Lin Evans

Hi NBS, I tried it again this time with a RW which had already been formatted and had the original slideshow already burned once and the total time was 2 minutes 32 seconds. Go figure! I've long since stopped trying to figure out why computers sometimes respond differently to identical situations. I'll try it again with my 3.2 Ghz systems and 128 meg Radeon 9800 Pro and see if it changes. It seemed to hang at the 99 percent level for an extended period last time. This time with the ATI Radeon Pro and 3.2 Ghz system (which has a faster hard disk) it only took 2 min 24 seconds including the burn. Last time with this system I used a 16x Sony media and this time I used the same 4x RW media as with the Nvidia system. Again - go figure. It appears that the last time the system must have not have liked the media and perhaps spent an inordinate amount of time with analysis before actually doing the burn. Very strange but obviously having nothing to do with PTE but rather system and media variables. Best regards, Lin

Hi Neil, It's a legitimite question. Sometimes we assume more about the user's experience with PTE than logic dictates. When a zip file containing the components of a PTE show is linked what you do is click on the link, download the zip file and put it in a folder. You can create a new folder in Windows or just use one which has only a few files. Once you have the zip file use the Windows "Run" command with the "All Files" rather than the default "Programs" option. Select all fles then "Extract" them into the same folder. Once all files are extracted so you can see them start PicturesToExe then use the File Open on the included PTE file. This loads all the necessary files and you can then either use the Previw or you can create an executable just as if you had created the slideshow yourself. The reason I used the zipped content file was so the OP could get some idea of how the components were used to make clouds move, snow fall, lighning flash, etc., by actually examining the construction. This show was done long ago with 5.0 beta 4 and is a good demo for seeing how PNG files can be used to simulate video with still images. For convenience I'll link the zipped executable below: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/storm.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Shirley. Nothing could be easier than doing a basic pan or zoom in PTE. Let's start with a zoom: 1. Put your slides in the slide list 2. Click on the first slide in the list to highlight 3. Click on the Objects and Animations button 4. Left click on the timeline near the far right side and a little blue arrow pointing upward appears 5. Press the Insert key on the keyboard and a new Keypoint appears 6. Next to the "Close" button on top of your screen just over the picture click on the little blue down arrow and change to 50 percent from the drop down menu 7. Click on the little square on the upper right side of the picture, hold down the left mouse key and drag the image to make it larger Press the Preview and see the result of your zoom. Once you do this you should download the User Guide, read it and you will learn how to fine tune zooms, pans rotates. They are all done in a very similar fashion. The essence of all pan, zoom or rotate is that you begin with an image of some predetermined position and size then you create a keypoint further along the timeline which represents real time and you visually change the pan zoom or rotate while this second keypoint is selected. Then the program automatically creates all the intermediate images which are needed to make the effect work. Whether you are dealing with pan, zoom, rotate or a combination of these the basics are the same. After you learn the basics then you can easily learn to choose the default of "linear" or you can choose smooth, etc., for the movement. Everything is carefully explained in the User Guide and there are numerous AV tutorials available to show you how to do this with PTE. It may at first seem complicated but it is really very easy if you just remember the above paragraph. I made you a brief AVI tutorial so you can see exactly how to do this. Download here about 40 meg. http://www.lin-evans.net/tutorial/pzr.avi Lin

Hi Dan, No, you don't need to combine a video and stills to do that - it's easily done with all stills. Here's a sample of what you can do with PTE with all stills. In this sample you have falling snow, lightning, moving clouds, blowing snow, etc., all with still images. http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/stormcoming.zip If you will email me with the details, I'll try to tell you how to do the animations. [email protected] Best regards, Lin

Actually, you can use the same file name 100 or 1000 times as long as it's on the slide list as a different slide. I'm not certain what the problem is but if you can post the PTE file perhaps it can be explained. Here's a little example: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/black.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Dan, If you mean combine stills and video in one slideshow the answer is no. The deluxe version has Video Builder which creates DVD or MPEG files from animations created with PTE and can also create DVD's or MPEG II files from videos but they can't be combined into a single slideshow such as you can do with some software which doesn't use hardware rendering. The difference is with hardware rendering as used in PTE you get ultimate image quality on computer executable slideshows. Because videos are low resolution compared to stills there would be a major visible difference. Software programs which use lower resolution rendering software rendering can combine video more or less seamlessly with lower resolution still images. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, David, Yes I included the burn time so I could get a feel for the overall time necessary without actually doing a test with a larger file. The actual MPEG II creation times I've included on the original post in bold. Even though my 3.2 Ghz system is faster and has a much faster hard disk than my Gateway Pentium 4 running at 3.0 Ghz it's still much slower because of the difference between the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 meg and the overclocked Nvidia 512 Meg 8600 GT. But that 40% boost from dual core processors is a major factor it seems. The dual core processors make a great deal of difference apparently since the Pentium 4's running at 3 Ghz and 3.2 Ghz take considerably longer than systems running the modern processors. The Overclocked 512 Meg Nvidia 8600 GT is very fast and even with the video card speed the actual time compared to the fastest benchmarks so far is about double (43 seconds versus 88 seconds) so Igor's benchmark of a 40% increase in speed with dual core on his system sounds very reasonable. Best regards, Lin

I tested with two of our systems. Apparently the processor makes a great deal of difference because even with my very fast development system it took 4 minutes 28 seconds to do both render and burn. (1) Intel pentium 4 running at 3.20 Ghz with two megs RAM and ATI Radeon Pro 9800 with 128 meg RAM 4 minutes 28 sseconds with 12x burn 133 seconds make mpeg II (2) Intel Pentium 4 running at 3.00 Ghz with two megs Ram and overclocked Invidia 8600 GT with 512 meg RAM. 4 minutes 23 seconds with 4x burn on RW media 88 seconds make mpeg II So having a dual core processor make an amazing amount of difference in the speed I think. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bob, Yes, the feature and many others are still available. On the bottom right of the Main Page below the Slide List and above the Customize Slide and Objects and Animation buttons you will find three blocks called Main Image, Comments and Sound. To the right of the Comments click on the Icon and when the "Text for Current Slide" appears click on the blue link above titled "Insert Text Template". Choose from the list then click O.K. Suggest downloading and reading the 130 page User Guide from either the help or from the Tutorials section. Best regards, Lin

I echo Severn's greetings and thanks to the entire Wnsoft crew and to Bill and his family as well! Lin

Hi Peter, These are "standard" Windows keyboard shortcuts, not things specific to PTE. The same applies to an up and down list in Windows Explorer as to right and left in a list. The reason they are not in the User Guide is that they are not PTE shortcuts but Windows commands available to anyone who reads Windows tutorials. Select a file - hold down the shift key and select another file and the selected file and all files in-between are selected. Select a file, hold down the End key and the selected file and all files after are selected. Select a file, hold down the Home key and the selected file and all files before (to the left or above) are selected. Best regards, Lin

Sorry Mark, If you want automated random pans, zooms, etc., PTE isn't the right tool. The assumption is that each slideshow you create is an individual creation with images which are unique and require different types or degrees of animation when and if they require animation at all. Some freeware Windows slideshow programs do this as does ProShow Gold but it's not something which fits the philosophy of PTE or most sophisticated professional presentation slideshow software. Movement for the sake of movement doesn't really add anything to a presentation in my opinion. I understand what you want to do but this is not the right tool for that type thing. Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you and all the Wnsoft team! Congratulations on the progress and on the greatest presentation slideshow software ever developed!! Lin & Sherry

Where do you live? If you live in the U.S. you need to use NTSC as your encoding. If you live in most European countries you use PAL. It sounds very much like there may be a setting in the Sonic software which is used during the copy process to encode for either PAL or NTSC. It also sounds like the original is properly encoded. Check the Sonic software parameters and be sure there isn't some choice and that if there is you have selected the proper one for your area of the world. Best regards, Lin

Hi Guido, So sorry to hear about your medical issues and we all wish you a speedy and complete recovery. A very Merry Christmas to you and your family and the best for the coming New Year!! Best regards, Lin

Hi Severn, First for the future: Use the Zip creation feature to assemble all necessary files then you can move them anywhere and they will stay as a group making it easy for PTE to quickly assemble everything necessary to do what you wish. For now, perhaps the best way if you are not certain of the image files used, take the PTE file into a word processor or even WordPad in Windows and either print it out or write down the image file names used which will be found next to the "Picture=" wording. Next perform a search to find the files. If they are not all in the same place either copy or move them to a new common folder and put the PTE file in the same folder. Next edit the PTE file looking for the "Picture=" lines and alter it to the new path. Now when you open the PTE file it should find everything and allow you to make your DVD. This may be lengthy if you have hundreds of images, but again to prevent this in the future just use the Zip feature to zip the whole thing up which can then be moved anywhere and used perfectly from the new location. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dennis, I'm not absolutely certain about this so consider it a "guess", but I suspect it may have to do with the number of frames per time period difference. PTE can use high frame rates in executable slideshows thus making transition effects very smooth. Since DVD frame rates are fixed by standards and not variable, were the transition periods identical but with lower frame rate it may not look as smooth and the results may also be affected by whether you are using interlaced or non-interlaced mode. Perhaps Igor can shed more light on this... Best regards, Lin

Hi Bob, You can download my pdf here: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/snowforp2e.pdf You can also go to Panos's website and download his snowglobe action along with my PTE template which already has a snow png created. You can use the snow png in any PTE slideshow. Whether the flakes are large and soft or small and hard, whether they fall faster or slower and the direction of snowfall depends on how many times you insert the png image, how large you expand it, and the angle and speed with relation to the length of the timeline for display. I believe I set my template for a 60 second display which you can then either stop the display or let PTE "repeat". If you just want snowfall in a regular display or slideshow read the PDF and either use the already prepared png file or create one according to the instructions. You may also want to experiment with other tools. The essence is that you have a white background which has multiple areas erased so that only small areas of white (snow) remain with the rest transparent. There are any number of tools one might use to create this effect but I used the "sponge" tool as you will read about in the PDF. Here's the link to Panos' site with link to where you can download the template and where you can download Panos snowglobe action if you like. http://www.panosfx.com/index.php?option=co...d&Itemid=39 Register - then go to forum then to "free stuff" and poke around - lots of great actions, etc. Best regards, Lin

Hi Papy, Something was lost in the translation - but I think you want to make a title page with some "effect" to put at the start of your slideshow. Perhaps the best way to proceed is to create an image for the backgound as your first slide. This can be a blank white or black or other color jpg, or it could be a photo. Next you add this as your first slide. Select this opening image by left clicking the mouse on it. Now choose the Objects and Animations page and drag the image to cover the screen. Next place your mouse cursor in the Objects List below all objects. Be sure no objects are selected (blue) then right click the mouse and you will see a drop-down menu. Place the mouse cursor over "Add" then from the pop-up list left click on "Text or Hyperlink" and the word "Text" will appear on background page. Left click the mouse cursor on the "Properties" tab in the upper left of your screen. Choose the font you want to use from the drop-down list. It's best to choos a font commonly found on all computers such as Times Roman. If you then click on the "A" you can choose the color of the font. Choose Bold for your title then highlilght the word "Text" where it appears in the box on the right under the Bold, Italic, Underline and replace the word "Text" with what you want the title to say. Once you have this done and have resized (drag the text by the small squares) the text to the size you want. You can then drag the entire text off the screen to the bottom or top, (your choice and you may want to change the percent size of the screen at the top so you can see beyond the area of the monitor as represented). Next click on "Customize Slide" and change the time from the 4 second default to a longer time such as 20 seconds. Next insert a keypoint to the far right along the time line (right click the mouse on the timeline) then drag the text where you want it to end up. Set the opacity to your preference (if you want to fade out the text) and you have a scrolling Title. Best regards, Lin

One caveat about downloading ATI drivers. If you have an older ATI Radeon 9800 Pro card which resides in an AGP bus slot you do not download the "latest" ATI drivers because they won't work with your system. The latest drivers are for cards with a PGI bus. I spoke with ATI yesterday and they recommended "not" using 7.12 for AGP based Radion 9800 Pro cards, so if you have an AGP based Radeon card you may want to call ATI and ask then which specific version to download. I know the site shows two Catalyst downloads (one just the driver and the other a complete package) for the 9800 Pro card and they are both 7.12 but they "won't" work properly if you have an AGP bus per ATI technical support. It's all very confusing at ATI and they really need to get their information straight on their web site. Best regards, Lin

I think the confusion comes from position versus layer level. When you add new objects to the Objects List they are by default added to the "top" layer and displace whatever previously existed at that position. However the top layer is the "bottom" position on the objects list. From the perspective of layers the top layer is the visible object where other objects will be partially or completely obscured depending on relative opacity settings and extent of visible object portion. When a non-transparent background file occupies the "top" layer it will, depending on opacity setting, obscure any other objects on layers beneath. The underlying assumption is, I suspect, that since the "main slide" is usually a jpg, bmp, etc., it should occupy the lowest layer if subsequent PNG objects are added above it so they may be seen. This is why the displacement of the top layer by subsequent object entries which are "usually" transparent background PNG's or other jpgs which are to be made smaller to fit side-by-side in some situations. It's much easier for new users of PTE to simply experiment and "see" what happens rather than trying to explain it verbally. Best regards, Lin

============================================================================= i agree. the comments above definitely helped me with this project. fyi, the project turned out great. i did use PTE to create 3 slide shows and then VideoBuilder to export 3 mpeg2 files. i later used adobe encore to assemble the pieces into a dvd that plays in standard dvd players hooked up to TVs. things to learn: a lot! * i need to better understand the differences between .avi files and .mpeg2 files. * i need to learn the strengths and weaknesses of PTE * i need to learn the differences between PTE and ProShow Gold * i need to understand what PTE's .exe files are and why they supposedly produce images that are better on computer screens. * i need to understand what the differences are between viewing video & slideshows on a computer screen and a tv monitor * i need to understand what HD TVs are * i'd like to experiment with creating animation using Flash and seeing if it can produce usable .mpeg files for dvd projects * i need to understand what objects are in PTE and what kinds of animation one can achieve with PTE ============================================================================= Some of the above I can address - other parts will require "independent study" LOL The primary difference between ProShow Gold and PTE is image qualilty. I use both products and have since before they were released so have a bit of insight on this. PTE is hardware rendered. ProShow Gold is not. What this means is that in PTE the GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) in your video card is used to "render" the images which comprise the executable file. When Pan, Zoom or Rotate are used, up to 60 or more per second are created as intermediary stages from the image you begin with to the image the animation ends with. With hardware rendering each of these created intermediary images are equal in resolution to the original. With ProShow Gold and other presentation slideshow software, because they were originally oriented toward the end product being DVD (low resolution NTSC or PAL), the original image is resampled down to about 800x600 pixels which is still a bit higher than DVD resolution, then the software rendering creates the intermediary steps (multiple images) and only about 30 frames per second maximum. This is all that is required to produce optimal DVD at NTSC or PAL resolutions. When you ask ProShow or other non PTE products which create executable slideshows to make a slideshow at say 1200x1600 resolution, they then resample these previously downsampled images back to 1200x1600 resolution for the executable file. This has the unavoidable consequence of much lower image quality than PTE which only downsamples the original to create a DVD, MPEG II or AVI file. This is why image quality is much better with PTE than with competing products. Because ProShow Gold is always rendered at about DVD resolution anyway and because there will be no need to change from perhaps 60 or 70 frames per second like PTE, it's rather easy to drop in an AVI or MPG movie clip. This is an advantage for those using lots of movie clips with their slideshows. But for "quality" slideshows in executable format "NOTHING" else comes close to PTE. So PTE's executable slideshows are the highest quality because computers are designed to use high resolution images. Standard NTSC and PAL pretty much are optimized for the low resolution of "standard" television. Once you downsample images to NTSC or PAL resolution for DVD, AVI or MPEG output, the quality is just not the same as High Definition TV or the ultimate, executable code on a computer. HDTV right now has a maximum resolution of 1080p. This means an image of about two megapixels (1920x1080 horizontal pixel count by vertical line count and progressive rather than interlaced display). Two megapixel resolution in standard computer monitor aspect ratio is 1600x1200. In other words there is no difference in the display resolution between 1920x1080 and 1600x1200. The difference is in the aspect ratio of the display. PTE can produce much higher resolution shows than two megapixels so a computer show made with PTE at high resolution and displayed on a high resolution monitor will be sharper and have more detail than even the best HDTV. PTE can create animations not possible with ProShow Gold. It has features such as Parent/Child relationships which when coupled with complete opacity control can do things simply not possible with ProShow Gold (hereafter PSG). PTE has the ability to move the center of object rotation anywhere on or off the display - this is not possible with PSG. PTE has complete custom control of linear and non-linear movement. On Flash: Flash is essentially another way to encode movies or slideshows which is highly compressed so as to allow viewing over limited bandwidth media such as the web. There is absolutely zero advantage to creating a Flash show then converting to AVI or MPEG. It's counterproductive and is usually done in the opposite direction. The advantage of Flash is small, tight code which has some unique features making it very useful for internet displays. It's advantages are not higher quality. Some new Flash iterations are coming which may change this - but presently the only advantage is as a means of displaying your slideshows over the web. Lower quality is unavoidable. Objects in PTE: Objects are a way of describing slides which reside on separate "layers" in PTE. The "Main" slide is on the top layer and sometimes that's all you will have in a slideshow. But if you want fancy animation with a 3D effect where one object passes in front or behind another object, then you create objects in Photoshop, etc., which have transparent backgrounds (usually PNG format) then place these objects in separate layers in PTE. Each object can have its own rotation, zoom, timing, opacity, etc., and you can have unlimited (only by resources) objects on a single slide appearance. If you read the User Guide carefully, most of this is explained. If you email me I will be glad to furnish you with samples showing some of the things which are unique to PTE and which can't be done with either ProShow Gold or ProShow Producer. I can also provide you with links to various audio/visual tutorials I have created to show you how to accomplish some of these effects with PTE. Hope this answers some of your questions.... Lin [email protected]

Hey Ken, A good bottle of Scotch always works for me! You can skip the othe liquids and get pain relief at the same time... LOL. Sorry about the fall, that ice is always a p.i.t.a. for me this time of year. I usually fall at least two times but have been luck and never hurt anything more than my "dignity" - HA! Seriously, have a great Christmas and New Year and let folks wait on you for a change. It's a long recovery time when you get compound fractures. Many years ago a 20 ton transformer on a crane which was traversing faster than the operator should have took my right arm through a steel building wall and crushed my right wrist. I was in a cast for 13 weeks and finally cut it off with my pocket knife when I got my 18 wheeler stuck in a drift going over Loveland Pass in a blizzard and had to shovel it out. I thought the arm and wrist were fine because I could shift with it and lift, etc., but when the cast came off I could barely hold my arm up because of muscle atrophy. So be careful and keep it elevated to keep the swelling down. It will take time but eventually you'll be good as new (or at least as good as before the fall)..... Best regards, Lin

I think in this case using what is most familiar to you would be wise. Later, when you are more familiar and have time to experiment with Video Builder you may find it suitable for doing this type thing, but under pressure you will undoubtedly do better by creating the MPEG II files from PTE output with Video Builder then assemblilng the whole to include your video clips with Encore, a more familiar tool. Probably under pressure is not the best time to experiment. If you already know how to assemble the whole and create the menu in Encore my suggestion would be to use it for this project. Video Builder is very powerful but does take some time to learn and as you know, it's much easier to learn about new tools when you are not sleepy and under a deadline. Hopefully, in a week or so Jeff and I will have the updated addendum to the User Guide to include the new features of Video Builder, but since 5.1 was just released we haven't begun because of potential last minute changes. The quality should be identical from Encore. Just include a note to the parents that DVD's are generally better played on a stand-alone player connected to a TV than on a computer. The quality is generally better because a TV is designed for interlaced output while most computer output is progressive. There are always exceptions, but in general DVD's played through a television are preferred to DVD's played over a computer system. Once this project is over, get some re-writable DVD's and experiment with Video Builder and you may find in the future that it might be preferred especially when there isn't a lot of video clips from your video camera. Video Builder isn't like Encore in the sense that it's not a Video editing tool but really a tool designed primarily to output PTE slideshows with the "ability" to include video clips as a convenience. With Encore you can splice together various clips into a contigious product. With Video Builder you simply have separate little video clips with no editing capability. For what you are doing with this project by all means use Encore for the final assembly. Output your PTE portion to MPEG II with Video Builder then take those MPEG II's into Encore and combine with your videocam clips to make the show. Best regards, Lin