• Registered: 2021-02-10
  • Posts: 2

Topic: Coming from Memories On TV and looking for alternative

Hello--I am a long time user of MOTV by Codejam and have created great slideshows of vacations that friends and family enjoy.  These are anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour long and have as many as 400+ slides consisting of jpgs and videos.  Each show also has background music.  What I love about MOTV is the rather sophisticated presets for creating multi-picture slides.  For example one of the multi-picture presets lets you a slide of several jpgs and/or videos on a single slide and have all of the images rotate around in a circle like a carousel--takes about 20 seconds to do this.  AND each of the presets can be tweaked before or after the effect is rendered.  It is this simplicity and the ability to produce almost professional-level shows that have kept me with MOTV but since Codejam went out of business, I have been searching for a similar replacement.

PTE AV looked like a promising alternative and it is incredibly sophisticated and really more targeted towards professional level users.  Usability is an issue and it takes a very steep learning curve to get a feel for the program. 

Are there any other ex-MOTV users out there who have found a satisfactory alternative?

  • Registered: 2014-01-29
  • Posts: 311

Re: Coming from Memories On TV and looking for alternative

Hi SeismicGuy! Have you tried SmartSHOW 3D as an alternative? - https://smartshow-software.com/
It lets you make slideshows combining photos, videos, and music. And you don't really have to be a professional to use it as it has lots of premade templates with 3D animations and other effects.

  • Registered: 2021-02-10
  • Posts: 2

Re: Coming from Memories On TV and looking for alternative

Hi Michael--I spent a small amount of time researching what is out there by googling "best slideshow software" or something similar.  Different results have different ratings but SmartShow does show up on a number of rating sites along with PhotoStage and Movavi.  I think at some point I stumbled onto PicturesToExe (now PTE AV) and that one grabbed me for some reason--I think their website had some slick looking examples.  I posted the same question on the PTE AV forum and was convinced to try it. 

PTE AV is incredibly sophisticated but it has become increasingly obvious to me that it really appeals to professional-level end-users who love getting into the weeds creating custom styles and themes and slideshows with almost surgical precision.  The program does not have the pre-packaged multi-slide presets that MOTV had via simple dropdown boxes and it certainly is not intuitive.  But I have invested a bunch of time so far with PTE AV so might try sticking with it a bit more. 

I like to mix videos into my slideshows along with jpgs, and I believe that I would need the "deluxe" version of Smartshow to do that?  If so the main complaint I have with PTE AV is that when you bring videos down into the "timeline" they do not stand out as videos versus jpgs.  In MOTV there would be little filmstrip symbols to show these were videos.  I just find that it is easier to select the jpgs and omit the videos if it is visually obvious that the slide is a video.  How does Smartshow visually distinguish slides in terms of jpg versus video?

  • Registered: 2014-01-29
  • Posts: 311

Re: Coming from Memories On TV and looking for alternative

Besides the ready-to-use templates, SmartSHOW 3D also has tools that allow you to create your own animation and other effects precisely. You can add and adjust keyframes, manage the 3D camera, etc.

SmartSHOW 3D doesn't indicate what type of file is used in the slide as it allows you to add both photos and videos to one slide.

  • Registered: 2021-07-15
  • Posts: 2

Re: Coming from Memories On TV and looking for alternative

Hi, Nice thought
If you want you can create a puppy's slideshow its look very cute..
https://bulldogscharms.com/english-bulldogs.php