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potwnc

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Everything posted by potwnc

  1. There's been a lot of discussion here over the years about the best way to stream video directly from your own web site. I've been looking into this recently and have just finished testing a way to do it using HTML5. Depending on your audience, most/many of them should by now have HTML5 capable browsers (internet explorer 9, firefox since a few years ago, Google chrome, safari etc.). My test page (not yet linked from the rest of my web site) is at http://www.peoplesoftheworld.org/mjc/five.jsp It streams video directly from the production web server using HTML5 technology and I would like forum members to go to this page and test it and let me know if the video worked successfully for you (you don't have to watch the whole video, if it looks OK after a few seconds of play time then it will be OK in the final version). If it did or did not work for you please reply here telling me which browser/version and operating system/version you are using. In return I will answer any questions anyone may have about how I set up this page. As an aside, since my Spanish is far from fluent, any improvements to the Spanish translation would also be appreciated! Ray
  2. Many of us now use PTE to produce video output (in fact I no longer create any .exe files). Most NLE (Non-Linear Editor) software allows the user to specify times in frames rather than seconds and fractions of a second. This makes more sense for video output. For example the PAL standard has 25 frames per second. If I want, say, a simple fade effect from slide A to slide B and my output will be PAL video it only makes sense for the duration of the effect to be in multiples of 1/25 of a second because for each 1/25 of a second the video will display an entire frame. For PAL video it's very easy to do the arithmetic but it gets much harder to do the same arithmetic for NTSC and 24p output. Can we have a choice to set times in either seconds and fractions or in frames please?
  3. I'll try to help also but we need a web link to download your file(s).
  4. "I have tried downloading the following free burning programs with no success whatsoever:- Ashampoo Burning Studio, Free Disc Burner, Express Burn, DVD Author Plus, Imgburn, and CD Burner XP, DVD Styler, & DVD Flick." "I have been using PTE’s own codec" Ann, with the PTE codec PTE does not create a "real" video file, but a "virtual" one instead. It may be that all the above free burning programs cannot read the virtual .avi file correctly, or that they can't turn the virtual .avi file into the format needed to burn a DVD. Before you give up I'd advise you to try using a different codec (which will be a trial-and-error process) to produce a true video file then try to import that into a DVD authoring program, then burn the output of that DVD authoring program. If you still have no success contact me privately via the forum's message service and I'll try to help you further. Ray
  5. Just as many of us are getting comfortable with HD (1920 x 1080) shows, and, perhaps, starting to consider moving up to the 4k standard that is used in digital theaters (cinemas), along comes the newest standard (it was demonstrated at the London Olympics). See http://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1345799482.
  6. Peter, "I don't particularly want to come down to NTSC/PAL DVD-Video..." I'm not sure what you mean by this. Since you're in the UK you'll have to use PAL, but that has nothing to do with codecs. To answer your question, there is a universal video standard: MPEG-2. There is not a single audio standard however. DVD supports AC3 (the most common), PCM and, for PAL DVDs, MP2. See this article: http://www.gromkov.com/faq/general/dvd_audio_formats.html. If you are using VB to burn the disc (or the .iso file) it should take care of all this for you. To increase your chances I'd burn a DVD+R disc and a DVD-R disc and post these both in advance to be tested on the actual player you'll use at the event.
  7. Has anyone tried this tool on the PTE executable? Can anyone from WnSoft say whether this tool will work with PTE? http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php
  8. I haven't seen any posts for a while from any new customers saying they never received their license key by e-mail. So has that problem finally been solved? I want to buy a friend a copy for Christmas but we would both be disappointed if the key is not e-mailed because I doubt there will be any technical support available on Christmas Day.
  9. I've mainly used it for making both short (5-20 minute) and long (80 minute) video documentaries. But also for video slideshows of my nieces and Godchildren, weddings and vacations/holidays. Like you say it is limited only by imagination. I once started making a Rubik's cube, but not the animated cube that others have posted here, instead mine was going to be a fully interactive cube that you could solve like you would solve the real Rubik's cube, except by mouse clicks. I stopped only when I realized that the number of permutations of the 3-D cube was too many for one lifetime! Given enough time this could be done with PTE. I actually have a working version of this project for the 2-D version of the "cube" that I never posted anywhere. With only a few additions to PTE (which I posted in the Ideas forum) the 2-D version could be programed very easily and if WnSoft ever make those changes I will complete the project and post it here. The next project I plan is to create a .exe version of my resume (Curriculum Vitae). Ray
  10. I use Sony Vegas Pro but it is not cheap, although there are reasonably-priced consumer versions of it. I suggest you monitor http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ for a few days as they have video converters very often. When you find one you like you have it for free and can just uninstall the others.
  11. Igor, Will PTE 7 allow me to produce a virtual AVI video file using the PTE codec that will be recognized by the 64-bit version of Sony Vegas Pro 10? I posted about this problem a long time ago and you said you think you could fix it. I can't test it at the moment because I am away from my PC. Thanks, Ray
  12. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMV_HD and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD for the two popular ways to get HD quality on standard DVD discs.
  13. 1440x1080 is not used much any more (on newer devices) - but when it is used to capture or render 16:9 video the embedded pixel aspect ratio must be set to 1.333:1. It should then appear natural when played back in most software players as they will stretch the horizontal pixels to compensate. I haven't started testing PTE 7 yet as I'll be away from my main computer for a while. Igor, does the current beta read the pixel aspect ratio? Ray
  14. Another idea may be to change the main forum description from "News about PicturesToExe - professional slideshow software, support, discussions" to "News about PicturesToExe - professional slideshow software, discussions" and create a new forum only for technical support?
  15. It is easy - and common practice now - to prevent the user from copying their e-mail address from the first field and pasting it into the second "confirm your e-mail address" field. WnSoft should insist that RegNow design the order form to do this. It is also common practice now to ask new customers of an e-commerce web site to set up a user id and password before they place their order. So if I am user: ray with password: ray and I don't receive my registration key by e-mail I can go back to the e-commerce web site where I ordered, log in as ray:ray and view my registration key on their web site. Surely RegNow can do that?
  16. Frank, Im my case I have a 78-minute documentary at 1920x1080x24p. Even though it would fit on a 32GB USB stick the cost to me of distributing it on a 32GB USB stick is much higher than the cost of distributing it on a BD. Also the current USB standard, 2.0, does not support the data transfer rate required for good quality HD video. (This will change with USB 3.0.) Of course it will not fit on a CD or a DVD (even dual-layer). I can see your points for shows that are much shorter (no more than 10 minutes) and 1280x720 but otherwise what you propose will result in loss of quality for one reason or another. Ray
  17. Douglas, It sounds like you may have created a PAL DVD? But you are in the US which requires the NTSC standard. Please check all settings. If you have problems it may be that you somehow set your actual DVD and BD players to the wrong region? Ray
  18. Jose, I recommend that you use the original BMPs and convert them to JPG at their original pixel resolution for slides 58, 66 and 74 and save them at the highest quality possible. You will see a small improvement but the only way to see acceptable video from these 3 slides is by using my earlier suggestions. You said: "I used 1382x777, which is a reduction to 60%, because during the project process I already noticed here some heavy trembling using 1920x1080. So I reduced them to 60% to low the "amount of work" for the processor." But this reduction will not make the video trembling better (it will make it worse!) The amount of work for the processor is more but only by a small amount. This is another reason why you should use the original pixel size of your images. I know this because of the extensive testing I have done in the past using PTE to make 1920x1080 video. I even posted this finding on the forum and Igor confirmed it (you can find it by searching). 1920x1080 at 60 progressive fps will become standard one day but the bitrate required is too high for today's technology. Then you should use the use 24p or 25i in all your settings - VideoBuilder, Nero etc. You can e-mail me the original (2592x1944) images of slides 58, 66 and 74 and I can try to make the video output acceptable to you. At 60p and 50p I don't think there is any software. At 30p (and 25p) yes. I use Vegas Pro 10. I'm sure that the consumer version (Vegas Movie Studio Platinum HD) can do this. I don't think there are any commercial BD players available that can output 50p or 60p at 1920x1080. I don't think there is a better solution but I am willing to work some more more with your project if you will e-mail the original images to me. Ray
  19. Jose, I spent a few hours today working with your project and researching your problem and your set up some more. Working backwards through your posts: Your best result so far (and your last "good" BD) is with VideoBuilder creating 1920 x 1080 x 60 progressive fps. Even though VideoBuilder lets you believe it can do this I am sure that the .mp4 file it produces has 60 (actually 59.94) interlaced fps. So when you use Nero to create the BD it is converting the video to 1920 x 1080 x 50 interlaced fps. This conversion of framerate is one of the sources of your problem. I read the specifications for both your monitor and your BD player. Your BD player can support full HD (1920x1080) at 60i, 30p, 50i, 25p and 24p. Your monitor can support 1920x1080 only by scaling it down to 1024x1024 and then only at 60i, 30p, 50i and 25p. Although, as Frank said, commercial BDs are almost always encoded and stored at 24p there are very few monitors (and they are very expensive) that can display at 24p. There is no reason why your project would create sharper/better video at 60 (interlaced) fps versus 50 (interlaced) fps. It may be that you do not have everything set up at the same frame rate? If you want to burn your BD at 50i then everything else should be set to 50i - the .mp4 output from VideoBuilder (here you must choose 50p but this is misleading because it will actually create 50i), Nero, your BD player and your monitor. If you want to burn your BD at 60i then use 60 instead of 50 for VideoBuilder (again choose the misleading 60p because it will create 60i), Nero, your BD player and your monitor. The quality will not be noticably different for 60 versus 50. So your decision here should be based on who else will play your BD on their player? Most BD players and HD monitors sold in Europe now can be set up for both 60 (ntsc) and 50 (pal) but your safest choice is 50. On the other hand if you want your BD to be encoded/stored with progressive frames then you should choose 24p in VideoBuilder (this is not misleading and the actual .mp4 video will be 23.976 progressive fps), and 24p in Nero. I'm not sure about your BD player and monitor set up though. Although your connection from your player to your monitor is component and your player can deliver 1920 x 1080 x 24p are you sure it can deliver this using the component output? It may only be able to deliver it via the HDMI output. You will have to check this. Even then because your monitor cannot display 1920x1080 x 24p there will be a conversion either in your player or in your monitor, as Frank explained. Any such conversion will always lead to some loss of quality. Now that I've said all that let's look at your 3 problem slides - 58, 66 and 74. I created versions of your video at 1920x1080 at 60i, 50i, 30p, 25p and 24p and they all show the same problem with these slides. 58: Your image, "DSCF1412d tratada 01 OLD equalMAIOR60pcMAIS.jpg", is only 1382x777 pixels and of low quality, and then you are zooming into a very small area of it. The quality of the original is just not good enough to produce 1920x1080 video and expect good quality. Your other problem here is that your pan, zoom and rotate are all set to "slow down" and this is why you see the problem, as you said, only at the very start of the corresponding video. The motion at the start is at a speed that it not suitable for video. Can you try changing the pan, zoom and rotate on this slide to linear or keep the slide for longer than 2.7 seconds? 66: The explanation is similar. You are using the same image but here your pan, zoom and rotate create a lot of motion in only 1.2 seconds. This is just not suitable for video. You can try moving the middle keypoint to the right, or keeping the slide for longer (or both). 74: Your image, "DSCF1412c tratada 01 RETOCADA.jpg" seems to be the same image as "DSCF1412d tratada 01 OLD equalMAIOR60pcMAIS.jpg" except this image is in color and it is 1920x1080 pixels? If it is the same image you should not save it in black-and-white reduced to 1382x777 pixels. If you save it instead to 1920x1080 pixels you will have more image to zoom, pan and rotate in slides 58 and 66 and this will help with those slides. Even though this image is 1920x1080 pixels you are zooming into a very small area of it in only 2.5 seconds so my comments for 58 and 66 also apply to 74. Now that I've said all that I should ask 2 questions. Because most of your files are called "DSC..." I assume they are taken with a digital camera? (1) What is the original pixel resolution of your images when the photographs were taken? (2) Do you still have the original files? Depending on your answers to these questions and given that your monitor cannot display true 1920x1080 my final advice may be for you to create only 1280x720 video from this project. I will look for your answers and we will go from there. Ray
  20. Jose, I am stil working with your PTE project and I will have some answers for you tomorrow and some more answers in the next few days. I think we have now confirmed that PTE/VideoBuilder is not the problem. I will look especially at: Slide 58 - 08:02,634 Slide 66 - 08:55,984 Slide 74 - 09:59,968 Ray
  21. Jose, Using PTE 6.5.7 I just took your project and, with no changes to your project, I used VideoBuilder to create a 1280x720 video at 50 progressive frames per second, two-pass bitrate at 10 Mbps (which is about right for 1280x720x50p video). This took almost 2 hours and my PC is very powerful (dual quad-core). So this tells me that your slideshow is very complex. But the video quality is excellent when I play it back from my hard drive with Media Player Classic - including the video at 02:53,161, 02:56,021 and 03:31,281. There is no tremble or stutter in the video; the motion is just as smooth and high-quality as it is in your .exe file. This may mean that your computer is not powerful enough to render this slideshow in high-definition. But I don't think that is true. Please read Frank's comments very carefully because everything he said is correct. I will work more with your project this weekend and post my results here. I think the next step is for you to create a .mp4 file using VideoBuilder and then play that .mp4 file back from your hard drive using Media Player Classic. If you still have problems with the video then the problem is that your computer is not powerful enough. If you don't have problems with the video then we will know that the problem is not PTE or VideoBuilder or your computer and we can move to the next step. Can you tell me if you know someone who has a Blu-ray player that can deliver progressive video from a Blu-ray disc with progressive video output to a 1920x1080 progressive HD TV using an HDMI cable? The reason I ask this question is because that is the best way to test the quality of the video stored on a Blu-ray disc and we may need to test it this way to solve your problem. Ray
  22. Jose, I just sent you a message via the forum, including my e-mail address. I will answer your questions once I have your project files.
  23. Jose, I just watched your slideshow. First I must say congratulations. This is one of the best and most creative slideshows I have ever seen using PTE. When you wrote "I uploaded my first slideshow project" I thought that you had uploaded your PTE project - all the files used to create it - in a .zip file. With your permission if you will upload the project itself (and send me a private e-mail so I can download it) I can show you how to create a 1920x1080 video file that will produce a BD of equal quality - and use this as a case study for other PTE users on how to do that. My initial comments are below and they are based on watching it only once - I will need to watch it many times to give you more detailed comments. Please understand that these comments are not about your artistic ability - they are only comments about the technical nature of video itself. Your slideshow works very well as a PTE .exe file because PTE can take full advantage of the refresh rate of the computer screen when it produces a .exe file. So anyone watching it will see 50 (in Europe for example) or 60 (in North America for example) (or even 120 with very new PC monitors and computer video cards) progressive frames per second. But video on Blu-ray disc cannot produce this same quality. This is not a limitation of PTE - it is a limitation of video technology. So you must produce your slideshow within the limitations of current video technology. One example is the speed of your zooms and pans. For video, zooms and pans work well at very fast speeds and at very slow speeds - but some of your zooms and pans are not fast enough or slow enough to work well for video. This is not a limitation of PTE - it is a limitation of video. The reason why you don't "see" the same limitation with DVD quality video is because it is much easier to see this limitation with HD quality video. A second example is the quality of your photographs. Many of them are "grainy" or low-resolution images (I think some of them are very old photographs and you have tried to resize them to 1920x1080?). Then you zoom into very small areas of these images. When you do this the original quality of each video frame is simply not good enough to expect HD quality video. A third example is that when you zoom into small areas of these low-quality photographs you will see "moiré patterns" in the video because the real resolution of the images you are using is smaller than your intended 1920x1080 video output. The video rendering must fill the missing information which produces these "moiré patterns" - again this is a limitation of video not PTE. If you like, please upload your PTE project and also upload the 1920x1080 video you have created and send me a private e-mail so I can help you more with your project. Ray
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