I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

[heckydog Profile Private message]

This show was inspired by Al Cain's "Mr. Ornament Sings a Christmas Song" which uses CrazyTalk6

ref Al's thread here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14094

A tip of the hat and kudos to Al for inspiring those of us who aspire to perspire to create our shows.

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 5227&alb=0

It runs just under 3 minutes, 40MB in size, and takes a bit to buffer because it's all video. The sync is slightly off, not much, but I did the best I could without driving myself crazy!

I used CrazyTalk to create Hillary singing. I outputted numbered and sequenced tga files, approximately 4500, for her part. Because the video is actually 4500 individual frames I could have brought it into PSP but I chose to do it in After Effects.

I used Adobe After Effects to assemble the video and add titles, shadows, and other effects.

The animated holly border was made in Particle Illusion 3. I again used numbered and sequenced still pictures, this time they were png's.

The video was combined with the audio in ProShow and then uploaded to Presenter.

I hope nobody finds anything offensive in this video. I used Hillary Clinton for no particular reason except to make a fun video.

I'll be happy to answer any and all questions. No secrets here.

Joe

[debngar Profile Private message]

Finally got it to load. That was too funny. I had to watch it twice to see the stuff going on in the background that I missed first time around.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Well, it took some time to load, but it was worth it !! That is the first time I have ever felt I could believe something coming out of Hillary's mouth

Definitely worth watching !!

mikey

[Patricia_C Profile Private messageWebsite]

Super cute! Loved the Palin pop in, but mostly thought the background was just spot on.

Regards,

[bellzerr Profile Private message]

Drat. I thought perhaps that the new version release of Presenter had fixed the dreaded browser lockup issue I have with my desktop PC - but it happened again with this show. Perhaps the problem is related to the size of the show. I'll have to watch later with my laptop.
Mark

[heckydog Profile Private message]

Glad you all liked it.

bellzerr,

I'm having trouble with Presenter too. When I viewed the show, it immediately said "Buffering Complete. Processing..." even though it had to buffer the file. Was anyone else getting that? I use firefox btw.

Also, some shows I tried to watch, started okay, but then just blinked out without warning after a short time, like 15-20 seconds. I haven't tried viewing anyone else's show since I upgraded to 2712.

Joe

[bellzerr Profile Private message]

Joe -
The symptom I got was the same as before the update. It will happen AFTER a menu, Buffering, but the clock rapidly climbs UPWARD into HOURS of remaining time. My browser intermittently freezes the cursor and it's a real wrestling match to close the browser even with the CTRL-ALT-DELETE Task Manager. The problem occurs for me on both Firefox and IE but it is only on my desktop PC, never my laptop, giving more credence to Photodex's standard line that "...it's some process on your computer that's interfering." All I can say is, my laptop and desktop run virtually the same applications, firewall, anti-virus, etc., and as a 30-year IT veteran, I still haven't found the cause of this bloody issue. Other threads have revealed that the problem is not uncommon among forum members. Very disturbing. If I ever nail it down, I'll be sure to post my findings.
Mark

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

I had the same issue - in fact, I was in the process of writing a note to that effect in response to your post (buffering complete ... Processing") when the sound suddenly came on and the show started (running Firefox - the show was on a separate tab). Enjoyed the show, canceled my post and went happily on

mikey

[HunnyB Profile Private message]

I can't get it to load ---- will try later.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

If it goes to the "Buffering complete. Processing ... " then sits there, just wait - it will go ahead and play soon (soon being a relative term that depends on the temperature, phase of the moon and which foot you are standing on )

mikey

[heckydog Profile Private message]

I tried it again and now there's a % tabulating like it used to do, but when it gets to 100% it still processes for a while.

There must be some way to get shows with videos to buffer faster. What would be the difference between a 45MB show with just slides and the same size show with video? Anyone know or can hazard a guess? I have enough codecs to choke a hippopotamus, surely something must work better.

Joe

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hilary singing was funny, but it was definitely the Palin popup that made me laugh out loud. Don't care if it was slightly out of sync. Laughter's what counts.

I'd like an answer to the same question, Joe. Exactly why does it take longer for 45 MB of video than for 45 MB of straight slides? Isn't one byte the same as any other byte? Is there byte discrimination? Do we need legislation?

Barbara

[heckydog Profile Private message]

I'd like an answer to the same question, Joe. Exactly why does it take longer for 45 MB of video than for 45 MB of straight slides? Isn't one byte the same as any other byte? Is there byte discrimination? Do we need legislation?

Barbara

I definitely think we need to get the "gubbamint" involved. Let's have a tea party while we wait.

If you're streaming a video from the internet, there can be variations on how much is buffered before the video starts to play. You don't wait 3 minutes for a youtube video to play, right? Presenter should work the same way regardless of whether it's a video, slide show, or a combination of both. But it doesn't. I'll bet Photodex could fix that, if they chose to.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Without doing some snooping, I'd be willing to bet you are comparing apples to bunny rabbits (hah - you thought I was going to say oranges didn't you ?? ). I suspect that when you say a 45mb slide show you are looking at the "size" on the bar on the bottom of the show which is probably an estimation of the size of the resulting video. There is a big difference between 30 seconds of video (NTSC for example) and a file that presenter reads that has say 5 slides in it with information on what to do with those slides (show this one for 10 seconds for example). I think Presenter works more along the lines of the "exe" file where there is a series of slides and instructions on what to do with them and for how long instead of a pure video stream. Look at the size of an exe created for a 30 slide show vs the mpeg2 format file. Just my guess based on the way I would consider doing it if I was creating "Presenter". Sort of along the lines of what the psh file does - it lists the images, audio etc as well as the instructions on what to do with those media chunks. The psh file is MUCH smaller than any video file (even including the images) and yet it can create the full video file from the instructions and pointers. If you already have your "clip" as a 45 meg file, there is not a lot that presenter can do with that other than "play it".

mikey

[ChrissyC Profile Private message]

Ohhhhhh Joe, I am still laughing and so is my hubby, this was sooooo funny! when Sarah popped up I laughed out loud like Barbara did, so did Eddie, he adores Sarah Palin so seeing her pop up and out gave him a hearty chuckle. Oh gosh I enjoyed that just for it's pure silliness and we all need to be silly sometimes..I personally cannot stand Clinton...uggg but like mikey said, first time I enjoyed something out of her mouth...thanks for the giggle Joe...you did good!
also mine did the buffer thing for about 2 minutes then played fine..
that song is hilarious!
hugggggs,
Chrissy