"Ken Burns" Effect for PC?

I just downloaded the new MemoriesToTV software the other day that is
dedicated to taking stills and applying pan/zoom/transitions. Amazing how
this can take normal pictures and brings tears to your eyes!

Anyways, I'm tempted to purchase the software (as well as the MPEG encoder
plugin), but notice that Screenblast Movie Studio appears to have similar
functionality for stills. As I'm looking for a replacement for my current
Pinnacle Studio 8, I was wondering if anyone is actually using this software
and can comment on how well it works (for both Video editing, DVD creation,
and still panning/zooming).

Thanks.....

P.S. Are the versions sold by Screenblast/Sony and Sonic Foundry the same?
Appears so from packaging.....

 

I know it's not directly responsive to your question, but Imaginate (I hope
I'm remembering the name of the program correctly) is a relatively
inexpensive package that does this extremely well. Among other things, it
can create camera "movement" along curves, can accellerate and decelerate,
change the perspective of the picture, i.e. make it look as if it is
tilting, etc. I've been using Premiere's built-in image transform for doing
this, but discovered Imaginate, and plan to use only that in the future.

Postscript: I did a quick Google search and I was right -- it's Imaginate by
Canopus. Here's a link:

http://www.canopus.it/us/products/Imaginate/pm_imaginate.asp

 

Hi PapaJohn,

Is there a demo version anywhere?

Thanks,

Dean

 

I don't know if they are in demo form - the first Pixelan packages allowed
demo/free use and put a big X across each clip it was applied to.

You can check at www.pixelan.com and see if this latest package is in demo
form also.

PapaJohn

 

Hi PapaJohn ( and all ),

I've not yet had a chance to take a look at this package, and I will
try to do so soon. I confess that I'm pretty new to all of this, and I
have very little experience with video effects in general, so maybe
I'm easily impressed. And I'm still fairly new to Vegas and had not
used the "Pan and Crop" feature much before. But I really worked with
it a while last night, and I have to say that if the Pixelan package
does more than Vegas, it is impressive indeed.

If I understand the "Ken Burns" effect and what it is, then IMO Vegas
does a nice job of it. I used still photos and did timed pans, zooms,
and cropping, and it seemed very flexible, and VERY effective.

If someone reading this has played with this feature in other
packages, I would appreciate how the pan and crop effects work for
them.

Thanks,

Dean

 

If I understand the "Ken Burns" effect and what it is, then IMO Vegas

Dean, Vegas does this as good or better than any other NLE program going.
Lots of other NLE programs don't do sub pixel rendering, so they won't look as
clean. Have fun with it.

Craig H.

 

Hi Craig,

I sure have been having fun with it. What a great effect! As I said, I
don't know what other products do, but IMO Vegas does it really well.

Dean

 

If I may tag ob a questio to this thread please.

I just finished a stills video in Vegas and used the pan-scan
function. However, and I searched everything on the Vegas forum about
this), I cannot find a way to remove the cropping mat. I want to be
abloe to bring in an image twice the frame size (720x503)(or 480) and
pan it withour having it crop the picture.

I think I pushed every button imaginable having to to with alpha
channels, aspect ratio, etc. I also have Moving Picture, and it seems
to behave the same way. Could someone please enlighten me?

I have tried .jpg, .bmp and .PNG with the picture inside a transparent
720x480 frame ala Pshop. This was the only way I could avoid
cropping, but I was still stuck with using a TV sized image and had to
limit my moves to within the borders of the picture to avoid seeing a
black background.

Thanks, Rob Lagerstrom

 

At the start of the timeline in the edit function you need to grab a
corner of the outline box and resize it smaller, this has the effect
of zooming in on the picture, position the box on the portion of the
pic you want to start with, then further along the timeline use the
pan function to move the outline box from the first location to
wherever. If you don't change the size of the box from the first frame
to the last, you'll just pan, without further zoom.

 

Thanks for the help.
I discovered this technique during my project last week, but when I
tried it with a panorama image of three images stitched together
(2400 x 513) and zoomed in the fill the frame, top to bottom the image
just got fuzzy (yes on the render, not just the preview). I scratched
my head and decided to write this forum for help.

( not specifically related to the panorama picture)
I was hoping for a program I could actually import a picture larger
than 720x480 (or 408)(whatever) and be able to zoom in without losing
resolution. Guess Vegas and Motion Perfect aren't what I am looking
for.

Thanks for your response and any additional help
Rob Lagerstrom

 

Try it again. I just did that exact thing with a panorama I took of
Molokini island (off Maui). Panned the Island from left to right with
Molokini Island scrolling along with it up in the sky portion of the
picture. Worked fine. It was at least 5 pics stitched together at full
resolution so it is a huge picture.

I've found that it usually takes me at least 2 tries to get it right,
it seems counter intuitive to me how it works. But, it does work and
it works well for me.

 

On the theroy that pictures are easier to understand than words

http://www.shellenbaum.com/VegasPan.htm

has 2 pics that show the start and end of the Pan set up.

Hope this helps get your fixed

 

I've heard that applying the picture as a texture onto a flat surface
in a 3d program and zooming in and panning within that program works
better than doing in Premiere or such. I haven't tried Vegas, but it
seems Bruce's other 2 replies should help you out.

 

Bruce:

Thank you for taking the time to help me see what I did wrong. The
only combination of options I hadn't tried were the ones you showed on
your still frame + having the source match the output frame size.
Sounds like a "duh", but since the source/output menu is on a
different sub-menu, I had not gotten all the options set up right all
at the same time.

Works good! I also tried it in a forgotten copy of Canopus Imaginate.
I liked the interface better on Imaginate, but you can't beat having
the feature already in Vegas!

Rob Lagerstrom

 

Glad you got it fixed. Vegas is easily the most complicated program
I've ever dealt with. On the other hand, it does everything I've asked
of it, once I've figured it out and the ONLY time it has ever hung was
when my network switch was dying and I was pulling music files off
another machine. Once I replaced the switch, it turned rock solid
again. I can't think of ANY other program, other than trivial single
task programs, that has behaved so well.