Superimposing video and photo in Powerpoint Options

[Zulu]

Hi, folks.
Using a laptop and projector, I'm planning to project a still image (grey street scene) concurrently with a video of rain, to give an effect of rain on the street.
Having just one projector and laptop, I plan to do this within a single slide in Power Point.

Does anyone know how to do this? I think I need to make by "rain" video somehow transparent so you can see the still image "through" it. Don't know how to do that.

My Rain video is one I've used on its own, for project rain across a whole set, cast and all. It is effectively white rainy streaks falling on a black background. I think it is this black background that is my problem.

cheers, folks. Zulu

[Robin D]

I'm close to 100% confident you can't do it in Powerpoint.

Personally I'd put it into a video editor with the still as the primary input and use a moving rain effect over the top. Then just write it out as a video you can play through the projector.

[GRisdale]

Agreed - this is a bit hardcore for PowerPoint! You need to Luma Key your rain video on top of the background in a seperate program to create a "rainy stone scene" video in one. I'm pretty sure you can't loop, or seamlessly loop, a video in PowerPoint, so you'll need to make it at least as long as your scene.

Also, I beleive that you can't run a video while a slide is in transition, so you may need to have the rain start gradually a few seconds into the clip, so as not to have the rain snap on (this way when the slide is in transition there will just be a still frame of your scene without rain to look at).

Good luck! I hate video in PowerPoint!

Gareth.

[Richard Simpson]

You can do it in PowerPoint 2010 the BETA is a free download at the moment. Failing that try Screen Monkey

[propsman]

I agree with Mr Simpson, it can be done using power point, but would use Isadora (personal preference) which makes this kind of effect easy to do.. and to be honest I dont really trust powerpoint to play video .. to many bad experiences.

[JazzAV]

if I was told I had to make this happen with normal powerpoint, the only way I can think is to reverse it.

Set video to play automatically and place the photo on top, then adjust transparency of photo until I get the rain coming through, see if I could adjust the colour/brightness/contrast of photo to offset the transparency as much as possible but of course it will probably look washed out.

That is probably the best I could come up with using powerpoint alone and nothing else, and it really wont look very good.

I would have thought that almost every video editing program, even the most basic would let you do this and run it out as a video and be 10000000 times better

This post has been edited by JazzAV: 12 Mar 2010, 1:31 PM

[Mark M]

As mentioned in an earlier post, look at screen monkey. You can play your power presentation through it and then overly a rain effect on the second layer and then you have a spare layer should you wish yto do anything else.

[Zulu]

Thanks, Guys.
there are some great tips there. I'm gonna have a look at screen monkey. (presume I can download it from somewhere?).

I'll also give it another go in powerpoint: I've just got the beta version of PP 2010.

cheers, Zulu.

[Modge]

http://www.screenmonkey.co.uk/DNN/default.aspx
Will get you screen monkey

[AHYoung]

as far as I can tell you cant place anything photo text wahatever on top of a video in powerpoint as it shows for one second then disapears. id be particularly gratefull if someone could explain how to do it , it seems from the replies that someone knows how...

before deriding powerpoint too much you should remember that its the one piece of visual display software that normal people {often also known as customers or clients} understand and use, and within its limitations it works well and is easy to use.

On my rather ancient laptop Sd video plays and loops seamlessly and it hasnt crashed and if I could overlay a logo with an alpha chanel and get it to play for more than 1 second id be very happy as ive just come from a job where im projecting a moving image onto a building with a clients logo ontop, now having done this sort of thing before I d rather not rerender it all as a. no mater that you took a photo from the exact lens position, it doesnt mean that it will all line up when projected and b. the client is liable to ask you to move the logo 5 mimites before the start, or in this case, provide you with completely different logos and instruction a couple of hours before going onsite. as in powerpoint it takes seconds to place and resize a variety of filetypes, it makes it all possible onsite, just sadly not ontop of full sreen video.

I allready know all the other ways of doing this, but its a single screen, hi speed solution I need from a very average XP laptop... if you know how to do the powerpointery please let on...

This post has been edited by AHYoung: 16 Mar 2010, 9:51 PM

[Adza]

There is a way to do it...

Get the background image and put it on to the back of the slide so that it is on the background.

Get some footage of rain / film it yourself and put it into a sequence in Final Cut or in Adobe Premiere.

Then either chromakey or rotoscope the background out of the footage, so there is now no background on the footage only the rain drops, there is plenty of tutorials online to help.

Then export the footage as an avi or other format but make sure that there is an option checked called: Keep Alpha Channel Intact or With Alpha Channel.

Then just import that as a video into the powerpoint over the image.

This will work but is a bit Fiddley

The other way is to put the background image on a lower layer than the chroma keyed video which is on the top layer then export it and import it into the powerpoint as a video.

[sleepytom]

you of course would need a codec which supports alpha channels (hard to find) or use uncompressed video (hmm uncompressed in powerpoint, bet that would play really smooth!)

really if you have access to some video editing software (even windows movie maker or imovie) then just precompose the video and render yourself a clip which has the rain overlaid on the street scene. There is no sensible way to do this in powerpoint. Powerpoint is rubbish with video (even the latest beta versions!) even keynote leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to video support.

[Adza]

you of course would need a codec which supports alpha channels (hard to find) or use uncompressed video (hmm uncompressed in powerpoint, bet that would play really smooth!)

really if you have access to some video editing software (even windows movie maker or imovie) then just precompose the video and render yourself a clip which has the rain overlaid on the street scene. There is no sensible way to do this in powerpoint. Powerpoint is rubbish with video (even the latest beta versions!) even keynote leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to video support.

I agree, the but FCP and Premiere have codecs built in to support alpha channels, and it would be possible to play a clip compressed with an alpha channel and it depends on the quality of the laptop your running it on whether it would play uncompressed smoothly.

YOU CANNOT OVERLAY VIDEO IN MOVIE MAKER!

It will work if you export the finished precomposed video in WMV with a mid rate kb/s setting. This will allow seamless playback. Although there are other ways to get seemless playback:

Make sure you Direct X is updated

Disable Direct Show on your Video Card

Check for Video card software conflicts (the best way to do this is to close all running programs and only have powerpoint running while playing)

Shorten the path length to the file (PowerPoint has a path length limit of 128 characters so if it is too deep in the system it wont play, the best way to solve this is to put it in the same folder as the presentation)

These will all smoothen out the playback of the file and allow you to use a larger bit rate for the project resulting in better quality.

[sleepytom]

WMV doesn't support alpha channel.
Premiere doesn't come with an AVI codec which support alpha - nor does FCP. FCP quicktimes can support alpha (using animation or png codec) but will these play with their alpha correctly in powerpoint? (I don't know but it seems unlikely)

movie maker might not do overlay - who cares its junk anyway and nobody would ever actually really use it for anything, it doesn't even exist in windows 7, it was so bad they got rid of it. If you need a free app to do overlay then virtualdub or wax

Seeing as you need one of these editing / compositing / keying anyway its a moot point about alpha key and uncompressed playback performance - any app which can do the key and produce a alpha channel video can also overlay the video on the still and render out the finished composition as a single clip, compressed in a suitable format for powerpoint to playback.

This post has been edited by sleepytom: 19 Mar 2010, 10:57 AM

[Adza]

WMV doesn't support alpha channel.
Premiere doesn't come with an AVI codec which support alpha - nor does FCP. FCP quicktimes can support alpha (using animation or png codec) but will these play with their alpha correctly in powerpoint? (I don't know but it seems unlikely)

I know WMV doesn't support alpha but Powerpoint which has been updated can support FCP quicktime files and plays them properly if exported in animation CODEC.

But Alpha is a dead idea it would cause too many problems than solutions.

The best way to do it is as you said and would be to precompose the footage as you said using any available software and exporting it as a WMV that can be played back by PowerPoint.