potwnc

When I bought my license it was extra if I wanted to distribute the slideshows I produced (which I paid). But I remember Igor saying that with v 5.0 this licensing structure will go away and now it will cost more for the deluxe version. I'd like to suggest that those of us who already paid the extra for this distribution option should be allowed to upgrade to the deluxe version from our existing license. Anyone agree?

Wow! I never expected such words of sympathy/empathy/ecouragement from my post - thanks. I'm very fortunate to have enough savings to be able to say "enough is enough" and concentrate for a while on what I actually enjoy doing. I'll be traveling from May to July, probably in South/Central America but possibly instead in China or Eastern Europe... taking lots of photos that will eventually find their way into PTE! Between now and the time I leave I may look for a job washing dishes or stocking shelves in a grocery store for about a tenth of the money I was making before I quit my job. They've asked me to reconsider my decision to quit... I think you know what my answer will be :-) Thanks again. Ray

Some of you know from previous posts that I also write software for a living... I have been as frustrated as anyone else each time I've come here and the newest beta hasn't been released yet. I'd like to share this with others because it's timely and relevant. I quit my job this week. The reason I quit was because I could no longer take the stress I felt at being told every day: "We are not going to change your deadline. You simply must deliver a quality product on time no matter what we do, no matter how many times we change our mind about anything, no matter how bad we are at managing the project, no matter what happens. Deal with it! Stay late. Come in over the weekend. What? You have a social life? Well that's just not acceptable!" (Not their exact words, but you get the idea.) This is, quite honestly, delusional thinking on their part. I knew I could no longer deliver a quality product so I quit. I will lose a lot of money because of my decision. The scenario above is very common in the Corporate world. Most people, in my experience, just accept it - I don't. Probably the main reason PTE has been and will continue to be such a good product is because Igor and team aren't forced to subscribe to this ridiculous Corporate management model of how to get things done. And I personally believe, although I have no evidence, that this is also why Igor has said many times here that WnSoft will not sell out to any corporation that wants to buy them. Why would they when they already have a product that is so far ahead of what those corporations can compete with? So... please be patient at the same time as you are frustrated. And, Igor, please do not release the software until you are comfortable that it meets your quality standards. I, for one, am willing to wait! Ray

Back in the summer of 05 (yes 2005) I publicly announced the availabilty of a full-length documentary to be available in 06. I thought that was not overly optimistic given what Igor was saying at that time. I hired a narrator, a sound engineer and a graphic design artist - even had them sign transfer-of-copyright agreements! I'm now also in year 3 of waiting and, like you, I switched to other software... boy was I sorry. I write software for a living and, as Lin says, could not believe the sheer garbage that one company in particular was putting out... I mean people were using all kind of profanities, personal insults and threatening law suits on their support forum! If I wrote software that bad I'd expect to lose my job! Now I'm back here and waiting again because I have confidence in Igor and his team as well as based on the 5.0 betas I've used. My point is that the technology landscaoe changes and I'm not willing to put out a substandard product and nor should Winsoft be. My customers/audience and collaborators will have to wait with me because, like you, pan/zoom/rotate is essential to what I'm doing.

I'm using a friend's PC so I came in through the main url - www.picturestoexe.com. AVG reported a trojan horse. I clicked on the link for the forum and AVG reported a virus. I think AVG (free edition) is quite reliable although I don't use it on my PC. Can anyone confirm whether any other anti-virus software reports anything suspicious coming in the way I did?

I agree!

Igor, Can you say anything about release dates for each of these beta versions? Thanks, Ray

Actually, Macs can play wmv with the right software.

Igor, since you plan to support Blu-ray, why don't you add 1920x1080p? That's my target output from now on for all my PTE work. Any idea when beta 6 will be available? Ray

Igor, Does beta 5 have sound synchronization?

I came across this web article and thought other forum members might be interested. Warning: the material is very, very technical! DVD content

Igor, After more testing and research I've discovered the following: 1) Bitrate simply does not apply to the temporary .avi file output from PTE when using the PTEV codec because it is not a real AVI file. Selecting other codecs the bitrate can be chosen. 2) PTE beta 4 outputs 720x540 when I select "DVD-Video disc" (NTSC), but no longer chops the frame when I create the project from scratch using beta 4 (my previous testing was with a project created originally using beta 3 and then the video was chopped). Instead it does create the letterbox 16:9 output as you said. My 3rd party program is Sony Vegas and it can't handle the 720x540 temporary AVI file (PTEV codec) to produce true 720x480 16:9 output. The only way I can get it to produce a true 720x480 NTSC 16:9 screen aspect ratio (1:1 pixel aspect ratio) MPEG2 file is by producing the temporary AVI file with "Create custom AVI video file" and 720x405. Maybe in this case the user should be able to select the output screen and pixel aspect ratio because different 3rd party programs will be able to handle different output sizes? 3) When I create AVI files at full 1920x1080 (using both "HD- 1080", "Progessive Video" and "Create custom AVI video file" 1920x1080, "Progessive Video"), the output video is interlaced instead of progressive - as reported by Sony Vegas. I've tried this with PTEV and many other codecs. I'm sure this is not a bug in Sony Vegas. Can you take a look at this? Thanks, Ray

Igor, Have you fully tested the AVI output? I'm seeing a problem that's difficult to explain, but I don't think the AVI output is scaling the size of the source images correctly for the frame size of the video output. My source images are all 16:9 (1920x1080 pixels and larger) but when I select 16:9 DVD in Project Options>Screen>Screen options and then Video>Create custom AVI video file>720x405 - even though I get a 720x405x29.97fps .avi file, the canvas is like a 720x405 "view" of a much larger video file, with the rest of the video cut off. Like I'm only seeing the inner 720x405 pixels. Also, I think there's a problem with the bit rate. When I select Video>Create custom AVI video file>1920x1080 I get the correct-size 1920x1080x29.97fps .avi file, but the file is the same size on my hard drive as the 720x405x29.97fps file, but it should be much, much larger and it is very, very, very "choppy" (flickering). Media Player Classic says it is encoded (progressive) at 1.4 Mbps - the same as the 720x405x29.97fps .avi file. While this bit rate is acceptable for DVD quality, HD 1080p quality requires more like 25 Mbps.

Igor, I have a discussion forum also with the latest Invision patches, but someone has managed to put a virus on it. Invision seems not to be too secure these days!

I've used prior versions of PTE to produce 1920x1080 avi output from 1920x1080 (and larger) source images. Windows Media Encoder 9 then successfully converts these to .wmv files much smaller in size. It takes a long, long time to do it and I have a pretty powerful PC! So experiment with 10- to 20-second shows first! From a 1920x1080 (non-interlaced) avi file Encoder can produce any of the standard HDTV formats (1920x1080p, 1920x1080i, 1440x1080p, 1440x1080i (the latter two using a non-square pixel aspect ration of 1.33) and 1280x720p. Any of these formats can be burned to a standard DVD (or DVD-DL) in WMV-HD format and played back on a PC (limited, of course, by the size and quality of the monitor). I believe both HD-DVD and Blu-ray players claim to be able to play WMV-HD. Once PTE 5 supports video output I will test that claim and post again. Despite the fact that every (well, there are only about 20 titles out so far) commercial HD-DVD movie says "1080p" on the box, that is marketing hype. HD-DVD players can't output better than 1080i - only Blu-ray will support 1080p all the way to the monitor/TV.

Stephanie, Can you post the exact model number of your SONY DVD burner? Also, what brand of DVD+R discs are you using?

Igor, Can you answer my questions from a few days ago? As I posted a long time ago, I don't expect many people to have PCs that can handle the file sizes I'm working with, which are mainly 4 times the size of full 1080p images - 3840x2160 pixels and about 8MB each on average. I'm working on what will be a 90-minute show, and I'd expect that to produce about a 12 Gigabyte .exe file! So my main interest is, at least until PC technology catches up, in video output. That's why my file sizes are so large, in anticipation of the new Blu-Ray and HD-DVD technologies that are just now coming onto the market and that support 1920x1080 video. Question 1: When do you expect to support .avi output in version 5? Is it a few weeks away or a few months? Question 2: Is this possible and are there any plans to do this in version 5: Although my images are too big to produce a .exe file that most PCs will support today, most PCs today will support DVD-quality images. So could I start with my large files, set my output window size to 720x405 (16:9) and then PTE will reduce the image sizes in the final .exe file? That would reduce my .exe file size from about 12 GB to about 2GB without having to use a photo editor to resize every image before I produce the .exe file. This ability would be a big plus so that we could customize our .exe shows to different target users who have less powerful PCs.

I'm making some good progress with the beta and I have 2 new questions for Igor. As I posted a long time ago, I don't expect many people to have PCs that can handle the file sizes I'm working with, which are mainly 4 times the size of full 1080p images - 3840x2160 pixels and about 8MB each on average. I'm working on what will be a 90-minute show, and I'd expect that to produce about a 12 Gigabyte .exe file! So my main interest is, at least until PC technology catches up, in video output. That's why my file sizes are so large, in anticipation of the new Blu-Ray and HD-DVD technologies that are just now coming onto the market and that support 1920x1080 video. Question 1: When do you expect to support .avi output in version 5? Is it a few weeks away or a few months? Question 2: Is this possible and are there any plans to do this in version 5: Although my images are too big to produce a .exe file that most PCs will support today, most PCs today will support DVD-quality images. So could I start with my large files, set my output window size to 720x405 (16:9) and then PTE will reduce the image sizes in the final .exe file? That would reduce my .exe file size from about 12 GB to about 2GB without having to use a photo editor to resize every image before I produce the .exe file. This ability would be a big plus so that we could customize our .exe shows to different target users who have less powerful PCs.

Has anyone else noticed this: When I play a sequence in the timeline view that is synchronized to music, the music track (a .wav file) begins playing immediately. But when I hit the preview button or create a .exe, the music doesn't start playing until about 3 seconds into the show. I'm using huge files (3840x2160), about 8MB each, but I have a Pentium 4 3GHz, 1GB RAM and a 256MB video card (ATI Radeon X700 Pro). I thought this would be enough to handle files this size? My show so far has only 2 images so the .exe is only 38MB.

Al, Both demos look great!!! Just one question... how do you make those masks?

Al, could you post your solution (sources) so I can compare with Lin's? Thanks!

Lin, Could you explain this part in a bit more detail as I have no idea how to do this! Thanks

Maybe E.B. is trying to do something like what I'm trying to do, but I can't figure out how to do this... or maybe this is not possibe with the current beta? My main (background) slide is a solid, black jpg, 1920x1080. It just stays there, with no pan, zoom or rotate, which is what I want. 1920x1080 is also the size I want my show to be. I want to add an image to that first slide as an object at level 2. I want this second image to begin (1st keypoint) at a very small size on the screen - say 15% of the 1920x1080 show, and end (last keypoint) at a larger size - say 80% of the 1920x1080 show. But - and here's the part I just can't get to work and I think I've tried all combinations of options - I also want that first keypoint of this 2nd image to show about 15% of that original image's size, and the last keypoint to show 100% of that original image's size. In other words, I'd like a kind of "zoom-within-zoom" effect, in which, as the size of the 2nd image gets larger relative to my monitor's size, I'm also zooming in on the details of that 2nd image. Has anyone been able to do this, or am I just expecting too much of PTE 5?

Has anyone been able to produce a show that ends when the last slide ends? I check that option, but it makes no difference - the show always repeats from the first slide. Is this not supposed to work or is it a bug?

Igor, Could you please also post video output from PTE 5.00 for us to download? Thanks.