Lin Evans

Hi Cici, Very nice, that was quite a production!! Thanks!! Best regards, Lin

Actually, there are "professionals" using PTE - I've used PTE "professionally" for a number of years making my clients which have been some pretty prestigious art galleries and museums quite happy with AV shows. I don't believe I'm the only one doing this either. For my clients, there is absolutely zero advantage in using Wings except considerably more cost. The end product is no better for all the additional cost, and the difficulty in my experience a great deal more. The only time I would consider using Wings Platinum is if there were multiple projections, curved screens and other considerations not possible with PTE. In the vast majority of cases for my purposes Wings is overkill and m.Objects simply not stable enough. I have a friend in Norway who puts on extremely professional AV theatrical shows with huge projections, dozens of displays and high resolution video and he doesn't use Wings, m.Objects or PTE. The problem arises when we define the term "Professional Use." Professional means being paid for what you do. I have been paid very well for both my photography and for my creation of AV products by my clients and I find no problem at all with defining PTE as a Professional tool. As for the length of time it takes to produce the end product - that depends greatly on the skills of the user. What might take an experienced user of PTE a few hours could take a week to do with Wings Platinum depending on the degree and type of desired end product. If serious animation is involved, in my experience it's no contest. PTE wins hands down. PTE works very well for me as it is without the "features" used by lesser products. I would be very happy if someone would send me a "professional" AV made with Wings Platinum to be played on a single projected screen or high resolution display which is superior in any way to what I can accomplish with PTE. What the developers must decide is if they want to dabble with countless "features" to make the product more amenable to those who would probably be quite happy with the "standard" version or if they want to concentrate on the more important things which the experienced AV worker or professional photographer wants. Not having this feature under discussion has not kept PTE from being the # 1 choice among serious AV competitors. There are countless products which resize, resample, rename, etc., and adding that as yet another option to PTE seem to me to be superfluous. Will it really help sell the product? If so to whom? What are people using now which they will give up for PTE and for what purpose are they using their present product? That's my $.02 Best regards, Lin

Hi Tony, Actually, it all depends on what type of show you are creating, how much zooming in tight you intend or need to do and the resources available on the computer which is used to play the executable. There are limitations, but in normal shows it's not very often that they are exceeded. What I do is use images no larger in pixel dimensions than the display resolution I expect to be used to play the show except for those images where I either crop or zoom in tight. In such cases I may use originals. In my own case it "could" be anywhere from a 10 megapixel capture to an 80 megapixel capture. Generally, I try to limit my originals to no larger than about 30 megapixel optical resolution even for heavy zooms, but there are times when I use a Phase One P65 or a Leaf Credo 80 which one of my good friends has and lets me borrow occasionally. As long as 32 bit limits are not exceeded, things work quite well. Personally, I have no need or interest in having PTE downsample and save my images under another name. It's just as easy for me to downsample those I want using the batch features of Irfanview and leave the original size for only those necessary. Having PTE do this on the fly would just prolong what is normally a pretty efficient operation and in my own case would not be a feature I would care to use. I can understand why some might want everything done for them in software, but letting the user make those decisions is the very thing which sets PTE apart for quality of images in our slideshows. There are a number of really good sampling algorithms and they are not free. It would increase the cost of our product for Igor to license different resampling libraries just to make everyone happy with the particular algorithm of choice. And then there is the issue of choosing the amount and type of sharpening used. In my opinion it would constitute a can of worms which probably should not be opened. As stated earlier, one doesn't have to downsample their images with PTE. It's only if they want an inordinately large number of images in their show that it might become necessary, or if there is lots of animation which non optimal systems couldn't handle. As for the size of the finished show, that's a variable which is entirely up to the individual. If one needs to keep it small enough to email, then relatively small images would be necessary. On the other hand, I often create shows of 500 megabytes in size and really no one has complained about download time if the content is sufficient to interest them. It's horses for courses and it's really not possible to have our cake and eat it too. It's something the developers would have to think about, but what sets this product apart is image quality and versatility. The competition may have such features and perhaps for some people these are important factors. I don't see these being overly important for the professional or for the serious AV user. After all, the products with such features are nowhere to be found where the rubber hits the road. PTE is by far the most popular tool for AV competition and the professional photographer is much more interested in quality than in "convenience" in my experience. Just my $.02 Best regards, Lin

Hi John, What I mean is if you create your slideshow and in Project Options, Screen Tab, do not specify "Fixed Size of Slide," PTE will size the image to fit the size the the display within the parameters of the chosen aspect ratio. For example, if I use an original image of say 1600x1200 and display the exe file on a 1024x768 display, the image will fill the screen to the level I have zoomed within my show without distortion. If I display it on a 1600x1200 resolution display, it will use the original file dimension to fill the screen in the same way without distortion. If I instead used, for example, an original of 24 megapixel resolution such as 4928x3264 pixels, this image would likewise only fill the screen on a 1024x768 pixel display or on a 1600x1200 pixel display. If I displayed this image on a 2650x1600 display it would fill the screen just as with smaller resolution displays. The difference with the 4928x3264 image would be that I could zoom in to the original 1:1 pixel level of this high resolution image and not lose any quality. On the other hand, had I used an original 1024x768 and zoomed in to the identical screen display view, the quality of the image would be severely compromised because it would be resized from 1024x768 to 4928x3264 for the deep zoom. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, That's always been my attitude. If it's not broken, don't fix it. I fully understand internet security updates, but if the system isn't exposed to the internet, they have no relevance. As long as everything is working to my satisfaction, I see no reason to expose the anticipated new system to potential malware of any kind. It was very nice for the two years I managed to keep my present development system off-line. No worries about even needing anti-virus/ anti-threat software and the numerous issues that these programs sometimes cause. Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, What are the two video cards? Are they the same or could it be that you are using an integrated graphics rather than the more powerful 760 (assuming it's an nVidia GTX 760.) If so, you definitely want to disable the integrated graphics and use the GTX 760 instead. Unless you have two physical GPU cards installed, the probability is that you have a motherboard which included an Intel integrated graphics chip with shared resources and an nVIdia card has been added. I suspect this could account for the issue you are seeing with text. Lin The PCS web site has links to all the components listed in their construction wizard. With regard to the 760 installed in my machine, I have noticed the off line text on a couple of programmes such as OOO & Audacity is not as crisp as with my previous machine, I assume it's something to do with 3d or gaming requirements. There is a separate graphics card on the mother board on my set up, but requires a separate lead from the HDMI socket through a hub to switch between the two cards. I think we would all like to do that, especially after my last brush with malware, but IMO with constant up-dates from all in sundry sources, it would be practically impossible. Regards Eric Yachtsman1 Once the system is working properly, I see no reason to update on line. I can just download update data on another system and port it to the new one with a USB flash drive. In my experience, the majority of updates are Windows security updates and if the system is not on-line these are mostly superfluous. The few other updates such as Flash or such can easily be ported from another system without risking on-line exposure. I managed to keep my present development system off-line for over two years. Had my backup system not failed, I actually would never have put it on-line Best Regards, Lin

Hi Jack, There is potentially a serious problem with doing things this way. When creating a show, there may be a need to do a deep zoom-in on a particular image. To maintain image quality when zooming beyond 1:1 it's necessary to have a higher resolution original than for images where no zoom in is required. If all images were automatically optimized for a specific display size, this extremely valuable feature would be defeated. So the convenience of not having to resize or resample to optimize file size and increase convenience would cause issues for a number of shows where having high resolution images are very important. Actually, at the present time, there is no need to resample at all unless the show might either exceed system resources by going beyond a system limitation such as the two gigabyte limit of 32 bit systems or exceed the capabilities of less than optimal older systems. As I'm sure you know, PTE automatically resizes all images to fit the display resolution of the display device within the selected aspect ratio. Best regards, Lin

Hi Stu, In the configuration offered by both BestBuy and B&H Photo, at least, it seems like a pretty nice combination of both CPU and GPU power with some nice features. I bought a 30 inch 2560 x 1600 CTL 3001 Ultra 30 display and it took a while and a call to ASUS to be certain that the GPU was a separate card rather than integrated into the motherboard. I was uncertain from the description whether or not the GPU had the necessary dual link DVI port, but after finally finding a closeup image of the back apron of the system on the ASUS website I discovered that it is indeed a separate nVidia card and that it has a dual link DVI port so it should be satisfactory. The display has multi-resolution capabilities so should work fine with this card. It is far from the "best" 30" displays available - not terribly accurate on color, per PC Magazine, but for $499.00 for a high res 30" display with a three year warranty the price was just too good to resist. I have enough other displays which are spot-on accurate that I figured with high resolution I needed the size to be able to read fine print - HA! At first I was going to order the ASUS from BestBuy, but may do so from B&H instead because the price is slightly lower and I don't have to pay the high city tax on it so will save about $100. It comes with a one year parts and labor warranty so hopefully will make a nice system. It was good to hear that Judy Kay has had good luck with hers. I have so many older systems that about a half dozen are in storage. It's almost impossible to even "give" them away because even school children want the latest and greatest these days - LOL. I think I will try to keep this one disconnected from the web to minimize the probability of any malware getting on it and just dedicate it to PTE and processing photos. I was somewhat surprised when I called ASUS tech-support for pre-purchase questions that the tech had a difficult time actually finding this model so we were on the same page. I actually had to point him to several URL's before he was able to find it on their own website. I guess they have so many combinations and new offerings that it takes a while for things to filter down from sales to support. Thanks for that link - that's one I hadn't seen! For anyone else interested in a pretty great deal on a high resolution 30 " display with lots of bells and whistles, here's a link: Link to Pretty Good Deal on Display I Think Best regards, Lin

Hi Folks, Just a re-post of the PTE Demo Show I put up in very early 2009 - This one was made with a very early beta of version 5.7 - before we had video capabilities. It demonstrates various effects possible even then with PTE including Snow, Water Effects, Rotation of Earth, Simulated rotation of Sun, masking techniques, reflection, 3D transforms, etc. The rotation of the Earth was accomplished with well over six hundred separate photos made into small PNG transparencies and keyframed in and out on over 600 layers. The simulated rotation of the sun was done with a technique developed by Domenique (theDom) involving masking and a long - flat moving sun surface with shadowing, etc. The snowfall was done with my own processes as was the moving water. It's always amazing to see how powerful PTE was even six plus years ago! Now we have superb video and audio controls, highly sophisticated nested masking, chroma key, keyframe color control, blur/sharpen with keyframe control, chroma key extraction, RGBA Alpha Channel, incredibly precise keypoint control of audio waveform, and numerous other features and improvements. The future is very bright for this product indeed!! Link To PTE Demo Show - About 97 meg Zipped Windows EXE Best regards, Lin

Hi Robert, Is there any particular image which is repeatedly not found, or is the error random as well and not finding different images? It seems, as I recall, that there used to be a 2 gigabyte size limit. I'm not one hundred percent certain whether I'm correct about this or whether this 32 bit limitation has changed or whether it's actually different for PTE in 64 bit systems. If that is the case, you may need to resize a number of the images to get the total executable size to under 2 gigabytes. Perhaps someone who has dabbled with larger file sizes can help here, or perhaps Igor has some input... This link may shed some light... http://www.picturest...h__1#entry94029 Best regards, Lin

Hi Judy, That's good news. After seeing what is happening with the ongoing "jerky video" thread, I'm even more inclined to keep my old system going even after purchasing the new one simply to test my various shows to be relatively certain that they will play smoothly on legacy systems as well. It seems that the world of video has revealed substantial differentiation in our forum user's hardware. Eventually perhaps these problems will be resolved, but right now it seems that we can't rest assured that our shows containing video will necessarily be perceived by all as we see them because of the differences in hardware, drivers and such. This issue is made even more troubling by the fact that 4K video is on the horizon. I remember only a few years ago that some of our French users such Patrick were experiencing grave difficulties even with fairly mild animations. I recall an instance when I created a show which I tried to demonstrate different types of snowfall. Patrick was seeing my softly falling snow in a few places as actually rising rather than falling. It was because of the relative antiquity of his hardware, but it brought the problems of the limitations of hardware into sharp focus for me. When Igor uploaded the two version ( 1080p and 720p ) of Bert's video, I immediately saw the weakness of my present system made manifest. My old nVidia 8800GT, which was state of art when I purchased it, simply can't keep up. Neither version was even remotely usable for me, yet those with optimal systems were seeing either perfectly smooth playback or mild stutter on the 1080p version. Now I absolutely know that I will have to upgrade. Indeed, I share some of your nostalgia for old times. I began with an Apple II, graduated to CPM and made my first sales by converting dBase II, WordStar and VisiCalc for users of Systel Word Processors (which were actually just nice little CPM computers in disguise) so they could use their $5,000+ dedicated word processors for general computing. This eventually evolved into founding a software development company and was one of the reasons I left teaching at the university to pursue a career in the computer industry. I would like to hear more about your "pan speed" in the kitchen - LOL. Cooking has always been a total mystery to me. Since my wife passed away three years ago I have actually learned to cook Butternut Squash, and I can now actually boil water without burning the pan. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks??? HA! Best regards, Lin

Hi Gilio, I do !!!! ( like it )... from the dark regions of our subconscious ... It kept me on the edge of my seat and was a mind twister trying to decipher possible feline intentions. I also loved the name of the bands (Cat Nymphony, Les Mutants, etc.). Nice subtle use of the blur/sharpen tool too! Best regards, Lin

Hey Tom, I'll check that out once I get the new system.... I wish I didn't HAVE to buy a new system, but after about seven years the old one is definitely getting long in the tooth and maybe not long for this world.... Sometimes I find it hard to believe that a few galleries are still using my DOS software. I think it's because I customized it for specific users until that became too much to keep up with. One gallery in Taos, NM is in the process of changing hands and "may" be the last one still using my ICP (Inventory Control Package) software. Perhaps the new owners will find something to replace it with and my "tech-support" will finally die - LOL. Not that I mind, but I'm not going to be around forever.... I'll definitely look into Start8. My only experience with Win 8 has been to play with it in the store displays. Hopefully, with a little time I'll be able to get used to the interface. I will always miss not being able to use the DOS prompt commands which make entirely too much sense for doing copy and sorts. There just is no convenient way, at least that I have found, to be able to conveniently do things like copy only the exe files from one folder to another. Or only look at the .jpg files. The "wildcard" features of DOS simply have not been improved on in any way with Windows in my opinion. I still use these old commands to quickly create multiple layers of folders, delete or copy only specific types of files and even to search a complex folder for a partial file name, etc. The same things apply to things like word processing. I can work faster and more efficiently with WordStar on my Kaypro 4/84 than I can with Microsoft Word 2013 !! Of course all the features are not available, but making bold, italics, underlines and such is soooo much faster with keystroke commands before and after than with the stop typing, pick up the mouse, highlight the word or sentence click on the appropriate icon, etc. I guess I'm just old-fashioned, but I think in "some ways" we've gone backward with the GUI interface. Best regards, Lin

Hi Judy, Thanks! Actually the only information I've been able to get about the CPU is "Intel® 4th Generation Core™ i7" 4770 - because of the Thanksgiving "Black Friday" crowd, I was unable to talk to anyone who actually knew much about the system which is only available via the web. It doesn't come with an SSD but I "think" the motherboard has provisions for installing one. Also they didn't specify the power supply size, but if I need to do so I can always upgrade that as I have done on my old Dell 530. I shoehorned a 750w power supply in so I could upgrade the integrated GPU to an nVidia 8800 GT card several years ago. The old 8800 GT works fine as long as I don't try to push it beyond the maximum of my attached 1600x1200 Nokia 445Xi CRT. Looking at the available power supplies from the ASUS site, I suspect that the installed one is around 550 watts which is probably marginal but sufficient for the "as installed" system. I have read numerous reviews on the installed GeForce GTX 760 and even though it's actually designed for a 1920x1080 gaming machine, all users with experience with higher resolution displays have reported that they have had no problems maintaining 30 fps gaming with 2560x1440 displays, so I hope it will be more than sufficient for my intended use with PTE animation. I will probably try Win 8 and see if it will suffice before attempting to install Win 7 Pro. Best regards, Lin

Hi Davy, Thanks for the suggestion! I'll try to do that if there is a spare internal bay for a drive. Best regards, Lin

Hi Douglas, I hope Igor may have some suggestions.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, I'll have a look at that - it might be useful. Unfortunately, I still have a number of clients who refuse to give up the data management and inventory control software I developed and sold them back in the mid 80's if you can believe it !!! I still get support calls now and then and have to be able to pull up the software in real time to help them. It's been so many years I've forgotten some of the procedures I wrote myself - LOL. I have to go back to my notes and pull up the old software to answer questions about 28 year old software. I was hoping someone would have written something new and better for the art gallery inventory business by now, but I suppose it's such a niche market that older gallery owners still are more comfortable with my old commercial software than with trying new things. Some things never die it seems .... Best regards, Lin

Hi Douglas, That is strange. I'm wondering if you could try to install PTE on another drive such as D: if you have an internal hard disk drive. Something isn't right because your folder shouldn't be locked as far as I know. I suspect it's a system setting which is causing the issue, but I don't know enough about the new OS software to help figure it out. Maybe if Stu is reading he or maybe Tom could help here... Also, you may want to read this: http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php?topic=109724.0 Best regards, Lin

Hi Douglas, Something is definitely not right. PTE should use only a tiny amount of CPU - on my system less than 1%. When you install PTE did you change the default for installation from C:\program files\Wnsoft PicturesToExe? If so, this may have something to do with the problem. If you haven't already done so, try deleting PTE via the Control Panel and re-install on the SSD taking all the defaults and see if it then works. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, I was a developer back in the stone age of computing and I still use one of my commercial programs as a data management tool. It is strictly a DOS tool but runs well under Windows on my Windows 7 Pro notebook. I think Windows 8 has done away with a true DOS prompt emulation with Win 8 - correct me if I'm wrong about that. I can index eight indices each containing about two million records in about fifteen seconds on my own data management software. To do this under Windows with something like Access takes hours even on a very fast machine. I don't want to give up a very good data management tool to the comparatively crude, Windows systems data management - I have over 260,000 lines of code and numerous utilities in this software which are very useful and too important for my own use to start over and try to build a similar system with SQL, Access or similar environment. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jt, I'll probably just disable the hibernate mode and use the "sleep" mode so I don't think that will be a problem. I've never cared for "hibernate" anyway and usually just allow the sleep mode to function when I'm not on the system. I almost never power down my desktops. This system doesn't have an SSD but uses a SATA 7200 rpm disk drive for the C: and D: partitions. Best regards, Lin

Thanks Dave, I "think" everything will be fine. I only hope that I can install WinDoz 7 to replace Windows 8 without too many hoops to jump through. I know it will be infinitely better than my existing old Dell and the video card is right up there - about the fourth down in performance among the nVidia cards. I like the idea of having the extra speed of USB 3. Right now I only have USB 2 and I plan to buy some 4 terabyte external media to back up my shows, videos and photos. I just checked my existing "Program Files" folder and I think the 149 gig C: partition will be quite adequate. At first I was afraid that it would be tight, but apparently even with the literally hundreds of application programs I have installed, I'm using less than 30 gigabytes in the Program Files folder. It really will be great to use some of the newer software which doesn't work with XP and to be able to do video editing without waiting overnight for rendering - LOL. It's amazing how long my present system has lasted and been relatively trouble free. I occasionally get a blue-screen which requires a re-boot. That "could" be an omen so it makes me a bit nervous. I leave the system on 24/7 and I don't know how many hours the HD can run before the bearings freeze up. I think it shuts down until needed, but still...... It will be a huge task migrating all my existing software to a new system, but it has to be done sooner or later. Thanks, Lin

Hi Eric, The entire system is essentially "as is" so no customization choices for me. The specs at the source "BestBuy" don't list the power supply size, but since it's more or less a "brand name" system. I assume it's adequate. It's definitely a gamer system, but because it's relatively inexpensive for all the bells and whistles (about $1400 USD) it's probably less expensive than building one to my own specifications. With a total 10 USB ports and such, I suspect the PowerSupply is probably fairly healthy. If I were building my own, I would prefer a large solid state drive for C: which would make booting much faster and I would probably put a secondary internal 4 terabyte 7200 rpm sata drive in. But having priced building one to custom specs, I think it's less expensive to go with the "canned" system and my resources are severely limited. I'm not even certain of the brand HD they use, or how much of it is partitioned for C: versus storage. (Edit - Only 149 gig dedicated to C My old system still works fine, but my HD is over six years old now and I suspect it won't be good for too much longer which is why I'm considering this new system. I've looked at custom building a Hewlett-Packard and I don't think I can match the specifications of this one for less than about $1600. Best regards, Lin

Hi Guys, I'm considering a new desktop and looking at the ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) desktop with 32 gig DDR3 RAM, Intel 4th Gen i7 CPU with 3.4GHz speed and turbo boost to 3.9 GHz. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 with 3GB DDR5 (dedicated), SonicMaster 8 channel MaxxAudio, a 1TB 7200 Sata Drive, 6 USB 3.0 ports, 4 USB 2 ports and, unfortunately, Windows 8 which I will "try" to replace with Windows 7. Anyone have any experience with this system? Good or bad comments appreciated. It appears to be a solid system with sufficient case size to handle cooling, etc. I know there have been questions about ASUS and quality control so I keep that in mind. I want to be able to edit video and of course continue with PTE shows. The video card is much more than sufficient to handle about anything I could conceive of with PTE. I will probably end up with a fairly large 2560 x 1440 display and I will keep my old XP system with my 8800 GT card to be sure I don't create shows which won't run on less than optimal machines. Best regards, Lin

Hi Folks, If you are like me, you are a pretty good speller, but still make typo's and sometimes just spelling mistakes which you may regret after publishing your project and finding out too late that you have made a really dumb spelling error. For a number of years, I've been using a little freeware product called tinySpell which has a minuscule footprint (900k) and sits in memory and watches for spelling errors which it flags both visually and audibly. I highly recommend this very good little tool because it works perfectly with PTE. http://tinyspell.numerit.com/ This checker has multiple language dictionaries so can be useful to most users of PTE. Best regards, Lin