Lin Evans

More on the above.... I'm discovering that videos created in sizes greater than 1024x768 in MP4, AVI, etc., will not pan smoothly in the horizontal aspect. Why this is so is a mystery, but it not my system because I belong to a slideshow group on Vimeo and everyone has the same problem and not with just PTE but with "any" slideshow software. If we create a 1280x720 or 1920x1080 or 1200x1600 MP4 or AVI, horizontal pans are jerky. If we drop to 1024x768 HD at 60 fps they appear to be quite satisfactory. I've tried this with multiple systems with the best graphics cards with up to 1 gigabyte of video RAM and it doesn't seem to make any difference. Go larger than 1024x768 and you can expect jerky horizontal pans. Vertical pans are much better. There is still some lack of smoothness, but not nearly as bad as with horizontal pans. Of course when Vimeo or Youtube convert our MP4 uploads to Flash, this jerky movement in horizontal pans is still evident. Right now, I'm uploading a 1024x768 panorama with complete horizontal pan along with zooms. It works very well on my system so we shall see how it fares on Youtube. I will post a link when it's done to get feedback from others. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jose, First, save your slideshow under another PTE name so you have a backup. Next save each bmp as a jpg with your desired level of compression but do not delete the original bmp or change the folder where they reside. It would be better to first copy them to another folder and work from there. Use Irfanview or other batch conversion tool to copy all files to jpgs then open your duplicate slideshow (the one you saved under another PTE file name). Go to the main slide list and look above the mini-player and find between "comment" and "add sound" a tab which says "Change ima...." This allows you to substitute any image selected in the slide list with any other image while preserving all timings, keyframes, etc. Do this for each image. Best regards, Lin

Very nice job Jose! The only improvement I see which you might consider would be to click on Anti Shimmering (mipmapping) in Objects and Animations under Properties tag for a couple of the slides which have shimmer as they are zooming. Otherwise perfect! Yes, this is very near the release version. The essence is that there are betas until the developer believes that the product is ready, then perhaps a couple release candidates then the release. Best regards, Lin

Thanks Ralph, Hopefully when Igor wakes up this morning (it's very late at night in Russia now) will see the HD video version on Youtube and think about supporting 1600x1200 for Youtube in addition to the 1280x720 version - it makes more sense for the photographer versus the videographer. Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, Looks great, but you need one change before release. Support 1600x1200 HD resolution on Youtube. We have the chance to be the first presentation slideshow software which does this. Youtube only recommends 1280x720 "because" they are a "VIDEO" site. Many new video cameras shoot at 16:9. Almost all PTE users with photos have to crop their photos either in PTE by choosing 16:9 or by using Photoshop, PixBuilder, etc., to crop. This destroys many photos. Youtube, unlike Vimeo, will display an HD at whatever aspect ratio you send it. 1600x1200 is far more useful to us than 1280x720. I have uploaded samples to Youtube to show you. Just choose Watch in HD and then switch to full screen and you have a full PTE show in HD at 1600x1200. I was able to do this by manually entering 1200 as the height when using the "HD Video for PC and Mac" and using 1600 as the width. I think it would be a mistake not to include this aspect ratio and resolution as an option for auto-upload to Youtube in 5.6 release. Best regards, Lin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URo8OJld840 (1280x720) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBV_oRHT9fI (1600x1200) Judge for yourself. Why support only 1280x720 for auto upload to Youtube??? Switch to "Watch in HD" on both and switch to full screen. Here are specs from Youtube. Recommendations for 1280x720 h.264 BUT this doesn't mean that we can't upload higher resolutions - read carefully: "in general, the higher the resolution the better" Youtube recommends 1280x720 "because" they are a video site. This resolution doesn't work well for us as presentation slideshow users. Yes, we "can" make shows in this aspect ratio but it's a nuisance to have to crop our photos and with Youtube it is NOT necessary to have this aspect ratio to get HD. I was able to get 1600x1200 by using "Custom" and overwriting the maximum of 1080 for the vertical pixel dimensions. After creation, the 1600x1200 MP4 was uploaded to Youtube. Results in link above..... Let's also support higher resolution auto uploads to Youtube in the Upload to Youtube - It's more awkward to have to do it like I did and other aspects ratios are more useful to the majority. Lin

Personally, I have little need for 16:9 aspect ratio for the majority of my slideshows and I suspect that is true of "most" who use their photographs to create slideshows. To get 16:9 for most of us, it becomes necessary to crop our images to that wide screen ratio and this is awkward in many cases because we loose valuable portions of the screen. Youtube supports HD in other than 1280x720. I just uploaded a 1600x1200 in HD to Youtube and it looks great as does the original created with PTE. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzmfXwJCFnE Watch it in HD. If you have a monitor which supports 1600x1200 set it to that resolution and watch full screen. Why not support this resolution along with the 1280x720 - it's more useful to more people I think?? Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, You're making far too many assumptions. First you assume that the person is using XP, then that they know how to create a "zipped folder" in Explore. How much easier can it be than clicking on "File" then "Create Backup in Zip?" Best regards, Lin

Yes, "if" you open the folder, add the files inside to a zip archive then zip it. The advantage of doing it via the "zip" menu feature is that it's all done for you without the user needing to know how to add all files using zip. It doesn't even require the user to have zip resident on their computer (some don't even today). As seen by the thread, the OP didn't realize that it was necessary to open the file and zip up the individual components rather than try to work with the folder. Using the PTE zip feature minimizes the possibility for confusion and mistakes. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jose, Yes, no mixture - separate installations each with its own icon and executable APR code. Yes, your project can run on 5.6 beta 20 and all you need to do to make it work is install 5.6 beta 20, click on the 5.6 icon to open PTE 5.6 beta 20, then navigate to your PTE file and open it. I have about 12 different versions of PTE all existing side by side on my system. All earlier PTE shows created in earlier versions can be opened with 5.6. You can then use the new features of 5.6. Obviously, when you make changes using features not found in earlier PTE versions these features won't work if you later open the PTE file with 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.5, etc. You discovered this when you opened my example with 5.2. You could see the image of the chipmunk but you couldn't see the text effect because it was created with code not found in 5.2. But if you then open the PTE file in 5.6 you can see the effect as in the executable file I posted. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, The essence is that to be able to load and play your show, your friend needs not only the PTE file but also all associated images. The PTE zip file gathers "everything" needed tor PTE to load and run the show into a single compressed file. Best regards. Lin

Hi Jose, Download, install and run Beta 20 of 5.6. Open the PTE file with 5.6 beta 20. Beta 20 is essentially 5.6 - there will be no "major" changes and 5.6 beta 20 will not affect your ability to use your present version in any way. You "really" need to download and use the beta so you can learn the new features - there is absolutely no penalty for doing so - the two version co-exist without interference. In case you decide not to try the beta, here is the executable so you can see how it will work: You could do this in countless ways by using different masks. It would be easy to make one letter at a time disappear or appear, etc., depending on the type mask you devise. http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sample/textgoodbye.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, I'm a bit confused. Do you purchase royalty free/copyright free music from Amazon? I haven't been able to find any at Amazon - could you possibly point me in that direction with a link. I did find one copyright free album but they were out of stock. As far as a license to use the music on your slideshows, what type of license do they offer? Is this something reserved for certain geographic areas? I wasn't aware that this was available in the US at least. I've found Barry's selections on CD to be very good and I have used a number of them in my own shows but would like to have some available with more vocal selections. Unfortunately, most of them that I've found are instrumentals and most are not of "popular" songs but rather creations designed for royalty free distribution and generally classified by "mood". Best regards, Lin

I posted this here rather than on the DVD-Video AVI, Video Builder section because it may be of interest to all PTE users. A short time ago there was a discussion about whether or not it would be possible to spool high resolution MP4's from one's own website rather than posting them on Vimeo or Youtube. As those of you who have used Vimeo and Youtube may be aware, your uploaded MP4 high resolution files are converted to Flash. Even though Flash does an admirable job of displaying still images in high resolution, transitions and animations are less than stellar. In any event, the quality on Vimeo as well as on Youtube is very, very good in terms of the still image but the MP4 rendition is "much" better in terms of many of the transitions as well as simple fades. Another consideration is that many want their presentations to be available only to those whom they decide to send links rather than widely available as they are on these hosts. Yes, you "can" have private links on Vimeo and perhaps Youtube and you do have the options of preventing download of the original files but there are numerous utilities which allow any viewer who has access to your shows the ability to download them whether you like it or not. Obviously this is also true of shows hosted on your own site, but you have greater control over who sees them if you control the server. A thorough search of present technology turned up a new and exciting player developed and marketed by Josh Anderson. This player has some amazing capabilities including the ability to spool MP4's which are encoded with the h.264 codec. After some email conversations with Josh, it was determined that his player could spool our MP4 and can support the HD resolutions we want. This means that by using his "Transparent Player" we can host our MP4's in whatever resolution we choose on our own websites! I invited Josh to visit our forum and see what we were up to and perhaps tell us more about his player. The Transparent Player actually does much, much more than just spool MP4's and I would suggest to anyone who is interested in perhaps pursuing this to visit Josh's website to learn all the details. Though his primary market is businesses who want to present small, concise messaging using such techniques as Chroma Key alpha channel videos where the subject with a transparent background appears to "float" above any text or images, I believe our AV enthusiasts may offer a niche market which will certainly grow in the future. Josh's solution is relatively inexpensive as business solutions go, and if you license his player now, it is available as a lifetime license and within the budget of anyone who is "serious" about hosting their own shows. I personally intend to purchase his player and host my own shows on my own site just as soon as I can scrape up the funds to proceed. Here's a link to Josh's site. I would suggest going there and reading up on this exciting new technology! Be sure to turn up your sound. Just place your cursor over the active video and you will see the controls. http://transparentplayer.com/ Best regards, Lin

Hi Jose, As Xavier said, you can do this with masking in the Beta versions of 5.6. Remember, you can create a gradient mask so that the text dissolves gradually as it moves into the mask, so it's quite possible to make the text dissappear inside the parameters of the image itself. Here's a sample you can use to modify the mask as you need. http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sampl...xtdisappear.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, After you have stitched the originals, just set the vertical size via Photoshop or whichever interpolation software you use to the maximum size you need to support any zooms into the image. Then place the image slide into PTE and size it to fill the vertical aspect of the display you are using or the vertical size for your intended audience. Then you can pan and zoom at will. The important thing is to remember not to exceed a 1:1 on your zoom. That is don't zoom too much deeper than what you would have with a 1:1 view of the original in Photoshop to avoid loosing image quality. Here's a sample: http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/demos/cliffpalace.zip In this one, the entire slideshow consists of a single stitched pano which was made with eight stitched frames. Best regards, Lin

Hi Paul, Thanks! Yes, they were all taken within a few miles of home here in northern Colorado except the last one with the water which was taken from Maroon Lake looking at the reflection of the Maroon Bells in south western Colorado. Best regards, Lin

LOL - I've been bad but problem solved anyway - Lin

Anyone have a copy of Boxig's (Granot) RestorePte program? It was a utility which did sequential screen captures manually....?? Lin

Hey Steve, LOL - and a good time was had by all - including the frozen toes? Great fun it seemed - who got to sit on the cool slab rock seat at the first camp?? Nice job, Lin

Hi Jose, Slides on the timeline are marked as "used" by their identity on the list changing to "bold". The fonts are often rasterized to PNG (your choice) and they are not embedded. Size can be made uniform by observing the "zoom" numbers for the text object. For technical reasons it's difficult to use a fixed size font. One of the problems is that different computers have different installed fonts, thus the reason for having PNG rasterizing which makes the actual font a "picture" of a font and thus not amenable to precise sizes except via the zoom factor. It is less convenient in some ways than having a numeric association or font "size," but infinitely more flexible. Objects can be "linked" as children to slides thus adopting their attributes of zoom and position or they can be independent objects thus not affected by position or size (zoom) of the slide itself. Just be certain that when you add text that the main slide or other objects in the Object's List are not selected (blue) and the text will be under your complete control independent from the slide itself. This way you can zoom, pan or rotate the image and text independently. Best regards, Lin

Just testing an effect and some slides to relax with while listening to words we could all learn from in today's troubled world..... http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sample/thatrainbow.zip (about 33 meg) Youtube link: Give it plenty of time for preload if you watch in HD. Quality almost identical to executable for image quality, not as good for animation of course: Just hit "Pause" and let preload gas-gage go about half-way across screen before beginning play unless you have a really fast download..... By the way I just tested it at 1600x1200 and it looks great. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzmfXwJCFnE Lin

Hi Paul, I found it very enjoyable - dreamy-like = upbeat tone and very nice use of Photoshop effects. About the only thing I would suggest to possibly improve it would be to go to Project Options, Advanced Tab and hide the mouse cursor during show. Best regards, Lin

Hi Brian, Thanks much for the link! I have sent the song file to a friend who may be able to help with translation. If I had the written lyrics I think I could translate, but my ear isn't accustomed to the language so I wouldn't even know where to start with spelling, etc. Best regards, Lin

Hi, If it was written down, I could translate it myself, but it's a song so no luck in that department. Thanks, Lin