Windows-based video creation with Ken Burns effect

I can get a greenscreen effect with Adobe Visual Communicator 3 most reliably -- it has pro level chroma keying that actually works, unlike the other toy software out there. I tried 3 or 4, none of them even really worked.

However, I cannot figure out any way to pipe this excellent greenscreen in real time through Skype.

The ManyCam suggested by tgbarnett does work through Skype (and is free!), but it's primitive. I can barely get the chroma keying to work, even with a real green screen, and there are no settings at all to tweak to make it better. Darn!

Your problem may be caused because of differing frame rates in the source content. Use an application such as MediaInfo to determine whether this is the issue.

Suggestion #1

I've had success using AviSynth and VirtualDub for tasks like this. Avisynth creates a video stream based off of a script written by you. It's perfect for combining multiple small files because you're able to set precise timings. You may have to use one of the many 3rd party plugins to display successive .jpg images for set periods of time.

Once you are happy with what AviSynth is producing, use VirtualDub to encode it into whatever format you want.

Suggestion #2

Do your audio and video splicing seperately, and then merge the two streams as a final step.

1. Use an audio editor such as Audacity to create one master .mp3 or uncompressed .wav.
2. Create your slideshow video as you've been doing.
3. Combine the two streams. VirtualDub can do this, but it's a little cumbersome for something this simple. I've used ripbot264. The popular Handbrake tool could also probably do this.