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Can you merge shows

Wed Oct 28, 2015 12:47 pm

I have a number of shows where I would like to merge them ...
They are completed shows (not published) having spent al the time on styles & transitions ... don't really want to lose that and simply 'add slides'


Would seem an obvious piece of functionality .... but I can't find any option.

Re: Can you merge shows

Wed Oct 28, 2015 5:41 pm

ANS: NO!!!!!!
Obvious functionality? Only from a particular perspective.

Can you manually do it? Yes ... but you have some work ahead of you. You can copy the slides from each show into a new show (don't close the program... open the show, select all slides, copy them, close the show, create a blank show, paste the copied slides into the new show. Then, add the songs that were on the timeline from the previous show(s).

To save some time, open the 2nd show, highlight all of the slides and copy them. Next, close the show. Open the first show; save it to a new name; Go to the last slide. Paste the copied slides. Now added the songs that were on the timeline (you can't copy and paste them from the original show). You can review the original show and note any adjustments to the song's offset from the slide on which they're to begin ... and then make similar offset settings on the timeline for the new show (you may have to compensate for the distance at the end of the first show's timeline and the first slide of the just copied slides). You'll have to do some work to get the timing correct ... but, once you've got the song that was the first song of the copied files correctly aligned, it should be much easier for subsequent music tracks. PITA? Yes ... can be.

This functionality has been requested (for quite some time). But, apparently there are some "complications" that hinder implementation of such a feature. Someday ... maybe (don't hold your breath tho ... you could do more than turn blue...).

Anyway, that's the gist of the process. There's more to it, of course but this will get you started. Note that the "copying" of the selected slides and their subsequent pasting into the show saves a considerable amount of time and effort since the timing between slides and their associated transitions (as well as the content of each slide) is maintained. The timeline content, however, can't be copied like the slides can. At least, I'm not aware of it.

Good luck.

Dale

Re: Can you merge shows

Thu Oct 29, 2015 2:39 am

You mention 'adding the songs'
No songs involved here ... purely images with style & transitions.

Anyway form your comments .. have the solution .... no need for an intermediate show.
Open show B - select all slides on timeline - copy
Close show B
Open show A - put cursor after last slide - paste
It puts all of show B inlcluding styles & transitions onto show A
Save show A - rename if necessary


Surprised it is not a built in function, another nice feature that I don't see (I maybe wrong) is ability to have 2 shows open ... i.e a tabbed display or even 2 instances of PSG running ... then cut & paste from one to other be a simple task.
Last edited by sargan on Thu Oct 29, 2015 4:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Can you merge shows

Thu Oct 29, 2015 4:32 am

If your individual slide shows are truly completed shows, why not output each of them as a high quality video, mp4 or mov file? Then combine them in a video editor to make your final output. There won't be a noticeable change in quality using 2nd generation outputs of digital media.

This way you're not trying to deal with possibly moving around 100's or 1000's of individual slides and their associated effects and transitions. Even manipulating 35 videos of your 35 slide shows could be intimidating enough.

Joe

Re: Can you merge shows

Thu Oct 29, 2015 4:42 am

heckydog wrote:If your individual slide shows are truly completed shows, why not output each of them as a high quality video, mp4 or mov file? Then combine them in a video editor to make your final output. There won't be a noticeable change in quality using 2nd generation outputs of digital media.

This way you're not trying to deal with possibly moving around 100's or 1000's of individual slides and their associated effects and transitions. Even manipulating 35 videos of your 35 slide shows could be intimidating enough.

Joe




All of the shows are ultimately being loaded into Sony Vegas, as 1920x1080 25p MPEG2, that way they will not be re-compressed when turned into Blu-ray.
So combining ........... but as per previous post now found a simple way that works.
Last edited by sargan on Mon Nov 16, 2015 2:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Can you merge shows

Thu Oct 29, 2015 9:43 am

Recognize that your "simple way that works" only works if there is no audio track. If you have shows with audio, then Joe's method is the best (combining multiple video files).

mikey

Re: Can you merge shows

Thu Oct 29, 2015 4:14 pm

What these responses show is that there is more than one way to accomplish effectively the same thing. It depends upon what you are really trying to do that will determine your final approach ... I like options.

Dale

Re: Can you merge shows

Sun Nov 15, 2015 11:05 pm

If anyone is interested, the original thread about which format to export from Proshow that would work best in Sony Vegas is over in the Sony Vegas Movie Studio forums ( http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/for ... eid=933960 ). I got all excited when I came across it because I remembered a recent discussion here asking about which format to use. Only when I got back here did I notice that "Sargan" here is also "sargan" over there in the Sony forums :D . Anyway, it looks like MJpeg is probably the best option as it is least compressed AND it works on a frame by frame basis instead of the group of frames like the other compression formats do. I have used uncompressed AVI in the past, but those suckers get big fast !!

mikey

Re: Can you merge shows

Mon Nov 16, 2015 2:42 am

Update on this .... I did not go with mjpeg
The reason is that mjpeg is not part of Blu-ray specification and any files would need re-encoding (which is s loss in quality)

I did instead export from ProShow as MPEG-2 which is fully Blu-Ray compliant .......... I was stumped initially as no BluRay fames size show in options for MPEG ..

However I used Publish > Video Files > Custom Video > MPEG2 1920 x 1080 50fps (which will give me the final European compliant 25p I want)
Bitrate of 60,000 16:9 High Quality.

This drops neatly into Movie Studio, and does not need re-encoding for final disc

Re: Can you merge shows

Mon Nov 16, 2015 7:20 am

Ah, thanks for the feedback. Yeah, with any lossy type compression, the less re-compressing you can do, the better off you are (things like zip files don't count because that is a loss-less compression format but it doesn't buy you much either (if anything) with something like mpeg files because they are already compressed). That is why things like Sony Vegas and others have an option to match the project to the clip format (and hopefully, if you have done it right the clip format matches the final output format).

mikey

Re: Can you merge shows

Mon Nov 16, 2015 9:01 am

gpsmikey wrote:Ah, thanks for the feedback. Yeah, with any lossy type compression, the less re-compressing you can do, the better off you are (things like zip files don't count because that is a loss-less compression format but it doesn't buy you much either (if anything) with something like mpeg files because they are already compressed). That is why things like Sony Vegas and others have an option to match the project to the clip format (and hopefully, if you have done it right the clip format matches the final output format).

mikey



Yep .. in my case I dropped video files (MPEG2) into Movie Studio, (a bundle of separate Vegas projects) added loads of music tracks, commentary, effects, etc.
Then for each Movie studio project - rendered each video out as separate elementary streams ...
Video as MPEG-2 1920x1080, 25fps 2pass VBR 25/20/15 Mbps video quality to high - output is then in .m2V format
Audio as SONY wave.w64 uncompressed PCM CBR 16bit, 48KHz stereo - output is then in .w64

Both of these are as uncompressed most detailed format I could obtain to put into a Blu-ray, when I sent it to DVD Architect, it showed no re-encoding required for any of the sources.
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