Using the Presto Wizard for Windows

This section shows Step 3 of 5 for creating a Presto project with your presentation slides and videos in Vegas Pro. Go to Step 4.

 

Step 3: Process

In this step, Presto automatically takes care of the tedious aspects of creating a great presentation video. Three tasks are performed within this step of the Presto Wizard:

 

 

Synchronizing tracks

Before Presto begins processing your presentation, it is important that you have the different media sources properly synchronized (i.e., presenter video, projection screen video, and any independent audio).

The easiest way to do this is using our PluralEyes software, which you can easily run from within the Presto wizard simply by clicking on the Run PluralEyes... button.

NOTE:

After you have run PluralEyes successfully, the checkbox Tracks are synchronized will be automatically checked for you.

If you know your tracks are already in sync, then you can simply check Tracks are synchronized yourself.

Once your tracks are synchronized, it's a good idea to group all the media so that you don't accidentally move one media item out of sync with the others during editing. To group everything, choose Edit > Select > All (or Ctrl-A), and then Edit > Group > Create New (or the just hit the G key).

 

 

Preparing your presentation for processing

It is highly recommended that you do any editing of your presenter and screen video before Presto processes it. 

If you are new to editing in Vegas Pro, the built-in interactive tutorials are an excellent way to get started. You can access these via the menu Help > Interactive Tutorials...

You are likely to need to edit your videos to remove superfluous footage. For example, you may have started recording before the presenter began speaking. Similarly, there may be extra video or audio at the end of your recordings that you want to remove, or sections in the middle that you need to delete. 

It is advisable to do any editing of the presenter track before Presto processes it. Since Presto defines the layout sequence timing in terms of the overall project, deletions or shifts of the video may offset the layout timing. Removing unwanted media at this point will speed up processing.

Your videos do not have to be the same length, and can even have gaps in them. For example, you may have stopped recording video of the screen during a question period at the end of the talk. When Presto generates the default layout sequence for the project, it will automatically switch to a presenter-only layout if there is no screen video. Similarly, Presto will automatically switch to a slides-only layout wherever there is no presenter video. You will learn more about controlling the layout sequence in Step 4 under the topic Editing the layout sequence.

 

 

Processing the presentation

By default, Presto automatically tracks the presenter (so that the presenter stays within the presenter inset in two-up layouts), and synchronizes the slide images with the screen video to create the slide track.

NOTE: If you selected I don't have slides for this presentation in Step 2 (Get slides), the slide sync option will be disabled.

 

 

When you press the Process button, the wizard displays the processing monitor tab so you can watch Presto at work. Presto's processing speed depends on your computer's processing power, but processing time for a typical presentation is 50-100% of the presentation length.

  1. Presto renders versions of the presenter and screen videos that it uses for its own processing.
  2. Next, Presto tracks the presenter to create the necessary pan-crop keyframes that keep the presenter within the presenter region of the layout.
  3. After tracking, Presto then matches the slide images with your projection screen video to determine the exact slide timings.
  4. Finally, Presto sets up your project using all the information it determined automagically during processing.

    During this phase Presto:

  5. When Presto is finished processing, it steps to the next wizard page.

 

 

Additional Processing Options

If you wish to manually track your presenter, or if tracking is not required (perhaps because the speaker remained behind the podium for the entire presentation), then uncheck Automatically track presenter before processing. If you change your mind later, you can uncheck the box and click Process again.

If you want to manually place all the slide images (e.g. because there was a problem with your projection screen video), then uncheck Automatically synchronize slides before processing.

Presto allows you even finer control over which sections of the presentation are processed.

If you need to re-run the presenter tracking, click the Clear Tracking button to reset the Presto's tracking results, then click Process.

If you need to re-run the slide synchronization, click the Clear Slide Sync button to reset Presto's slide sync results, then click Process.