John...I meant to say Gold is vastly more expansive, NOT expensive.

Installed and registered on xp sp3 with no problems. Did a 2.5 min slideshow with music track at highest quality resulting in a 35.5 meg mp4 that looked and sounded very nice. However I have to agree with lots of the other comments that this is a very simplistic tool that would probably be good for kids but did not fit my needs so I uninstalled and downloaded free PHOTO STORY 3 FOR WINDOWS which is perfect for my needs as I can record and add spoken narrative in addition to text with the pictures as well as include a music track.

Developers need to work on this one a wee bit if they expect to sell it for 40 bucks. If you just want a slide show with a music background this would probably be ok but would also probably be outgrown very fast. Thanks GOTD it was worth taking a look at but sadly not worth my keeping it.

Thanks #5 Ken for the Photo Story 3 suggestion.

Comment on poster #9; looking for software that does the dual audio track.... check out ArcSoft ShowBiz... I've used their software many times and have done some wonderful things with the audio, it has pan/zoom features and loads of great (& easy) features. I did a slide show which used photos & home videos and was able to lower the volume on the musical background to allow the sound of the home video during a portion of the slide show. I love that software. It's not too expensive either (relatively speaking).

My biggest problem with all the slideshow programs is that they don't save to high resolution shows that will project well on large screens. Most slide show programs (Zoner, Adobe, Microsoft and others)save 800x600 images...which just look fuzzy on a projection screen. What programs offer higher resolution 1600x1200 for sharp images?

To #9: Yes, there are slide show programs that allow spoken narration: Photodex's Proshow Gold and Producer. It allows narration over music, or not. One can change the volume of each independently (lower music volume or mute it during narration). Gold, while more expensive that the current offering, is vastly more expensive. Photodex now has a web produced option (but I am not sure about dual audio tracks).
NB: I have no association with Photodex other than a prior user of Gold and now Producer.

Alas..I cannot activate it....I cannot find the read Me...it simply downloads when I click the download.
I am sad

As a frequent visitor to this site, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to mike, Mark and many other regular contributors for their ongoing, very useful comments and for lending their helping hand to those of us who sometimes encounter problems with various aspects of the software offered by GAOTD.

Not all of us are computer geeks, and it feels great that some of the commenters are aware of this fact, and are always ready to help us no matter how “stupid” a question appears to be and without putting people down,nitpicking or calling people names. One of these very nice, helpful people is definitely mike, whose comments are very informative, enlightening and helpful. I am amazed at how much of his personal time mike devotes to writing his daily reviews and useful comments. Never impolite, always very civil and helpful posts of his, have gained him my great respect.
Thank you mike. Great job.

Regarding today’s giveaway, I am curious and puzzled why it is necessary for this application to call home each time I try to run it.

To be quite honest I do not like it at all and probably will uninstall it and look into some of the free alternatives mentioned above.

Happy Holidays everyone.

Consuella

#15: "I’m not able to install any of the 4Media product, either it will not install or not work after installation."

This is really a guess Albert, but 4Media Photo Slideshow Maker itself really doesn't do anything much to Windows, or require an awful lot for that matter. It does phone home, so if your firewall's blocking it that might have an effect, but otherwise I'd suspect either the C++ runtime install [more likely] or the OpenAL install [least likely]. As far as I can tell installation just unpacks the program's file to the 4Media folder, & the only things used from Windows are some version of the C++ runtime files, which almost everyone has installed, & WMVCore.dll, the Windows Media Authoring/Playback DLL you likely have as well. The C++ runtime files it's using right now for me aren't the one's that come with today's GOTD anyway.

One thing you might try is installing somewhere else, to another Windows on another PC/laptop or in a VM & then copy the program folder over to your PC, but with it phoning home you'd want to do that today I'd imagine so registration works. Otherwise when I've come across problems where setup required running the C++ install, & that C++ install wouldn't run, I've removed the Windows Installer records for the last C++ runtime install using Microsoft's "Windows Install Clean Up" -- note that MS has pulled it from their site last I checked, so you might have to Google/Bing to find it. Also, since that Clean Up app is destructive, back up 1st.

First time it wasn't installed properly. Second time the only executable who was installed in the program directory was uninstall.exe. Which suited me fine, since I gave up on this!!

Giovanni #30
Looking on their web site:- http://www.zoner.com/ww-en/photo-studio-professional/
Their highest edition is the professional version; a trial is available, maybe the home addition is worth a look also as it is cheaper.

4Media Photo Slideshow Maker is a nice, more-or-less automatic app for creating video slideshows. Using ffmpeg & QT it's pretty fast, & if you output to .swf [Flash Shockwave], the result can be turned into a free-standing .exe file with Adobe's projector [flashplayer_10_sa.exe] that was still slightly smaller than comparable video files in testing. If being automatic is a plus, for some people it's also a minus -- you can't do much at all with individual photos or the transitions between them. You also get a big selection of output formats -- that part of Photo Slideshow Maker seems straight out of one of the better video convertors. In contrast Ashampoo has sent out e-mails [I'm sure many here have already gotten them] giving away 5 apps http://goo.gl/hRYWs , & one of the 5 is their Slideshow Studio Elements -- in many ways it's Photo Slideshow Maker's opposite. While output seems comparable you're limited to just wmv [test output files turned out to be 25 fps], & the only setting is a quality slider. OTOH you can adjust individual picture durations & have more control over transitions. Alternatively if you want something more hands-on, there's always the free DVD Slideshow GUI [ http://goo.gl/p0QYm ], which seems to be always improving.

The setup file for 4Media Photo Slideshow Maker includes a Microsoft C++ runtime installer, plus an OpenAL installer from Creative & Nvidia [homepage here: http://goo.gl/6lF4u ]. Installing the C++ runtimes [to Windows\WinSxS] accounts for most of the recorded 488 registry adds, whereas Photo Slideshow Maker itself creates an uninstall key & an app key in both User & Local Machine sections of the registry. The 4Media program folder takes up ~193 MB with 1236 files, 24 folders, plus you get new folders under All User & User Application Data. The C++ runtime install added 34 files, 1 under Common Files, 1 .msi file to Windows\Installer, & the rest under WinSxS [while I didn't test every conceivable format Photo Slideshow Maker seems to run & work fine without them, using runtimes that were already installed]. The OpenAL install added a program folder with an uninstall file, 2 files to Windows system folder, & just 2 registry keys that I saw -- OpenAL files were 1 minor version behind what I've already got installed in 7, 1 minor version newer than what I've got in XP Pro... while IMHO it's not essential, people that worry about that sort of thing may want to save a copy of existing files, or write down version numbers & set a Restore Point etc. The 2 files are: wrap_oal.dll & OpenAL32.dll. The basic data on a monitored install of Ashampoo Slideshow Studio Elements = 1324 files added, 172 registry entries added.

Spending some time with both slideshow apps I didn't have any problems with either. Both will kick out a nice video without doing much more than selecting a folder full of images. Ashampoo's app is not as efficient, being slower, using one core of a quad CPU, plus you've got its output limitations, but you can do a bit of tweaking. With 4Media Photo Slideshow Maker you import your images, select a format & basically click go -- not much to do if you wanted to. Neither offers the amount of customizations or FX/transitions of more involved apps, but they don't carry the learning curve & don't require the same amount of work from you either.

why on earth would WE need this when we have windows movie maker?:/

This is a good, basic slideshow maker. It may lack some of the features of the more advanced slideshow makers, but it is easy to use and makes a nice finished product with only a few steps. Good software for beginner slideshow makers.

XnView http://www.xnview.com/ is free and lets you create video slide shows as well. In many ways XnView is similar to the Zoner Photo Studio mentioned by a few. I'll pass on today's offering based on the limited functionality I'm hearing from others' comments. What I have in Picassa, XnView, and a few GAOTD gallery offerings is sufficient.

PRO. nice smooth video output
CON. no configurable effects, application constantly conects to internet via port 443 + 80, probably sending some info from local computer.

Usually, I like to see samples of what a products like this can do. So, I go to the homepage and see if there are any. I did that and there were none, save a screenshot which tells me nothing of the program's capabilities.
So I pass...

drvajra

I agree with NR5. Why would you bother if you already have a program that just as good if not better built in to your OS (or at least comes with it free?). Pass

# OldScotty


As far as I know there are 2 paid version of ZONER PHOTO STUDIO: ZONER PHOTO STUDIO PROFESSIONAL and ZONER PHOTO STUDIO ENTERPRISE EDITION.

So the question is: which one do you refer to??

And do you know what's the main difference between the 2 ones?

Thanks for this one. I works good on win xp sp2 and has nice features.

#13: "... I also note it “kills me” to take what should be a 5 MB slide show exe file and turn it into a 2 GB video file..."

A single image in a video file becomes 24-30 images a second, so you've got increased size, & unfortunately reduced quality in most cases because the original image is compressed to keep video file size manageable. Flash itself, not Flash video can display single images, as can most DVD/BD players when you stick jpeg images on a disc. There are PC apps of course, & the capability to display a single frame/image & hold it is part of the DVD spec, though not all DVD authoring apps will let you use it.

"One or more of the popular freeware photo programs have the .exe function I’ll be staying with."

Once you have Flash or video you can turn it into an .exe file if you want, & if that helps anyone... Adobe has the Flash Projector available for download that'll turn most Shockwave into into an .exe by combining it with a stand-a-lone Flash player. MakeInstantPlayer [ http://goo.gl/1NBSG ] is a free tool to do the same thing for most video files.

* * *

#14: "...Even older versions of Microsoft Windows Movie Maker are much better than this…"

FWIW, while I've nothing against Windows Media format itself, it is more demanding of your PC/laptop & thus slower going if/when you work with it. It's also for whatever reasons not caught on after years of MS pushing it, so working in/with .wmv you have a more limited audience that can view it. And while players like VLC will handle .wmv, I'm not sure they fully support all the processing that may be included in .wmv files to make the video look better.

At any rate, NOT saying don't use Movie Maker or any of the MS slideshow stuff... just mentioning the flip side of the coin. To put it another way, every time Microsoft included something in Windows that was a serious threat to 3rd party apps, they've been met with legal action -- I've not read of any court challenges ever re: Movie Maker, DVD Maker etc.

* * *

#20: "...if you have Open Office 3.3 installed, Open Office Impress is part of that program. I’ve been using Open Office for years and did not know it was there until #14′s post... "

Note that Open Ofc is going away -- the open source community behind it has split from Oracle & has expanded what's now called Libre Ofc [libreoffice.org], & Oracle's calling it quits with Open Ofc as a result. If you're still using Open Ofc, or if you're thinking about trying it, you probably want Libre.

One more think for the voiceover guy (John):

Check out the professional photodex software (expensive).

no need to download and use the Photo Slideshow Maker, the same kind better software is "Microsoft Windows Live Movie Maker" and "Google Picasa", both are free and excellent!

Easy to install and simple to use on XP SP3 - produced a 50MB MKV video file from 30 lo-res .bmp photographs in under a minute with no sound on a fast machine. Very pleased how the programme managed to produce a 50MB MKV video file from 93MB of photos using the default settings. The slideshow plays perfecly through a Cyclone MKV media streamer in the lounge. Thank you very much for the programme.

Very basic, good toy for my 8 yr old kid.
I understand that it is not supposed to be a professional software and that simplicity is a key factor.

Pretty useless even at amateur level:

- It appears to me that it can't automatically syncronize (calculate) the end of the slide show images with the end of the sound file(s). It could at least warn the user that more/less pics are needed.

- The transition effect choices are almost nonexistent.
- No overlay options for titles.

On the other hand: I like the export choices and the interface and love the post task actions. I am sure that it could be a winner once the above mentioned deficiencies have been ameliorated.
For now, the price is way too high for such a basic software.

okay, so i downloaded it and installed it...

i put some pictures, about 18 of them...

i got a question... i clicked Create Video File and it loads 1% every 30sec - 50sec... is that normal?

John [#9] asks about recording narration over a background audio track, setting volume for each, having variable duration for each image, & being able to go back & redo or fine tune portions without starting over... features beyond what 4Media Photo Slideshow Maker offers.

Basically what you're after John is a NLE, a video Non Linear Editor rather than an app just for slideshows. The way they work for the most part is you import your images to the time-line or story board, & set the length of time each image appears. Your background audio would go on 1 track, & you'd record your narration on another -- you might use volume envelopes or split the background music track to lower the volume when you're speaking. If your NLE allowed 3 audio tracks you could also add sound FX when/where you wanted them. When you had the picture durations the way you wanted [I think from what you posted, John, you want to vary duration to match narration] you could add the transition FX between images, setting the transition duration & optionally adjusting any settings available for the transition you chose. You could also BTW add things like pan & zoom, image FX etc., & many NLEs will let you add an overlay track [or tracks] for anything from text to graphics, stills, animation, whatever you like. You can preview at any time, & once you've got things the way you want you can render the project to a video file with audio combined or separately [many DVD/Blu-Ray authoring apps want separate audio & video]. Off the top of my head maybe a couple of decent examples of the sort of things fairly easily possible are the main menus for retail DVDs with motion & stills combined, & the intros for some of the HBO series [like Carnival if you remember that one -- whether you liked the series or not, the intro made a big impact in the video world].

If that sounds like a bit of work OTOH, it is. Slideshow apps are made to be simpler, easier, faster alternatives giving you a subset of an NLE's features. NLE's themselves vary on how much help they'll provide -- some come with an app to generate the background music tracks, some automate or use wizards or have templates for overlays etc... generally the lower cost NLEs have more of that sort of stuff, but also leave out some of the power & flexibility you'll see in more pro level software. NLE's also are more limited in the output formats provided -- it may be surprising but the more expensive the NLE, it seems the fewer input/output choices you're given. Vegas Pro for example likes still images in jpg or png, is relatively poor encoding to AVC, & won't encode to several other formats at all.

As far as free NLEs go, there's WAX & Lightworks Beta AFAIK... *nix has a few, but not Windows. Sony Vegas has home versions that are sometimes very low cost, even free after MIR, the same as Corel/Ulead video apps. Roxio & Nero both include fairly nice NLEs in their suites -- Roxio's is faster encoding, has more FX etc., & is generally easier to use, but Nero's is closer to pro apps with more flexibility... Both have been on sale in the $35 range, & Nero is sometimes free after MIR [Note, if you buy & register one of the Nero OEM packs sold on-line for ~$3, you will get reduced upgrade pricing offers more than paying back your $3 investment]. Many people like the Pegasus TMPGEnc apps, though sales are rare. Cyberlink, the company behind PowerDVD has quite a few apps, & you'll very occasionally see the last version suite offered free on-line -- if you think you might be interested keep your eyes open as they've just come out with PowerDVD 11, so they may be updating their other software too, & who knows, maybe offering the old version for free again. That said, I anxiously grabbed one of these packages when it was free, & found the features & capabilities so limited I've yet to use any part of it. Adobe has their cut-down version of Premiere, & a combo pack with Premiere & Photoshop Elements has often been on sale, while around the 1st of the year Premiere Elements itself went for ~$40 straight from Adobe. If you want HD video however, many of these apps either leave it out entirely or charge extra like Roxio, so make sure to read all the fine print as this is not always made obvious, e.g. it took me an hour or so on Adobe's site to find out that Premiere Elements doesn't do HD, period. Finally, if you're interested in authoring DVDs or Blu-Ray you may like Roxio, Nero, & some of the Sony packages that come with DVDA better than many alternatives -- none of the 3 are perfect, especially when it comes to Blu-Ray, but they're among the easier to use apps that can give you a DVD &/or BD [from the same project] with pro grade results.

There is also a FREE VERSION of ZONER PHOTO STUDIO rated as EXCELLENT (4.7/5) by 18 users on Softpedia:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Viewers/Zoner-Photo-Studio-Free.shtml


I didn't try it yet but it looks like you can do much more things compared to this GAOTD.

What do you make of it, Dudes?

Re: # 14 I don't think that many people realize that if you have Open Office 3.3 installed, Open Office Impress is part of that program. I've been using Open Office for years and did not know it was there until #14's post. Check it out, it has a lot of transitions and effects. For those who haven't tried Open Office download it here: http://download.openoffice.org/index.html

Seems like a descent program. Watch out on the installation to uncheck the Bing Bar install. This is very annoying. Other than that it seems good.

Thanks!

@ 9 & 13

Wondershare DVD Slideshow Builder Deluxe allows both music and narration mix (+output to video)(Wondershare offers a free TRIAL version) :
http://www.wondershare.com/pro/dvd-slideshow-builder-deluxe.html


Probably also "MAGIX PhotoStory on CD & DVD 10" could "do the trick" : http://www.magix.com/gb/photostory-on-cd-dvd/detail/functions/
(They also got a deluxe version of same program).

FYI - will register successfully using your own name rather than "Giveawayoftheday & 4Media".

John #9
Totally agree with your comments; I spent 2 years looking for a slideshow maker that fits your requirements it is Zoner Photo Studio, however it is not cheap at $70. It works well each photo is tied to an audio file if they have the same name.

I'm not able to install any of the 4Media product, either it will not install or not work after installation.

#5: kEN: Fully agree with you...

This is not even equal to Photo story and purely useless.

Even older versions of Microsoft Windows Movie Maker are much better than this...

For good slidshows, Open Office Impress is a much better free alternative

I post to confirm the reaction of #9 John and I assume like me he is an old Photographic Society of America member used to slide shows that were slide SHOWS not picture changers. I also note it "kills me" to take what should be a 5 MB slide show exe file and turn it into a 2 GB video file. The final product is the same but the resources are entirely different. One or more of the popular freeware photo programs have the .exe function I'll be staying with.

I also am looking for that second audio track for personal/editable narration. I don't think Photo Show Gold has it but I didn't get to spend enough time with it the one chance I got.

A brief note about yesterday's giveaway (All Sound Recorder Vista):

For all those who could not view the entire program interface (cropped control buttons/GUI when using higher screen resolution): I have posted a detailed solution (it should be the very last post on yesterday's promotion thread).

Hope you will find it useful.

Mark

4Media is part of wellknown Xilisoft (they have a very good converter).
The slideshowmaker is a bit basic but operated with ease.
I don't like the extra subfolders in "program files" like "Common Files" and "OpenAL"

There are several transition effects but you can either choose "None", "Disolve", "Random". I would like to be able to set each and every transition of my choice for each pair of photo's.

I would like to be able to use some overlays with descriptive text for some pictures. This possibility is missing.

The app. has a very slow startup and is not fast in compiling the resulting video either, but it works all very well.

Just a basic photo2video-app, but okay I guess for those who only want to compose a simple dia-videoshow.

Installed without problems on Windows XP SP3 and, as advertised, it is easy to use, producing good quality visual and audio output. The "Zoom Effect", if selected, provides some limited animation that is quite effective. Customisation is very restricted when compared to Windows Movie Maker: there is a simple choice of dissolve/cross fade or a random transition between photos that applies to all transitions (ie the transitions cannot be individually configured and a new default cannot be selected). As noted above, there is no titling facility or the ability to add even simple effects such as fade in/out (from/to black) to either the photos or audio - this means the overall video quality is something less than professional standard. Additionally, final video encoding is relatively slow. However, if you want a slide show generator that easily produces interesting output then 4Media Photo Slideshow Maker is a good choice.

Installed well on my Windows 7 x64.
You can use your name during registration. (That's always a plus.)
I dragged and dropped 10 pics and an MP3, selected a video output from a large selection (I chose .avi) It quickly created a video. My default media player is VLC but the audio was very choppy so I opened it with Windows Media Player and it worked perfectly!

This is a great program. I know Windows Live Movie Maker (which comes with Windows) does the same thing so I made the same project with both. 4Media Photo Slideshow Maker had more options for video output format and quality. Windows Live Movie Maker has more visual options.

I found 4Media Photo Slideshow Maker to be easier and a better interface than Windows Live Movie Maker. This is definately a keeper but 4Media Photo Slideshow Maker should add more video effects to make it unquestionably better than Windows Live Movie Maker.

Tip: If your pics are very large you will need a good batch photo resizer to make them smaller so the images will look the best quality because the program has to fit the pics to the size of the movie.

Thanks. Two great software giveaways in a row!

Installed a ran with no problems on Windows 7 x64.
Produced a good slideshow easily but does not seem to have the facility to add titles.

@1 Same here after installing and adding photo's i get a error and the program terminates. Also i am using Xp pro sp3.

For detailed error info see image below:

http://tinypic.com/r/kdone0/7

This is good if you just want slide shows.
Get PHOTO STORY 3 FOR WINDOWS free from Microsoft and do a lot more.

it easier to use than my window 7 movie maker
thanks for this great software

Work very good on Xp Sp3 32.I created a beautifull and easy slide show in swf format.Thank.

very simplistic and simply program to big price for basic soft that are
anyway thx GAOTD for wonderful work

It crashes for me when I'm adding new files – tried 4 times, with .jpg and .png files. I’m using Windows XP. At this point I cannot use this software.