The latest from Singular Software, the makers of the highly popular audio syncing plug-in, PluralEyes, is Singular Software Presto, their quick and easy presentation editing software. It is designed to help quickly and easily edit a presenter speaking in front of a power point, into a split screen format, with their slides remaining large and crisp, using the original files as source material. Singular Software Presto is pretty specific in its purpose, so it would be more geared toward presentation type extra features from a filmmaking perspective. Of course, our studios all need to pay the bills so we can afford to make our films, so if you find yourself filming a lot of lectures, Singular Software Presto will definitely speed up that process, and heighten the quality of your work.
Singular Software Presto is a stand-alone program that works closely with Final Cut Pro, which is still required to begin and finalize your project. For PC users, a version is also available that is compatible with Sony Vegas.
Ease of Use
The Singular Software Presto work flow is pretty ingenious. While everything it does could be done manually in Final Cut without this plug-in, Singular Software Presto is designed to save you a ton of time doing so.
You first begin a project in Final Cut. You will need two angles on video tracks 1 and 2: a video of your presenter and a second shot of just the screen on track 2. The 2 angles will need to be in-sync, which can ironically be done pretty easily with Singluar Software’s FCP plug-in, PluralEyes. Any b-roll (such as audience cutaways) can be placed on the third track.
Line everything up, save your project and you’re ready to get started!
In most presentation scenarios, the screen is much brighter than the presenter, and filming from one angle, you would have to simply choose some happy medium to compensate. Using two angles will help you make sure your presenter is nicely lit. The quality of the camera used to take video of the screen doesn’t really matter, since it will eventually be replaced with the original images.
Next, you import your Final Cut Project into Singular Software Presto, along with the individual slides in their original order. Singular Software Presto will automatically motion-track your presenter, and also replace the video of the screen with the original Power Point slides, automatically detecting when the slides change. You then simply re-import the project into Final Cut for rendering.
While this may sound like a great breakthrough for amateurs videographers, some rudimentary knowledge of Final Cut is definitely still needed.
Depth of Options
As Singular Software Presto is designed for a pretty specific usage, there really isn’t a lot to it. Singular Software Presto is laid out in a similar manner to Final Cut, so it’s pretty intuitive. In the program itself, you get a preview monitor, a quick version of your Final Cut timeline and a 4 step progress window, which also sort of acts as your “bin” in the top left. The progress window will walks you through each of the importing and exporting steps.
If you’re familiar with Final Cut, there’s no real learning curve here.
Once you’ve brought your FCP project in, you can bring in the original slides.
After processing you can make some simple trim edits, and playback to preview the final product right there in your preview monitor. You can also break away from the standard split screen view at any point. Move your cursor to where you’d like to change the layout in the timeline, and using the sample layouts in the “Edit” window, simply pick one and click insert.
In the edit window you get a few layout options, and can insert a transition at any point on the timeline.
Some of the transitions came out a bit clunky for me. Going from a split screen back to just the presenter seemed to “pop” a bit. You can adjust the transition time to try to smooth this out. Also, with one click of a button you can send your project back into Final Cut and make some further adjustments if needed.
Performance
As someone who would probably just as soon elect to attempt everything that Singular Software Presto does within Final Cut, I was really surprised by how well Singular Software Presto works and I really don’t think I’ll be editing a presentation video without it in the future. Everything worked perfectly. On the video and media samples I used, it was able to motion-track the presenter cleanly, and line up the slide transitions perfectly in time with the video.
Singular Software Presto’s motion tracker is surprisingly good and fast!
Processing time was very quick, too. For a video that’s a little over two minutes, the processing time within Singular Software Presto was about the same. To render it out in back in Final Cut, it took another two minutes. All in all, this was much quicker than I thought it would be.
Value
At the reasonable price of $249, Singular Software Presto is a pretty good deal for those that end up producing lots of presentation videos, but if you only find yourself doing one a year, you may not want to give it a shot. To find out whether it’s right for you, there’s a fully-functional 30 day trial version available on Singluar Software’s website, which should at least get you through one or two projects to see if it’s a good fit for your needs!
Final Comments Singular Software Presto is a powerful and easy to use tool for making sleek-looking presentation videos, which I’m sure a lot of us are doing out there to help fund our sci-fi and horror epics. It should be noted that so far, this version of Singular Software Presto isn’t compatible with the dreaded Final Cut Pro X, but what is? It would be nice to see a version of this for Premiere Pro down the road as well, especially since they’ve actually broken the platform divide to go to Vegas, which is PC exclusive, so it would be nice to see support for a program that can go on either platform!
Ease
of Use
10.0
Depth
of Options
8.0
Performance
9.0
Value
vs. Cost
8.0
Overall Score
8.8
Mark Colegrove is the director of 2008's horror/comedy Isle of the Damned, which is self-distributed through his production company, Dire Wit Films. Based in Maryland, he currently produces video content for the National Aquarium and Merriweather Post Pavilion.
