Stagetools Moving Picture Plug-in vs. Image Pan

[Mike Morrell]

I downloaded the demo of "moving picture" by stagetools and spent about 20 minutes with it panning some photos. My first impressions are that it is far superior to the Premiere image pan. I want to obtain some feedback from others who have been using Moving Picture for some time before I purchase the product. What are the pros and cons (price)? Day in day out, is it really better and faster than image-pan? Etc.

It appears from my limited use to be very smooth and very easy to use. It is also faster than image pan. I did a 19 second image pan of a Photoshop image (about 1500 x 1400). MP rendered my image pan with 4 key frames in 55 seconds. Image Pan, also with 4 key frames and roughly the same pan setup rendered (on my machine) in 110 seconds (double). Since image pan only does strait lines from key frame to key frame, my pan was much smoother with MP because it appears to move fluidly using a curved path. But it better be better (than IP) for $199.

Is anyone using Moving Picture?

[Mike Morrell]

Anyone have any experience with Moving Picture? Anyone?

For pre-sales, the response I have gotten directly from them has been fantastic. It really appears to be a good product, but I'd like to hear what others have to say.

[Daniel Conklin]

I like After Effects.

[Gary Andrew]

I use Moving Pictures all the time. It is a terrific plug-in. I've used many different strategies to work with still images from motion (not good because of no hi-res support), image pan, after effects, transform, etc. Moving pictures is by far the winner for quality and EASE OF USE. If you do decide to purchase Moving Pictures, do yourself a favor and add the rotation option.

[Mike Morrell]

Thanks Gary. From the limited time that I've been playing with it, I would agree that it is very easy to use. But Daniel, I don't have AE. I've downloaded the AE demo a few times over the years and could never figure out how to work the darned thing. Its certainly not intuitive by my brain.

Daniel, have you used both AE and Moving Pictures for image panning? If so, why do you prefer AE? Is it better quality?

[Mike Morrell]

I did read one review that said that Imaginate was quite good but that MP left it in the dust. I have not tried Imaginate though.

MP can use images up to 8000x8000 images and they claim no resultion loss. I have not tried any pics even close to that size. But it does work with PSD files with layers (merged). One neat thing is that it can create flash movies too, although I have not figured out how to invoke a url redirect so that I could use its flash as my start page on the web site.

Download the demo, its on like 150k or something. Just copy the plug in to the premiere plug in directory.

No jitter with MP, so far, like I get with Premiere Image Pan. That is the best part! The output looks professional.

[Kyle Peterson]

I actually already have MP's demo, but the movement is really jerky. I'm wondering if it could just be that I am playing it back on a 500 Mhz machine, though. Have you noticed anything other than smooth movement in your projects?

Kyle

[Kyle Peterson]

Mike, have you looked at Canopus' Imaginate at all? I was just wondering because I too am looking for panning software. I was just wondering if you or anyone else knew if MovingPicture delivers better quality than Imaginate.

Good luck,
Kyle

[Mike Morrell]

:-{ Kyle, that is disapointing. No everything looks smooth to me, but I'll have to try more photos now. There are some settings that you should try and change to see if this helps.

If you render as a movie and play it back, is it jerky? If it is, then its defiantely not the speed of your machine causing the problem. I might like to try your image and pan it on my machine too. It could be image specific at certain sizes or something. Time for sleep tonight though...

[Kyle Peterson]

Yes, it is the exact same after I render it as a movie. It's farily large in size, but 3000 x 3000 is less than half of what it's supposed to be able to do. I will call Stage Tools to see what they have to say. Thanks, Mike.

Kyle

[Daniel Conklin]

After Effects can move any number of elements independantly. It's more than just a photo pan tool, and yes, there are a lot of possible variables in it. It's not that hard to learn the basics once someone shows you how. I do not have MP, since After Effects does almost everything I could ever want. The latest version even includes some 3d elements.

[jonereb]

QUESTION: Is "moving picture" a Premiere Plugin; So I can use it inside Premiere? Like Daniel, I use After Effects. AE is great for so many things. But I don't like having to go outside Premiere if I don't have to. Time is money. I found image pan to be too inconsistent on quality. One pan/zoom may work fine. The next may by jerky. ???

[Gary Andrew]

There is no question - After effects is THE program for compositing and I use it a lot for many things. AF will do EVERY THING that MP can do and a world more. However, if your doing a photo montage for example AF is very cumbersome compared to MP where from within Premiere you just add a filter to your still. Let's say you want to layout your pictures to the beat of a song. You would build your timeline with the pictures you want in the order you want them in and then have to note the desired length of each picture, import the picture into after effects, create the zoom/pan desired, render out an avi, import that into Premiere, delete the picture clip, add the newly created avi. If after all of that you decide you don’t like the movement you created – start the whole process over. While you have done all of that you could have done 10 pictures with MP. BTW - the preview you get of your motion in the MP interface may be somewhat jerky depending on the power of your computer and the size of the still, but the rendered result will/should be silky smooth. I’ve looked at Imanginate but find that it is not as nicely integrated with Premiere as MP. Just for the record, I'm in no way connected with Stage Tools - just a very satisfied customer.

[Jeff Bellune]

I致e looked at Imanginate but find that it is not as nicely integrated
with Premiere as MP.

Not quite right. The demo of Imaginate does not include the Premiere plug-in. The full version does. Imaginate integrates quite nicely with Premiere, and if you use the plug-in, it brings over an alpha channel as well.

Jeff

[Mike Morrell]

Jonereb, just to clarify, MP works with Premiere as a plug-in. It can also be run outside of premiere and its called "Producer"

One of these days, I'll gather the cash and the courage to purchase and learn a compositing application. For the type of stuff that I am doing right now, MP should fit the bill. I have used Boris RED and at least understand some of its interface, but AE, I'll need some serious training before I can do the first thing with it. With MP, which admittedly, is a small subset of any compositing app, can be mastered in about 5 minutes without reading any instructions.

[jonereb]

After Effects is my favorite tool. It's really not as difficult as one might think. Sure some AE aspects are beyond me, but for compositing, motion graphics, Background creation and special effects it's a wiz. But I digress. This thread dealt with Image Pan. I wish Image Pan worked as well as the zoom, pan, and rotate functions in AE. Adobe makes both products...so why can't they work with the same Adobe effectiveness. Maybe in Premiere 7.0!