How to insert slides (photos) in an MPG

[dstringh]

I have captured the video and sound of an interview conducted in 1985 with my now departed grandparents. I would like to intersperse some historical photos in the interview video, since it gets boring just looking at them for 30 minutes (great people, but it gets old). How do I keep the sound in sync with the video, while adding some slides with transitions? I tried using Overlay, but that just sits on top of the original video. I would like to actually "cut away" to photos, but have their voices from the video, and then come back to them speaking.

Thanks!

[Ron P.]

Hi,

What program are you using, Video Studio (what version?).

This can be done, however since you are editing an MPEG, you may have sync problems, once you start cutting, or splitting the audio from the video. You can search the forum for "out of sync" and will probably find that most are due to editing mpeg files.
There are a couple of excellent programs designed for editing mpegs. Links were posted recently to them, VideoRedo, and Womble, you can google them if nothing else.

With that what you can do in VS9 is, choose where you want to cut away from the video and insert your pictures. Make note of the time in the timeline. Choose from the edit panel for your video clip, "Split Audio". This will split the audio and place it in the audio track.
Now go to the place where you want to cut to your photos, and using the scissors tool, cut the video. Then insert your images. Your audio will continue to play while the pictures are being viewed.

Now the difficult part is getting the audio synced back up with the video. You will have to cut back to the video at a later time, in other words cut out the amount of video that your pictures take. Then even when you do that, the audio sync may not match up correctly to lip movements.

Also I've only tried this a couple of times, and did not do well with it. So I try to stick with showing video with audio. Then for slideshows, I'll just use background music..

Regards

Ron P.

[sjj1805]

To preserve the audio, you can use the overlay track and simply place it on top of the video.
You can resize the picture on the overlay track to fill the screen.
Take a look at my "Moving Paths Tutorial"
http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=8940
With a little bit of imagination, using the moving paths method you could make the still image "Grow in" from a small speck at the centre of the screen to a full screen image.
You could also use the moving paths principle to make it slide in and slide out.
The overlay also has built in moving effects that can be used where a slide can be brought in from any of 8 directions and then leave by any of 8 directions.

[dstringh]

I have gone back and tried the Overlay functionality again, and after a bit of experiment, find that it does exactly what I wish to do. I have also used various filters. Thanks for the suggestions and help.

[Ilene]

I have come across this problem myself and have come up with an easy fix. When you find the place that you want to insert the image or images, use the scissor tool to make a split. Then separate the audio from the mpg....so that the audio and video are on separate tracks. Next insert the image. If you use a transition between the mpg video and the image, and then put an image or a few images in and continue the video after the images you will have a sync problem. The best way around this is to "trick" ulead by putting a blank color screen, I use black, in between the transition and the next video clip, that matches 1/2 the length of the transition. Then when you split the audio and video in the next clip, it will be easy to reallign. It took me a while of playing around with this feature before I discovered the "trick" It would be so much easier if transitions could be placed on their own time line. Hope this helps.

[dstringh]

Thanks for the suggestions. I just used the overlay functionality. Worked great. Made 2 dozen copies for all cousins. I am so glad my aunt did this interview 20+ years ago. They told stories I had never heard. Coming over on the boat, etc. It saddens me when treasures like this are lost.