Igor

xahu34, Probably these products don't use exclusive fullscreen mode, just a simulated fullscreen as we used in old version 4.48?

Markus, Yes, exactly! We can save gamma settings before activating of the fullscreen mode and when ATI drivers corrupted it, load gamma profile back. The task a little complicated by a fact that ATI additionally suggests alternate desktop gamma settings and fullscreen gamma settings in ATI control panel. We have to correctly handle all these combinations of color settings. Please test special beta when I publish me, it is important to test how it will work with Pantone software.

There are good news. After reading of your message today I've experimented again with ATI settings and fullscreen mode and probably I will able to cure this ATI problem. I better understand now how ATI damages gamma settings and I can restore damaged gamma for fullscreen mode of slideshow. If my testing during next a couple of days confirms success, I'll publish the public beta for more wide testing. This problem happens only under Windows XP on ATI video cards with fullscreen slideshows (hardware accelleration). It is definitely an ATI bug. Please visit this topic next days to download special beta version later.

Yes, unaccelerated slideshow doesn't require DirectX for graphics, but we use DirectX for sound output even if you didn't add music (internal sound based timer). For sound we need DirectX 6.1 or later. Version 6.1 included to Windows 98SE, Me. If you set "Use hardware acceleration (D3D)" option, slideshow will try to use DirectX for graphics and if video card has 16 MB or lesser video memory, slideshow will not use DirectX for graphics. If you uncheck "Use hardware acceleration" slideshow never use DirectX for graphics. DirectX 8.1 is a minimal requirement for hardware acceleration of graphics in slideshow. It seems to be a bug on Windows 95/98 with very old version of DirectX (6.0 or earlier). We'll try to solve this problem, and slideshow will play, but without sound and it will show warning message "Please install latest version of DirectX".

I agree and I've added it to my TODO list. Probably it will be realized in the next version 5.2

We plan completely solve this problem in future versions (5.3) even when you don't use rasterizing to PNG option.

Tom, I would like to suggest use PteShow as benchmark: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/show/PteShow_sources.zip (8 MB, sources) PteShow (1:26) VideoBuilder in PicturesToExe 5.1 Choose "Create MPEG2 files" only option and DVD menu disabled. - Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66 GHz), 2 GB RAM, NVIDIA Geforce 8600GT 512 MB, Windows XP SP2 TV System: PAL 0:46 - AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 1 GB RAM, NVIDIA Geforce 6800 128 MB, Windows XP SP2 TV System: PAL 2:06 - AMD Athlon 1600+, 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128 MB, Windows XP SP2 TV System: PAL 3:56

All in the next version 5.2 I will rework timeline.

If you plan to buy a new laptop, I recommend Geforce 8500/8600 or 7600 with 128 MB on board video memory.

Ray, I plan in late 2008.

Regrettably Geforce 5200 is a slow video card for Pan/Zoom effects. Geforce 5500 could provide ideal playback of animation.

Beta 10 http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr-deluxe_beta.zip (4 MB) + Added "Offset" parameter to "Advanced hour hand" effect in properties of a slide. p.s. this parameter was presented in Project options | Effects, but not in individual settings of a slide.

Please write on English language. I can't reply you on French, sorry.

If you transfer slideshow to AVI format, there should be no difference between v4.48 and v5.x because final result will be in fixed video format. Probably you created AVI file (in temporal AVI codec) and watched it in media player? In this case it was not true fixed video file and had to convert it to DivX or MPEG4 final AVI file. Also you can use VideoBuilder to create perfect DVD-Video disc or as MPEG2 files.

VideoBuilder in PicturesToExe 5.1 utilizies up to two cores of CPU. Quad core CPUs will be used in future versions when VideoBuilder will create HD-DVD/Blu-Ray discs. Tom, As I've understood you used integrated video card and fast dual-core CPU? In this case CPU waits video card. If you use fast CPU, you need to use enough fast video card to load fast CPU. For very fast CPU, as Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66 GHz, it should be at least Geforce 8600GT 256 MB. I think no real need to use SLI video cards for PicturesToExe. This video system extremally fast and will wait work of CPU. But there are no 4 GHz dual-core CPUs at this moment and SLI video cards will not work in full power.

Beta 9: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr-deluxe_beta.zip (4 MB) * Fixed bug in VideoBuilder with customizing DVD menu from own template. Limey, It fixes the bug you've found. Thanks!

Silvia, There were no changes in slideshow's engine since Beta 4 and it's almost 5.0's engine, all major improvements are in main code of PicturesToExe and VideoBuilder. Please try with version 5.0 on same slideshow and let me know about result. I think the problem in too short time intervals between slides or/and large images. Tom, 7000 kbit is a optimal bitrate which used in many other DVD authoring programs. Peak bitrate periodically reaches 9000 kbit even when you set 7000 kbit by default.

Limey, Thanks, I've asked Sergey to fix this bug. (He is a main developer of VideoBuilder, I'm main developer of PicturesToExe).

I just uploaded Beta 8. http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr-deluxe_beta.zip (4 MB) * Fixed bug of Beta 4-7 in Objects and animation editor with text objects with unchecked "Auto font quality" parameter. * Fixed bug with adding some AVI files to VideoBuilder. Dominique, Please try my suggestion with Beta 8. (Uncheck "Auto Quality" parameters for both text objects and set say value of Quality = 100.)

I just sent you PM message. Please reply me and send PNG file.

What version of PicturesToExe you use? Latest releases: - Version 5.04 - Or new version 5.1 Beta 7. If you already use latest version, please send us this PNG file.

Dominique, We just fixed this bug.

Dominique, Thank you! There are two moments with this problem. 1) You used two text objects with same visual size at the moment between two slides. But because first text object larger (than second text object) at the beginning of a first slide, PicturesToExe renders this text object with higher quality. Earlier when you adjusted visual size of a text objects, you may notice that proportions of a text a little varies after adjusting . Windows slightly changes proportions of a text at different values of a font size. - Temporal solution: please uncheck "Auto Quality" parameters for both text objects and set say value of Quality = 100. I just check it up in version 5.0 and it worked fine in your slideshow. - In the next versions, we hope in v5.3, we'll use own vector rendering of text and this problem will not occur again. Additionally it will solve problem with unique fonts and no need to use PNG for the text. 2) But there is a problem No. 2. In version 5.1 Beta there is a bug with Text objects which don't use "Auto quality" option. Thank you that you help me find this bug. Please wait until we won't fix this bug in Beta 8 (maybe already today) and then disable "Auto quality" parameter as I described above and it will work in Beta 8.

I recommend move the project to the new PC using "Create backup in ZIP" function (see Main menu | File).

Since PicturesToExe Deluxe 5.1 we use hardware rendering of video card for AVI and DVD-Video on all steps of preparing video: - Rendering/composing of picture of a slide (version 5.0 and later). - Post-processing of video (since new version 5.1). Probably PicturesToExe is a first slideshow maker program on Windows which uses hardware acceleration of video card for video post-processing in DVD creation. Additionally VideoBuilder in version 5.1 uses benefits of dual-core CPUs for speeding up encoding of DVD-Video disc. It gives 40% speedup. Overall benefit: VideoBuilder in version 5.1 encodes DVD-Video disc in 3-4 times faster than previous version on same PC. As a result, encoding of 60 second's slideshow takes only 30 seconds on Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66 GHz (E6750) CPU and NVIDIA Geforce 8600GT 512 MB video card.