Slideshow resolution?

tirediron · Jan 25, 2015

I've been asked to put together a slideshow of images for playback during the media 'meet & greet' for an event I'm shooting. Unfortunately, the organizers don't know what equipment will be available, but we're going on the assumption that it will be a flat-panel television set and Windows laptop. Therefore, questions:

1. What would be the optimal resolution for the images? Do they need to be high-res, or are fairly small files fine?

2. Are there any different considerations for using an LCD projector vice television for display?

3. Does anyone have recommendations for slideshow software that is OS independent and can produce a "self-executing" show? That is, I can produce the slideshow on my computer, save it to a USB drive and then play it on any computer without installing additional software?

Thanks!

Light Guru · Jan 25, 2015

Well I would say stick with standard TV resolution. A 1080p TV has a resolution of 1920x1080.

Unfortunately there is no completely universal software that will run on everything. You could make video file and loop it but you would need to make sure the video file is compatible with the device you are going to play it from.

tecboy · Jan 25, 2015

Save the images to jpegs and use a windows photo viewer. Press the arrow key left and right for back and forth image.

Overread · Jan 25, 2015

Digital Projector display - do you do anything special to your photos? | Photography Forum

This thread might help

tirediron · Jan 25, 2015

There's a search feature?

Who knew?

dennybeall · Jan 25, 2015

I've done them in Windows Movie Maker and they play in Windows Media Player which almost any Windows PC will have.
I've also done some with PowerPoint but you have to be sure the pc has MS Office and the fonts that you used in the PP Show. Corel Video Studio also does a nice job and is not expensive. All of these let you mix stills and video and sound.
I use photos around a megabyte or so and HD Movies but the software then renders the video at whatever size and file type you specify.
If you use Windows Media Player you can just click on the loop feature when you start the video and it will play over and over.

Overread · Jan 25, 2015

tirediron said:
There's a search feature? Who knew?

We got a what now? Naw just used started threads by myself

Big Mike · Jan 26, 2015

For many years, I've been using ProShow Gold to make my slideshows.

It's a bit expensive, considering that there are plenty of cheap/free programs that will get it done. Not to mention that Lightroom (if you have it already) can output slideshows. But the software is pretty good and do recommend it, especially if you think you'll use it more than a couple times.

I know that it did/does have issues about not running on Mac OS, but it can output in several formats, including self executable.

As for resolution, I usually go with more pixels than the display (or my guess as to the size/resolution of the display). Probably not double the size, but somewhere around 1.5 to 2x. The reason I use more resolution, is that I like to include lots of zooming and panning (the so called Ken Burns effect).