Lin Evans

Thanks Peter, I've "fixed" the issue with music change, I think. It "shouldn't" pause there - probably a resource issue. The abrupt changes are because of using linear in the first slide (long pan and reverse) but I had to do that because "smooth" causes excessive shimmer on the beginning of the pan. I've played with curves, etc., and changing in custom to start with linear then go to smooth but too much shimmer remains in this case so I just kept linear. I did put a "stop" before reverse when at the end of the long pan which somewhat ameliorates the "jerk" at that point. I think this one is on the "ragged edge" so it will probably only be suitable for 128 meg video. Cor just responded and had difficulties in places both with sound and with video so the 64 meg card is not quite up to the task. Once I get the parameters worked out for something which will work I'll publish my findings. Best regards, Lin

Hi Cor, Thanks - that's exactly what I need to know. These are almost all indicative of being on the ragged edge of RAM in the Video Card. Sound hiccups, "pulling in the middle of image" jumps, jerks, etc., are caused by loading and unloading of files because the card can't quite keep up with the amount of RAM load. On my 128 meg Radeon 9800 Pro card it's all smooth without any noticeable jerks or sound interruptions, but on several of my systems with 64 meg video I get a variety of "strangeness" - LOL. The "shimmer" is something I can't really do much to control. It's caused by sharpness in the images. When the speed is low, it's not as noticeable but only because it happens quickly except on pans. Using "smooth" on long slow pans will exacerbate any "shimmer" when the pan starts or stops so on the first pan across the very long pano I used linear. This accounts for the abrupt stop and at the reversal to zoom toward the stacks. Stopping before "patching" in slides eliminates some of that for the close-in zooms, but can't stop it all. Using the "blur" feature helps somewhat with the "shimmer" but if the viewer is using an LCD monitor it's nearly impossible to stop it completely without simply having blurry images - something the competition does and which accounts partially for their lower quality images. It's a mixed bag; you either get nice sharp images with shimmer or soft images without shimmer. No free lunch I'm afraid so something we need to "design around" when we make slideshows. A long while ago I discussed this with Igor and perhaps in the future there may be a way to institute a temporary "blur" to soften the images while moving then a quick return to the sharp image when motion stops. Something possibly for the future. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, I temporarily lost the file which I had uploaded to my server. Must be senility setting in - LOL... It's back up and the link is working now. Best regards, Lin

YES!!! Things will be fine! Please enjoy yourself and get some well deserved rest. Best regards, Lin

Found it! Linked now. Hi Folks, Still trying to find the practical limits for panorama zooms, pans, etc. This one may be overkill but that's the only way for me to find out where practical limits are. I've used the techniques of "infinite zoom" in this. I haven't color matched the pano to "patch" slides but have decided it will work satisfactorily especially if the transitions are not done while "moving" in pan or zoom but rather when temporarily stationary. I would appreciate any feedback about smoothness, etc., not concerned about the aesthetics - just a quickly thrown together project to test practical limits for RAM, pan, zoom, etc. About 58 meg zipped executable... Not for 32 meg systems - will take at least 64 meg video card... http://www.lin-evans.org/pte/lostfile.zip Lin

LOL - Al, get some coffee! Actually, you apply it once on the first slide and it functions for all slides. Best regards, Lin

Hi Patrick, Two observations: First, you very well know that your frustrations are primarily because of your hardware limitations. A program which uses GPU power works best with a reasonably up-to-date GPU. That is no mystery. Second, you also know that you don't "have" to pay to create a DVD with version 5 any more than you did with 4.xx - you only have to pay if you want the convenience of authoring your DVD via Video Builder. The standard version outputs an AVI just as it always has. There is nothing unfair or unreasonable about charging a small fee for a very nice convenience added to a product which is totally optional - you don't have to buy video builder. Best regards, Lin

Hi Moelwyn, Sorry you're having issues and I hope you find a satisfactory solution with a "competitor's" product. It will be interesting to know how you make out. As a fellow professional I find it most unusual however to wait until a project is due to attempt to learn to use a tool, and find it a little odd that you couldn't find a work-around for what seems a relatively simple issue. Using new software is a bit like using a new camera; perhaps best to practice a bit before the acid test. I can sympathize with your plight, but your solution may be less than practical and your expectations perhaps unrealistic, however it's all part of a learning process. The "sync to music" issue sounds very much like a user error in understanding since thousands are using this program with no problems in that regard. I might caution you to visit the forums and read the comments about bugs, issues and so on with the "competition's" products before reaching the conclusion that perhaps a "bug free" solution awaits you with another product. Of course this doesn't ameliorate your present concern so wishing you the best. Best regards, Lin

Hi Fred, I think the "solution" for now would be for you to continue using the latest beta which worked with hardware acceleration with your card. Perhaps in the future you can upgrade the Matrox to another card, but this is one of those cases where a "proper" code which detects a card not able to comply with standards and disables the hardware acceleration and will work for the best in "most" cases, is detrimental to your individual situation. If you don't have the beta's still installed, let me know which worked correctly for you and I'll post a link. I have most of them and can save Igor the effort of going backward and reposting a link to one of the older versions. Best regards, Lin

Hi Harry, The first thing which anyone will need to know "before" making a video card recommendation is the type of "bus" which will be used on your new computer. Actually, to be more specific, if you could find out which motherboard (brand and model) then it will be much easier to make a recommendation about the video card. Older style computers had AGP (Advanced Graphics Port) slots for a video card which were designed for that particular type card. Some very powerful cards were made for the AGP slot such as the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. These formerly very expensive cards are now available for around $100 and do a very good job with demanding PTE video shows. PCIe has replace many of the AGP designs and there are a number of very good cards designed for this environment. I would suggest reading this - and perhaps have your future son-in-law read it also: http://www.ehow.com/how_2007372_buy-video-card.html Lin

Hi Harry, You may want to do a search in the PicturesToExe forum for "Flash". Over the past year of so I have posted a few detailed descriptions of using Flash to convert your PTE slideshows for web use. For an inexpensive solution Riva Producer Light along with the free Riva encoder can be used effectively to create Flash FLV slideshows. There are two types of Flash (Flash SWF and Flash FLV) which differ a geat deal. Flash SWF is suitable for short slideshows which don't run over about 8 minutes total, but sound synchronization beyond about two minutes is highly problematical. The reason I say 8 minutes is predicated on the assumption that you will be using 29.97 frames per second. There is an absolute maximum of 16,000 frames on any SWF slideshow. When the show reaches 16000 frames it stops, period. So at approximately 30 fps, this means 30x60=1800 frames per minute. Times 9 minutes = 16,200 so nine minutes would exceed the 16,000 frame maximum. With Flash FLV there is no limit on frame numbers and no issues with sound synchronization. Also it's easier to set up a preload for progressive download (sends a percentage of file to users machine before play begins). Flash has a "progressive" mode which is similar in execution to a "streaming" movie except it actually resides on the viewer's hard disk and is spooled from that location rather than "server side streaming" where the show is streamed from the web server. If users really want high quality Flash, the Flash 8 is much smaller in file size without loss of quality. This is availalble via On2 Technologies Flix Pro or Flix Standard. The major differences other than cost (Flix Standard is cheap, Flix Pro is expensive) for most people is the fact that Flix Pro can have a cutomized player which is created with each Flash movie. Flash 8 is also available via Sorensen Squeeze and as an OEM product (maker O2 Technologies) via Wildform's WildPresenter Pro. If you want to link her to a sample, here's a link to the "infinite zoom" test show I posted to earlier done in Flash 8. The image quality is quite good but the pans are a bit jerky compared to the butter smooth executable, but at least she can see how it would work.... http://www.lin-evans.net/kachina/kachinazoom.htm Best regards, Lin

Hi Jean Claude, BRAVO!! Thank you very much - this is perfect!! Lin

To Igor and Development Team, Congratulations!! Thank you from all of us for the hard work and dedication culminating in the finest presentation slideshow software available! You can be very proud and now take a well deserved break. You have greatly exceeded our wildest expectations. Best regards, Lin

You might try the freeware "Picasa" from Google. It's very powerful and does what you are asking. http://www.picasa-2007.net/download.php?lang=US Lin

Hi Mike, Perhaps this might help. Every ISP which I've been acquainted with over the years has a feature called "web mail" which is a service that allows you to reach emails from their site from anywhere in the world by logging on to the ISP's web site then looking for the "web mail" or "email" link. Once you click on that link it will ask you to enter your user I.D. and Password and then you can easily retrieve any emails you have received. Best regards, Lin

Hi Colin, That's the nice thing about the new "non-linear" zoom and "perspective correction" in PTE 5. You can tailor the zoom to any curve desired so can control the apparent speed with near infinite precision. It's actually the "transition" points where the difficulty arises. I'm hoping for a separate "zoom-in" and "zoom-out" control in a future version to facilitate making an apparent continuous zoom. Actually when I first posted, I wasn't too concerned (still not) about the continuity of the zoom as appearing to zoom a single huge image at constant speed so much as the ability to string relatively seamless matched images together to go from extreme wide angle to extreme macro on the same subject. My original intent was to be able to show closeup detail in areas from panoramas such as the Cliff Palace sample I posted. I would like to be able to shoot the initial frames for the stitched panorama then connect a series of longer focal length lenses to get photos which could be seamlessly dropped in at desired places on the slideshow to show extreme detail. Fortunately I have lenses going to optical focal lengths of as much as 1600mm (with 2x tele converter) and telescopes which I routinely use with various digicams to shoot at focal lengths of up to 6000mm with good light. I can envision, for example, being able to literally show the whiskers on a mouse or pika setting on an adobe brick at Cliff Palace in one of the rooms, and this done from the zoom off the stitched panorama. Admittedly, it's more than a bit of a grandiose experiment, but I think it can be done. On the topic of using the same image in stages - yes, actually I did that in my Kachina example. I interpolated a very good, well focused macro with Genuine Fractals (for edge sharpness) to get better than 1:1 on the closeups. The original macro was used then the interpolated and cropped version then back to the original in the slideshow. That's one of the very useful things about the SD14 - the ability to enlarge without serious loss of quality. I had several photos taken with it displayed at PMA in Los Vegas this year which were larger than A0 print size which turned out very well. Best regards, Lin

Hi Alain, The third keypoint on your first slide goes beyond the 4.00 second end point, so the action or animation (opacity in this case) continues into the following start point in real time for the timeline on the second slide. The 1500 ms transition time to slide two begins at 4.00 seconds. If you want to stop the appearance of slide one at the beginning of slide two as it is now programmed, then you can easily do that by setting an additional keypoint at about 4095 in slide one with the opacity set to zero. Opacity changes are by default linear and continue in time from whatever level they begin at to 100% or to zero (depending on direction) unless there is an intervening keypoint set to either "hold" opacity at some desired level. So setting a keypoint with opacity zet to zero at a short distance after 4.00 will "stop" any intrusion into slide #2. There will be some inconsistency as you have this sample set up because without choosing a transition effect (it's random as set) which one happens will be variable. Earlier on in the development phase of PTE, there was only linear pan, zoom and rotate. To avoid an abrupt "jerk" at the end of a zoom or pan, users would pull the ending keypoint beyond the alotted time on the timeline and into the following slide. They would then pull the start keypoint for the next slide backward into the ending timeline of slide one and thus get a very nice, smooth overlap. This is still a desired effect in many cases. So having the ability to "cross-fade" via the keypoints has been a desirable feature of PTE. Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, Something for the future. Possibly a "fade-out" and a separate "fade-in" transitions. One thing which has been problematic is matching precisely the end of a slide which is zooming in with the start of the next slide to continue the zoom in a seamless fashion. Perhaps if there were separate "fade-out" and "fade-in" transitions it would be easier to match these to make a seamless transition rather than the fade out/fade in. That is so that the timings could be different rather than the same for the beginning and end of a slide. If it were possible to end a fade out on slide "A" while slide "B" was beginning a "fade in" then when each are set to linear and with the same slide timings and zoom ratios and identical points and sizes on the timeline where one begins the fade out and the other the fade in then if the timings for the fades were identical the change from slide "A" to slide "B" would be virtually indistinguishable provided that the images were carefully matched for color, saturation, sharpness, contrast, levels, etc. Best regards, Lin

Hi Al, I think you can avoid adjusting your sildes individually. Just "select" them all in the slides list and whichever attribute you assign should be assigned to all unless I'm misunderstanding what you are discussing. \ On second look I see what you mean. You want to set the original size for all the images, but if you do it via the Project Options then you would have to change it individually for each other slide not in the "video" sequence. On the other hand, that might be quicker than doing it for all the video sequence individually. No good solution..... Best regards, Lin

One of the issues which has become apparent when playing with the infinite zoom concept is how to match ending zoom points with beginning zoom points on following slides. That has pretty well been worked out essentially by temporarily adding the next desired slide to the existing slide as an object, setting each opacity to less than 100% and manually/visually matching at ending keypoint for first slide. Then either copy numbers to insert in following slide or copy slide object, delete following slide and paste copied slide. That works well for the match and with perspective zoom, careful color match, display time match, etc., an excellent continuous zoom can be accomplished. But another problem presents itself and that is how to correctly determine the proper focal length increments for the original captures so as to: 1. Prevent pixelation by too deep zoom 2. Have sufficient overlap so as to allow a match without a black border on the zoomed out image There are probably more scientific and better ways to accomplish this, but my head is beginning to hurt from trying to decipher the variables so this is how I approach it. I take one of my original image which has not been altered and bring it into PTE. I've discovered that with my dSLR's which have a different aspect ratio than a 4:3 computer monitor I need a zoom of 112 to just fill the screen vertically without a black border. That's my starting point. Next I open the same image in Irfanview (to see it at 100% size without any resample) and use both Irfanview and PTE in the windowed mode. I increase the zoom on the PTE file until a measured object in the image just matches the measurement in Irfanview of the 100% image. In my case it turns out that the zoom is exactly 258. This figure will be different for different cameras depending on the pixel dimensions of your original file. In many, if not most cases, this will be a larger number. I'm using a dSLR which produces a 4.46 megapixel file with a 14 megapixel sensor, so my numbers don't reflect the norms. The point is, that I can then use this figure (258) in my case as a percentage of increment for focal lengths necessary to match maximum zoom in on frame "A" to matching maximum zoom out on frame "B". So if I take an image at 100mm then I can safely jump to 258mm for the second image then to as much as 666mm on the third frame, etc. I can always go "less" in terms of increments, but if I go more then I must either exceed 100% unpixelated zoom on my first image or have a black border on the matching image from the next slide. This is just a quick "non-mathematical" method of determining which increments you can use with your own cameras. Use a 100% sized image to measure some feature, match that feature in zoom with PTE and observe the zoom number. Use this number as a percentage of focal length safe to increment for your sequence. So if your own number turns out to be 432 then that's 4.32 times the lower focal length as a "step" or "increment" for the next frame. If your number is 347 then 3.47 times the lower focal length, etc. Lin

Hi Steve, No, it doesn't mean that at all. You can still run decompiled video as indivirual frames to simulate a move. What it means is that because of the necessary support for many other facets important to version 5.0, the operation isn't quite as "efficient" as with 4.48. I've run many instances of decompiled video with version 5 betas and they work quite well. If you try to set the frame rate to an extremely quick (10-25 ms) sequence, frames will be dropped, but even if a few frames are dropped as evidenced in an activity "log" it's not usually noticeable at all in the actual presentation. Remember, we are often feeding much larger files to PTE in video mode than true DVD NTSC or PAL resolutions. You should actually "try" it to see how it works. Often you don't need a full 29.97 frames per second to get nice smooth video. Movies have done very well over the years with 24 frames per second. A lot depends on the individual video. Make no mistake, the video's won't be as "smooth" in 5.0 as they are in 4.48 because it's not possible to support the extremely fast frame rates such as 38 frames per second - there will be dropped frames if the rate is much faster than about 75 frames per second but you will have to try it for yourself. Also, it works much better if you turn off hardware acceleration - at least it does for me. Of course this presents other issues so perhaps best overall to create an executable of the AVI in 4.48 and call that file via the object handling in 5.0 if you want really smooth video of any decent size. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, This is the one I use: http://www.onestopsoft.com/ Click on the "video decompiler" link. It's not "free" but it's very inexpensive and works great.... Lin