Synchronising music to Still Images

Vincej · Post by **Vincej** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 3:33 am

Ok I have figured out how to add music and still digital jpegs to the edit stage of VS9. What I want to do now is synchronise the beat of the music to the change of the image. Question: How do i do that EASILY?

Yes I could through trial and error adjust the time elapsed of each invidule still image but his is hugely labourious. I was hoping to find some facility where I woud be able to see the pulses of the music such that I coudl alter the images duration on the edit line easily.

Also I was hoping to be able to change the elapsed time of all images as a body rather than change each one indivudually - after all most music is pretty regular in it's beat.

Perhaps I need a different product ?

Many Thanks Vince

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 3:38 am

It CAN be done with VideoStudio.
You do NOT use the normal VideoEditor but instead you use the MovieWizard

This wizard includes an option to change the slideshow images with the beat of the music and it works quite well.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 3:38 am

MSP 7 can do that. You still need to set your queue points manually. The idea is to have the music track first, set your queue points and then add all the images from the library to the video track, automatically changing to another image at a queue point.

Steve has beaten me to it again...

Post by **Ron P.** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 3:41 am

Hi Vince, welcome to the forums..

The only way that I know in VS9 is with trial and error. Charlie Hill (I'm sure you have read his name here a couple of times), if not he is considered a genius with Ulead products like VS and MSP. In his book, and samples he done a short video where images were sync'd to music. However he was not able to do this with VS9. He had to use MSP in order to get them synchronized. VS9 just doesn't provide an easy way to do this.

You have a better chance of doing this with VS10+ or MSP8. Both have cue or chapter marks. You use them to make cues on the timeline to the beat of your music. Then you can line your images up with the cue marks. MSP8 does a real sweet job of this. No manually messing with them, just go through placing your cues, then you can have MSP insert your images, sync to cue marks. With VS10+ you can use the chapter marks like cues, but you have to place the clips manually, but it gives you a reference to work with.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 4:12 am

Ron,
I'm not at my own machine right now. Does VS9 not have the same as VS10 as outlined in an earlier reply I gave in July?
http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic. ... 3121#73121

Post by **Ron P.** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 4:25 am

Yes it does, I forgot that VS9 had that option. It does a fair job. However I remember trying it a couple of times, and it got tempermental when using other music, such as from CDs. With the canned music it does pretty good. You have to watch the total time of your music compared to the number of images. If you have alot of images, the music will loop.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 12:41 pm

With VS10 you can switch to Audio View where you can see the wave data and, therefore, set your images to the "pulses of the music". Much easier than doing it by ear.

Vincej · Post by **Vincej** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 5:26 pm

Thanks everyone - I have had a little play and indeed the wizard does add alot of interets to the slide show, however, stricly speaking it does not make chnages to the pulse of the music as such.

I can't bring myself to spend the $$ 300 on MSP so perhaps I should struggel with VS10 upgrade ???

Question: does VS 10 really do a better job of synching up the images to the pulse than VS9 with some moderate effort ? Or is VS10 not really going to help much and I shoud just bight the bullet and go MSP ?

Thanks Vince

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 6:02 pm

Whether or not to upgrade to MediaStudio Pro or not.
Now that is a hard question to answer and will vary according to the needs, abilities and financial standing of the person concerned.

Of course MediaStudio Pro is the more powerful and better program.
If it wasnt it wouldn't have a higher price tag. This though does not make it the best choice for ALL users. Here are a few questions you need to ask yourself.

1. Are you a professional, semi-professional or serious hobbyist. Answer Yes - MediaStudio Pro may be better for you.
If however you are an occaisional user who wishes to get his holiday videos onto DVD and at the same time wish to delve into the fascinating world of video editing. Perhaps VideoStudio is better for you.
If you do not wish to delve too deeply and simply want to get your holiday video onto a DVD as quickly as possible - perhaps you should consider DVD MovieFactory.

2. Can I afford it, Can I do without it.
These are simple questions that you should ask yourself before purchasing anything, these questions apply to purchases ranging from upgrading from VideoStudio to MediaStudio in much the same way as deciding to buy a new car.

3. What extra benefits do I want from an upgrade.
In the case of the poster above he simply wants to synchronise the sound track with a photo slideshow. If this is the only reason for upgrading I think he needs to ask "How many slideshows am I going to create?"

One slideshow - well to be honest an upgrade is going to be a bit expensive compared to what you get in return.
Several slideshows because I am a wedding photographer or similar and I provide these slideshows to my customers in return for bagfulls of money - here an upgrade is an investment that will soon pay for itself.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 6:19 pm

Why don't you trial them both and see which has the features that suit you?

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:39 pm

And if I could add an extra question to Steve's list: am I prepared to invest the extra hours of learning all the new tricks and work processes with MSP?

I realise that MSP is not wildly different from VS in its layout etc, but some fundamental things are done quite differently and there are, of course, completely new tools and processes to discover. And given that a lot of people seem to have difficulty in mastering what is in VS -- with some, I am sorry to say, appearing not too interested in even trying too hard or finding what to us might seem like simple steps, rather too complicated -- the extra learning curve might be a step too far...

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:57 pm

This thread got my attention because my daughter just sent me about 100 new digital images that she wants me to add to her wedding reception video (please, Dad...).

I have always synced the image duration to the beat of the music by ear but have always wanted, at the very least, to be able to set the durations of a bunch of images at once. Intuitively, you should be able to shift-click (or control-click) to select several images and set the duration for every one of them, at once. Doesn't work, of course - the Duration control disappears as soon as you select more then one image.

I tried Steve's suggestion of using the Movie Wizard (MW) and it will let me set duration of several images at once - but there is no way to populate the MW's timeline with images selected from my existing project's Edit timeline. If someone knows how to do this, please let me know.

The MW, also, has no (apparant) assists for determining the time period of the music beat. I could not find a way to insert music into its timeline. Am I missing somthing here?

So I'm back to the old "by ear" technique for determining the beat period.

BTW, VS10+ music timeline does not help at all - the wave display does not reliably show the beat. It needs a frequency filter to pick up the bass sound. Again, if anyone has discovered some way to use this display, please let me know.

I have no intention of learning Media Studio Pro just to perform this task. I am quite sure that it has its own warts and blemishes and I would waste far more time learning work-arounds for MSP than it will take me to finish my project the old fashioned way.