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18 Comments
- jimrowson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5disclosure: I'm a tracking shot founder.
We're of course happy that we've been dugg, and wanted to jump into fray a bit.
The comments here are of 2 types:
* Aesthetics (too much movement, not to the beat): Very fair criticism. Somewhat subjective, of course. We've based our aesthetics on some work by a USC film school professor/hollywood producer named Bruce Block. Check out his book on Amazon: The Visual Story. We've tried to make some of the aesthetics be choosable by the creator with a "pace" knob that selects both visual intensity and overall pace of the final movie without requiring the user to do a lot of work or know much about film theory. We'll need to work on making a wider variety of visual styles it seems :-).
* You can do this with other tools: Indeed you can. There are a lot of choices. Our approach has been to go for automation. Once the media (photos, video clips, and music) is uploaded we typically take about a minute to automatically create a movie. The user has simple "high level" controls: pace, important photo or region, clustering, ordering. After changing you hit the remix button to get a new movie in a minute. Being users of non-linear and time-line editors, we've found them to be great for those with time and expertise. With Tracking Shot our goal was to offer something to folks without much time or training.
btw: it is possible to embed these into web sites (sorry, our site isn't really fleshed out yet and it isn't obvious how to do that). check out our myspace page to see some embedded videos: http://www.myspace.com/trackingshot. you can also click the help button on the site to get a bit more info
Thanks for checking us out.... - theonlyvlad, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7does software only have to be limited to the stuff bundled with the computer? In other words are you implying if it didn't come with my IBM, my *only* solution is to go out and buy a mac because it had that bundled in?
Come on, stop with the "or you could use a mac" thing. This article isn't about that. This article is to provide a resource to those who want it. Please stop. - CDefense7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You mean Photo Story 3. It doesn't change pictures to the beat of the music, but it does time the pictures according to the length of the song(s) ... and it is free.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx - bsonline, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Ok, call a truce before the war starts. Both Macs and Windows come with software that will do this. Plenty is also readily available for Linux. I think the point is that people, if they choose, can spend money to have something do it for them. Not the best idea, but it's what this is about.
- mjar81, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7or just use iPhoto
- canuckistanian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How much?
This looks great, but i really hate sites that make me give them my information and create an account before they tell me how much the thing is going to cost. - canokid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Shame you can't embed these slide shows into websites, or I've not found the feature yet.
- bossm4n, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think it's pretty damn slick. I totally dig the automation effect they are going for. I had a video from photos, with background music created within 5 minutes of being on the site. The first time I loaded up Pro Show Gold or some of the others in the past, it damn sure wasn't that easy. To think this will only improve makes me think you guys are onto something. Nice work.
- shockingbird, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The examples were pretty unimpressive and they really didn't go to the beat. You could have put pretty much any song with it.
- rebotfc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well I thought it was pretty cool, so good job jim
- jimrowson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1canuckistanian: right now the site is free, which basically means we're still figuring out how to get paid :-). the current theory is that you will always have some number of movies and views (bandwidth) for free. there will probably be a pro account, similar to Flickr and others. we may also charge for high quality video versions (mpeg2, good ipod) and for burning DVD's for people who don't want to do that themselves.
any feedback on what you would and would not be willing to pay for is always welcome :-)
sorry for not being more up front on the site. still early days. - DaveMN, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Well, it's not free and runs only on Windows, but ProShow Gold is a fantastic tool for creating professional slideshows:
http://www.photodex.com/products/proshowgold/ - canuckistanian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Cool. I like that concept.
I'd love having a full-featured but bandwidth limited version of this for free. I would be willing to pay for high quality video versions, definitely.
I'd also like to be able to download an .iso to burn, rather than having to go through the gymnastics of finding a good DVD authoring program and setting up menus etc and burning a movie to DVD. A pre-setup .iso with menu and all that prepared would be great value-add without much extra effort on your part, I imagine. - graddatadda, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1http://www.yesterdayslife.com/photofront/
inbed in your website for 10 bucks (or just make one for free with the website url). It was worth it for me so I paid it to run on mine (http://www.sthig.com/index1.html - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3Meh.
Too damn much motion, cropping, etc. You are supposed to give your viewers vertigo.
Less is more. Words to live by when doing slideshows like this. - Conway, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2This is exactly what I thought. The guy putting together the examples just discovered the Ken Burns effect. Overboard.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2You can do this for free on Windows. Grab a copy of Windows Media Encoder.
- clodhopper06, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3.....or you could just use your mac and do the same thing for free.
I guess it's a good resource though.
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