iMovie alternative for PC user

Question: Can anyone recommend an alternative for creating engaging photo collage slideshows with music on a PC.

We are not an ipad shop. We are all Windows. In fact most of our users utilize thin clients and access our Windows 20012 Terminal Server through RDP connections.

Easy to learn isn’t my problem. We have a computer lab and our group of assistants love to learn new things – the more challenging the better. I don’t have a problem teaching a class. I’m a pretty good teacher.

We have a graphic department tasked with creating videos so those needs are covered. (They use Pinnacle Studio and have for about 12 years.)

One of our departments has been making PowerPoint presentations for teens on PowerPoint. Her secretary used her ipad to make a slick photo collage and so now they want to go that route in the future. The secretary doesn’t want to use her personal ipad. She wants something that anyone in the department can use. (There are 9 people in the department.)

I was going to look into Microsoft Sway. It won’t work on the server but they have a department laptop available so that could work. Although, I really like the idea of online options.

I did a Google search and found 10 online services to play with:
10 Sites To Make Free Photo Slideshow Online With Music - perhaps someone has some experience with these?

Pro Presenter. Check it out!

PC - Adobe Premiere!

Anh Lam, IT Manager
International Cooperating Ministries
nurturing believers and assisting church growth worldwide

1901 North Armistead Avenue
Hampton, Virginia 23666-4311
Office: 757.224.7103
Mobile: 757-268-4575

Visit us online at icm.org http://icm.org/.

Premiere is WAY out of our price league. I should have mentioned “money IS an object.”

This probably isn’t what you want to hear, but when someone wants something “like” iMovie I generally recommend they buy a mac and use iMovie.

There are thousands of windows video editor programs, but none that I am aware of that are quite so easy for people to quickly grab hold of as iMovie. To really rub salt in the wounds, those windows video editors that are good usually cost between 100$ and 500$, or are ongoing subscription.

In short, buy a late-model mac with an 500+GB SSD (iMac, MacBook, whatever) and let the team use it. It’ll be faster and from a TCO perspective, likely cheaper than anything else you are going to do.

If you are going to go windows in your environment, I find most people either going down the route of Adobe Creative Cloud which will give you premier or Vegas Pro, which is a 600$ software package. To run these you will want something with both an SSD and a GPU. so if a laptop a gaming laptop or a mobile workstation, if a desktop anything i5 or better with a dGPU.

-Karl P

Personally, I use Adobe Premiere, however, this would be too complicated for someone who wanted to use something like iMovie. Others may disagree, but I’d look at the old Windows Movie Maker. I know it hasn’t been updated, and generally gets a bad rap, but its worth looking in to.
Its part of Windows Essentials: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/18614/windows-essentials

Unfortunately I have to control bleed. If one department has something the others will want it and I can’t afford macs for 89 users.

Easy to learn isn’t my problem. We have a computer lab and our group of assistants love to learn new things – the more challenging the better. I don’t have a problem teaching a class. I’m a pretty good teacher.

We have a graphic department tasked with creating videos so those needs are covered. (They use Pinnacle Studio and have for about 12 years.)

What I really need is something to make snappy slideshows from images as an alternative to PowerPoint. Maybe another phrase I should have added in my original post should have been “photo collages with music.” I know you can do some cool things with Powerpoint but I can’t overcome “business app” funk with this group. It’s just not hip. (Sigh.)

Once the “photo collage” term popped into my head, I did a Google search and found 10 online services to play with:
10 Sites To Make Free Photo Slideshow Online With Music - perhaps someone has some experience with these?

I have not used it, but I once saw some comments about OpenShot Video Editor. Primarily for Linux, but I see they have Mac and Windows downloads, too.

Have you tried Prezi? https://prezi.com/

Ah.

Some of my marketing people are using this for video slideshows

https://www.wondershare.com/pro/dvd-slideshow-builder-deluxe.html

Ignore the DVD in the name, it can spit out video files just fine…

I use Vegas Video to make slide shows for funerals/weddings, and it’s a
great video editor as well. I find it to be much more intuitive than the
Adobe products, especially for people who are not video editors. I don’t
think it’s as simple as iMovie but it is also much more powerful. There is
a 30 day trial, which is very nice. Hopefully that helps!
www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/vegas-movie-studio/

When she mentioned what she wanted, prezi came to mind and then I promptly forgot between her office and mine. I’ll add that to the stuff I play with.

I have not used it in quite some time, but “quick” and “easy” are not words I would use for Prezi. It can do some neat stuff, but you have to be prepared to spend more time on the presentation than most people would. Maybe it’s gotten better in the past couple of years though?

Oh, and $50. Well worth it IMO, has a Slideshow creator built in.

Animoto is incredible. Quick and easy. It also lets you insert short video clips if needed. You would probably need to get into one of the paid subscriptions. I’ve used it for years for my photography business and a bit for church. It has some great ways to customize, but you definitely don’t have total control, so that might be a downside for you. On the plus side, it is quick, easy and professional looking; the downside is lack of total creative control and a monthly subscription.

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Vegas ($50) and Adobe Premiere Elements ($70) blow iMovie away. I’m a Premiere Pro and After Effects guy but I’ve used and taught the other two extensively.

Muvee ($30 Christmas sale now) makes great automated video software that I also used for many years to make photo and video collages. Back when I did a lot of those, I would use Muvee to get things started and use Vegas for finishing touches. Super easy, saved hours of work, and ended with great looking videos every time.

https://www.muvee.com/shop-christmas

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+1 For Sony Vegas. I have used it for a number of years and find it a very capable video editor. I would not bother with Premiere Elements, it is junk compared to Vegas, and Vegas uses dramatically less resources. Plus, if you ever need the move to Vegas Pro, the interface is the same as the more basic versions.

Another option to consider for slide shows is PhotoStory, a free download from Microsoft. It should still be possible to find, and works quite well for slide shows.

  • Greg

Moving into the correct category and closing. Please restrict usage of the global Church IT Network Category as this subscribes everyone to the thread. Feel free to reply with a new thread, sorry for the inconvenience.