Synchronization to soundtrack

[ADB]

Hi Igor

I'm hoping I know the answer to this question already but thought I would just ask it anyway.

To me one of the fundamentally great things about PTE is its ability to perfectly synchronize transition points to specific changes or peaks in the sound track and maintain synchronization throughout the entire presentation. (I understand synchronization is not yet implemented in PTE 5.0)

With the added ability to animate images in PTE 5.0 are you still going to be able to provide exact synchronization as in the past version?

The only reason I ask is that I imagine it could be difficult given that you are now also waiting for each image to potentially finish its animation & transition before you move to the next transition point and this may potentially cause lag?

My gut feeling says that you have this covered but just curious as to your comments.

[Ian]

Hi Andrew

Actually, the customised synchronisation works fine in v.5 just like before. You can edit and move slides on the timeline in exactly the same way. The one thing you have to watch out for is that you give slides with overlaid animations sufficient time to run before bringing in the next image. Its important to cater for the full duration including the transition times.

Ian

[ADB]

Hi Ian

Can you try something for me...

1. Start a new test show

2. Choose Synchronize to music in the project options and leave "auto" unchecked.

3. Load up about 5 images making the first a long panorama

4. Animate the first image to be a long pan, say 30-60 secs or more

5. For the remaining slides can you set their transitions to fade and a really quick say 200ms transition time

6. Shortly after the first long pan finishes can you add transition points for the remaining 4 images but synchronise them to beats or changes in the music and resaonably close together but not so close that transition times extend past image duration times.

7. Play the presentation and see if the last four slides synch to their designated point on the soundtrack.

I'm finding that they don't. Infact they are way out of sync. It plays fine on the timeline with perfect precision but not as a preview or exe.

I'm a bit confused about when you say "The one thing you have to watch out for is that you give slides with overlaid animations sufficient time to run before bringing in the next image. Its important to cater for the full duration including the transition times."

This as I understand is as it always was in pre version 5.0 PTE for example you can't have a 10 secs dissolve to the next image when the next image has a duration of only say 2 secs. But you can have a 2 sec dissolve to an image that has a duration of 10 secs. In the sequences I'm testing its only a 200ms dissolve with an image duration of say 2 or 3 seconds

With regards to the animation length, it appears to be limited to when the next image transition occurs so the animation itself can't extend past that point anyway (apart from transition duration)?

Would be greatful if you could try out above and let me know your results.

Thanks in advance

Andrew

[ADB]

PROBLEM SOLVED

I do remember Igor saying somewhere about a 2 sec delay in music or start of show, so if you just move all your transition points forward 2 secs it works perfectly! Note: You can do this by selecting all the transitions on the timeline and clicking on "timed points" then selecting "shift points"

seems to work fine, but obviously will be corrected in future.

[ADB]

I have had to preapare a PTE 5.0 slideshow for a vineyard here in Queenstown.

I think I have successfully syncd to soundtrack by:-

1) Shifting all transition points forward by 2 secs after having perfectly aligned them in the timeline.

2) I made sure that the duration of the last slide ended 2 seconds before the music stopped for example if you have a soundtrack 100 secs long and the last slide is placed at 90 seconds, give it a duration of 8 secs. This will let your show show cycle without getting further out of synch.

NOTE: The above is only neccessary with this Beta and its limitations.

Before I release the final version to the vineyard I would be grateful if a few of you could download this presentation:-

http://www.imagescapes.co.nz/private/test%20sync.exe

and just make sure that on your system the slide changes appear to match with changes in the music. About three quarters of the way through there are about 4 slide changes that are supposed to sync to 4 very obvious quick changes in the music and this will be the acid test.

It is so nice to be able to produce pan & zoom show with synchronisation :-)

Thanks for your help in advance.

[alrobin]

Andrew,

I found that the images in question were about a half-second too late on the first pass.

I have noticed an anomaly with the new v.5. Even if you make sure you have lots of space at the end, the show can still drift out of sync on further passes. Don't know if your show is going to be played over and over or not, but you might want to check out the sync on the 4th or 5th pass. I noticed when I played it, that on the second pass the images and music were in-sync, but on later passes, the images appeared too early.

I corrected for this with one of my experimental shows by changing slightly the timing "on-screen" of the last image in "Customize slide".

I think that until Igor has completed development of all the synchronization features in v. 5 that we will have to put up with some minor inconveniences like this, and be careful how we distribute our shows.

[ronwil]

Tried it only once Andrew but the sync with the vertical slides appeared to be just right on my playback.

Ron [uK]

[ADB]

Al & Ron

Thanks for the feedback, probably not what I wanted to hear as I have to conclude that the end result is not necessarily going to be the same on two different PC's and I won't be able to release this to my client. :-(

Thanks for having a look for me. Roll on the next beta :-)

[LumenLux]

"... has encountered a problem and needs to close."

This the message I get when I try to run your Test Sync.exe I have re-downloaded with same result. I have tried to run on the same two PC's that do seem to handle Beta5 just fine. Does anyone else get this result on your show?

The "drifting" of the sync that Al reports is what I "expected." My experience is that even with a Ver5 show that eventually runs ok on two different PC's, it will start differently as to when the sound starts relative to where the first slide/object starts. For example, a title rising from screen bottom to top, will be complete two seconds before the sound track is evident. On a different PC (or with a different size files), the sound may start while the text is just beginning to travel the screen.

[ADB]

Hi Lumenlux

Sorry my fault I left my PC uploading a slightly modified version last night on checking it only uploaded 2.7Megs of a 20Meg exe file so you PC is probbaly complaining about a corrupted exe file which is in no way at all a fault with PTE, I am uploading again now should take 15 mins from time of this post to load, would still be interested to see how you go with it.

I think its incredible that Igor has managed to pull off animations and synchronization (allbeit with a little tweaking). Its almost like everything I have ever wanted in a presentation software is about to be delivered :-)

[alrobin]

Andrew,

I notice that your slideshow repeats on-cue much more accurately than before. What did you do to sync it more closely?

[ADB]

Hi Al

Thanks for checking it out, thats great news! I just played around with the duration of the last slide. I think it worked out at being a duration which finished at about 1.9 secs before the soundtrack ended, this seemed to keep in good sync for the following repeats of the presentation. So it didn't need much :-)

Cheers

[Ken Cox]

Andy

I can just run it -- not really smooth on the horizontal at times -vert- but my card likely at fault

increase in tempo was ok for me

- music just ends and your advert comes on - neat stuff:)

i do get a slight horizontal flash across the top of the 4 very obvious quick changes picts

fyi

i had to do a save as on target

http://www.imagescapes.co.nz/private/test%20sync.exe

to get the download to come down complete

you should get a load of wine for that one mate

ken

[ronwil]

Andrew

I have re-downloaded and tried it again and it went through smoothly coming in on cue with the music on the repeat. The vertical images quick changed to the music again on cue. I did notice a thin white line across the whole screen across the top of all but one of the vertical images, which is probably the same as Ken's observation.

By the way were you using your new 6600 Graphics card?

Ron [uK]

[LumenLux]

i do get a slight horizontal flash across the top of the 4 very obvious quick changes picts

Andy, I too saw the narrow horizontal white band as Ken experienced. Do you know what that is?

The show ran smooth on all effects in every direction. The sound sync was precise on the single viewing I made. I had to tie my pc up for a complete disk image backup so have not let your show run multiples yet.

Its almost like everything I have ever wanted in a presentation software is about to be delivered :-)

As we all get a little further along, I hope you might elaborate on the above quote. In contrast to you, prior to Ver 5, I have not been dreaming of what I want in presentation software. I am now looking forward to having some good discussions about how to utilize the power we are about to have. You know, the abuse of power, etc. Really, the creative minds will have eager audience as we develop the use of what Igor has produced.

[ADB]

Ken, Ron & Lumenlux:

Very strange about the horizontal flash I have tested the exe here and no sign of the horizontal flash...hmmm I wonder what's causing that on your systems and not mine.

Ron:

Yes, I am now using the new card and and haven't seen jerkiness in any show since it was installed :-)

Ken:

Fingers crossed on the wine

Lumenlux:

About the ideal presentation software and what I have been dreaming of....well its quite straight forward as all I have ever wanted to be able to do is provide a cinematic experience similiar to watching a high quality visual movie/documenatry something along the lines of BARAKA. To be able to to do this you need to be able to do the following:-

- Display a high quality, high resolution image

- Be able to sync perfectly with a soundtrack to change images at precise changes in the music. (and do so easily)

- Add additional sounds through the presentation

- Achieve high quality smooth fades, cuts, pans and zooms

- Be able to smoothly scroll text for credits & titles

- Be able to incorporate some advance layering/animation/opacity to produce interesting titles etc

These have never been available in any software that I have found to date EXCEPT PTE 5.0, many programs have a huge raft of glitzy transitions and gimmicky features which I will never use, I have always just wanted to do the basics really well and now PTE 5.0 lets you! :-)

[ronwil]

Andrew

The white line is more than a flash. It is a fine white line which stays on the screen almost the full duration of the image. It is something which, on a few occasions, I have experienced in Photoshop. I cannot recall how I got rid of it, but probably by using the History file and stepping back until it disappeared and carrying on from there. In Photoshop and the ruler activated, the image would hang on a line stretching across from the zero point of the ruler.

Thanks for the info on the 6600.

Ron [uK]

[ADB]

Ron

Very puzzling, I even downloaded the show via the link I posted (to check that it isn't a corruption of the original upload) and it too plays fine on my PC.

If any body else reading this has played the show without problems would be great to know as possibly certain hardware/software setups have a bearing on whether the effect occurs or not.

Ron are you able to do a screen dump at the time effect occurs so I can see what it looks like?

[Ken Cox]

Andy

i tried several times to capture it but is too fast and then you have to go thru whole show again -- and am finding pattern does not seem consistant in size - the length seems to vary across screen

ken

[Guest guru]

"It is a fine white line which stays on the screen almost the full duration of the image" (Ron)

This line appears to me too. I attach a screenshot (but the line flashes other three times before).

The sync seems good to me.

[ronwil]

Well done Guido at least Andrew can now see what it is. I failed and as Ken has said I now see it is a flash, because the duration of the image is swift anyway. Whilst the sequence was playing back my grandson came on the phone on another matter and he had experienced a faint blue line across in Photoshop. Like me he too could not recall how he got rid of it.

Ron [uK]

[Hawk]

Hi Andrew

Image just before occurance

Last image

As Ron mentions a photoshop problem ? - or possibly the sky showing from other images in background ?.

[Ken Cox]

Guido will be renamed to "the fastest man"

ken

[ADB]

Ken - Your sense of humour is improving, maybe we should rename you "Fastest Wit"

Ralph - Thanks for those screen shots it really does confirm something to me.

Problem in PTE?

The vertical shot with the hills in the background and the three trees is a simple stand alone image.

The actual image area is only the "image" there is no black masking or border added by me in fact the image hasn't gone near photoshop. The images before and after this shot are just straight stand alone images as well with no animations and all images are simple quick fades from one to the other. This would suggest that something within PTE is causing this problem as the program in this case has to set the screen ratio to 1:1.5 as per the project settings, then it has to center my image on this screen ratio adding black all round.

The other mystery is why the line doesn't show on my PC when the exe is played??

[alrobin]

Andrew,

Do you superimpose your verticals over a dark slide? If so, it could be caused by a slight mis-alignment of the dark slide? I find I have to carefully center the dark slide, too, in the image area. You can do it easily by right-clicking on that object's name, for each hitpoint location, and selecting "Put to center".

Or, it could be the size of the dark slide. Check to see that it is exactly the intended screen size (or larger), and that there is no white line at the top edge.