self-paced slideshow

[d_edge]

Does anybody have a hint on creating self-paced presentations in a DVD. I'm considering using DVD Wokshop express to assign a menu to each slide and add buttons to go forwards and backwards. Is there a better way ?


Thanks

[the britisher]

A couple of questions

Why do you want onscreen navigation?

How many slides do you want to show?

Are they just still images?

If you could answer these, we might be able to help, oh and one more
do you want to use audio?

[d_edge]

Thank You,

Our project has around 70 slides and 4 videos. Usually we'd go for an interactive CD presentation using Flash or DIrector but our customer wants an easy to distribute DVD

The project is basically a glorified powerpoint presentation. They want to be able to explain each slide at their leisure and play intermixed videos.
The slides themselves don't have audio, but the videos do. And if suddenly the audience asks a question related to previous slide, they want to be able to return to it with the remote control ( preferibly with the back arrow)

Hope that describe the project better

[the britisher]

I'm not sure whether you can mix video and still images using the slideshow feature of DVD Workshop, I don't think you can but perhaps someone else on the forum would know.

You could mark all images as chapters (up to 99 and you only need 70) that way you can just use the DVD remote (including if you're playing it on a sofware player) to navigate backwards an forwards through your presentation.

Personally I would create my "presentation" in a NLE application like Ulead Media Studio or Adobe Premier as one complete video.

This would allow more control over things like transitions and would allow you to mix stills and video in the same presentation.

You would still need to set chapter points for each "slide" (you'd have all the timmings from you NLE so it'd be easy), that way you could still use the DVD remote to control your presentation, including back, forward and - if the remote has a number pad - going to any "slide" in the presentation. Plus of course you can use the pause button

Hope this helps.

[Devil]

Don't you think that, if you want to simulate a PPT presentation, the best software to do this might not be PowerPoint? You can include videos and sound. Better still, try Corel Presentations, where you can actually embed the videos into the project (they remain separate in PPT). In both cases, you can generate an autonomous play-only version. Of course, your playback tool will be a computer, rather than a DVD player.

I just get the feeling that making a DVD for this is rather a clumsy way of doing things.

[the britisher]

C'mon Devil

give the guy a break, he already said that the customer wants a DVD and we all know, what the customer wants, the customer gets.

Unless you're Ulead technical support that is.

Seriously though, I've done DVD based presentations before and if you know what your doing with a good NLE then the results can be pretty damn fine.

Kindest regards

the britisher

[pauley]

Like the britisher said, but I'll add a bit more.

Make them all menus.

For the images, just a background image
For the videos, load them as a video background (I would recommend that after the video, they go to the next slide).

Pauley

[the britisher]

Pauley,

This was my first instinct too (great minds think alike ), that way he could have the onscreen forward and back buttons.

However, d_edge said he wanted to use DVD Workshop Express which is limited to 30 menus and allows only 30 seconds of video for each motion menu.

You could do it with the full version of Workshop, though, even then, the motion menus are limited to 254 seconds (a little over 4 mins).

I still think there should be a separate forum for Express, as users are in a much better position to help with the software that they use on a regular basis.

I use the full version and had to look at Ulead's comparison chart to get this info.

Just sayin'