Slide Show truncates video clips?

[sailkelli]

I am trying to "share" my photos and videos in a fairly long slide show, I am using PSE 6, I have Premier 4. I am including .avi files amongst the stills, I run into the problem that the video clips are truncated to the static duration setting that you have to set in the preferences. The only options offered is 1-5 seconds long. Of course my longest video is 1:50. it will actually show the 5 seconds in motion before going on to the stills, but even though I try to edit the duration, it won't let me change it. I actually right clicked on the time and a window comes up and lets me enter a value then it doesn't change. I can only change the still photos within that range of a few seconds but they actually do change. I can get the stills to lengthen their duration by adding soundtrack and then "fitting the slides to audio" then there will be a custom duration setting that will change the stills but the videos remain at their originally imported default of 1-5 seconds and still aren't changeable. I am mystified. Why can't I change the video to last the length of the video?
I tried using the Premier program but then there was an issue of squashed video and photos which required more work than I wanted to deal with. I was thinking the Elements slide show would be perfect as I could then export it to DVD through the connection with Premier and be done much more quickly. No such luck, since I've run into this little snag.

Thank you for any help!
Kelli

[ATR]

Kelli,

I am going to need more details on exactly what is going into that Photoshop Elements 6 slideshow (stills, videos, etc) and the level of your computer resources, but for now I need for you to try something for me.

I am assuming that your stills and videos are getting into the Photoshop Elements 6 Slideshow editor via its Organizer. Open the Photoshop Elements 6 Slideshow editor via the Organizer, but DO NOT select any stills and videos. When the Slideshow Editor is opened, I want you to bring some of those stills and videos from their saved hard drive location to the Slideshow editor filmstrip via "Add Media" (has green cross) at the top of the Slideshow editor.

Once they are in the Filmstrip, see if the videos play the lengths that they were created to.

Remember, Photoshop Elements 6 is a photo editor, not a video editor. As you found out you can adjust the duration of the stills in the filmstrip. But, video is another story. When video is added to that Filmstrip is should show length for the video as created, not whatever the static duration is set to.

I am working on an idea and will be back later to see how you did with this mini experiment.

ATR

[ATR]

Kelli,

I suspect that the above should have worked.

But, if you want to work from the Photoshop Elements 6 Organizer thumbnails, then highlight and right click the offending video(s) and select "Update Thumbnail for Selected Items".

I suspect that it was a program mishap, freezing all the durations at 5 seconds or the result of your experimenting with those durations.

It happened to me when I was troubleshooting your problem.

Let me know what happens. If you need a suggested route to get to that DVD-VIDEO relatively trouble free let me know. But, do your homework with regard to pixel dimensions for photos and how you are transferring your slideshow from Photoshop Elements 6 to Premiere Elements 4 and your system resources.

ATR
Photoshop Elements 6=Photo Editor and Premiere Elements 4=Video Editor+.
Remember, if you bring a video with a length of 37:1 into the Photoshop Elements 6 slideshow editor, it will show 37:1 underneath its thumbnail in the Filmstrip of the Slideshow Editor.

[sailkelli]

HI Thanks so much for offering to help me. I am hoping this project won't take me too many more hours. I found a thread on the Adobe forums that clued me into some bugs, the truncated and non-editable time on videos was mentioned. BUT I can include the media from the add media from folder and it comes in at full length. Since I already had them all organized and put in particular places, I just let them go in truncated, find them in the film strip click on it to save the place then go to add media and it puts it right next to the short one in the full length then I just delete the old one! Keeps me organized and I don't have to try to figure out where the video was. I didn't really understand the part about updating the thumbnail, is that to be done in the organizer or in the slide show editor? Anyway, I definitely want help with then getting this thing on to a DVD that will play on anyone's DVD player. I have been seeing that there can be lots of problems in the exporting and I am hoping after all this trouble in the slide show creation, I won't then have trouble with getting it transferred to a different format!

PS The photo stills are from the organizer, from 6 different cameras, all different models and the photos many have been edited and cropped to be odd sizes and I didn't pay any attention to ratios or pixel dimensions. Doesn't the program just adjust them to work at whatever you put them in as? I don't care about the background color bands that show up on the slides when they are odd sized. It seems to be just fine when I play it from within the organizer. Am I to expect trouble when trying to export it?
I will be adding background music to it too, and haven't had trouble during this trial mode. I'll get back to report on progress as soon as I insert 9 more short videos... most average only a minute or less. The entire show is going to be between 30 minutes and 45 minutes if I can make it that way.
An unrelated... well not totally unrelated question... can I make the background music less loud during the video clips alone?
Thank you again... I think my computer is pretty good... I don't have space problems. But not sure of the technical specs you might think relevant.

Kelli

[johnrellis]

Kelli,

As you discovered from the Adobe forums, it's a known PSE bug that the duration of video clips is set to the static duration of photos and that you can't change it. I've included the workaround in my FAQ:

http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshopelements-6-7-faq.htm#_Video_clips_in

[ATR]

johnrellis,

I just ran into this issue this when troubleshooting the issue that Kelli raised. I hit on that workaround by experimentation today, that is, use media from slideshow from Add Media in the Photoshop Elements Slideshow Editor.

One thing that I did note was that Updating the Thumbnail for those "problem videos" resolved the issue for the next slideshow that used these media involved.

ATR

[sailkelli]

Jonrellis,
YOu are very knowledgeable! I also learned from your post about bugs that the drop down restriction of 1-5 seconds on the duration preference can be overwritten by highlighting the number and typing in whatever number of seconds you want. I did that for the videos using the longest video time 150 seconds, and all the stills and videos had this time on them. then I went to change duration for all slides and changed it to 3 seconds... all the stills changed to 3 seconds and the videos remained at the originally set 150 seconds! The only problem with that is that any shorter videos just had the balance of seconds displayed in black. I couldn't edit the time shorter. I used the method of adding the media from the folder and it worked fine.

[johnrellis]

One thing that I did note was that Updating the Thumbnail for those "problem videos" resolved the issue for the next slideshow that used these media involved.
That's interesting. With photos, Update Thumbnail is known to reread the photos' metadata (and cause bugs with respect to dates/times) -- it looks like it may be doing something similar with videos as well.

[sailkelli]

Kelli,

I suspect that the above should have worked.

But, if you want to work from the Photoshop Elements 6 Organizer thumbnails, then highlight and right click the offending video(s) and select "Update Thumbnail for Selected Items".

I suspect that it was a program mishap, freezing all the durations at 5 seconds or the result of your experimenting with those durations.

It happened to me when I was troubleshooting your problem.

Let me know what happens. If you need a suggested route to get to that DVD-VIDEO relatively trouble free let me know. But, do your homework with regard to pixel dimensions for photos and how you are transferring your slideshow from Photoshop Elements 6 to Premiere Elements 4 and your system resources.

ATR
Photoshop Elements 6=Photo Editor and Premiere Elements 4=Video Editor+.
Remember, if you bring a video with a length of 37:1 into the Photoshop Elements 6 slideshow editor, it will show 37:1 underneath its thumbnail in the Filmstrip of the Slideshow Editor.
I do need help with regard to getting this Slideshow to DVD.
I don't want to spend a bunch more time on it if the export is going to be unsuccessful. I already spent an hour getting onto a DVD in it's present form, (not finished) just as a test... the video came across great! the stills really look awful!!! like they are all blurry and low resolution... completely unacceptable!

[sailkelli]

So, while doing a little more research I came across this thread which I found very helpful and informative.
http://www.elementsvillage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40484&highlight=slide+show+high+quality
It is sort of a shame because I had the whole show mapped out and ordered with my high resolution photos in it... well, now I need to start fresh with lower resolution photos and go through all this all over. It literally took me days to get all the pics together and in a particular order with the video clips in the right spots through the organizer. I am disheartened at the thought of doing that again. I'm pretty sure there is no way to re-size the photos while retaining the order I have in the album I set up. Sometimes we learn best by making mistakes I guess!

See my solution to this order problem below!

[ATR]

Kelli,

Details are important to success, so there are several considerations that need to fall into place to get there. I have so many questions...pixel dimensions of your photos, number of photos, where your video files came from (format and length and numbers of)..., how you getting your Photoshop Elements slideshow into Premiere Elements, Save As File (Movie .wmv) or Send to Premiere Elements command....???

If you are willing, I think we could pull this together together. BUT, I need for you to do a mini test run before the grand project. That is always the best way when you are getting started with projects.

Do you know how to batch resize photos, File Menu/Process Multiple Files?

Step back from the project for a few hours or a day, then post the details requested, and we will try to express to success.

ATR

[sailkelli]

OK, they were very large in pixel dimension average of 3648 x 2736. I did batch process them but not the way you suggested... I selected all my album, Export as new files under File (ctrl E) then file type jpeg, size and quality setting to 1024 x 768 and highest quality, directed the new files to a fresh folder, used a common name base which regenerated them with consecutive numbers in the exact order I had them in the original album!
The reason I went big on the resize is because I will be using pan and zoom on a majority. Obviously this didn't do anything to the videos which are all .avi files, either converted to avi or originally from the camera .avi.
I then imported the new files back into Organizer. which show up in order of time... not what I wanted at all. So in order to make them show in order of file name which is the order I set up, I used the folder view and then made a new album in which to put the files in that were now displayed in the order of their numbered file - yippee! I tagged them all with the album tag and voila! they were in the correct order, minus the video, which I will now have to go back and put into the slide show one by one... thank goodness only 13 of them. (I have 362 stills). Then I will add the soundtrack which are mp3 files and then OUTPUT to Burn to Disc choosing DVD which then puts it as the active project in Premier. There I'm a little lost as to how to finish things off. I'd like to have a Menu but it seem confusing to me. all this talk of Markers and scenes etc.
Anyway, that's sort of where I am - sure appreciate your enthusiastic help and useful responses. I think we will get this thing done!

[ATR]

Kelli

I started to type the following, but did not finish. I will be back early tomorrow morning to finish the next steps.

Kelli,

First let us make sure that we are on the same page.

You are in Photoshop Elements 6 Slideshow Editor, you have 362 stills plus transitions in the Filmstrip and video and music. Everything is in order. How many minutes is the video going to contribute to the whole project? I estimate that the stills and transitions should use up about 50 minutes. You really want to keep the total time to 60 to 90 minutes. Each of those stills should have pixel dimensions that do not exceed 1000 x 750 pixels by too much. When you resize photos for standard or widescreen DVD-VIDEO, you want to use that photo pixel dimensions guideline as well as maintain an aspect ratio of 4:3 (standard) and 16:9 (widescreen).
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bb8822c

1. Open Premiere Elements 4 and, at the opening. set the project preset for NTSC/DV/standard. You can close the program if you want. Even put a DVD disc in the computer's DVD Burner tray.
2. In Photoshop Elements 6 Slideshow Editor Filmstrip get your slideshow ready to go. We are going to output that slideshow to Premiere Elements 4 with the Send to Premiere Elements Output option.

To be continued...

ATR

[ATR]

Kelli,

I hope to get my suggestions finalized by tonight.

Questions: Do you want this first try to have just a Main Menu with a Play All button--no Scene Menu. Or, do you want to have a Main Menu plus a Scene Menu with scenes that a viewer can jump to instead of Play All on the Main Menu? If so, can you divide up the photos so that there could be one scene marker for a section of photos/video with a common theme, rather than a scene marker for every photo. The latter would be mind blowing with about 300 photos. If scene marker per theme/section, how many do you envision?

To be continued.....

ATR

[sailkelli]

I would like to have scene selections possible - I can logically separate about 12 sections of photos. Is that too many?
I've been working on my pan and zooms and on my ending credits and quotes ALL day long, so it's fine that you haven't gotten ahead of me on this yet. I'm pretty close to having it ready, I am really hopeful and think that this could be quite good and a fabulous gift for the 4 other couples that were involved with our trip. I hope it turns out. I hope I won't be the only one who is able to view it!!

Thanks!

[ATR]

Kelli,

Beforehand, you insert your DVD disc in the drive tray of your DVD burner, and you have Premiere Elements 7 set up with the preset of NTSC DV Standard (I am assuming that you are in a NTSC region, like the USA). Premiere Elements 7 could be left opened or closed at this point. Let us assume that it is closed.

In Photoshop Elements 7, you have your slideshow in the Filmstrip of the Photoshop Elements 7 Slideshow Editor. Use the Output option of “Send to Premiere Elements”. Follow the instructions that follow.

1. Looking for flaws after transfer
Once your slideshow is on the Premiere Elements 7 Timeline, hit the play button of the Monitor (Edit Mode) to see how your pans & zooms survived the transfer. Assuming that you find everything OK, next is the placement of scene markers on the Timeline in preparation for the DVD menu section.
If you have any problems with your playback, we could talk about Rendering the Timeline to get a better Preview (not quality).


2. Placement of Scene Markers on the Timeline (example: 12 scene markers)
a. Above the Timeline is a slider that should be used to expand the view of the frames on the Timeline. Place your Timeline Indicator (CTI) at zero time (the beginning of section 1 of your photos). To the top right of the Timeline is the “Add Menu Marker” icon. Click on that icon. In the dialog that opens, name (something like Beach Views and short), make sure that your marker type = Scene Marker (green), click OK.
b. Move your CTI to the beginning of the first photo of the next section of photos and repeat a.
c. When you have placed 12 scene markers (green) on the Timeline, click on Disc Menus at the top right of the interface.

3. Disc Menus (based on 12 scenes in Scene Selection)
a. You are looking for a DVD Menu Set with a Scene Selection Page that offers the most scene spaces before it starts generating additional Scene Selection Pages. There are several with 6 scenes per page (max. I think), so let us go with one of those. That will give you one Main Menu and two Scene Selection pages (each with 6 scenes).
b. You pick you Menu and apply it to the project by either highlighting the menu choice and hitting apply or clicking the menu choice and dragging it into the Monitor to its left.
c. The thumbnails for Main Menu and Scene Selection Menu are underneath the Monitor. Click on the one you want to work on in the Monitor. Example, with the Main Menu where it says “Movie Title Goes Here”, click on that text and add your personal title in the Change Text dialog. There are all sorts of adjustments we could make in the Adobe design, but, for now, let us concentrate on just getting the appropriate text in place.
d. Once finished with that phase, hit the Preview button especially to assure that your menu buttons are functioning the way they should.

4. Burn to Disc
a. Click on the Share Tab of the interface.
b. Select Disc/Burn to: Disc
c. Make sure that you have the right burner designated, especially in case you have more than one installed.
d. Preset should be NTSC_Dolby DVD
e. Place a check mark next to “Fit Contents to Available Space”
f. In the Quality Area of the Burn Dialog, note what the figures are for Space Required and Bitrate.
g. Hit the burn button.

Even though this writeup is long, there are so many details and variations that could have been added, including my usual “make sure that your computer is optimized”, “do a mini run before the grand project”, and so on.

So let us see where the above takes us….hopefully to a DVD-VIDEO to be treasured by you, your family, and all.

ATR

[sailkelli]

Thank you for your thorough reply. Hopefully I will be able to use it some time in the future. I have tried at least 4 times to get my slideshow to premier (4 by the way). I get error messages and the whole thing shuts down. first time - direct from slideshow program sent to premier I got a message that said "Adobe Premier Elements is running very low on system memory" told me to save project and continue with caution. I did but the project was blank anyway, so I deleted it and tried again. NO luck. I defragmented my C: drive, deleted a bunch of big files to make some more space. closed every thing re-opened tried again. NO luck. Also got a couple of Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library - Runtime Error on the Premier.exe program file and shut down.
First of all, I don't know how to check system memory or what that even means. I can never remember where to look to find specifications like RAM and stuff. I know I have dual processor and lots (or at least what used to be considered plenty of RAM). HELP>:(

[ATR]

Kelli,

Sorry about the version numbers; should have been 6/4, not 7/7. Routes should be the same, but I will double check since I did run through that in 7 as I was typing.

I do not recall if you said that you were using Windows XP or Vista.

For now, I will assume XP. Anyway, right click My Computer, select Properties and take a look at what its says there for Name of the Operating System and, at the bottom, GB of RAM.

You want to look at the Virtual Memory setup. Right click My Computer, click on the Advanced Tab, then the Performance "Settings" button. Under "Visual Effects", is "Let Windows choose what's best for my computer" dotted? If so, it might need Custom adjust. But, leave it as is for now if you are not comfortable working in that area.

I suspect that when we look at the numbers, you are going to need more RAM and/or free hard drive space to get that project done as is. Quote me the actual numbers that you get. Would cutting the whole project down or making it a multi disc project be options?? You did resize those photos that went into the Photoshop Elements 6 slideshow...no larger than about 1000 x 750 pixels???

Check out section 16 on Virtual Memory setup for Premiere Elements 4:
Windows XP
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb402373&sliceId=1
Windows Vista
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb402531&sliceId=2

When you read those System Requirements that come with these products, keep in mind that they usually list minimum requirements that just do not hold up to needs for larger projects, operating systems, etc.

Do not be discouraged.

ATR

[sailkelli]

I do not recall if you said that you were using Windows XP or Vista.
It is XP Pro
with 2 GB RAM
Under "Visual Effects", is "Let Windows choose what's best for my computer" dotted? Yes.
Virtual Memory- paging file size 2047MB

Would cutting the whole project down or making it a multi disc project be options?? not really, It was hard getting it down to this size.

You did resize those photos that went into the Photoshop Elements 6 slideshow...no larger than about 1000 x 750 pixels??? WELL just a tad larger but about that.

I think my system requirements are within acceptable limits. I have 27.8 GB available hard drive space on my C: and more space on some of my other hard drives.

[ATR]

Kelli,

With your RAM, I am not sure how much of the 2 GB is the installed RAM and how much is the available RAM. You could add another GB.

Can you free up any more hard drive space, maybe by moving files to external hard drives (formatted NTSF) temporarily? Have you accumulated a large amount of Preview Files in the Adobe Folder (which, by default, should be in My Documents/Adobe Folder/Preview Folder, Encoded Folder, Media Cache Folder)? Look in there to see if there are any files from old Premiere Elements Project lurking around.

Those memory messages are pointing to a resource issue which needs to be corrected and or the project cut down or divided up one at a time into smaller projects.

How about this as a test? Take the part of your slideshow that would represent segments 1 through 6 of your project. Try to process that and see what we are up against.

I will be watching for further thoughts and actions.

ATR

[sailkelli]

OK if I were to divide up my show. How the heck do I do that now? Is there a divide-slide-show-in-two button? I can't even figure out how to copy a slide once I've done something to it.

I watched my performance monitor when I tried the transfer to Premier... it slowly but surely increased PF usage until it got to 2.37 GB before stopping and giving me my error message.
I tried resetting the paging file to default as recommended. now set to 3072 min and 3072 max. didn't seem to make any difference.
I have the page file on a separate drive. by itself in its own partition.
My question is that should it take up so much memory just loading up the media? I got a successful load-up prior to adding pans and zooms and some other additions with much larger .jpg files....... but I haven't even added the music to this version and it's with the smaller .jpgs. Strange isn't it?

[ATR]

Kelli,

Let us say that you have a slideshow with 300 photo, etc.

Try to save that as a "Slide Show Project" in the Organizer. You do that with your project in the Filmstrip, going to the File Menu, selecting Save As (give title) and hit Save. You will find that Slideshow saved in the Organizer and represented there by a thumbnail with a "Slide Show Project" icon in its top right corner. You can double click that thumbnail to open it and re-edit. If you had Outputted the Slideshow to .wmv, your editing opportunities would have been lost. If you have bad memory problems, you may not be able to save what you have done.

Assuming that you did save the whole slideshow as a Slide Show Project in the Organizer, double click its thumbnail in the Organizer to reopen it and clear away every thing but the initial sections from the Filmstrip. Then try to transfer the abbreviated version to Premiere Elements (Send to Premiere Elements Output Option.)

There is yet another scenario if we get pushed against the wall with this one. Create 12 different slideshows, each sent individually to Premiere Elements. When in Premiere Elements convert each to DV AVI (File Menu/Export/Movie). Each of these segments will be saved to the hard drive. After you have generated all 12 of these DV AVIs, open a new Premiere Elements Project and bring the 12 in with Get Media.

Think it over and let me know how it is going.

ATR

[sailkelli]

Well, ATR - we've sure come a long way from my original question.
I did divide up the slide show to 4 parts. I copied it whole 4 times then deleted out the parts to make it work. Since I didn't find any way to actually copy just part of the original. Then I exported each of the four parts separately, to .wmv format. After that I CLOSED Elements Organizer, opened Premier Elements and added the files individually from the folder where I sent them from the slide show. They all came in!
I spent the day adding in the soundtrack music and figured out how to adjust the volume etc. I did run into a few problems - saved frequently - lost some work - saved even more frequently! finally got something whole to send to DVD. NO menu or anything or markers or anything fancy. I was too nervous to do that. So anyway. I actually HAVE a DVD that played on our Tivo, found a few glitches that I I am now trying to fix and actually try again. But at least I have something.... that I can copy if need be, that will still be pretty fun for my friends to see.

[ATR]

Kelli,

In spite of all, that sounded like great progress.

Make sure you "clean up" your computer before attempting a new project. Here I am referring to any scratch files that may be in the Adobe Folder in My Documents (or wherever you saved), and any other unnecessary files.

Remember not to delete any source files that are still needed if you open up a Premiere Elements project (.prel file) that used them. If you want to get rid of such project, use the Premiere Elements Project Archiver feature (Archiver or Copy Option). Next to memory, those reconnect problems can be awful.

Also, think in terms of increasing your resources.

Just let me know what you need as you move forward.

ATR