Is this project appropriate for captivate

Question

Normally I would use a combination of video and still shots
processed with one or several NLE software. Usually Premiere.
After reading a little about Captivate and watching some of
the introductory videos available on Lynda.com (just the 3
introduction pieces so far)
I wondered if captivate may be a poor choice for my current
project.
The project is a combination of stills and videos presented
as a memorial to family member who has passed.
As I mentioned my normal method for something like that above
but that method is very time intensive.
It begins with a series of photoshop sessions, dressing up
the stills, then some Premiere sessions trimming and preparing
video from dv tapes or possibly Captured Video from the internet
with Camtasia or snagit. Finally any effects will be done in After
Effects such as animating the stills. Finally back to premiere to
sew it all together and add voice over in places. - From there to
DVD with Encore.
I'm wondering if some of that could be done in Captivate and
improve on the time factor or if it would be something of a mis-use
against the intent of Captivate.

Answer 1

Harry, I am late to the game, but I think those who responded
were waaaaay too quick to offer alternatives to Captivate. No
criticism of earlier posters, I just think some options were too
quickly dismissed, or overlooked entirely.
I recently loaned my son my digital camera (a small Canon
shirt-pocket item, nothing special) when he went to a private
wedding.
During the course of the wedding, he took maybe 80 still
shots (1600x1200) and about a half-dozen AVI short movies of
special moments, such as kissing the bride and cutting the cake.
Then he brought the camera to me at the reception, thanked me, and
said "Now do something with it, Dad". LOL! I never saw it coming!
Here is what I did, and how long it took:
1) Changed all stills from 1600x1200 to 800x600 in a batch
operation using Photoshop CS3.
2 minutes for operation.
Note: All 8x6 images saved to a separate folder during batch
operation.
2) Cleaned up red-eye and adjusted brightness/contrast, again
in Photoshop CS3.
15 minutes for operation.
3) Opened Captivate 3, and created a new *Image* project.
Imported all images in the aforementioned folder to the new
project, and saved.
2 minutes for operation.
4) Opened the AVIs in Flash CS3 Video Encoder and in a batch
operation, converted the AVI files to FLV.
10 minutes for operation, but I had to teach myself how to
use the program since I was a virgin with it.
5) Brought each of the FLVs into Captivate slides.
5 minutes for operation.
6) Rearranged all stills and videos to achieve correct
*order* for the movie.
1 hour for operation, but I had to teach my daughter-in-law
how to do this in Captivate, since she was at the wedding and I was
not - and she has never seen Captivate before.
7) Added voice-over to all the stills in Captivate. 2 hours
for operation, but it took so long because I spent the time
translating what my son and daughter-in-law were saying behind me
for each voice-over ... half the time I was *shushing* the room so
I could add audio.
Tools needed: Captivate 3, Flash Video Encoder CS3, Photoshop
CS3 ... all Adobe tools.
Total time: 3 hours, 34 minutes, if I added correctly, and
half of that was necessary only because I didn't know the
*players*, nor had I been present at the event.
Note, I did not include time for burning CDs, because I
output it directly to my website as an executable, to be downloaded
by participants at will, so no CDs were necessary.
You can take my experience *for what it is worth*. The
original question was "
Will Captivate 3 do this?", and I am troubled that everyone
answered "No". I totally disagree. Burning the output of my
Captivate movie to CD would be one extra step, but a Captivate
movie can be put on a CD or delivered by the web, or as I did,
posted as EXE and left to be downloaded at leisure.
I think we (Adobe and Captivate 3) have everything it takes,
not only to do it, but to do it quickly and well.
best wishes~
Larry