JRR

While it is somewhat embarrassing, we seem to have solved the jittery projection associated with my projector, the Panasonic PT-LB10U. This was one of the two projectors Ed and I have been using in our tests. There is a function called FRAME RATE that we were unaware of (as we hadn't read/understood the manual clearly enough) With FRAME RATE turned "on" the jitteriness smooths right out on our test files of pans and zooms. Obviously we haven't tested every animation that has been run in PTE. Nor have we resolved the issue with the Canon Sx50 projector nor Peter's Dell projector along with other people's projectors that we have heard from during this post. If interested, the reference to the FRAME RATE is on page 42 of the PT-LB10U manual which can be found here The hint to try the Frame Rate came from a member of our Camera Club who has been lurking around this forum as well our updates to the situation on our Club website

Dave: While a test file would be great, I think we need to apply the brakes here a little. It would be nice to hear from Igor on this issue. He has worked many magic "tricks" with PTE to look after all our varying requests. It is been suggested in other posts in this thread, that maybe it is a "simple" matter of slowing the frame/refresh rate on certain animations or another option for outputting an .exe file for projection. We also don't know yet why some computers seem to be able to handle the projection issue with no problems. Is it that they can reduce the refresh rate (with or without the operator knowing) and/or is it a matter of some internal chip set or internal coding? It may well be the refresh/frame rate is the only factor, but we don't absolutely know (but it is a good bet) but we need to eliminate other causes/solutions first. The test file that Ed has made available was prepared after many weeks of trail and error in identifying the problem. We found that the image size (pixel or kb) make very little if any difference in the projection issues. Not sure why that file would not be a good starting place. BUT what about other animations and effects...do they have problems with projection alone ? Ed and I tested with pans and zooms as that is where we are in our shows, we are not into the many other animations that can be used to create a more "with it" show. (Ed and I (well me anyway) are "old school" photographers and AV producers. I happened to view JP Dollangère's Mon Maitre show the other day. It is a great show of the practical use of PTE (although some of the aspects might be more of a demo than practical use to my mind - but I still think it is something for me to aspire to). But it strains my computer (at PTE's recommended specs)to say the least. The projector has issues with it, but not the jitteriness that we have with simple pans and zooms so I am inclined to think that had I computer spec'ed to handle that show, the projection might (?) be OK. So there maybe is a need to re-quantify the specs needed for PTE first. (and should that be on a level based on what aspects of the software you are going to use )

Dave: I suspect a 30 second pan of that file would pass our projector test with no issue. We know a 2244x768 image smooths out between 25 and 30 seconds We also found that it is not so much the size (pixel or kb) that affects jitteriness/wipe/etc. Once you have slowed the pan down enough, the frame rate issue is not really an issue because the movement is so slow. We also feel a 30 second pan is not realistic to be used. SOmething more like 10-15 seconds maybe Just my thoughts

Dave: I suspect a 30 second pan would pass a test with no issue. We know a 2244x768 image smooths out between 25 and 30 seconds We also found that it is not so much the size (pixel or kb) that affects jitteriness/wipe/etc. Once you have slowed the pan down enough, the frame rate issue is not really an issue because the movement is so slow. We also feel a 30 second pan is not realistic to be used. SOmething more like 10-15 seconds maybe Just a my thoughts

Ken: Didn't there was much wheat around Sarnia - just oil You have a thresher we could borrow to separate the wheat from the chaff ?

Aside from the Canon Realis Sx50 projector, we have been testing with my Panasonic PT-LB10U Panasonic was sent a set of test files and their explanation for the jitteriness is: (this is in line with some of the musings we have had from responders to this thread) The jerkiness is related to how the picture frame is process. On old CRT monitor. The picture is process line by line. Therefore you will not see any jerkiness. On most flat panel display or projectors, the picture is process frame by frame. The actual displayed frame and the incoming frame are not at the same frequency. Therefore some in coming frame will have to be dropped every now and then. That is why you see the jerkiness on a pan. The faster the refresh rate of the graphic card, the more jerkiness the display is. The displayed frame is very close to a video frame that is why you can hardly see it in video. I would suggest try a computer with a component out and feed it to the projector through the VGA port and change the VGA port to YPbYr. Then you should be able to select 720p or 1080i signal which will give you the higher resolution.

Did you have the acceleration turned off ? I am NO expert , but I understand that will make a difference.

Anthony All my file sizes are the same 1280x960. Yes it is "minor", but having used Scroll 2 for 6 years (at least) it sure would be nice to figure out what is causing it. As I say it starts at the 31 second point on the timeline and goes back to normal 31 seconds from the end of the show

Specs for desktop are: NVIDIA GeForce 6200 128 mb on video card 1 gb RAM on computer Sorry to hear you have same issue Anthony, but also glad to hear it is not just me ! Thx

Thx Stu Guess I should get better glasses ! Not so obvious, but hey its there still !

OK, I am finally coming around to using ver 5 (ver 5.6 even ! Being an old purist I have been using 4.49 and only fades - still doing that for the most part, but I like the new screens in 5.6 ! However I am having an oddity with the timeline In the two shows I am working on, the blue triangle runs along smoothly in the timeline for the first and last 31 seconds. But in between the 31 second marks, it stalls at the start of the grey area of each transition along the timeline and then jumps ahead to the end of the grey line and carries on to the next grey line But the on-screen transition carries on as though all is OK. This happens when I am in my preferred TIMELINE OPTION AUTO SCROLL 2 If I switch to AUTO SCROLL 1, all is OK through the timeline I suspect I must have something set wrong, somewhere ? I have checked with another experienced PTE user and he is not having the problem.......

In ver 4.49 and before, when you customized a slide, the "P" next to the customize tab indented so you knew that slide had been customized. I am in the process of "getting with the times" and now trying out 5.6. But when I customize a slide I don't seem to have any "marker" that tells me I did and I have a hard time finding the slide(s) again without watching the full show. It is not imperative, but having been used to it for the past 6 years, I sure would like not to lose it. Thx

Brian: When you pan any image, you do not have the full slide in view and you pan into another area of the image. In our tests this could not be done smoothly When zooming however, so long as we zoomed into the portion of the original image on screen all went smoothly. It is only when we zoom into a portion of the image that was not initially on view, that is when we run into trouble. There is no border at all. If you get a chance look at our test file available at http://www.mediafire.com/?ozjdwizmzmz Images 13 & 14 are OK Images 15 & 16 are not OK on our projection

Brian: Appreciate your simple but thorough explanation. What has us (me anyway) stumped is why, in out tests anyway, this is only an issue on zooming outside the original portion of the image. Zoom inside the original portion and all is OK. Pans of course by definition take you outside the original portion and thus are problematic

John: Thanks for the report. Glad you had access to a Canon Sx50. The issue on the Canon certainly is less than on the Panasonic and we found the Canon issues to be intermittent (there 50% or more) whereas the Panasonic was constant. Yes it is too techie for me too! Thx again

Thx Peter I am quite happy to recognize that as software gets more sophisticated, we need to keep our hardware current. No problem with that. The frustrating thing here is that we don’t know (yet ?) what we need to upgrade to what to enable us to project what I would think is a basic normal pan and zoom (that goes outside the original display portion). In the past we seemed to know what hardware we needed to update Again Peter, thanks for your assistance and time !!

Tom: I have an Edirol R-09 sound recorder. Edirol I also have a RODE NTG2 shotgun microphone for it Rode Mic (sorry the RODE website seems to be off line right now so I gave you a link to a store that carries it in Canada) I have used it with and without the microphone for wildlife and voice recording, both with good success. (The mic is obviously the most successful, but I was more than happy with what I had achieved before getting the mic)

Colin: Ed has asked that discussion on this thread be moved to here as we have done more investigating and it was felt to be a new topic

Yachtsman: Thanks for running a test. Yes some image files are larger than recommended, but our point is that ALL the transitions/animations run smoothly on a monitor, but the projectors that we tested had difficulty with some. Especially with panning outside the opening image portion on screen.

There might be a potential problem downloading the file Ed referred to in the above post from: http://www.mediafire.com/?ymwmyurgvik Ed used the ZIP utility in WinXP and that retained two folders that had the test PTE shows in them. However, I use WinZip and that removes the folder separation in the file and threw everything in together in the ZIP file when I opened. That might create problems when running the two show (1024x768 and 1400x1050) as the image files have the same name but are different sizes. So to be safe, if anyone hits that problem with the download, we have broken the original zip into two files (both have the pdf files in them). One for the 1024x768 show and another for the 1400x1050 show. They are available from: 1024x768 1400x1050 Sorry for any confusion

Tony: In addition to the good advice above, you might want to check out: Projector Central

Peavey's website indicated a strong UK presence through manufacturing facilities etc . Guess my assumption of the availability of the Escort in the UK was incorrect

Mike: I use the Peavey Escort system here I had a small boom box which worked fine until I showed up to a presentation that was supposed to be for 25 and 150 attended. The next day I went looking for a replacement. It is certainly bigger (and more costly) than the Aego M speakers that comes up in the link Ken gave associated with Maureen. I haven't seen the Aego Ms in action but I understand they are fine and VERY compact. The Peavey gives me total flexibility for any size crowd, and everything comes in a wheeled case. Our Camera Club (150 members regularly attend meetings) use a similar Fender system. It has slightly better sound than the Peavey, BUT it is not on wheels and the speaker stands are not contained in the case and have to be carried separately. Just another option.....

interesting idea You might want to post this in the "ideas and suggestions for next versions" forum. Got to PICTURES TO EXE FORUMS and click on the 4th forum

Lin THANKS for all your help (e-mail et al) I installed your recommended codecs (took a VERY long time and I actually stopped its virsus checking part,) but install went OK Your .avi shows are working fine now and the images on .avi file from the pte show are much better than they were before. Still not as good as the .exe images, but passable if I have a need to use them on an uniformed audience