Lin Evans

Thanks Greg - the older systems probably don't have a 3D graphics card and with this beta version I think that's necessary. With the release and possibly with later beta version the shows can be run from the processor and not absolutely "require" a graphics card with hardware acceleration, etc. The vast majority of people change computers every three years or so and it's much more likely that the older systems will be replaced sooner rather than later. LOL Best regards, Lin

O.K. Guys here's the first stab at a tutorial. It's on the web so probably best to print it off (about 9 pages). Don't hold me to correct spelling and my Microsoft Publisher I used to make these pages is acting up so it's not too pretty - but I think it will get most of you through applying animations and perhaps doing a picture in picture animation as well. More to come later when I get more time. http://www.lin-evans.net/beta5/index.html Best regards, lin

The file dimensions were 2268x1512 pixels and the "average" jpg file size was 1.5 meg Best regards, Lin Hi Ken, LOL - they were trying unsuccessfully to dig out a ground squirrel which managed to evade their best efforts and live to pass on these "superior" ground squirrel genes to it's progeny! Best regards, Lin

Hi Heather, Thanks - not the most aesthetic slideshow I've done but really just wanted to try out the features - the possibilities are certainly great with these features... best regards, Lin Hi Igor, With great power features there will always be difficulties with eazy user interface but your approach certainly makes sense once the user undstands that everything happens between the key points. It's an excellent way to achieve this - actually I can't think of any other way you could have done it. I'm working on a tutorial which may de-mystify the interface for those having issues - hopefully I'll have something ready (a "beta tutorial" LOL) tonight or possibly tomorrow. It took a few hours to figure out how everything fit together but it's much easier than people will first think. Thanks so much for releasing this beta so we can all learn the process and by the time 5.0 release is ready there will be plenty of "experts" here to help new users. Best regards, Lin LOL - as we speak it's in process! Hopefully later today or tomorrow I'll have a first stab at it! Best regards, Lin Hi Ron, Hard to say - it "may" have something to do with the memory leak. I've not noticed it but will try it myself to see if I can duplicate the problem. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, It's a fun one for sure - the first stab at a tutorial is in process :-) best regard, Lin Hi Maureen, Yes, incredible possibilities for this for sure! best regards, Lin

Too Cool! This isn't a great slideshow but it does show the power of the Beta 5 by using (actually over-using) some of the great features such as multiple images on screen simultaneously with individual control over zoom, pan, rotate, transparency, etc. I learned that it's best to drag your final keypoint close to the transition to avoid abrupt stops in motion (you can see a few of them in this show). Once the "speed control" to slow down or speed up the motion is effective in the next beta, this probably won't be necessary, but to avoid an abrupt stop to action it's easier to drag the final keypoint close to the transition at the end to make a smooth end to one slide and a nice beginning to the next. I haven't the skills that Igor has with using transparent PNG files - I couldn't make one work yet - for scrolling text so I used the older and more crude transparent GIF, but this program rocks!!! You can make text do about anything you want this way. Anyway - for anyone with a pretty good video card this should run very smoothly. The images are high resolution in general and average a couple megabytes each or so. Link to the zipped executable below: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/coyote.zip Thanks Igor and crew - fantastic start!!! Best regards, Lin

Fantastic! It's already working better than we dreamed and it's only early beta! I love the ability to add multple images each with its own motion and transparency. There will be a learning curve, but I'm very impressed with the features and the power you've implemented. We will have to begin a careful "How To" list because there are lots of new powerful possibilities here. Thanks so much to the development team for getting out this great new powerful program! Best regards, Lin

All working perfectly now on all our machines thanks to Igor's help. I had a bad file in my driver set for my Radeon 9800 Pro card - a new driver set and some diagnostics and it's now working perfectly. This is heads and shoulders above anything out there for smoothness and power folks. I've used them all including ProShow Gold and Producer and they can't hold a candle to what can be done here!! Great big C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S to Igor and the development team - this was indeed worth waiting for!! Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, It works perfectly on all of my systems except one. On my 3.2 GHz Intel Perntium 4 with Hyper Threading and using an 800 MHz Front Side Bus and ATI Radeon 9800 Pro neither show will load. I suspect it's something with this system so I'm going to try running it from the safe mode and will get back. On all our other six systems it runs perfectly. The pans and zooms are SOOOOO much BETTER than the competition there is no comparison!! Congrautlation!!! Best regards, Lin

O.K., here's the link to the html pages which will demonstrate how to make a permanent AVI file with P2E. This one isn't a temporary "template" which will be erased when you exit P2E but rather a regular AVI file which you can use with any DVD burning software to create a DVD. http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/makeavi/index.html Best regards, Lin

It occurs to me that because there seems to be so much confusion over how to do this, that there must be something which is being overlooked by the majority - I believe I know what it is and I'm preparing a detailed instruction guide. I'll make this available as an HTML page later today. Right now I'm making screen captures of each step so ANYONE can easily duplicate this process. Lin

Think of a codec as you would a "program". There is no conflict with having multiple "codecs" reside simultaneously on your computer. These (the relevant ones) are programs which are used to encode, decode (CoDec) and compress mpeg data into AVI files. With ACE you can install as few or as many different codecs as you desire. The codecs you have installed will show up when you choose the "Custom AVI" feature with PicturesToExe. The only one you really need to burn a DVD with the "Create a Custom AVI" choice on P2E is the mpeg 4 codec because it is compatible with all current DVD burning and authoring software, but there is no "penalty" or "conflict" for having numerous different codecs reside on your computer. If you have both Nero and Roxio software on your computer and you "don't" have issues, you are very lucky. For the vast majority they are incompatible when simultaneously installed on the same computer. As I remember, there are caveats in the installation instructions which warn of this. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jerry, The issue is that there are a great number of users who have zero problems - you don't hear from them because virtually no one who has zero problems comes to a forum and posts a comment saying so. In a large percentage of cases when people are having difficulty burning DVD's it's because they either don't have the proper software or they have previously installed Roxio and then installed Nero or vice versa. Because these two are incompatible and because they do not fully uninstall (vestige information is still in the registry) no matter which software is being used to attempt to burn DVD's there are going to be problems. The number of problems and complaints on the ProShow forums about this issue is huge. PhotoDex and some other companies have elected to include their own burning software in their packages. When it works correctly it's fantastic. You just click on the DVD choice, load your blank in the drive and wait until the process has ended. But, and this is a very large issue, when it DOESN'T work properly because of various issues such as the aforementioned Roxio/Nero install or the presence of other software which also burns DVD's and is incompatible with the PhotoDex burning engine, the user is stuck big time with no alternatives. They do not provide an alternative way of burning a DVD if their internal engine fails for any reason. The authors of P2E elected to do it another way by providing an AVI template which works with several leading DVD authoring programs and IN ADDITION provided a means of creating an AVI using the codec of your choice from the ones available on your computer or from ones you elect to install on your computer. By not FORCING you to use the ptec codec, they have made it possible for virtually all to be able to burn DVD's. If you have problems one way, you can always use alternate ways. What these complaints seem to boil down to is that Fonz and you would prefer P2E to have an internal DVD burning engine so you don't need to rely on other software. That's fine and it may indeed be something Igor decides to implement in the next version. But even if he does this, it will not obviate the issue of NEEDING an alternative. The issue is that it's exceedingly simple to use the PicturesToExe alternative and burn an AVI which is compatible with virtually every burning engine in every piece of stand-alone software. Ken and I have linked numerous times to the free ACE Codec pack which contains, among dozens of others, the MPEG 4 codec which is perhaps the best, if not one of the best codec available for producing superior quality AVI files which can then be burned with virtually any stand-alone package such as Nero or Roxio or authoring packages such as Vegas Video, Ulead Movie Factory, etc. I'm perplexed as to why anyone who has read the instructions would have any problems at all brining an AVI which can then easily be made into a DVD. I can understand complaints about not having an internal DVD burning engine in P2E - but that's another issue entirely. What I can't understand is the reluctance to take the very simple step of ensuring that you have the MPEG 4 codec on your computer then choosing this from the list and creating your AVI file...... Lin

It does it both ways - can make a permanent AVI or use the AVI template which translated by Ulead, etc., results in the DVD. That's why I asked what codecs you see when you click on the "custom AVI". Usually you will have a number of codecs already on your computer from different installs. There are free codecs available in a single group which you can install one or a hundered different ones incuding Microsoft's mpeg 4 which is recognized by almost all software. You are not using "custom codecs" - that's misleading, what you are doing is "choosing" a codec which is widely recognized. The ptev codec is not widely recognized but works well with the Ulead and other programs on the list. If you want to create an AVI using mpeg 4 then you simply need to have the mpeg 4 codec installed on your computer. Go here and download the free package and you will have the opportunity to create using about every imaginable codec available. I suggest mpeg 4 for video simply because it's a very good codec and widely recognized by burning software. http://www.free-codecs.com/download/ACE_Mega_CoDecS_Pack.htm The simple answer to your question is that you "can" do exactly what you want to do by choosing the "custom AVI" selection then choosing a codec, bitrate, etc., which will make you a permanent AVI file which you can do whatever with. Best regards, Lin

You have your slideshow created then you click on "Video" at the bottom of your screen on the tab between Project Options and Timeline. A popup box will appear. Click in the top choice "Create Custom AVI Video File" then click in the "Video Codec" box and another popup window will appear which is named "Video Compression". Under the word "Compressor" in this box, click on the checkmark in the small blue box to the right of whatever is written beside the checkmark and a drop-down "picklist" with the available codecs will appear. I suspect you do not have the necessary codec to encode or decode the video for the AVI. Please report back the list of available codecs and we can go from there. Lin

Are you watching the AVI after conversion to DVD on a PAL television or are you watching the AVI file only on your computer? The reason I ask is that there are changes on a television because it can't display the same number of colors as your computer and some codecs allow decreasing the brightness by some amount to compensate for the differences between a television and the computer. If the brightness levels are not decreased for the conversion to DVD then the colors will appear washed out or less intense on the TV. I "think" what your translator is calling "material acceleration" is what is known as "hardware acceleration" on the Windows setup for any particular graphics card. I can't think of any good reason why hardware acceleration would affect the color, but this is a question better answered by Igor. If you could link to a sample of the AVI as well as original jpg's used to create the AVI perhaps others can see the differences and maybe offer suggestions. Best regards, Lin

+Vegas Movie Studio 6 comes with DVD Architect Studio which lets you do this... Very nice and powerful package $89 http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/shopping/...gory.asp?id=109 Lin

Hi Ken, First - happy Easter - thanks for ringing this out, I know it was a long one! Hey tell my wife I've got some talent - LOL, she's convinced I should have continued in academics which bored me to death! HA! Actually, I would probably have made more money had I still been teaching Anthro or Physics than I've ever made as a photographer but it's been much more fun with the camera all these years... Best regards, Lin

Yes, thanks for the feedback! I'm wondering if this may be related to a particular video card or combination since you had difficulty and had to uninstall the earlier Flash version to get Flash 8 to work. The pixel 'twinkle" about every three seconds is normal and corresponds to keyframes but the "blotch" isn't and "shouldn't" be there. Flash 8 isn't nearly as good as viewing an mpg or even a good AVI for sure, but I'm suspecting that there may be some interaction perhaps between the LCD monitor which tends to reveal more issues because of the difference in the way video is displayed (versus CRT where there is phosphor persistence) and perhaps your particular video card. It would be helpful if you could tell me which particular card you have and how much RAM is installed. When I get some more feedback from other viewers perhaps we can put it all together and make sense of whatever individual differences we see from system to system. Unfortunately, there isn't any perfect or even near perfect "solution" for cross-platform presentations via web. I've pretty well run into a stone wall with Java and HTML which both work very well as long as there is no subject "movement" (video frames) and QuickTime is way too large to implement decent sized slideshows. Earlier Flash iterations don't have the compression range of Flash 8 and require much higher bitrates to get similar (to Flash 8) image quality so the downloads for streaming must be appropriately longer which make them fine for smaller slideshows, but for a behemoth like this one they run the meter to exhaustion on server resources. I had high hopes for divx but it doesn't look like that will pan out either so for now Flash 8 seems to still be the best compromise even though, as said, it has its share of problems. I would love to see some affordable technology which could spool a simple AVI. Of course the AVI would still be huge compared to the compression levels of Flash 8 - and that may indeed be part of the problem you experience. Best regards, Lin

I decided to take one of my larger slideshows and convert it to Flash 8 FLV to test the efficiency for really large slideshows. This one started as an over one gigabyte mpg converted to Flash 8 FLV with 0n2 Technologies Flix Pro. I'm hoping we get a beta of 5.0 soon so I can duplicate this one with P2E - this one was made with a competitive product (PSG) which I really don't like nearly as much as P2E because I've not had good luck with either support or issues being quickly resolved. It seems every new release brings yet more bugs so I'm anxiously awaiting P2E V. 5.0 beta which I know will knock the socks of of PSG. The original mpg output of +1 gigabyte size was reduced to a 106 megabyte Flash 8 FLV encoding at 640x480 screen display size. It was encoded with 29.970 frames per second and a 512 kbps bitrate. As with my other test show, this requires the Flash 8 player and broadband. If you don't already have the Flash 8 player, clicking on the link below will point your browser at the Adobe (Macromedia) site where you can quickly download and install it (takes only a few seconds). Then click on the link below again and the show will play. For those who already have Flash 8, a preload of 15% was used for the player so that 15% of 106 megabytes or about 15 megabytes must download before the show begins. There is a text "percentage loaded" message which counts from one to fifteen percent. If this one runs well on most broadband systems, then essentially any size slideshow can do likewise. The tradeoff with Flash 8 FLV is compression. Some image quality is sacrificed for the huge amount of compression, but overall I think it's "good enough" and provides cross-platform compatibility (will run equally well on MacIntosh or PC). This show runs about 27 minutes...... http://www.lin-evans.net/ctml/ctml.html Best regards, Lin

Thanks for checking it - see my post on "torture test" for Flash 8.... Lin

I read the link. You know Adobe is as guilty as anyone of propagating false information - LOL - they use the term "resolution' with ppi saying "an image captured at 72 ppi resolution". Digital cameras don't "capture" at any ppi, they capture via X number of horizontal by Y number of vertical photosites (sampling sites) which create some particular file size depending on whether the original processor is a CFA (bayer processed) or Foveon design. The camera captures an image by creating a matrix of the numerical equivalence of so many pixels across by so many down. This has absolutely nothing specifically to do with "resolution" but is only loosely correlated with the number of sampling photosite wells on the processor. This correlation is only good for CFA processors. For example, your Nikon CP990 produces a file with 3.37 million pixels of video information. The measured optical resolution via B&W resolution chart measurement is 800 horizontal by 850 vertical lines per image height. A Sigma SD10 using the Foveon X3 processor produces a file with 3.4 million pixels of video information which is very close to your Nikon CP990. The measured optical resolution via B&W resolution chart measurement is 1550 horizontal by 1550 vertical lines per image height. This is about twice the optical resolution of the CP990. How? Because the Foveon processor uses 9.3 million sampling sites to produce a 3.4 megapixel file size. A bit better than a six megapixel CFA sensor with 3.4 megapixel files. So you can see that there is no "necessary" correlation between pixel count and true optical resolution. Back to Adobe. The EXIF tag 72dpi or 300 dpi simply identifies how closely the print pixels will be grouped (pixel density) or how many per unit of linear measurement in "dots per inch or pixels per inch". To refer to it as "resolution" is highly misleading - shame on Adobe... LOL The important thing is that you have an answer. Best regards, Lin

The really strange thing is that you see 300dpi at all unless you have modified the file in PhotoShop. Both your cameras default the exif tag for dpi at 72. As I'm sure you already know, this is simply a "tag" which tells the printer how large the print would be if it were printed at this resolution. Many years ago when PC's had no graphics, the MacIntosh was "graphics central" for imaging. The old MacIntosh monitors were 72 pixel per inch display resolution. In 1990 when PhotoShop was first released they decided to use this as a "default" for their displays so all dimensions in inches or millimeters were based on 72 dpi or 72 ppi - terms which have been traditionally used incorrectly and indiscriminately. Most digital camera makers from years back used 72 dpi (ppi) as their default EXIF tag. Obviously nobody prints at 72dpi so printer drivers automatically set their print density according to the "quality" you have chosen. In the case of most Epson inkjet printers it's 720 dpi and for Hewlett-Packard inkjet printers it's 600 dpi. This really has nothing to do with the number of ink dropletts used which is what makes it even more confusing. The printers may use 2400 or 1200 or even higher numbers of ink dropletts per inch but it often takes many ink dropletts to represent a single pixel. The actual number of "pixels" per inch for the Epson fine quality print on gloss paper is 720. The printer may actually use 2400 tiny drops of ink to produce these 700 pixels of print information. Today there are a few digital camera manufacturers - usually Canon - which "tag" the exif header with 180 ppi rather than 72, but both your cameras use 72 ppi as the native default tag. Perhaps Windows or if you by chance have installed PixVue may be changing this default which has no real meaning except that if the display algorithms in use by the software and video card may display the images at different sizes. In either case whatever you see in PhotoShop is undoubtedly the correct ppi exif tag. No matter what you have it set for, it will be changed to the print density needed when you select the quality and size print you want. It's rather comical listening to all the chatter about whether to "feed" the printer 300 dpi or 180 dpi or whatever. If you are printing on an inkjet, the driver will override whatever you give it unless it happens to be what the printer "requires." For the vast majority of dye sublimation printers including Durst Lambda, Kodak and LightJet this is 300 dpi. For some of the Fuji printers it's 400 dpi and for others it's 300 dpi. For the vast majority of other dye sublimation printers it's 300 dpi. Best regards, Lin

Thanks for checking this for me Ron. I've about decided that that for the present iteration of P2E about the best way to present them over the web is with a straight AVI show and perhaps a message to the viewer that they will need to wait a bit for the download to complete before the slideshow starts. To get streaming one needs to use Flash, but to get the best Flash implementation the new Flash 8 player is needed and of course software to convert the AVI into Flash. The least expensive is still Riva Producer Lite which does a nice job but uses the older Flash implementation which doesn't have nearly the image quality of the original AVI. To get "decent" image quality takes a pretty large file size which is inconvenient even for those with good broadband. The newer products which produce Flash 8 are more expensive but Flash 8 produces excellent quality at very compressed file sizes. What takes 80 megabytes in Riva Producer (high bitrate - tough for even broadband) can be done with a 22 megabyte file in Flash 8 at equal quality, but then most people don't have Flash 8 installed so a "pop-up" file with Flash 8 detection must be used to port the visitor to the Macromedia site where they must then download and install Flash 8 before watching the movie. This "can" be daunting to inexperienced users so even though it's a very viable solution, it's still somewhat cumbersome and fairly expensive and requires a bit of technical skill on the part of the slideshow producer to accomplish. So no "perfect" solution as of yet - hopefully by the time Version 5 is released (not the beta) there will be some good tools to facilitate this... Best regards, Lin