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won't garage band  and imovie do what you want?

limazita wrote:

iMovie cannot import jpegs

iMovie will import anything in your iPhoto library. Including jpegs. iMovie HD will also let you drag a JPG straight to the timeline for sure. Drag & Drop support may have been removed from '08/'09 - I don't have them here to check - but that doesn't really matter - just use iPhoto.

I need a software where I can have the music and video (made from jpegs) together, coz the audio mixing will be changed according to the image series, and vice versa.

I'm pretty sure Final Cut HD 4.5 had the ability to do all that.

In fact, I'm pretty sure iMovie HD could do that, even without multiple timelines. (At least if I understand you right. Can you link us a youtube video or something that would be an example of what you're trying to do?)

well if your dead set against imovie  you could alway get final cut express

limazita wrote:

Thanks guys for your replies.

I went to Tekserve on 23rd street in Manhattan and talked to the audio/video person there (he is extremely nice and helpful) and he told me that final cut will output only 640*480, which, is far too low res

He's also behind he times. Final Cut Express and Pro both support 1080i resolution, which according to Wikipedia is 1920x1080. But I just created an 1080i project in iMovie HD, and when it exported it only did 1440x1080. That's not bad either, imho.

And actually, the standard DV format that's been supported since iMovie 1.0 was 720x480. The same as a standard DVD.** So nice and helpful or not, he should be smacked with a trout.

(I made a simple movie in final cut and did some testing as well) as I will be playing the show in a 1400*1050 projector.

Hell of a projector - is that the actual native res or just the maximum supported input?

** Here's the ** bit - if a standard DVD is only 720x480, why worry about it? I mean, a standard def DVD would be good enough for the projector, right? If you're playing a DVD video, you have an upscaling player? Burn the video in iDVD and let the machine take care of the rest.

Final cut is also no very efficient as I m dealing with still images.  He suggests me to use Keynote (isn't it for making powerpoint presentation?).

No, it's for making Keynote presentations.

They're both slide based presentation tools, and Keynote can also open and save Powerpoint presentations, but that's a bit like taking a Ford to the Ferrari dealership for an oil change.

Either Keynote or Powerpoint can certainly do a photo slideshow with music though - and actually the Tekserve guy's got kind of a point here: you wouldn't have to encode the video, so the creation process would be more efficient, and the quality limitation would be the resolution of the original photo and of the projector, not so much the video encoding process.

It does however require you to think in a slide based paradigm instead of a timeline based mode. Those kinds of conceptual leaps give some people trouble. (In other words, the programs work very differently vs. Final Cut and other video editors.)

I think that Final Cut express as you have suggested should do the job, but the output quality is my concern.

What do you think?

I think the output quality will likely be fine, but I have low standards.

It comes down to a variation of the old joke about tanks. (Speed, armor, firepower, choose 2.)

Quality, Simplicity, Efficiency. Choose 2.

I second the motion to use the dead fish.

Although, if price is not a consideration, you could chose all three. But therein lies the rub.

I am totally an explorer on new soil regarding this projector/video business

avkills wrote:

The projector will scale all inputs to the native res of the panels.  1400x1050 is 4:3; so you should be fine if you just do your thing as NTSC DV resolution and use a DVD to playback.

I have a 800x600 Epson projector, but it is not doing the work right.  When I project the images on the wall, I can see little squares that I guess are the pixels of the projector on the wall.  Is this the way it is suppose to be or am I not doing the settings right? 

When you say "The projector will scale all inputs to the native res of the panels.", is the panel the monitor of my computer?  When I connect the projector to my macbook, it is projecting whatever that is on my computer screen.  However, what if the slideshow is higher res that the monitor (or the slide show is larger than what the computer screen can display)?  This is what happen when I create the test clip in Final Cut with 1080p output.  I would like to know how I can get the best res (since the images I use can be very high res) when I want to project on a 15ft by 11ft screen with a Hitachi CPX 1250 level projector?

With the right hardware, Final Cut will output 1080p; and it looks kick ass!

I did a test clip in Final Cut Express using 4 jpegs 1400 x 1050 at 300 dpi (each image is 4 MB) with a music clip of 30 mins that is around 300 MB.  The ouput looks very high res but the movie file is 10GB.  Should I use lower res file or file which is smaller in dimension?  Is there anyway to compress the file to fit on a DVD (I have over 100 jpegs that I will need to fit on the DVD)?  How can I estimate the file size (How does 4 4MG jpegs blow up to 10GB)?

The guy at Tekserve should get out more.  Final Cut never used 640x480.  640x480 was used for video editing systems that digitized square pixel NTSC.

What size screen are you projecting on.  What type of projector is it (I am guessing Panasonic 7700 or Barco SLM series)

-mark

The screen I am projecting on is 15 ft by 11 ft, I do not have anyway to do testing at the venue.   The projector I am trying to rent sth close to Hitachi CPX 1250 or  higher.  I am looking at the specification of the Hitachi projector :

Recommended Projection Size -    From 30" up to 300" diagonal, at a throw distance of 2.5' to 25'

Lens -    1.7-2.4, 1.5x Zoom  - how does a zoom lens work in a projector?

Native Resolution -    XGA (1024 x 768) Resolution - does it mean that if my monitor is 1024 x 786, it will be able to map pixel by pixel to my monitor?  What if I have a bigger monitor?

Focus/Zoom Adjusting -    Electronic 1.5 zoom - does this means automatic focus (as in a lens on a camera)?

Lumens Brightness -    4500 ANSI Lumens - is a higher lumen means that the projector is better?

Projector Display System -    LCD, 0.99" TFT Poly x3 with Micro Lens Array - is this the "CMOS" of the projector?

Lens Shift -   Vertical - 10:0 to 1:1 - what is this?

Number of Pixels -    786,432 x3 = 2,359,296 - what is the relationship of this to the resolution?

Contrast Ratio -    800:1  - is this the amount of shades/contrast level (800) that the projector can display? Will banding occurs if the colour gradient cannot be displayed properly?

Aspect Ratio
    4:3 Mode
    Supports 16:9

Thanks

I am going to connect the computer to the projector, do u suggest to burn to a dvd or play the show in quicktime?

When I connect the projector to my macbook, it is projecting whatever that is on my computer screen.  Each image is 1400x1050 and I have a the slideshow output at 1080i in Final Cut Express.  When I play the video on my Macbook, which has a monitor res is 1280x800 (13 inch)  and the macbook cannot show the whole video on the screen in its full size. 

My question is, if I use a macbook pro, which has a 17inch screen, it should be able to show the whole video on screen at its full size (1080i), rite? 

Also, if I am outputting in 1080i, does my original image has to have the dimension 1920x1080 @ 72dpi for best quality?

My next question is if the projector 's resolution is 1024x768 while the video is 1920/1080, does that mean a decrease in video quality from what is shown on the screen to the projected video?

When u did ur show on the large screen, what is the quality of the video that you were projecting?

limazita wrote:

I am going to connect the computer to the projector, do u suggest to burn to a dvd or play the show in quicktime?

When I connect the projector to my macbook, it is projecting whatever that is on my computer screen.  Each image is 1400x1050 and I have a the slideshow output at 1080i in Final Cut Express.  When I play the video on my Macbook, which has a monitor res is 1280x800 (13 inch)  and the macbook cannot show the whole video on the screen in its full size. 

My question is, if I use a macbook pro, which has a 17inch screen, it should be able to show the whole video on screen at its full size (1080i), rite? 

Also, if I am outputting in 1080i, does my original image has to have the dimension 1920x1080 @ 72dpi for best quality?

My next question is if the projector 's resolution is 1024x768 while the video is 1920/1080, does that mean a decrease in video quality from what is shown on the screen to the projected video?

When u did ur show on the large screen, what is the quality of the video that you were projecting?

A Macbook probably can't play back 1080i in real time.  Your pictures resolution is almost meaningless if it can fill the entire "video" format and stay sharp.

A MacBook Pro should be able to play 1080i HDV video in real time using QuickTime at your projectors resolution of 800x600, 1024x768 or whatever.  The only bottleneck might be the internal hard drive in which case just get a external FW drive suitable for video editing.

16:9 video will never "fill" the entire screen if it is 4:3.  You will have letter boxing at the top and bottom.

Playing back HD video @ 1080 is going to be degraded on anything with a resolution less than 1920x1080.

Quality is such a subjective term.  The screen was a 60ft x 20ft (60x18 viewable - damn low ceilings) screen which used screen blending across 2 projectors (well really 4 since we double stacked for redundancy).  The projectors were native 1920x1080; so once the edge blend was done the final resolution was 3600x1080 (3840x1080 is what the computer is set to output at -- the overlap for the blending was 240 pixels).  The videos were H.264 with a resolution of 3600x1080 @ 30fps.  I can attest that it looked pretty kick ass. We have extra hardware which makes it all work together.  This is an extreme example and expensive to do.  In today's reality it would be very very tough to play back uncompressed video at that size with full motion, which is why H.264 was used.  I have also played back ProRes 422 1080i video on to the same screen with the same system from our IoHD via HD-SDI, and although it does not fill the screen without distortion --- man oh man that looks really damn good.  There is another method I have not tried, but I think both our brains have had enough workout.

-mark

Quality is such a subjective term.  The screen was a 60ft x 20ft (60x18 viewable - damn low ceilings) screen which used screen blending across 2 projectors (well really 4 since we double stacked for redundancy).  The projectors were native 1920x1080; so once the edge blend was done the final resolution was 3600x1080 (3840x1080 is what the computer is set to output at -- the overlap for the blending was 240 pixels).

If you set your computer to output at 3840x1080,  does it mean that your computer monitor has at least 3840x1080  resolution?  What kind of monitor do you have at that time?

Do you use one computer for each projector? 

The videos were H.264 with a resolution of 3600x1080 @ 30fps.  I can attest that it looked pretty kick ass. We have extra hardware which makes it all work together.  This is an extreme example and expensive to do.  In today's reality it would be very very tough to play back uncompressed video at that size with full motion, which is why H.264 was used.

Do you mean that if I play uncompressed video on and external harddisk there will be hiccups?

Through understanding your example I can apply what I learn from you

Lots have happened in the past few days in my venture onto this new terrain.  I went to the store to check out projectors and find one that may suit my needs both functionally and economically, but I wonder if it is really as good as I thought :


InFocus model IN2106 ~$800  (http://www.infocus.com/Products/Projectors/IN2106.aspx)
- WideXGA  1280x800 resolution
- 2500 lumens
- 2000:1 contrast ratio
    (my show is slideshow of high quality photos so does high contrast ration means it can show more shades of     
     colour?)

- VGA (640x480),
   SVGA (800x600),
   XGA (1024x768), SXGA (1280x1024), SXGA+ (1400x1050), WXGA (1280x800), WXGA+ (1440x900)

This projector does not have DVI input, but I can connect my macbook through its serial port.  Is it good to have a DVI port?

limazita wrote:

Quality is such a subjective term.  The screen was a 60ft x 20ft (60x18 viewable - damn low ceilings) screen which used screen blending across 2 projectors (well really 4 since we double stacked for redundancy).  The projectors were native 1920x1080; so once the edge blend was done the final resolution was 3600x1080 (3840x1080 is what the computer is set to output at -- the overlap for the blending was 240 pixels).

If you set your computer to output at 3840x1080,  does it mean that your computer monitor has at least 3840x1080  resolution?  What kind of monitor do you have at that time?

Do you use one computer for each projector? 

The videos were H.264 with a resolution of 3600x1080 @ 30fps.  I can attest that it looked pretty kick ass. We have extra hardware which makes it all work together.  This is an extreme example and expensive to do.  In today's reality it would be very very tough to play back uncompressed video at that size with full motion, which is why H.264 was used.

Do you mean that if I play uncompressed video on and external harddisk there will be hiccups?

Through understanding your example I can apply what I learn from you

Lots have happened in the past few days in my venture onto this new terrain.  I went to the store to check out projectors and find one that may suit my needs both functionally and economically, but I wonder if it is really as good as I thought :


InFocus model IN2106 ~$800  (http://www.infocus.com/Products/Projectors/IN2106.aspx)
- WideXGA  1280x800 resolution
- 2500 lumens
- 2000:1 contrast ratio
    (my show is slideshow of high quality photos so does high contrast ration means it can show more shades of     
     colour?)

- VGA (640x480),
   SVGA (800x600),
   XGA (1024x768), SXGA (1280x1024), SXGA+ (1400x1050), WXGA (1280x800), WXGA+ (1440x900)

This projector does not have DVI input, but I can connect my macbook through its serial port.  Is it good to have a DVI port?

Contrast ratio is basically the perceived difference between white and black is on the projector.  Usually the higher the number, the better.

There is no "serial" video connection from a computer to a projector for image data; it is going to be VGA (low end), RGBHV (better), DVI (digital goodness) or SDI (digital video formats).

I have a separate hardware box that connects to my towers that make it thinks 2 or 3 monitors are hooked to it.  It basically takes one dual link output (the computer) and then splits it into multiple single link DVI outputs, like 2 1920x1080 monitors or 3 1280x1024 monitors.

That projector is going to be fairly dim on a 11x15 screen.  If this is a one time deal, just rent one.

-mark

limazita wrote:

avkills, thanks for your reply

It is not exactly a one time deal, and the quote I get for renting one for a day is around $350, so it pays off to get one for myself. 

Is 2500 lumen in a dim room not enough for a 15ft x 11ft screen?  What is the lumen level that you would suggest?

If the room gets pretty dark you should be ok.  We usually use 5000 lumen projectors on anything larger than a 8' screen and then go up to 7000 and 10000 lumens for the large screens like 12x16 or 15x20.  For the edge blending we use double stacked 10000 lumen projectors.

-mark