A Mini-Review of Multimedia Programs
Update September 3, 2005-Photo to Movie added

It is a very exciting time we live in for artistic creation.  In particular I find it very exciting when blending photographic media with sound and motion that is available through digital technology.  While not yet embarking on full video/movie production, I find the process of presenting photographic art with accompanying musical tracks and video motion to be quite enjoyable.  Recently, I have been working on a portfolio soon to be released.  While producing the multimedia portion of the portfolio I had an opportunity to give 3 programs a fairly good run-through.  I have had very good experience with Pro-Show Gold and wanted to revisit the capabilities of Windows Movie Maker and QuickTime Pro.  As with any software program, I am sure I have only scratched the surface of what each of these programs can accomplish.  But I do believe that my experience is representative of what most artists would find given the normal time limitations that daily living presents. 

I first visited the free and already accessible Windows Movie Maker (WMM) in the Windows XP operating system.  The interface was quite enjoyable and easy to pick up after my experience with ProShow Gold.  As with most Windows products, there are opportunities to let the software put the entire show together for you.  I prefer to have more individual control and did not like any of the "automated" shows that WMM had produced.  Like ProShow Gold, WMM presents an interface where the user can simply drag and drop contents onto the timeline.  Users can import video, image, and audio files.  There are a myriad of transitions and video effects available.  This is the strong suit for WMM.  The transitions are quite nice and the video effects provide the artist with a great many tools for making a unique presentation.  I give the nod to WMM when it comes to providing creative tools to make an enjoyable presentation while in the preview mode of the software.  But looking good in preview is one thing, producing high quality output is another.  What is most important is how the presentation looks when downloaded by the audience.  This is where WMM simply failed to produce the quality I was seeking.  The playback was smooth with transitions flawless, but the color management in the software dramatically altered color and gamma of the photographs.  The audio track was very "tinny" and lacked the robustness of the original.  I saved the produced show with varying levels of quality from the highest to lowest.  Even the highest level of output was clearly inferior to ProShow Gold.  The WMM files are playable in Windows Media Player.  When the final productions were compared, ProShow Gold had more accuracy with regards to color and gamma of the photographs and produced a much more robust audio track compared to WMM. 

 (Knowing that the Windows Media Player file is inferior, I still wanted to post it for your information.  So here is the file.)

I have found ProShow Gold to be an incredible piece of software.  The user interface is extremely intuitive.  I have also found a great deal of flexibility with regards to the file types that one can import.  The final output video is identical to the preview mode.  The DVD authoring interface is remarkable with the capability to include multiple shows onto one DVD.  The features are limitless and I have probably only scratched the surface.  What is really amazing is the quality video that is produced with relatively small files.  The file produced with WMM on a 3 minute video was approximately 7mb at the highest quality level.  The same file is approximately 4mb with ProShow Gold.  The quality difference between the WVMM and ProShow Gold is not even close with the ProShow file clearly superior in every way.  There are only two downsides to ProShow Gold in my experience.  One is that I have never been able to access my account at the "online sharing" gallery provided by the company.  I have been able to upload produced shows via the software, but for some reason I am unable to access my shows when I log on to my account.  The other downside is that your audience will need to download the ProShow previewer to view content on the web.  This is a 2mb download and does not work on Macs as far as I can tell.  Given the limitation of sharing content only with Windows users, I sat out to find a production file compatible with MACs. 

(Here is the ProShow Gold file.  Remember to download the previewer and this is only for Windows machines.)

QuickTime Pro is the software that I often see referred to by others making slide presentations.  Now, let me state up front that I am no expert on QuickTime, as a matter of fact I am not even a novice.  The software seems to have many tremendous capabilities for the movie producer capturing their own sound and video files.  I went to the Apple store and downloaded what I thought would be the best option for my project and that was QuickTime 7.0 which is in Windows preview release at the present time.  I purchased the Pro license and began to work on the slide presentation.  Based on my limited experience, the software has very limited usefulness for slide presentations.  The artist is instructed to post all images to be included in a separate folder and then name each file with a sequential number so that the software can produce the slide show automatically.  Once the artist instructs the programs to import the sequential files he/she is prompted to input the display time for each image and that is it.  From my understanding that is all of the user input there is with regards to the construction of the presentation.  Unfortunately, QuickTime Pro 7.0 did not prompt me for the display time and my show lasts about .000003 seconds.  In hindsight I should have gone with QuickTime 6.0, but I am not willing to spend another $30 for the Pro license for that software.  QuickTime Pro may be a quick and easy solution for Mac users, but it certainly lacks in features when compared to ProShow Gold or even WMM.  I have no experience with other Mac software. 

So after an investment of a few hours of time in experimenting with two new programs, I found myself returning to the comfortable old friend I have in ProShow Gold.  The software interface and creative possibilities are endless with an extremely high quality final output.  ProShow Gold wins easily in my brief review.  If you have another multimedia program I should consider (I did review Adobe Premier when it was first released and found the file sizes to be exorbitant for my purposes of simple slide creation), please drop me a line.  The most important feature I need at the present time is a program that can produce a file format compatible with Windows and Mac systems.  Until I find the software that can do that, I am satisfied with ProShow Gold with my apologies to Mac users for not having a compatible file format. 

UPDATE September 3, 2005-Photo to Movie
Today Michael Reichmann posted a review of another multimedia program-Photo to Movie.  It sounded very promising as the program will export to QuickTime and Windows Media Player formats.  This seemed to be the magic bullet.  Now, let me state up front that I have spent a total of 30 minutes with the program this morning, so I am far from an expert.  The interface is a breeze, especially if you have prior experience with other multimedia programs.  Simply drag and drop the content onto the timeline.  The big advantage is the ability to export to QuickTime and Window Media Player files.  Finally an option that can be viewed across multiple platforms.  I transported the images and soundtrack from my "Light of Creation" portfolio presentation into the program.  The default is to pan and scan the images slightly which I did not want.  I checked "no motion" in the properties dialogue, but some images still have motion.  There are multiple output size options depending on you intended use.  My intentions were to use the video as a preview of the prints in the "Light of Creation" portfolio.  So I selected "output to web" at the "highest quality."  The file size is 20mb and the playback quality is small and not very smooth.  So after a very brief play with Photo to Movie, I once again am back to ProShow Gold as my primary source for generating video content for web purposes.  Even though the playback requires a download of the ProShow viewer and is limited to Windows, the playback quality of ProShow Gold is astounding for the file size generated. 
(Here is a link to the Photo to Movie file.  It is watermarked since it was a trial version and is  a 20mb download)