Jump to content
WnSoft Forums

35mm slideshows to DVD


MervynWigg

Recommended Posts

I have been left some 35mm slideshows running on carousels and with synchronised taped sound. These are of interest to a number of societies and I wish to transfer them using PTE to run on DVD projecter. There are some 300 to 400 slides involved and I wonder if anyone has any experience in this area. In particular I am wondering which would be the best format to use, how to label to maintain correct sequence for importing and how to synchronise the sound to the show. All ideas and suggestions welcome.

Freddy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Freddy

Just made my first show in Pte from a 35mm slideshow. This is not expert advice but I shall tell you how I did it.

I copied the sound from my cassette into the computer and recorded it with Audacity turning it into an MP3 file.

I have an Epson Scanner that has a film loader attached and scanned in the slides this was a long process I had nearly 160 slides and the results were varied some good some not so (found to get resonable quality? I had to remove glass mounts). If you had an SLR digital camera you can get a slide copier for it and shoot them, but I don't know what the quality is like. Perhaps another forum member may have a better idea for you here. I resized them in photoshop naming them in order 001, 002 and so on. This means they load into Pte in the correct order. The easy part and the part I enjoy is programming them in Pte clicking the 'New transition' in the timeline in sync to the music, easy. Version 5 gave me the option of being a bit creative with pan and zoom and animation which I think significantly changed the feel of the show for the better. Then you could use videobuilder to create the DVD. I tried a demo with it and the results were super better than through the AVI in the previous version 4.48. I will definately upgrade before I need to use it.

Hope this has been of some help.

David

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Freddy,

Welcome to the Forum!

I have converted a number of analogue 2- and 3- projector shows (and I still have a number of them to do). It is a lot of work, but worth it in the end.

The steps I follow are these:

1. Scan all of the transparencies, and name them with sequential numbers (e.g. "_001xxxx"), where xxxx is an optional text descriptor. Then they will appear in the file list in PTE in the right order.

2. Try to find the original music (if they are synched to music), and convert it to "MP3" format (using the free audio editor, "Audacity", or some similar program).

3. Bring all of the images and the music into PTE, and put together a digital AV sequence.

4. Use PTE to burn the finished show to DVD.

Best of luck - hope you have lots of patience! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

G'day Freddy and welcome to the forum.

Like the other replies I too have done this, ten times to be precise and have six more to go. It is indeed a big job but rewarding.

The most tedious and time consuming part is the slide scanning, which I initially did with a Epson flatbed with slide attachment. However I have found a local lab that do excellent quality slide to JPEG scanning for a reasonable price and this is defiantly the way to go if possible.

Do any editing in Photoshop as required, then use the batch function to resize.

Then as the others have done rename with a numerical sequence at the start followed by some descriptive name to allow identification at a later date as you may wish to use the scan elsewhere at another time. (e.g. 0001 title for xxxx show, 0002 car in driveway, 0003 car in street etc). The number will allow loading into PTE in the correct order.

Copy tape as suggested and align the start of the soundtrack with the first image in PTE timeline the adjust each image timing and dissolve as required.

Use PTE v5 to burn the DVD, it's a breeze with the new DVD creation package there.

Good luck Freddy, you have a big job ahead but it is very rewarding and made a little easier with PTE.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I take my slides to our local Costco store and have them scanned for $.29 each. The results are very acceptable and all the scanning is done very quickly without any labor on my behalf. Costco does all their slide scanning at the store site so the handling is safe from loss. I'm not sure how available Costco is worldwide, however there are surely alternative sources for low cost scans. For doing it yourself, a Nikon 4000 scanner is superb. There are no low cost volume scanners for mounted slides.

larry

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you have 300 slides that still works out quite expensive. It's not a choice I have though because unfortunately I have no place like that here. I use a Epson Perfection 3490 Photo scanner that has a film and slide attachment. The results are (shall we say) acceptable to good depending on the slide, not something you would want to put in a competition. They can take slides in mounts but if they are in glass mounts you need to take them out and slide them into the film part and you can do about 5 at once. Still a long process.

David

Link to comment
Share on other sites

David, i was in a pro shop one day and he started to scan slides for a customer -- just got going and bulb burned out, by the time he replaced and and rechecked the colour correction, he had lost better part of an hour and then he had to order new bulbs.

many many moons ago a kodak carousel [think it was an ELH] bulb was $25 + 15% taxes

all these things have to be considered when doing

they tell me these new projector bulbs put a big dent in ones pocket also:)

a hobby can be very expensive

ken

ken

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...