What file does the funeral home need for a slideshow?

Three questions to ask the venue

• What kind of file do you need? Most ask for an MP4. If the answer is anything else, it is better to know now.
• How would you like to receive it, and by when? Some want a USB stick, some a link they can download from.
• Who presses play, and does the sound come through your system? The music is part of the film, so it needs to be heard through the room’s speakers.

What a Videmory film is

An MP4 video file in full HD: 1920 by 1080 in landscape shape for a screen or projector, or 1080 by 1920 in portrait shape for phones. The music is in the file. It runs for exactly the length you set, and it opens and closes on the title photograph you chose, so whoever is operating the screen can see where it starts and where it ends.

Getting it there

Download the film to a computer and copy it to a USB stick, a new one if you can, with nothing else on it. Make a second copy on another stick. Once you have bought the film you can also send the funeral home a private link that lets them download it themselves.

Play it through before the day

This is the step that matters. Ask the venue to play the film from start to finish on the equipment that will be used, with the sound on, at least a day ahead. A file that plays on a laptop at home can still behave differently on another system, and the day itself is too late to find out. Videmory cannot test a venue’s equipment for you.

On the day

• Give the celebrant the running time, to the second.
• Bring the second copy with you.
• Play the downloaded file, not a link that depends on the venue’s internet.

At the gathering afterwards

A Wake Slideshow is made for this: long and quiet, each photograph held for 8 to 30 seconds. It plays on a loop in Videmory’s own player, but a downloaded file does not repeat by itself; whatever plays it does that. On a laptop, open it in VLC and choose Playback, then Loop, or press L; in QuickTime on a Mac, View, then Loop. From a USB stick on a television, look for Repeat or Loop in the media player’s options. In PowerPoint or Keynote, put the film on a slide and tick “Loop until stopped”. Play it through once on the screen you will use. If the service is being recorded or livestreamed, that is arranged with your funeral director: Videmory does not do either.