Lin Evans

In preparing tutorials I discovered that it would be very useful to be able to know precisely the running time of a PTE slideshow as it is being constructed. If there were a way to keep a running total of the display times plus transition times it would make creating background music or speech to match much easier. As it is, I time each slide plus transitions or put a stopwatch on the total slideshow before adding music then adjust by eigher adding slides, changing display times or adjusting background music using audacity to match the slideshow. Of course it's possible to look at the last keyframe time on the last slide (assuming there is one at the end of the slideshow) and get the precise time - but often I find myself adding a keypoint at the very end just to "know" the exact timing without getting out the stopwatch or checking the time for the last slide and adding this to the previous slide's last keyframe. It would be a great help to me to have a small window which gave the running time for the slideshow... Best regards, Lin

Hi Jan, I'm still not absolutely clear on what it is that you are trying to achieve. There are three ways to display an image with PTE. All these descriptions without zoom: First is "Fit to Screen" so that whatever display resolution monitor your audience might be using the image is enlarged to fit the screen horizontally. If their monitor is a 4/3 ratio (four times wide by three times tall) then there will be a black stripe at top and bottom with no black on either end. Next is "Cover Screen" which means that the image will be enlarged to fit the vertical aspect so there will be no black on top or bottom. In this mode there "may" be black on the right and left depending on the individual aspect ratio of the display device being used. For example, if they have one of the new wide screen systms they will see no black at top or bottom but will see black on the right and left. Finally, there is "Original" where your image would be displayed at 1024x683 regardless of the display resolution of the viewer's monitor. If their monitor was set to 1024x768 then there would be a small black stripe on top and bottom. If their monitor was set to 1600x1024 then there would be a black border all around. When you zoom in or out on an image the image "must" be made to appear larger or smaller on the screen regardless of the settings of the display device. Zooming in means you want to make a portion of the image look closer. In order to do this when the image is being displayed at 100% of its resolution (in your case 1024x683) then the program must temporarily interpolate the image to make it appear larger. This does not change your original image it simply creates a new image which displays as close as you want it to according to the amount of zoom you have selected. It's not possible to display the original image larger (closer) than the full original dimensions without actually interpolating it but the "zoom" is a new image. As many as 60 or more of these images are created for each second of viewing your slideshow. Now if you want the black stripes to "remain" above and below the image you must create the mask as I described in order to provide the black stripes. You could also just create a couple black rectangles right in PTE and position them above and below to serve as a mask. Again, this is not keeping your image from being enlarged, it's only hiding that portion of the image which extends into the black border above and below 683 pixels. If your concern is loosing image resolution by enlarging, then provide PTE with larger originals. For example, if you want to do a tight zoom on faces, etc., without loosing image quality then use a higher resolution setting for your originals. PTE will downsample them to the "fit to screen" so that the sides fill the horizontal aspect of your monitor, then when you zoom in tight on the faces and do not exceed 100% size of your original (for example if you used 1600x1200, etc.) you will not loose any image quality on the zoom. If I'm preparing a slideshow where I know my audience will be viewing it on a 1024x768 display and I want to zoom in tight on only a few images, I will use 1024x683 or 1024x768 originals for all "other" slides and use the original from my higher resolution camera for only those images which I need to zoom in tight on. The steps to create a mask are as follows: Open Photoshop. Click on File then New then set the Background Content to Transparent. Set the size to 1024x768. Next you will see a transparency which looks like a b&w checkerboard. Next choose the paint bucket and black color set to "0,0,0" for the RBG colors and paint the transparency with this black. Next draw a rectangle exactly 1024x683 with the rectangular marquee tool and once you have it centered press the Delete key on the keyboard and save this as a PNG file taking the defaults in Photoshop for the save. Next follow Dave's advice. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jan, Zooming in doesn't change the 1024x683 pixel size - that is fixed by your slide in the slide list. What happens when you zoom in is that you are looking at a smaller portion of the original 1024x683 image and filling the screen with that porton of the image. The pixel size of the original file is not altered. I suspect what you are seeing is that there no longer is a "border" above and below your image. If you are trying to maintain that border which represents the difference in aspect ratio between your monitor and your digital image aspect ration, then you need to use a mask. A mask in the relevant sense is simply a file with a cut-out or transparency of the same aspect ratio as your 1024x683 file. If you are familiar with Photoshop or Pixbuilder, etc., it's very easy to make one by first creating a new colored (any color you desire for a background) background then overlay this on a transparent layer then simply cutting out the desired aspect ratio and save the result as a PNG file. You then place this file in PTE and use it on each slide as the "main" image and your individual slides as the "object". With the mask on the upper layer, anything you do in the way of zoom-in on the object will keep the black border above and below providing you use black as the mask color. If you could be more specific about what you are trying to achieve perhaps we could help point you in the right direction. Best regards, Lin

Hi John, A couple possibilities come to mind. First, download the tiny zipped file linked which contains a PTE file and image. Place it in any folder and unzip then open PTE, navigate to the folder and try to run the PTE file. You "should" see a barn with a simple pan animation. If this works, then PTE is doing its job and the problem is probably one of drive designator. If you are using a USB drive, etc., and the drive desgnator has changed this could be the problem. For example, Windows assigns a drive letter to a device such as D:, E:, F:, etc. If you add another device the drive designator may change because of normal cascade assignments. It is possible to permanently assign a drive designator to a particular device but first let's find out if it's the case that this is the problem. If you can run the zipped PTE file I link below then PTE is fine. Next find one of your PTE files and open it with Windows Notepad. (START, ALL Progams, Accessories, Notepad). Look through the file and find out the drive device assigment where PTE is looking for your files. DON'T SAVE the PTE FILE, JUST EXIT: Next see if that is indeed the place where the file resides. If not let me know and I'll give you instructions for permanently assigning the proper drive designator for your device. Link to test: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/testforjohn.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Bill, You can change the timings on the fade displays to longer than the 1500ms (1.5 second) default. Three seconds works pretty well with a slide which is set to display for around 10 seconds. Also this effect works better with movement for the slide fading out still happening so that there is a smooth transition with both slides in motion simultaneously. By pulling the keyframe start time for the second slide back into the stop time for the first and pulling the stop time for the first forward into the stop time for the second you get a nice ovelap of a few seconds. Here is a sample exe file along with a zipped PTE which you can examine to see the timings, etc. http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/sampleoverlap.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Bill, Let's just examine this from the point of two slides and you can extrapolate from there. You pull the ending keyframe beyond the timeline (to the right) end for the first slide into that period of time where the second slide begins. You pull the starting keyframe for the second slide back toward the left off the start time and into that portion of time where the first slide is ending. This way you have an overlap with slide one still fading out while slide two is fading in. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jim, The answer is no but let me explain a bit further. PTE use hardware rendering which means input resolution equals output resolution. Rendering, if you are not familiar with the term, is a means of starting with a given image then to get the Ken Burns effects creating all the intermediate images necessary to arrive at the desired view. So if you begin with a jpg image from your camera and want to zoom or pan to another view, a sufficient number of new images to get there must be created to effect a smooth video transition. Sometimes this is as many as 60 or more images per second of comuter monitor viewing time and with hardware rendering using the power of the GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) each image created is at the resolution of the original. All other current slideshow programs render at lower resolutions then when and if they need higher output resolution they interpolate the lower resoluton renderings to get to the desired output. Doing these rendering with software and using the CPU (Central Processing Unit) of the computer the output image is softer and has less detail and resolution. This is quite apparent when these images from other products and from PTE are played side-by-side on high resolution output devices. Because the majority of other presentation slideshow products have DVD quality as their "primary" intended output mode, dropping in a lower resolution video clip doesn't greatly impact the perceived output quality which is already compromised by the lower resolution rendering. DVD output is either PAL or NTSC, both of which are below 800x600 resolution. The vast majority of digital cameras which have a video mode don't exceed 640x480 pixel output. Interpolating this output up to even NTSC or PAL DVD resolution further reduces quality. If such a video clip were dropped in beside a high quality PTE rendering, it would be immediately apparent - like night and day! Once the overall quality of video output from consmer devices has reached the next level which is HDTV or BluRay which presently is 1080p (or about two megapixels) it might be feasible to add the feature of dropping in video clips to PTE. I can't speak for the developers, but I suspect this is perhaps the goal. At two megapixels, the video would be indistinguishable in most cases from average slideshows in PTE. Right now low quality video would greatly detract from the overall quality of a PTE presentation. If you absolutely must have a video clip in PTE it is "possible" but perhaps beyond the degree of effort involved for the "return on investment" to use a low cost video decompiler to decompile the video to individual jpg images then insert these individual images into the slide list and play them back at reasonable video speeds. This works better in some cases than in others. Unlike most other competitive products, PTE can do this a couple ways. Since there are no theoretical limits on the nuber of layers possible with PTE (limited only by hardware and memory) it is possible to use large numbers of smaller files as "objects" in the objects list and program realistic video-like simulations. This method has the advantage of also allowing objects which were not decompiled to also live in other layers and be used in the animation as well. An example of this method was done by JPD and myself in our recent demos. JPD's demo of the Hubble spinning across the screen with the moon also traveling across the sky and my example of the rotating Earth with the moon orbiting were both done in this fashion. On the other hand if you play individual decompiled video frames in the "slide list" in a rapid fashion you can show the video but not add other objects conveniently such as text or other objects unless you are an expert with video editing software where these other effects would be added there to the original video before decompiling. Bottom line is that right now PTE doesn't support adding video clip drop-ins. If you want to do this type thing it would be better to do it with one of the lower resolution presentation slideshow software packages which do not support hardware rendering. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jean-Pierre, Bravo! Tha't an amazing job. The executable works perfectly. I'm still building my new system which will have 4 gigabytes of RAM so can't try the template yet but this clock is superb! Best regards, Lin

Odd indeed! I've always wondered why people like sound effects when showing objects moving through space where there is no atmosphere to conduct sound - truth be known - erie silence! LOL Lin

Absolutely! I had to use 431 images for a 43 second animation which equals one rotation of the Earth. Since all done in Objects and Animations this meant 431 objects each on its own layer. Then to get the moon to move behind "and" in front required exact duplicate synchronized animations (not quite perfectly, I'm afraid). One for the motion in front of the earth which resides on layer 1 and one for the motion going behind the earth which resides on layer 433. Each frame of the rotation effect required three keyframes with opacity overlap at the proper timing as you mentioned. Also, a great deal of time to first capture the Earth rotation then trim the AVI to match one complete revolution of Earth, decompile my AVI of the rotation to jpgs, then convert and resize the jpgs to usable transparent background png files. I'm still writing Photoshop actions to "clean up" the PNG's which had some background remaining. It doesn't show up against a black background but does when an object (the moon) passes over remaining fragments. In all - lots of work for a one rotation of Earh animation. Essentially as with your Hubble demo it shows that it "can" be done. Whether or not it's worth the "effort" is another issue - LOL Best regards, Lin

Hi Jean-Pierre, There really is a "jump" because I didn't perfectly match the beginning and ending frames. After hand coding 1300+ keyframes I got tired - LOL. I thought I could use my editor and do one frame and copy and paste some of the work but something didn't work right and I kept getting errors so just did them all manually. Also I had to save frequently as I kept running out of memory when moving slides to get them in order and when entering keyframes. It pointed out a need for possibly an optional autosave feature and a way to reverse object entry order. Lots of good suggestions may come from this exercise as I found all the weak places which this type of project illuminates. Best regards, Lin

Not simple, a little crude but some will appreciate. Over 438 objects over 1300 keyframes but only 16 meg zipped exe. If you see what's "significant" let me know - not everyone's cup of tea - LOL http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/earthandmoon.zip Lin

Hi Jim, That's covered on page 34 of the User's Guide - you can download a PDF of this from the Tutorials and Articles section from the main forum page. Best regards, Lin

Great Job, Marcel and thanks, Gérard for bringing this to the forum for all to read. Great historical abstract and very nice to see how Igor and Aleksey have conspired over the years to produce the greatest tool yet for those who want the finest image quality and performance in their slideshows. It was very interesting to get insights into Igor's early development with a background from his father in engineering and photography and from his mother in architecture and interior design. Add to that a great education in mathmatics and a love of images and one can see how this came to be. Great!! Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, XP has no problems with PTE at all. Any problems running a particular show on XP are hardware centric. Vista machines "usually" have more powerful graphics cards which "can" be of significant value. The clue to this problem by the OP is "integrated graphics" and "shared resources". Bottom line is that the notebook he has isn't up to the task of running a show which stresses the graphics environment beyond propriety for the hardware available. The solution, I'm afraid, is a new notebook, one with sufficient video to handle the PZR and probably size of files he is using. Best regards, Lin

A little interesting information about Flash and browsers. Apparently, there are problems which are difficult to resolve with various Flash iterations and various browsers. Here's an interesting one which I have. With Firefox I can see your website including the Flash 9 opening in your link and your Flash 6 main screen, etc., but I can't see the text on the link to Slideshow Pro. When I get there I simply can't see the examples, etc. With Internet Explorer I get a message that I need to install Flash 9 which I do and apparently all works well because the Flash "splash" plays correctly but when I get back to your website I get the same message over and again so something isn't correct apparently on my Flash 9 installation. Same with Flash 6. Here's where it gets interesting. With IE I can see the text on the Slideshow Pro main page (in the center) but I can't see any of the samples. Go figure! After working with Flash for several years I've about given up on it because of strange anomalies. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, Let me second what Brian just said. I just purchased a new Dell myself and did so specifically "because" they offer Win XP. Personally, I wouldn't touch Vista until SP2 has been released and maybe not then. My new Dell takes about 30 seconds to be up and running. My wife's Vista Business Edition took over two minutes to get through all the BS and be usable and about the same amount of time to shut down. Yes, it's possible to dink with it and speed up the process but it's a real memory hog and has the issues Brian discussed with 16 bit programs. I found that Vista would not run Photoshop versions earlier than CS3 meaning I would have to upgrade it as well as lots of my other software - definitely not worth it for me. The Dell I purchased was a Inspiron 530 which comes with a decent integrated video with 128 meg, and a core 2 duo Intel 2.33 ghz processor. I tried my wife's Nvidia 8600 GT card and it worked perfectly. I ordered and received an Invidia 8800 GT card but the power supply which shipped with the Dell was only 300 watt so marginal and only had two open 15 pin SATA connectors both of which would have needed a 15 pin SATA to 4 pin Molex connector adaptor so I upgraded the power supply with a 750 watt model which I found at Tiger Direct for $119.00. The new power supply is fantastic with more cables than one could ever need and shoehorned into the Dell case without issue. All together the Dell with four gigabytes of RAM, the new power supply and Nvidia 8800 GT cost $1500 without a monitor. Surprisingly, the integrated video actually would run most of the PTE files perfectly but I wanted the Nvidia 8800 GT so without that it would have been only $1200 and that's with Windows XP Home Edition which works great and comes already activated. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bill, I agree with Ron that it's a very good addition to the basic PTE program because it makes creating DVD's a snap with your PTE shows. It's continually being upgraded and has a two year free upgrade policy so well worth it. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jim, Keep in mind that 1080p is only two megapixels. The "only" time you need to use any higher resolution than two megapixels on your slideshow to be converted to HDVD (or Bluray) is when you have deep zooms and even then there are better ways to achieve this than using 12 megapixel originals. For example, it's very possible to close crop the area you wish to zoom in on and seamlessly add the crop at the point where you end the zoom at 1:1 on the original resampled two megapixel image then continue the zoom then reverse the process for a zoom out if desired. I have some tutorials on this in the works called "superzoom". This way you loose no resolution or detail but gain much in lowering resources necessary to play back and to create the BluRay original. The larger your originals the more resources needed to create the original. A 12 megapixel image isn't impossible to use but since there is absolutely zero advantage when displayed on a two megapixel 1080p television or monitor and plenty of good reasons "not" to use higher resolution, it's something to think about. Best regards, Lin

Hi Uwe, PTE doesn't support movie clips. You can run a movie clip as an external program called from within PTE by loading it using execute scrpt from a program which supports movie clips. For example, some programs such as IrfanView support movie clips and you can open Irfanview with a script using the syntax provided in the IrfanView documentation so you could call IrfanView with this syntax which would run your video then return seamlessly to PTE. You can also include video clips as separate files using Video Builder so that they play on the DVD but you can't include video clips directly in a PTE presentation. If this is a video clip you made with a camera, etc., you could use a video decompiler to break the video down into jpgs then play them sequentially. This works well in some cases but it's a good deal of work to make it seamless. It "can" be done but may not be worth the effort. Best regards, Lin

Herein lies the issue. If I was unaware of the existence of this link on the site, how many others may also be unaware? Generally, I don't visit the "download" link once I have purchased and downloaded a product. Actually, PTE can be downloaded from so many different places including the forum and the opening page that I've never found it necessary to pursue each link. I'm not at all certain how long this "Useful Resources" place has been available on the site. Perhaps everyone else except me is aware of it and has visited, but even that doesn't completely satisfy the need for information. When new features are added to a website such as theDom's "Shop" there needs to be a vehicle to make people aware. It's difficult to "review" a site or a product if one doesn't know it exists. Though I agree that it would be better to have a dedicated place to post current information about links and such, it should be in a conspicuous place rather than two levels removed (download, useful resources). But back to my original question - should "all" tutorials, help, etc., be removed from the forum discussion or only the one's which are not "free"? If it's "O.K." to promote free tutorials, templates, etc., on the forum then what is the relevant difference in notifying forum users that other options also exist? Everyone loves something for nothing, it's human nature. So exactly "why" do you think it's not right to post a link to help which is available but not "free"? Notifying the public that somthing exists does not imply that they "must" visit the site or "purchase" anything, it just lets them know that a product exists. Is there really any substantive difference between theDom telling us that he has some free templates as well as templates for sale and Jeff or me or someone else telling the forum that he has free templates as well as templates for sale? I think it would be a different issue if the content were about services or products not directly related to PTE. For example, if theDom were selling PhotoShop actions or Excel spreadsheets neither or which "directly" pertain to PTE and advertising that on the PTE forum it would be a slightly different thing. If Barry Beckham were advertising his Wedding photographer lessons on CD on the PTE forum it would be quite different than telling people he has CD and DVD tutorials on how to use PTE available. In the one case it's advertising to bring people to a site for a quite different purpose than helping them learn PTE. In the other its a product "directly" involved with PTE and something people probably would want to be aware of even if they had no particular desire to purchase the product? See the difference? Just something to think about.... Best regards, Lin

So then would you suggest that all tutorials and general help be moved to this location? We have links in the "tutorials" section of the website to the PTE Users Guide, Free Tutorials and such. The purpose of tutorials, templates, PDF help guides and such are to serve as helpful tools to make the task of creating slideshows easier and to help people undstand how to use the software. The salient question is how many people even know the existence of the link to "Useful Resources?" Once you have purchased and installed the software, how many times do you suppose people actually visit the "Useful Resources" link which can only be reached via the "download" link? Having help available is of little use if users don't know about it. I would be willing to bet that few who visit the forum are even aware of this link so the question is whether it's more important to be sure people are aware of the possibility of getting additional resources or protect the the "purity" of the forum from the evils of commercialization - LOL. Actually, I doubt that theDom's pockets are being "lined" very well by the few Euros he may earn from his hard work. If I had not seen his post here, I would not have known anything about the fact that he had templates available for sale. Yes, his link is found at the "Useful Resources" but until today, as often as I have posted here (and that's been ever since there has been this forum - and before that on the one preceeding this one) even before PTE was first released years ago, I didn't know the "Useful Resources" link existed! So would it really be more "useful" to visitors to have a reminder in the forum now and then or simply put the information on the user's website and provide a link in the "Useful Resources"? Believe me when I tell you that "nobody" is really lining their pockets by producing PTE templates, tutorials, associated programs, etc. If theDom were compensated by the hour for all the hours he has spent helping people learn to use PTE at the rate of one euro per hour he probably could buy a new car! If he were to release statistics about all the Euros he has made from his templates perhaps he could afford one nice meal and a bottle of wine in Paris! I think the bottom line is that no one is trying to or is even likely to get rich by selling PTE associated templates, tutorials, programs, etc. They are only trying to be helpful, but beyond a certain point in order to do that they must decide whether the hours and hours they are spending have any value. If the answer is yes then then they need to receive some compensation. If no one knows that they have products and help available then their efforts are wasted and no one will ever benefit from the time, effort and knowledge they have put into creating the products. So my point is that there needs to be a way to let the users of PTE know that there are not only free templates, tutorials, guides and programs available but that there are also other options which they may or may not want to avail themselves of. No one is twisting anyone's arm and forcing them to purchase templates, audio-visual tutorials, PDF files, useful program files, etc. But letting the forum members know that they are available via the forum seems to be more logical than just posting them in an obscure place which is rarely visited by the majority. Comments welcome.... Best regards, Lin

Let me put in my $02 about this as well. Dominic as well as many others have freely given of their time and experience and created many useful add-on templates, audio-visual tutorials, tips and techniques and insights on how to use PTE and make it an even more valuable tool for the presentation of our images and ideas. It's wonderful how many have contributed to help those who have either less time to devote or less technical inclinations to quickly learn to use this great software, but time and knowledge are indeed valuable and to expect one to continue to contribute it's only fair to compensate them at some point when their efforts go way above and beyond the norms. thDom and others have spent countless hours developing tools which help others to more easily learn or more easily create beautiful animations and slideshow productions. In order to continue to contribute in the same way time must be taken from other projects, some of these being projects which help feed our families and pay the bills. Offering templates, tutorials, audio-visuals and other enhancements to PTE for sale in no way detracts from the freely given advice and help people have contributed to this end, but rather offers those who would prefer to have these additional advantage yet another option. I've had numerous emails asking for a series of detailed audio-visual tutorials on PTE to speed the learning process. I've always directed those inquiries to this forum or to theDom's for additional help, but I too have decided that to really do justice to this I needed to create a comprehensive set of AVI audio-visual tutorials and offer them for a reasonable price. To that end I have created a new website dedicated to teaching others to use PTE. Is there a problem with advertising these services on this forum? It's a good question. The tutorials, theDom's templates, Barry Beckham's PTE CD tutorials, Ron West's PDF tutorials, my audio-visual AVI's etc., all are essentially useless unless one purchases or owns PTE so my reasoning is that advertising these services via the forum benefits Wnsoft as much as it benefits the person selling the product. The more add-on's and help which is available, the easier it is to learn and USE PTE and the more people will be attracted to the product. Jeff, Ray and I have created a User's Guide which at 130 pages is pretty comprehensive, but it was based on 5.0 and there have already been significant changes. We elected to wait until 5.2 is released to do a major update but some are confused when they try to use the existing guide because of the differences. Part of my decision to offer audio-visual tutorials for sale is based on the fact that I know I will be spending many more hours in the future working on this and other PTE related projects. This takes time away from my regular income producing work and to be able to stay current on changes and have a comprehensive understanding of the product I need to spend more time working with PTE. The tutorials will hopefully allow me to somewhat compensate for my loss of other income and still continue to contribute to the forum in the way I have in the past. Comments are welcome.... Best regards, Lin

Beautiful images Judy - well presented... Best regards, Lin