sound & still images to create a video

I have still screen shots I want to make a video out of with sound in sync. Is this possible or do I need to import video in flash?

Assuming your goal is to sync individual images with specific moments in the sound track, then it might be better to put the images as JPEG or PNG in frames along with the sound track. Sort of like a slide show synced to sound track. I think this would be more bandwidth friendly than making a video.

Put the sound in its own layer on the root timeline.
Select the frame containing the sound, add enough keyframes to see the entire sound's waveform and set the sound to stream sync in the Inspector panel.

Put the images in another layer in frames corresponding to the point in time where you want them to play in relation to the sound track.

By setting the sound to stream sync it will play sound in sync with the images, and also progressively load the sound as the SWF plays frame by frame.

You can use alpha tweens to create transitions between photos without adding any significant increase in file size.

You may need to preload all of the images before starting the "slide show" if you are delivering over the web. Flash will stop playback while downloading an image in a given frame.

There are other approaches that are more convenient if you do not need tight sound/graphic synchronization.

I have 11 photos. The audio sound is speaking to the photos. approx. 45 sec- 1 min each photo. Correct steps??: First: import sound on it's own layer? Should I convert to a symbol? Then, can I just extend it to full length 9 min in timeline? And how would I play/preview it to sync up to appropriate length in synch mode? Finally, I need to have user control stop/play controller. Would all this need to be a swf not a video file?

you cannot convert sound to symbol, so dont worry about that. (you can put a sound inside a movie clip, where the mc is a symbol, but that would not be useful in this case)

you can use test mode in the Flash authoring software to test the synchronization between sound and graphics.

you control the flash timeline playhead with:
play() - start and resume from whereever last stopped
stop() - actually a pause
gotoAndStop(1) - rewind to frame 1

Since Flash loads SWF frame by frame, you can only fastforward to frames already loaded. So fastforward or skipping to a later frame is relevant after the player finishes loading the swf.

Make sure that the player has finished loading the images, perhaps as movie clip symbols, before starting the presentation.

Another alternative would be to use a movie editor.

All movie editors I'm aware of (including windows move maker.
Allow for image and sound.

Then you could either use one of a million vid to swf convertors or mx for conversion.

Frets