Interesting Site

[jrosenthal Profile Private message]

I found the following site I thought would be of interest, nothing to write home about, but I thought to all of you who create and sell styles you may want to take a look at what they offer. I find some of the styles interesting and could be a source of ideas for all you very creative designers on new style ideas.

http://www.flixtime.com/

I this has already been posted I apologize, first time I have seen this.

[debngar Profile Private message]

I've not seen this site before. Looks like competition for Animoto's business as well as Photodex. They produce a nice product, allow free download of 60 second video produced by the website and use of stock royalty free music.

I wonder what they are going to charge for a higher quality file of the shows down the road after they are out of beta testing.

I wish Producer 's output was more smooth in playback. I just made a show with a bunch of their styles and am really disappointed that it's still noticeable jerky in the zoom and pans on playback. Animoto and this new Flixtime playback of their videos are smooth as butter!

Thanks for sharing the link.

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

I haven't seen this site either, and thanks for bringing it to our attention.

There are indeed some very cool effects there. Some can be done in Producer, and some, not quite...
I liked the 3D turns the best.
I wish Producer had some 3D ability, or at least the possibility of creating unequal zoom values.
As it is now, creating the illusion of 3D effects can take days (at least for me )

[Ron Profile Private messageWebsite]

I wish Producer 's output was more smooth in playback. I just made a show with a bunch of their styles and am really disappointed that it's still noticeable jerky in the zoom and pans on playback. Animoto and this new Flixtime playback of their videos are smooth as butter!

Debbie
You are so right, Proshow does not handle too many of their own styles very well. Styles have their place but simpler is better regarding a smooth playback. One style would actually cause a show to stop momentarily. All you guys that create styles must be a little furious with the software. I find most styles aren't really suited to family slide shows IMHO. Maybe they will offer us a fully functioning program in ver 5.0 or 6.0 ... lol ...
Mona
3D ? maybe ver.7.7 (that has a nice ring to it).
JRosen
Thanks for sharin the link
Ron

[HunnyB Profile Private message]

Mona ----- get busy girl....LOL

For me, the jerky playback is only on my computer. But it is ALL THE TIME.

[debngar Profile Private message]

Hunny,

When you watch that new website Flixtime, or Animoto for instance, do you get jerky playback? I don't. But I get jerky playback when I watch some of my shows or other people's shows. That to me isn't my computer. That sounds more like a problem with the workings of ProShow versus the other two products which appear to do better.

I would think the only way to compare apple/apple is to watch identically made shows in each program that are rendered in similar quality.

Why should users put up with jerky playback when there are other products on the market that far outpace this one I wonder? It seemed to start with the release of Version 4 and has struggled since then IMO. If other products can deliver smooth playback, why can't ProShow?

[dnmilikan]

I am inclined to think that the problem is at least partially a matter of frame/field rates within the Photodex programs. I have previously asked their tech people what the frame/field rate default for Producer and they would not or could not divulge this information to me.

A low frame rate would lead to noticeable jerkiness in productions. A higher frame rate would require greater computer resources so I could make a case that Photodex is attempting to incorporate as many potential users for their products by requiring lower computer resources to operate their programs. To accomplish this the performance of their product ends up being marginal.

One way to possibly test this theory for those who own After Effects or similar programs is to bring a Proshow production into AE and increase the frame rate to see if this doesn't eliminate this problem.

Donald Miller

[quikchip Profile Private message]

Although we notice it on our systems, we have never had a customer complaint about the shows we create in Producer being jerky ... have you had a customer complain?

Just curious.

[debngar Profile Private message]

Although we notice it on our systems, we have never had a customer complaint about the shows we create in Producer being jerky ... have you had a customer complain?

Just curious.

Just because a customer doesn't complain, doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

Yes, other people have noticed the problem.

I have to say though that Animoto video's demo show is smooth for instance, but the picture quality isn't all that great. The images are pixelated. So, if they are getting a smooth playback by using low res pictures, maybe that's the key. Though it looks as if a user pays for the show, you can get a higher quality video which I assume will mean the pictures will look better. I wonder if the playback will suffer in that case.

Ideally, the pictures would be good quality resolution and the show not have jerky playback. Grrr...

The images in this Animoto sample show below are soft. I was assuming that since a pro did this photo session, the images should look a lot crisper than they do in the show. All the other pro photographer sample demos on the Animoto website must have very low res images in them too because they are all soft (not crisp) images.

http://animoto.com/photography

Took a look again at the Flixtime video demo and those images are soft too.

[quikchip Profile Private message]

I acknowledge there is a problem, but my question was, Have you ever had a paying customer or client complain about the show you created with Producer being jerky? In the past 100 or so shows we have created for a variety client types, we have not.

Just Curious!

[silverfox Profile Private message]

Great Site... Thank YOu
http://www.flixtime.com/

[Ron Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi
Am I to assume that flixtime & animota create computer generated shows, not created manually like we do. I'm not seeing clearly what they do if thats wrong. So they wouldn't be competion for Photodex software technically but would be competition for us as show makers???? Do I have that right?
Ron
PS: Both have some cool slide styles or whatever they call them

[debngar Profile Private message]

Hi
Am I to assume that flixtime & animota create computer generated shows, not created manually like we do. I'm not seeing clearly what they do if thats wrong. So they wouldn't be competion for Photodex software technically but would be competition for us as show makers???? Do I have that right?
Ron
PS: Both have some cool slide styles or whatever they call them

Each show is different and automatically generated. Before Animoto came to be, I think ProShow was one of the best out there when it came to making slide shows. Other programs didn't have much to offer.

It takes little effort to upload photos and make an Animoto show or a Flixtime show. A person can take pictures and sell a slide show made by them instead of spending the time making it via ProShow. If their higher resolution shows are not jerky and can be burned to a DVD to sell to a customer, then in some cases, that's a big time saver. I wouldn't use Animoto or Flixtime for all types of shows because to me, some need precise tweaking and to some should be more simple in display of images. But for certain kinds of shows, like for Senior portrait sessions, the Animoto style of show works well. It took me a couple of hours to fiddle with 48 pics of a Senior, putting them into a Producer show using slide styles to jazz it up and make final touches. When I was finished, I was disappointed because the movements are pretty jerky in some spots in the show. I was hoping the rendered show would be smoother, but no such luck.

[AMD Profile Private message]

Hi,

Some of our local professional photographers are happy enough with Animoto to subscribe to it rather than have someone create personalized Photodex Producer shows for them. However, my brief experience with Animoto several months ago didn't allow me much control over my images. Images were uploaded and their movement was very randomly dependent on the tempo of the music. I, personally, saw no good way to control which images went together, followed one another, etc. (As I say, I didn't spend much time with it). I found the end result not very aesthetically pleasing. I did think it might be interesting to use Animoto to do something similar to Al's Zaremba technique and then include it in a Producer slide show. I think a snippet or two from Animoto might work well in a regular personalized slide show, but all Animoto--in my opinion--is just a bit too much frenetic activity and randomization; I fear some viewing members might have to be literally "peeled off the walls" after a show.

Ann

[AMD Profile Private message]

Hi Again,

I just created a FlixTime free account and created a very short show. The first time the images were cut off horribly and just didn't "mesh" with FlixTime's "styles." I then moved a photo, added a new one, and changed the music and "remixed" and it came out really not badly. I need to revisit Animoto because with what I have seen thus far, FlixTime is far superior as far as the control one has over the order of images, deleting, adding, etc. I must agree, though, that the pixelation was a bit of a problem. If one doesn't want a genuinely customized and personalized show, this new site just may be some stiff competition for a lot of folks--including Photodex and their customers.

Ann