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A/V Guidelines

Hitzeman Funeral Home, Ltd. offers complimentary use of our audiovisual system to every family we serve. This includes displaying digital photos (processed into a slideshow format), videos, and music. Please follow these guidelines when preparing the service music and slideshow.

Important Reminders:
For families with A/V materials, we ask that Hitzeman Funeral Home has materials by 12 P.M. the day before your scheduled gathering. The Hitzeman Staff will not be able to complete, prepare, or verify if a slideshow or music works at the time of your gathering.

Your slideshow must be preformatted and processed into a slideshow format and must be reviewed the day before services to make sure the slideshow works with our equipment. Whether you are putting the slideshow together yourselves or wish for us to do it for you, please make sure we have the files/photos/music by 12 P.M. the day before your scheduled gathering.

Slideshow Options

  • A slideshow during a standard visitation (3 P.M. – 8 P.M.) time frame has no time constraints. We recommend no more than 250 pictures.
  • If you want to have your slideshow as part of the funeral service, we can accommodate your wishes. We recommend a length of 4-7 minutes or approximately 50 photos. The total length of the slide show should not exceed 10 minutes.
  • Special requests for presenting slideshow can be accommodated during the middle or at the conclusion of visitation or service, we must be aware of the requests and review the day before your gathering.

General Formatting Guidelines for Family Preparing Their Own Slideshow:

  • Most common formats for slideshow / video formats are .WMV (windows media), .MPEG .MPG .AVI (general compressed computer), .MOV (quick time) or a standard DVD format .VOB. Audio (music) may be embedded in these files and played.
  • WMV, MPEG & AVI are preferred formats.
  • Power Point is NOT acceptable.
  • A slideshow does not consist of images on a flash drive. Those images will need to be converted; therefore, we will need those images by 12 P.M. the day before your scheduled gathering.
  • We recommend a max of 250 pictures.
  • We recommend slideshows be formatted with each picture to be viewed for a minimum of 7 seconds and no longer than 15 seconds depending on the number of pictures you choose to incorporate.
  • Example: 50 Photos - 9 Seconds with 1 second transition time = 8.33 Minutes 100 Photos - 9 Seconds with 1 second transition time = 17 Minutes.
  • We recommend pictures are placed in random order to make it more engaging.
  • You can embed or directly attach music to your slideshow. However, if playing time is short and under 10 minutes, music will not be played for the duration of the visitation to avoid listening to the same music repeatedly.
  • If you should choose to create a standard DVD (a .VOB format), the video created can NOT have any title pages or chapters. Title Pages and Chapters will not allow the video to continuously loop without restarting the show manually for each viewing.
  • Photos that are typically less than 100K will be grainy and fuzzy.
  • Make sure all of your pictures are in the same direction or else you may find an image that was meant to be portrait is turned on its side.
  • The slideshow can be sent to us at hfh@hitzemanfuneral.com, through a Dropbox, Cloud/Cloud storage, Google Drive and I-Drive OR you may bring in the slideshow to us on a flash drive or DVD.

If you wish that Hitzeman prepare the slideshow, please follow these instructions:

Digital Images

  • Digital images can be sent to us at hfh@hitzemanfuneral.com, through a Dropbox, Cloud/Cloud storage, Google Drive and I-Drive OR you may bring your images to us on a flash drive, CD, or DVD (Max files 250).
  • Pictures are preferred in .jpeg format.
  • Apple phones that have HEIC photos will need to be converted prior to submitting to .jpeg to be put into slideshow.
  • High-resolution images are preferred. Photos that are less than 100K will not be included as they will be too grainy for a respectable slideshow.
  • Social media photos are compressed and grainy when displayed. It is recommended that pictures are converted to .jpeg for the best quality.
  • The final slideshow images will be in random order.
  • If the picture order is important, the family needs to notify Hitzeman Funeral Home. Files must be named and numbered in order that you desire them to be shown.
  • Movie files cannot be intermixed with the slideshow.
  • We do not crop or edit photos.
  • The slideshow will be formatted to continuously play during the visitation.
  • We require one electronic drive/file per family. This will eliminate multiple copies of the same pictures.

Non-digital Photos

  • If your photos are not digital and you wish for Hitzeman Funeral Home to format a slideshow for you, bring in the actual photos to us by 12 P.M. the day before your scheduled gathering.
  • We can scan any photo ranging in size from 3.5” x 4” up to an 8” x 10”.
  • Photos must be removed from their album or frame.
  • Photos with any sticky residue of any kind will not be scanned.
  • We do not crop or edit photos.
  • The final slideshow images will be in random order.
  • If the picture order is important, files must be named and numbered in the order you desire them to be shown with a max of 40 pictures. Over 40 pictures the slideshow will be in random order.
  • The slideshow will be formatted to continuously play during the visitation.
  • No custom transitions or audio files will be attached.
  • Please submit all photos at one time. Pictures will be returned.

Combined Digital and Non-digital Photos

  • If your family has digital and non-digital photos, Hitzeman Funeral Home can combine both together to create the slide show.
  • The slideshow will be in random order. We cannot honor specific order requests with combination of Digital and Non-digital photos.
  • Note: We do not have a slide projector or slide scanner. If the family wishes to bring in a slide projector and screen to watch slides, we can set up a place for such viewing.
  • All pictures or slideshow are due to Hitzeman Funeral Home by 12 P.M. the day before your scheduled gathering.

Music Options

Hitzeman Funeral Home does not provide music for visitations or services. There is such a wide variety of music, artists, and renditions that Hitzeman Funeral does not furnish it for families.

  • Families are responsible for bringing in their own music. Any music that you wish to have played during your family’s visitation or service must be delivered to the funeral home by 12 P.M. the day prior to the scheduled gathering. Early review and set up prior to the time of the scheduled gathering is required. The Hitzeman Staff WILL NOT be able to complete or prepare at the time of scheduled gathering.
  • Music may be provided on a standard compact disc (CD). We have 5 disc players.
  • Music may be provided on a CD, or USB Flash Drive, or may be played directly from an MP3 player such as an iPod. IPods should have music sorted and prepared to just press play before providing it to Hitzeman.
  • If a special selection is requested for the service, the song must be placed on a disc or flash drive. There are too many versions of certain songs that we do not have the capabilities to provide. Please have the version of selected song to Hitzeman Staff no later than 12 P.M. the day before the scheduled gathering so we can verify the version works on our equipment.
  • Using music from a phone is not recommended.
  • If a family chooses to use their phone to play music, the phone will need to be placed on airplane mode to avoid interruptions. The phone lock passcode will need to be removed so that Hitzeman Staff can have access to phone to help play the music at desired times. Volume on the phone will be turned up and plugged into our AV equipment for the duration of the visitation.
  • If a family chooses to stream music from their phone, we ask that families have the premium option as it is Ad-free. Hitzeman Funeral Home is not responsible for inappropriate commercials aired during a visitation from a streaming service.
  • Please note that all music selections are due to Hitzeman Funeral Home by 12 P.M. the day before your scheduled gathering.

If you have further questions on these options, please ask a funeral home staff member or call (708) 485-2000.

Waiver of Liability

(We aim to provide our families with the very best work and we always strive to make sure to protect any and/or all photo rendering materials (Photos, DVD’s, CD’s, Thumb/Flash Drives and any miscellaneous objects) provided by the family. We require a waiver of liability to be signed for photo/video rendering/scanning.)