Help! – Putting PowerPoint-like presentation on DVD

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

This is not something within the capabilities of video editing software.

This would need to be done INSIDE “pro” DVD authoring software.
The DVD player would need interactive “cues” to perform what your client wants to do whit the show.

DVD players CAN do this, but it requires a lot of direct programming at the authoring stage of creating the DVD.

[Walter Biscardi]

Not something you can do with Final Cut Pro. That’s a programming deal in DVDSP.

Sounds like each slide would have to be a chapter. I don’t think it’s ever going to work well on a DVD though, much better for the client to just do a real powerpoint and use the DVD for everything else.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

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[Tom Brooks]

I’m not familiar with iDVD. You could produce the PowerPoint show within DVD Studio Pro as a slideshow. DVD Studio Pro 3 includes a slideshow editor. You would export your PowerPOint as a series of stills, import these into DVD SP3, bring them into the slideshow editor, add audio and transitions as desired. All the how-tos are in the online help system. It would be best to export your slides from PowerPOint as 720 X 534 (720 X 540 is close enough) pixels if possible. This converts to the proper aspect when imported to DVD. Obviously, this is not a hi-res medium for slides. Only very simple slides with large shapes and fonts or pictorial content will work very well, as Walter states. Typical business presentations have too small fonts and too much info to work well as DVD.

If you still want to do it, it’s a relatively easy process. A tutorial that included a slideshow came with my copy of DVD Studio Pro2. This walks you through the steps quite easily. DVD SP3 will be similar, but with more new features to play with. In the slideshow editor of DVD SP3 there is a pause checkbox for each slide in the show. Checking that makes it so the slide won’t advance until the user presses the ‘next’ or ‘play’ key on the remote.

Your whole project, including the 4 movies should be assembled in DVD SP3. I take it that the other slideshow you mention advances automatically with its sound track and that you have produced it as a video in Final Cut? It could be done in DVD SP instead, but it’s up to you to decide which is better. The Apple Pro Training Series book on DVD Studio Pro is also good for a wealth of techniques and examples–far beyond the tutorials included with the software itself. The book is called “Apple Pro Training Series: DVD Studio Pro 3.”

[Jerry Jones]

Tom, thanks for your most kind reply. And helpful. I am grateful.

I’ve spent some time this evening reading up on the slideshow capabilties in DVD SP. I have figured out how to convert the original PowerPoint to stills. And then to add the pause with each still on the DVD.

What I can’t figure out (and maybe it is not possible) is how to add any transitions and still keep the pause aspect active. In other words, when I view the slide show — even if I have added a transtion — and then hit the arrow to jump to the next slide, I never get the transition. (I get the transtition if I just play it as a movie — but not when I want to go to the next slide using the advance button. Am I making sense?)

Maybe this is just one of those Apples and Oranges things. We either have to live with stills/slides — or make a movie.

Do you know any way to get transitions into the mix and still allow me to jump from one slide to the next as the client wants?

Thanks again for your kind reply.

JD

[Bret Williams]

Why not just burn the powerpoint onto the DVD as data. There’s even a data section on iDVD. It won’t be available in the DVD player (like on a TV), but it will be available to a computer just like a CD-Rom.

[Stuart Simpson]

If you really need transitions and the powerpoint doesn’t have too many slides you could always create your DVD as one with lots of menus. Instead of thinking of each powerpoint slide as a still, or as a movie clip make each slide a seperate menu.

Just make the background of each menu the slide you want to show, and then make a button linking to the next slide. (make the button invisible obviously) You can make the links jump to transition moves to keep the transitions you want or even create transitions that crappy old powerpoint can’t do.

The enter button would skip to the next slide – but there would be no way to ever go back one slide.

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[Tom Brooks]

You’ve come a long way already and you’re quickly getting out of my depth on DVD slideshows. I see your problem with the transitions. I think you can either “convert the slideshow to a track” or go back to your original method of editing the slideshow in Final Cut as a movie and then force manual pauses into it by way of chapter markers. Try to research both methods in the help file. You can set the behavior of the chapter markers so that the video automatically pauses at the end of each chapter and waits for a ‘next’ cue. All of these methods limit you to 99 changes, because either the number of stills or the number of chapter markers is limited to that.