a great product.
A beginner can have a slide show sync to music in under 15 minutes.