Lin Evans

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

Great job Jean-Pierre, and welcome back - you have been missed! Best regards, Lin

For anyone interested - right now for a limited time there is a great deal on a very good and very powerful video card - the PNY Nvidia 8800GT chipset based Geforce XLR8 8800GT 512 mb PCI Express card for $232.84 (limit one per customer). For those looking for a really powerful card this is a great deal. I bought one and it's about $60 less than the best price with tax which I found locally. Here's a link: http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?SCriteria=AA72380 Lin

Hi Sherrill, Here's a link to Price Grabber where you can find the Nvidia 8600 GT card with 256 meg RAM which would make you a dandy Video Card. Prices as low as $94. You need one for a PCI Express card slot. http://computers.pricegrabber.com/video-ca..._kwfeed_1/skd=1 Lin

Hi Sherrill, Actually, compressing them by making the file size of the image smaller without changing the image dimensions would tend to make them more grainy than actually making the dimensions smaller. For print purposes you definitely want to leave them as originals in every way as far as image size and low compression coming from your S5-IS Canon. But for making slide shows there is no good reason to leave them at their original dimensions and many good reasons not to especially with PTE 5.1 where later you may decide to do pans, zooms and rotates, etc. There are a number of good free utilities around which will allow you to downsample your images automatically in batch format and not affect the image quality at all. They will duplicate your images and not affect the originals. Actually, I'm surprised that there was any significant difference on your system among my various images. This tells me that perhaps it is your video card (or lack of one because it's integrated into the motherboard) which is causing the problem. Each of the images you downloaded should have about the same quality in the slideshow. What we need to find out is the type of slot in your computer for a video card add-on. There are a number of decent video cards which don't cost an arm and a leg depending on the type of video slot you have. If the system is a newer one it's probably a PCI Express slot. Perhaps we can find out or maybe Brian knows from the specifications sheet. If you plan to use PTE 5.1 you will eventually want to upgrade the video card because the built-in one is extremely marginal. It works very well with PTE 4.x because that version doesn't use any graphics acceleration, etc. PTE 5.1 is designed to be backwardly compatible but some of the integrated chip-sets like yours is not well behaved and doesn't conform to accepted standards. Even Acer suggests upgrading it. You would not know this unless as you did, try to create a slideshow with images which overtaxed the system. Once you have seen what you can do with an upgraded video environment I know you will be happy that you upgraded even if you have to save for a few months to do it. We will try to find out which video slot your system uses and perhaps help you find an inexpensive solution which will greatly improve the quality of your slideshows, etc. Best regards, Lin

Hi SCJ (please give us a first name so we can be less formal), Actually, many of us here are "senior citizens" and we love to help each other with understanding the new technical devices and such which seem to come much easier to the "kids". The fact that you could see some of my shows tends to make me think that even though you may definitely need a stronger video environment to help you make PTE shows, that there is something perhaps which you are inadvertently doing in creating your shows which is causing the major part of the problem. Could you tell us how you took the images which you are using for your slideshow? Did you use a digital camera and if so, what brand and "resolution" in megapixels? Did you do anything to the images such as resize them before putting them in your show? The reason for the questions is that sometimes we use oriinal full resolution images and if the video card is less than optimal it could be that the size in pixel dimensions of the images might affect the performance. This is generally not an issue for the older 4.4x versions of PTE but "can" be an issue for PTE 5.x depending on individual circumstances. To test this, I have about a dozen images which I have posted on a website link for you. If you will download each into a folder then open PTE 5 and try a simple slideshow with them and tell us if it works normally, then perhaps we can better diagnose the problem. Just click on the link below. When the page opens, click on the first thumbnail at left top then when the 1024x768 image opens right click on it and download to a folder on your computer. Use the right arrow to go from 1024 pixel to next 1024 pixel image until you have downloaded each of the 12 into a folder. Next open PTE 5.1 and create a simple slideshow using all defaults. Let us know if this one runs normally. If it does, then we can safely assume that the size of your images is causing the issue. http://www.lin-evans.net/testimages/index.htm Best regards, Lin

Hi Brian - there's a saying: Give a girl a fish and you have fed her for today - teach a girl to fish and you have fed her for a life-time. O.K. - I took a few liberties with the saying - LOL. Actually, I believe we need to make people aware that they can generally always find out a great deal about their own system by using the "dxdiag" diagnostic. Knowing this can help them provide technical information to decide whether they need to consider an upgrade on their various components to make PTE work better or whether the problems lie elsewhere. Best regards, Lin

Just for your own information for the future - video drivers are free from the manufacturer, they don't cost anything. You can find out all about your system by clicking from the Desktop on "Start" then "Run" then type in the word "dxdiag" then click on O.K. Your computer will run a diagnostic and return a screen with multiple tabs which you can click on to find out exactly how your system is configured. If you click on the tab marked "Display" it will tell you the name of your video card chip set manufacturer, the amount of RAM and other important information needed to tell you whether your system is up to running animated video. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bill, If you have any animations (pan, zoom, rotate) in your slideshows this isn't going to work for you, The problem as Brian has explained is one of synchronization with fames. PTE executable shows have differential frame speeds depending on what's happening. The recorder records at a constant speed and this causes jerky movement. You don't get this when a PTE show is converted to AVI or MPEG but when you try to capture from the screen it's an issue. You are just as well off to just use PTE to create a small web-sized AVI to upload to YouTube as to go through the process of playing an executable and recording it via the screen. The primary value of this program is for those creating tutorials or desiring to capture multiple still images from a PTE executable video not for capturing the the animated show. Best regards, Lin

Hi Brian, Thanks, I suspected as much. There just doesn't seem to be any readily available Windows software which can capture an executable video having animations smoothly. This lack of smoothness is the primary reason I quit trying to play back using the Preview function on my AVI tutorials. No matter which software I've tried (most of those available) the PTE playback is always quite "jerky" on the AVI even though quite smooth on the cursor movements and other portions of the recording. It seems that when the "executable" part (previews are actually temporary executable code) is played the recorder doesn't synchronize properly causing jerks in pans, zooms, rotates, etc. On the other hand when you actually "drag" the cursor across the timeline by hand the same sequences can be made very smoothly. This software makes a very viable competitor to Camtasia at a fraction of the cost. Having multple output capabilities and extremely powerful editing to include frame editing on the AVI is a very useful feature. When I get my new system in and get it configured I will probably switch from my present screen recording software to this which is much more flexible. Bottom line is I think for capturing still frames from your PTE shows this is the "cat's meow". For doing tutorials etc., it sure beats the high priced competition in many useful ways. Thanks for drawing our attention to this great product. Best regards, Lin

Hi David, For assistance with the particular templates you purchased from theDom, you should communicate directly with him but for general understanding of PTE there are numerous AVI tutorials and a 130 page User Guide available from the "Tutorials" section of this forum and a host of other tutorials available from theDom's website. My suggestion would be to download the User Guide and you may want to start with the "PTE Made Easy" series of AVI's. Best regards, Lin

Hi Brian, Just a quick question as I'm in the middle of trying to recover and rebuild from a total crash. I downloaded this video recorder and it seems that it's a feature rich and fantastic value when compared to the gold standard. The only thing I'm having difficulty with is determining whether "any" of these screen recorders can record a PTE animation smoothly. So far I haven't found one which will give me even a close representation of the real show. The default in this one is 10 frames per second but even when I set it to 30 fps (29.97) it still records animations in a "jerky" way. Resampling doesn't seem to make it significantly better. I've tried this on a couple of my systems with powerful video cards and processors (3.2 ghz CPU and Nvidia OC8600 GT GPU, etc.) and it's evident that while recording the video performance is being compromised. Have you been able to record a PTE show with animations with smooth AVI results? Best regards, Lin

In the old versions before 5.0 if you were on the first slide and pressed the backspace or back arrow the program would go to the first slide. It doesn't do this any longer, but it's very easy to program it to go to the first slide or last slide, etc. or any slide. You can set an invisible "button" or program a slide to go to any slide from any other slide in a couple ways. Go to Objects and Animations screen then "Common Tab" then click on the Down Arrow next to "action on mouse click". You can choose from a number of choices one to go to any slide number. Put in the last slide then a mouse click on the first slide will take you to the last slide. You can also click on the "Add Button" icon on the top-left of your screen (next to far left icon) and add a button and put it anywhere on the screen or make it very large, set the opacity to zero then set the "Properties" to go to a particular slide, etc. Lots of options. Lin

Just a notice that I will not be available for a few days. My system has crashed and my mirror image hard disk is down as well. It will be several days before I can rebuild so won't be available to answer questions. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, Just a quick observation. I don't believe the magnifying glass Dom has is the same. It isn't a moving magnifying glass which "magnifies" . I don't believe that feature is possible with PTE right now. I'll have to check but I think the one you see in the PSP demo requires a feature not yet available in PTE but may be soon. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dom, Magnificent! Anyone who hasn't taken the time to get over to your site and see these presentations needs to do so and be prepared to be blown away! Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, I'm not sure whether there is anything devoted to creating DVD's but I can give you a quick run through. Create your slideshow with PTE and test it using the Preview. Once you are happy with it click on the "Video" button at the bottom of the Main Screen then from there click on "Burn DVD". From the next screen negotiate to the folder where you have the PTE file and it will appear as a large thumbnail in the top portion of the screen. Either click, hold and drag it to the bottom or click to select then click on "Add". Next click on the "Project Options" and choose between NTSC (U.S.) or PAL format. For now take the other defaults as far as bitrates, etc., and click on "O.K". Next be sure there is a check mark in the block beside "Create Menu" then click on "Next" Choose a template from those available, click on title, etc., and change to the font text you wish and such. For now use one of the templates rather than your own background image. After you have the text and template like you want it click "Next". On the screen which appears you have the option to select whether and where you which to create an mpeg2 file, whether you want ISO images and a DVD folder and where you wish theim. For now I would ignore these and just click to put a check beside "Burn DVD" then be sure you have a DVD in your burner and that the program has identified your hardware (usually automatic) then click "Start" That all there is to the basics. Hopefully, later this week I will create a tutorial on some more esoteric aspects of creating a DVD menu such as using your own backgrounds, etc. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ray, A few thoughts. You really don't get any increase in image quality from 35mm color film or transparency from scanning at such a high resolution, you just get a larger file size. All usable detail can be captured at about a 4,000 dpi scan. Even drum scans at $75 per image don't get additional detail at greater than 5,000 dpi they just scan grain. With this in mind you may want to try lowering the DPI to about 4,000 and compare. The thing about scanning is that you can scan at higher and higher resolutions but you reach a practical limit with 35mm color film or transparency at about 4K dpi. Anything higher just increases file bloat without giving you any significant detail. To see the true load size of your files, look at the size of an 8 bit tiff. From your description, it could be in excess of 100 meg per image. There could well be a bug in 5.1 which is contributing to the problems you are experiencing but even with your computing power remember that 5.1 does "hardware" rendering for DVD. You may want to try the same with 5.0's Video Builder which "didn't" use hardware rendering for the DVD/mpeg creation. This "could" be the difference causing the problems with the huge files. Which video card are you using? Sorry if you mentioned that earlier I missed it. Go to the Tutorials section and in the "PTE Made Easy" download the AVI on SuperZoom. The essence is that at the time you capture your images and knowing that you may want to zoom to highly detailed areas, you shoot a few overlapping frames to stitch. Then when you want to zoom to detail levels you first find 100% zoom levels for the first image (use "original" to find this) then you load the stitched or longer focal length image temporarily as an object with image 1, zoom it out to match the 100% zoom of image 1 (set opacity to about 40% to visually align and size) then copy/paste the zoom and pan and/or rotate numbers into image 2. This gives you a perfect match for size and position. Then set the opacity back to 100% for image 1 and delete image 2 from the image 1 objects list. This can be repeated as many times as necessary to get even macro detail in the zoom. It's a bit easier if you actually see it on the tutorial but here are links to two samples. Originally I intended to make the sample for panoramas but the idea is amenable to any zoom. The only thing necessary is to be sure you cover enough real-estate so that when image 2 is zoomed out there is sufficient image size to meet the full screen aspect ratio hence the "stitch" concept. Look at these two samples which will give you some idea. http://www.lin-evans.org/pte/kachinazoom.zip http://www.lin-evans.org/pte/prowler.zip The first is a one centimeter tall carved Native American Kachina figure zoomed from wide angle to macro. The second is a travel trailer zoom starting at about 28mm and progressively going to 2000mm. On the second one I didn't use stitched images to match, just wanted to show the procedure as a sample but you get some idea of the possibillities. Note the original travel trailer image presented at original size within the "O" of the word "Prowler" at the end of the slide. Best regards, Lin