Tips for a Wedding DVD Slide Show

Creating a DVD Slide Show that you can enjoy for years can be difficult. Through careful planning a slide show can be both memorable and entertaining. Here are some lessons that we've learned at Photo Field Imaging while creating our slide shows.

1. Know who your audience is.

Try not to show just pictures of the happy couple but also pictures of their families, extended families and friends. Also, if you intend to use humor in your slide show, make sure that you get a second or third opinion to verify that it is both tasteful and appropriate. We recommend that you get permission from the intended target too, just to make sure.

2. Shorter is sometimes better.

Most people have a limited attention span and, as with most weddings, there will be parents in the audience with children in tow. It has been our experience that video slide shows that are between 8 - 12 minutes in length are ideal for most occasions, including wedding receptions. This usually works out to about 3 songs and 75-100 pictures. While you can certainly display more photos during your slide show, you want to be careful not to overdo it.

3. Choose quality photographs.

Although we are good at what we do, there are practical limitations. Though you may have an old damaged photo that you wish to have edited/restored and used in your DVD Slide Show, this could add both significant production time and cost to your DVD Slide Show. Pictures that have the proper color, lighting and exposure, will look great when displayed. Pictures that are, dark, grainy or out of focus may not display the best. Make sure to choose a company that can make digital enhancements to your pictures.

4. Choose a Variety of Photographs

Try not to use too many pictures of one item or person in your slide show. Instead of showing 10 pictures of your first car, you may wish to limit it to 2 or 3. Remember, people have a limited attention span and you need to maintain audience interest.

5. Landscape pictures show better than Portrait pictures

Given the standard 4:3 dimensions of television monitors, photographs that are in landscape mode as opposed to portrait mode show better on a TV. While portrait photographs certainly should be used in the DVD Slide Show, you should be aware that there will typically be a black border that appears around the photograph. It's best to use these sparingly throughout the slide show and not clump them all together.

6. Music

Choose music that has meaning to you and whose lyrics are appropriate for the pictures being displayed. Also pay attention to how long the music is that you're choosing. If you're only showing 30 pictures, you might not want to choose a 8 minute song. We recommend that each photo be displayed for no more than 5.0 seconds with a 1.0 second fade in and 1.0 second fade out. For a song that is 4 minutes long that would be approximately 34 pictures (240/7).

7. Add motion to your slide shows

Consider having your slide shows created using the "Ken Burns Effect" that Pan and Zoom on each photograph as this can assist your with focusing on the subject, or subjects of your photographs. Keep in mind that the implementation of such effects may increase the cost and time to produce your DVD Slide Show.

8. Add transitions to your DVD Slide Shows

Transitions such as fade in/fade out (our default method) and dissolve are effective ways to move from one photograph to the next. Be careful not to get too carried away with transitions. It has been our experience that simpler is better.

9. Add short video clips.

Think about adding perhaps a 10-15 second video clip in the middle of the slide show. The video clip can help break up the video montage and is a great way to keep your audiences interest. Make sure to choose a slide show company that can convert your video clips.

10. Check. Double Check. Sanity Check.

Test, test and retest. A big event such as a wedding requires that you make sure that ALL your equipment is not only work prior to the big day, but on the big day. Give yourself enough time to setup and test everything before guests arrive. Make sure that you have a screen that is big enough for the room so that everyone to see, sound that is loud enough for everyone to hear, a reserved table that is solid enough to put everything on, spare cords, cables, adequate power, etc. If you are doing this at a reception where there will be a DJ or band, communicate with them what you are wanting to do. Allot of times they are more than willing to help out.

Napster kicks it old school with MP3

By Jasmine France

For my money, one of the most exciting pieces of news coming out of CES this year is Napster's announcement that the service will be offering up its entire download catalog in the DRM-free MP3 format. It may not be free, but it still hearkens back to the olden days of Napster. Of course, Amazon.com's digital music store has been selling MP3 files for months now (and eMusic much longer than that), but having another major online music service push for the most universal of digital music formats is just one more step in the right direction--it makes things infinitely less complicated for the consumer to have access to one type of file that will play back on any MP3 player or computer.

The change is set to roll out in the second quarter of 2008 and will apply to Napster's entire catalog of pay-per-download tracks and albums. Subscription tracks will still come in the DRM-wrapped WMA variety, a necessary evil for that type of service.

Microsoft releases final version of HD Photo plug-in for Photoshop

Microsoft has taken the beta tag off a plug-in to let Photoshop read and write files in the HD Photo format, which Microsoft is standardizing as JPEG XR.

The free plug-in is available for download for Windows and Mac OS X systems. The plug-ins work on Windows XP and Vista, Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5, and Photoshop CS2 or CS3, Bill Crow, who's overseen the HD Photo and JPEG XR effort, wrote on his blog Thursday.Microsoft hopes HD Photo eventually will replace the ubiquitous JPEG standard overseen by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. Among the HD Photo advantages that Microsoft touts: it offers more efficient compression, richer color and a much wider dynamic range; it can optionally store images without data loss from compression; it's free of royalty and licensing constraints; and it can run in camera hardware. Support for the file format, initially called Windows Media Photo, is built into Windows Vista.

HD Photo also can be used to show images online at different resolutions, transmitting only the portion of the image that's shown on the screen. That's useful for zooming in to a high-resolution photo without having to download a vast image, a technology Microsoft uses in its HD View software for viewing detailed images online. One organization using HD View is Xrez.

However, Microsoft faces significant challenges in encouraging adoption of the technology. Building it into Vista is a big step, and an endorsement from Photoshop publisher Adobe Systems helps, but JPEG is deeply entrenched. Standardization through JPEG could encourage industry players to adopt the standard--in particular those who are leery of Microsoft's power.

But there are plenty of standards that never catch on. What could really tip the balance in favor of HD Photo/JPEG XR is if it gets built into cameras directly so photographers can start using it from the outset.

The final version of the plug-in, developed in part by Pegasus Imaging Systems, looks mostly like recent betas, Crow said.

"All the changes we've made since the last beta are under the covers, fixing a couple minor bugs, addressing several theoretical security vulnerabilities and generally bringing the code up to current Microsoft standards for released software," he said. "Don't forget that the beta versions will expire on December 31st, so you should definitely download and install these new released versions."

Adobe slashes price for Flash Media Server

By Martin LaMonica

Adobe Systems on Tuesday is expected to announce that it will dramatically cut the price of its server software for streaming video over the Web.

Flash Media Server 3, which is set for release in January, will now come in two versions. Flash Media Streaming Server will cost $995, and Flash Media Interactive Server will cost $4,500.

With the current version, Adobe sells its Media Server for between $4,500 and $45,000.

The company is lowering prices in response to customer requests, said Kevin Towes, product manager for Adobe Media Server. "What we've been hearing is that the cost of streaming video over progressive download is the barrier," he said.

The new server is also designed to cut the cost of deploying streaming video with the ability to better utilize a server's network card, he said. A typical media server with a 1-gigabit network card could serve about 2,000 people.

Also on Tuesday, Adobe is scheduled to release a version of its Flash Player that supports the high-definition video standard H.264.

Although Flash is widely used on the Internet for streaming video, it is facing growing competition from Microsoft and its Silverlight plug-in, which is going after the same digital media market.

YouTube Trojan horse rides in on Web TV show's fame

According to Trend Micro, a Trojan horse that downloads a certain YouTube video could compromise your computer. The video appears to be an episode of Afterworld, a Web TV series about a society where technology is dead. Security vendor Websense has also been tracking this Trojan horse and has traced the video to a .su domain, which was originally assigned to the former Soviet Union and still remains in use today.

The use of online media files to infect end users with malware is not new. A worm last October used a JavaScript flaw in Apple Quicktime to spread on MySpace. For this attack, Websense has produced, ironically, an informative YouTube video demonstrating what happens to your computer. This YouTube Trojan steals personal information from a compromised PC and then broadcasts it to an undisclosed location.

Camfrog Video Chat 3.92

Camfrog Video Chat allows you to join real streaming video chat rooms where you can hear, see, and chat with many people at a time. Instant message a user to get to know them before you Webcam chat, and add them to your contact list. This videoconferencing software also works behind most firewalls and routers. Camfrog Video Chat allows multi-user videoconferencing where you can join a room with up to 1000 users and just click a user name to begin seeing someone. Press the 'talk' button to talk to the entire room with audio. The video chat rooms are hosted by broadband users who are running the Camfrog Video Chat Room Server software so any user can set up their own multi-user videoconference for other users to join. No Webcam is required to see people, but some rooms might not allow users without Webcams. Camfrog Video Chat is optimized for broadband users so it has fast video.

Version 3.92 includes multimedia and IM messaging enhancements.

Download Camfrog Video Chat

Ringtone Media Studio 2.20

Make your own ringtones from your own CDs and MP3s. Ringtone Media Studio gives you the tools to personalize your cell phone with your own creations. Ringtones, wallpaper and mobile videos. Transfer digital

Make your own ringtones from your own CDs and MP3s. Ringtone Media Studio gives you the tools to personalize your cell phone with your own creations. Ringtones, wallpaper and mobile videos. Transfer digital media to your phone instantly…in a single click. No cables requred!