oOSlideshow

oOSlideshow was created for generating MPEG-4 and Flash Video slideshows. It is pretty easy to accommodate yourself with its interface, and there are settings that can be separately applied for each image and the entire slideshow.

Files can be added to the sequence in two ways. You can either insert one picture at a time (JPEG and PNG) or just add an entire folder. We need to mention that, to be able to generate slideshows, MEncoder is required (included in MPlayer).

A nice thing about the main application window is the preview option. oOSlideshow opens a small window where you can view any selected image in full size. Here, you can enlarge the window but can’t maximize it or zoom in and out.

There are a few settings you can play with before creating the slideshow. The duration of each slide can be modified (in seconds and milliseconds) along with the default transition (crossfade, wipe or none) and the resize policy (scale, center/crop, stretch).

You can also select a different background color. The video size (width and height) can be set manually or picked from a list of presets (320x240, 640x480, 800x600 or YouTube 4:3)

As for adding audio files, only two possible types are available: MP3 and OGG. The output video format can be set to MPEG-4 or Flash Video while the only available audio encoder is MP3 (MPEG-1 audio layer 3).

Not all buttons have their full name, such as the “Cancel” button in the window brought up the screen by clicking on the square button or by double-clicking an image in the list. When you hover the mouse over a button, its description is not shown in tooltip, thus making it harder to figure out options. There is no way to preview the slideshow.

In conclusion, oOSlideshow is a basic application with too many issues. It did not run well in our tests and there isn’t any possibility of watching a preview before saving the presentation so, although you can set the duration of the slide, you won’t have any idea how it looks like until saving it.