{"id":856,"date":"2007-09-08T19:36:55","date_gmt":"2007-09-09T03:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mhvt.net\/?p=856"},"modified":"2008-06-16T18:21:01","modified_gmt":"2008-06-17T02:21:01","slug":"mac-software-review-slideshowmovie-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mhvt.net\/?p=856","title":{"rendered":"Mac Software Review: SlideShowMovie 1.0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nSlideshowMovie is a brand-new shareware title from Bitfield AB, a Swedish software company. It’s a simple and easy solution to making QuickTime-based slideshows. SlideshowMovie will let you not just import photos but also embed an audio file in the slideshow. Finally, you can export a project to QuickTime. You can even publish it to your .Mac website with just a click of Mouse. <\/p>\n

Making QuickTime slideshows is very easy with SlideshowMovie. If you click on Media<\/strong> button at the top menu bar, a small window will pop up. And you have access to your iPhoto photos and iTunes music files. Or you can also directly drag and drop photo files and\/or a music file (AIF, MP3, MP4…) onto the application window.<\/p>\n

When we talk about a slideshow application, we always get curious about the transition effects that it supports. And you have 14 transition effects to choose from with SlideshowMovie. After importing photos, simply select an individual photo and choose a transition effect from the pull-down menu labeled Transition<\/strong>. (See Screenshot 02.) You can also select a group of photos and apply the same transition effect, title and copyright note.
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\nSlideshowMovie is a unique slideshow application to the extent that it will allow you to customize individual transition effects for your needs. After choosing a transition effect from the drop-down menu, click on the Edit<\/strong> button. And an option window will pop up, with which you can change settings. (See Screenshot 05.)
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\nUnfortunately, SlideshowMovie’s help menu is almost non-existent although the application itself is very easy to use, and you probably won’t use help. There is a feature called Reflection<\/strong>. (See Screenshot 07.) We couldn’t figure out what it does. So we looked up the help menu. But there is no explanation for it. It appears that Reflection is a newly adopted feature by iWeb ’08. But we don’t know. That’s because we are still using an older version of iLife. When we contacted the software developer some 14 hours ago, they instantly wrote back and said that they would add explanations for Reflection and Reflection Size<\/strong>.
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\nWhen you are ready to export a QuickTime slideshow, save the project, at first. Then just click on the Export<\/strong> button at the top. And SlideshowMovie will instantly compress the slideshow video. That means you have no access to QuickTime settings such as the frame rate, number of key frames and quality (quantizer). SlideshowMovie arbitrarily uses JPEG Photo<\/strong> for video compression and MP3<\/strong> (44.1 MHz) for audio compression. And the frame rate will be 25<\/u>. I opened Preferences to see if I can change the frame rate to 24 or 29.97 for NTSC. But, no, you can’t change frame rates. That’s kind of interesting and odd because the shareware price is set in terms of the U.S. dollar, not euro. But the frame rate is set for PAL, not NTSC.<\/p>\n

After all, we have concluded that there are a couple of essential features missing in SlideshowMovie. As long as we evaluate a non-registered copy, Slidshow doesn’t seem to allow the user to insert a label or a comment for each slide. We don’t know exactly what Title<\/strong> does. It seems that it’s just a slide name, which will not appear in the final slideshow. And SlideshowMovie doesn’t let you set easy-in\/easy-out points. So if you embed a piece of music in your slideshow, it is most likely that it will abruptly end. Another problem that we have with SlideshowMovie is that SlideshowMovie inserts a blank space underneath each slide. (See Screenshot 11.) If you import 800 x 600 photos, for example, you will end up exporting a QuickTime slideshow in 800 x 750 pixels. <\/p>\n

Furthermore, we hope that SlideshowMovie will support the Kens Burns Effect in the near future. It would have been fun watching a photo slide one by one a decade ago. But many slideshow applications now support Kens Burns Effect.<\/p>\n

Finally, let me add a minor negative remark. When you open the help menu, there’s a clickable link to SlideshowMovie’s website. (See Screenshot 12.) Hmm… This link is broken. And the link is not what it says is. Actually, it’s designed to take you to an old page for Bitfield AB’s another shareware title.
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  • Developer: Bitfield AB (bitfield.se\/slideshowmovie\/)<\/li>\n
  • Latest version: SlideshowMovie 1.0<\/li>\n
  • Prices: US$14.95<\/li>\n
  • MacHouse recommendation<\/strong>: SlideshowMovie 1.0 is a brand-new slideshow application, which allows the user to create slideshows easily without knowledge of video compression what-so-ever. However, it lacks critical components such as frame rate flexibility and easy-in\/easy-out adjustment. Still, those who only want to enjoy making QuickTime slideshows without complicated Qucktime export settings may find that SlideshowMovie is an easy and affordable solution to making their own QuickTime slideshows.
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    \nSlideshowMovie is a product of Bitfield AB.
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    Click for<\/td>\n\"Mac<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    SlideshowMovie is a brand-new shareware title from Bitfield AB, a Swedish software company. It’s a simple and easy solution to making QuickTime-based slideshows. SlideshowMovie will let you not just import photos but also embed an audio file in the slideshow. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":342,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple-mac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mhvt.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mhvt.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mhvt.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mhvt.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/342"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mhvt.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mhvt.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mhvt.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mhvt.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mhvt.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}