[Zoom]

I want to scan the pages of some of my daughter's favorite books, then create a DVD with me narrating the stories as the pictures/pages show. Eventually, I want a DVD with multiple chapters, each one a different story, and I'll probably fill up a DVD with as many as I can.

So, I have two A/V questions.

(1) What's the best way to get decent audio into my G4? I have an iSight camera that seems to have a good mic in it, and I'm thinking of just going with that. I can use Spark ME to import it and edit it, then suck that into iMovie. This is just voice, so I'm not super worried, but if iSight sucks compared to a $25 mic I can buy, I would consider it.

(2) What's the best way to do the pages? I have a Canon LiDE 20 scanner and Photoshop Elements 2. I was going to scan them in and stitch the facing pages together. But what are the best scan options and what are the best file types for iMovie?

This last one has me the most worried. The first book is Horton Hears a Who, so the pages have very simple colors (like literally 2-3 per page). I'm sure more of the other books will be similar, since they're kids books. What's the best picture format? GIF? JPEG? TIFF? PNG?

Can I time the crossfades in iMovie to correspond with the narrative? I'm almost certain you can, but I want to make sure.

Finally, how does iMovie handle pictures that aren't the same aspect ratio and the screen? Can I choose a background color or must I fill the screen?

Given what I'm trying to do, can anyone think of some good ideas for doing it?

[Zoom]

Okay, this is harder than I thought. Scanning the pages is a pain, but iMovie needs a manual. I know there are "Missing Manual" books for iMovie - has anyone used them?

Anyway, I can't seem to get my iSight to work for this purpose. Even with it selected as the input for sound in General Prefs, I'm not getting any sound.

Also, the pictures look horrible, like lots of resolution has been lost in the import. Is this just the failure of iMovie to show them well, or did it lose major resolution when I imported them?

Once I create an iMovie project of a narrated book, how do I go about turning these individual projects into DVD chapters that Toast 6 can burn? Will I have to make a single, long movie of all the books? (I know no one probably knows this since Toast 6 just came out.)

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally posted by Zoom:

Also, the pictures look horrible, like lots of resolution has been lost in the import. Is this just the failure of iMovie to show them well, or did it lose major resolution when I imported them?

actually both. DV resolution (iMovie's codec) is roughly 640x480, depending on your local video standard. Whatever resolution you scanned at, it's higher than DV. At the same time, iMovie only displays a low-quality preview of the footage. Try exporting from iMovie after importing to see how it will look. Or there's a preference somewhere to turn on the high-quality playback

Toast 6 makes each movie you add its own chapter. It can also add chapters every X minutes, but I can't find a way to add chapters at custom times.

Wouldn't it be easier to use the camera to film you holding up the book, along with the audio? no editing, no scanning, the final would look more realistic...

[Zoom]

Wouldn't it be easier to use the camera to film you holding up the book, along with the audio? no editing, no scanning, the final would look more realistic...

Yeah, I thought of that. But I really want them to be able to see the book pages. Holding it up to a camera wouldn't be ideal. My hand would shake, I'd have to know exactly where to hold it to get maximum view, and the sound wouldn't be nearly as good (using the little built-in mic on my camera at a distance). I will surely do an intro of me holding the book, but when it comes time to see the pages, I wanted them imported as a picture.

[scottiB]

For best results, I don't think you can avoid scanning.

Here's a rough sketch. I tried to give it the feel from the Capt. Kangaroo and Mister Rogers shows.

I scanned the images at 200 dpi (really could've gone to 300). This gave me enough pixels for the cutaways and text. I saved all images as PICTs, dragged them into the timeline, and fit them to the reading.

I have a Griffin iMic and used it with a cheap lavalier for input using CD Spin Doctor (comes with Toast).

Am I on the right track?

[Zoom]

Originally posted by scottiB:
For best results, I don't think you can avoid scanning.

Here's a rough sketch. I tried to give it the feel from the Capt. Kangaroo and Mister Rogers shows.

I scanned the images at 200 dpi (really could've gone to 300). This gave me enough pixels for the cutaways and text. I saved all images as PICTs, dragged them into the timeline, and fit them to the reading.

I have a Griffin iMic and used it with a cheap lavalier for input using CD Spin Doctor (comes with Toast).

Am I on the right track?

Yeah, that's EXACTLY what I'm looking to do, except without the frequent cuts. I'll just show the whole page till I'm done reading it. I might throw in the "Ken Burns effect" since it's easy, but yes, this is what I'm looking to do.

Now, can you describe for me how you do this (precisely) in iMovie? Why did you choose PICT over JPEG or whatever? (How big were those files??)

Not sure why my iSight wasn't working for sound input. I've got to figure that out.

What would I use Spin Doctor for, to remove background noise?

[scottiB]

Cool.

First of all, I wouldn't use the iSight. Even a cheap mic with an 1/8th inch miniplug from Radio Shack would be better. You can position it right near your mouth when speaking.

You didn't mention which G4 you have. I used the Griffin iMic because my DP 800 doesn't have an analog it (this has been remedied with the mirrored door ones and the older pre-digital audio ones still have them).

I used CD Spin Doctor for the sole reason that it's the only software I have for recording. I'm sure Spark ME will suffice--or you could record directly into iMovie if you wish. I did to a high-pass filter to remove a bit of room noise, and added a bit of bass because my voice isn't the most resonant.

First step was recording my reading--make sure you don't rush it--in fact, take a bit longer than you think. I did it one take (only a few pages), but when I did flub-up, I paused for a few seconds and re-read a passage from the beginning. You can crop the sound later.

I scanned the pages (naming them Page_01, 02, etc--use the leading 0), and here's where we'll diverge a bit. I scanned them at a somewhat high resolution (200 dpi), so I would have large enough images for the cutaways. The full-page images, I downsampled to 72 dpi and resized them to have a 480 pixel height (NTSC is 640w x 480h). You don't need to do this; iMovie will scale them when you import, but I did it regardless. It saved some CPU crunching time.

Since you solely want full page shots, just scan at 72 dpi (unless you'll some heavy zoom K. Burns stuff--when it zooms, pixelation will happen, as you can see in one of my clips).

I used PICT because, well, that's what I used on my Mac IIci , but JPEGs will work fine (medium quality is fine for television). My scans looked a little flat, so I boosted the brightness and contrast to make them punchier.

I created a new iMovie project and dragged all the picture into the clips bin from the Finder. Then I dragged the AIFF reading into the timeline (it was mono, so I copied and pasted it into the second track--for dual mono).

Then I dragged each picture, in order, into the timeline, and cropped/lengthened each clip in length to match the reading. That's about it.

You can see that iMovie provides a black background for missized images, but I think it's preferable to creating a white or light colored background.

[zigzag]

Just to cover some of your other questions:

iMovie: The Missing Manual is a terrific book and has helped me immensely.

As scottiB said, iMovie defaults to a black background for images with a different aspect ratio, but if you want something different, use Elements to create a background of whatever color or design you want. Go to File > New, then select 640x480, 72 dpi, RGB color. Choose a color. A new image will open up in that color, and you can Copy>Paste your scanned image onto it. Save it as a PICT or JPEG and import it into iMovie as a still.

iMovie can import almost any image type, I'm just in the habit of using JPEGs.

Yes, you can coordinate the crossfades and the narrative. Just edit the audio track, same as you would edit video clips.

Good luck, sounds like fun.

[Diggory Laycock]

What a great idea

[scottiB]

Originally posted by Zoom:
Why did you choose PICT over JPEG or whatever? (How big were those files??)

This PICTS ranged from 300K to 1MB, but interestingly, when iMovie imported them, they were all converted to JPEGS ranging from 8 to 12K.

[Zoom]

Excellent, guys, thanks!!!! I'll be working on this over the next few weeks... months, actually, because I want to do multiple books. I'll try to report back on the progress, but in case I forget, thanks for all the help.

[Zoom]

I think I might try taking pictures of the pages, though, since resolution isn't that important. Snapping pics with a digital camera will be MUCH faster than scanning, and my guess is that the quality difference will be negligible. I'll just have to find some way to keep the book fairly flat.

The other problem is that these books have pictures that span pages, and the crease in the middle is impossible to remove. That is, scanning page 2 and page 3, and the stitching them together still leaves a gap for the part of the picture in the spine.

I wish I could find the book artwork somewhere.

But that's just the perfectionist in me talking. My daughters won't notice a thing.

I've got an Apple Plaintalk mic I could use. I'll try it and see which sounds better. I may just break down and buy the iMic and a decent stereo microphone. Any recommendations? I'm not looking for sound studio quality, mind you. Just something better than a Plaintalk or iSight mic, say, in the $25-50 range?