Lowdown On Slideshow Videos - Digitize Photos and Videos

The 'Low-Down' On Slideshow Videos

Hello, I'm Dan Griffin, founder of Archive Moments. As it was with photo digitizing, which usually goes hand-in-hand with it, I have spent many an hour researching Slideshow Videos. The results I gleaned from this were quite similar. It is mainly a competition between your money and your time. With Slideshow Videos though, you may have more variation in the money and time required, depending on what you want the end product to be, what types of media will be included, if this media requires digitizing and/or editing, what equipment you have on hand to accomplish this with, and how much effort and scope you want to put into learning Slideshow Video creation software. To help you decide how to tackle your Slideshow Video project, I've come up with the following items for you to consider.

To return to the Slideshow Video Services page, click the link below:

Scenario A. Do-it-yourself, using photos only, all are digital copies, audio is digital also.
Having digital copies of your photos obviously puts you a step ahead in the process, saving you the time and money needed to do it. Not using any video clips in your Slideshow Video also saves the time and/or money it would take to edit the clip or rip it, if required. The same goes for having a digital copy of the song(s) you want to accompany the video.

Requirements:
1. Chances are, your digital photos will have to be resized. As is, most digital photos are bigger in size than what is optimal for your purpose. For example, photos taken by a smartphone can be 4032x3024 pixels in (digital), size. You need to reduce these down to 1080p, or 1920x1080 pixels in order to help make your video rendering experience smoother.

Photo size reduction can be done manually, using either Paint on your PC or the Photos app, but this takes about 20 seconds for each photo. If you have 250 photos in your slideshow, that would take 1 hour and 24 minutes to complete (and gets old quickly). Or, you could spend $30 or so on Photo Batch Editing software that will do it in a minute or less (recommended).

2. You will be using some type of video editing software to create your slideshow. These will range from free versions up to $200+. As a general rule, the paid apps are easier to use, while the free ones have a much steeper learning curve (free versions vary in difficulty too).

You will spend hours and hours just researching which app to use. It's likely you will take the time to test drive 2 or 3 apps before settling on one you're satisfied with. Then, depending upon the complexity of your slideshow, it will take many more hours for you to learn how to create it.
All told, this could range from 7 hours for something basic, to 20+ hours for a slideshow video with fancy effects, transitions and backgrounds and cost from $0 to $230+.

Scenario B. Do-it-yourself, analog photos and audio, with analog video clip(s).
Having to digitize your photos and/or slides, audio, and video clips can add a significant amount of time, effort, and possibly money to your Slideshow Video project. Ripping and/or editing this media has to be accounted for as well, before one can even think about the video creation segment of the process.

For more detailed info on photo digitizing requirements, click the link below.

Requirements:
1. Scanning equipment. If you own a scanning device, you're ahead of the game; if you don't and want to do it yourself, you'll have to buy at least one.

A basic flatbed scanner is about $100, and one with slide capabilities about $380. The latter will be somewhat faster than the former, but not much. Plan on spending roughly 7 hours to digitize 250 4x6 photos in a flatbed scanner. Slides will take longer, due to the required cropping.

A high-speed top-loading scanner will run you about $600, a Slide Scanner $200, and a DSLR setup will set you back $1700 and up. But these 3 upgrades can complete your digitizing task in a fraction of what flatbed scanners can.

2. Video conversion equipment. If you're fortunate to still own analog video recording/playing equipment, this won't apply. For most of you who don't, converting your analog videos to digital requires you to have both a source (recorder/player), along with the hardware and software to convert it.

The following are used prices. VCR: $50+, Video8/Hi8 camera: $120-$300. MiniDV camera: $85-$170. Rewinders for these: $25-$150. New conversion hardware/software can be purchased from $90-$230+.

3. Audio conversion equipment. If you have a PC with a good sound card, you're set. If not, you will need to buy the hardware/software for digitizing your analog audio.

In this category, you can use either a USB/Audio Interface box or a sound card from as low as $25 to $185 for the top-of-the-line models.

4. Ripping/editing software. If you want to edit photos, video clips, or audio to be used in your slideshow video, you will need an application (sometimes multiple applications), to do this.

While there are pay apps and free apps for editing video and audio, let's assume it's free.
The free apps are nearly as good, they just have a higher learning curve and, more importantly, the path to finding the better ones can be troublesome. Again, researching the best solutions will take time, and becoming successful in creating acceptable edit exports will add even more to your total. Plan on spending at least 5 hours total on video editing and 2 hours on audio.

5. DVD and/or Blu Ray disk burning. It's a great idea to have a physical (optical), copy of your slideshow video, and some people are only able to, or prefer to, watch them via their DVD or Blu Ray players. In any case, having the means to create this media is necessary.

Although optical writer drives are more scarce today, you can still find them easily. A DVD burner can be had for as low as $23. An internal Blu Ray player starts at $57, and
an external model costs $85 and up, depending on speeds, capabilities, etc.

The biggest barrier you will face in creating DVD and Blu Ray video disks, is the creation/authoring software required to complete this task. You will burn (pardon the pun), loads of your precious time researching what to use. And optical disk authoring apps, even more so than video editing and slideshow creation apps, are even harder to find the best candidates to use. This is because many of the disk authoring apps are either no longer available or being supported anymore.

You could easily spend a day and a half to 2 days or more searching for and learning how to use something that actually works and has all the functionality you want, possibly paying anywhere from $30-$300+ for the license, while also laying out $23-$200 for the hardware.

Summary:
When you add all of these potential facets of this do-it-yourself project up, (remember, you have to include the tasks from Scenario A as well), you're probably realizing just how much time and money investment is required to properly create a slideshow video. If you're someone just itching for a new project to fill your days, I wish you luck and hope it's enjoyable for you; otherwise, it's understandable that people put it off or pass the work on to somebody else.

Scenario C. Online Do-It Yourself Slideshow Video services.
Several of these applications pop up when someone does a Slideshow Video search.
Most are controlled versions of a Do-It Yourself service where you can step through their process and build your video. If someone has 15 or 20 digital photos they want to make a slideshow video from, it could be the right choice.

Limitations:
--If your media is in analog form, you're out of luck with these services.
--If you have a large amount of photos (50, 100, 250), many will be unable to process them.
--The functionality is limited compared to what can be done with other, non-automated apps.
--While easier to work with, you will still spend time researching, trying and learning the apps.
--You won't save any money compared to an Archive Moments Standard Slideshow Video.

Scenario D. Allow Archive Moments to create your Slideshow Video for you.
Digitizing your precious media is our business. Editing this digital media and reforming it into something enjoyable and memorable gives us an opportunity to flex our creative muscles.

--We treat it like it's our own video
--Excellent pricing
--Turnkey service: digitizing, ripping, editing, creation and disk burning
--Standard videos can be done in your home, courier service available for other types

Click the button below to return to the Slideshow Video Service page for info on the various types and price list: