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Wow!! You have been VERY busy, the new features list looks amazing. Also very excited about the prospect of a new presentation engine and PAN and ZOOM in 4.5 I'll give this version a thorough testing but have really been holding back making any serious shows waiting for PAN and ZOOM. Thanks to Igor and the Wnsoft Team.

Just so you know Autostitch now has a new version that allows you to produce JPEGS at 100% quality! You can download at:- http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/au...autostitch.html Merry XMas to all, looks like Santa came early in this case!!

David Yes I agree the sample on site is bad but you really have to try your own stuff to see how good this program is. I have many panoramas that have been very difficult to stitch in programs like Stitcher and Panorama Factory but stitched instantly and flawlessly in Autostitch, even Panos where I thought Parallax was going to make it impossible. Even better news the Author of Autostitch has announced that he will be posting a new version on his site by the end of 2004 that lets you control the JPEG quality on final output, probably the only current issue with this peice of software!

It looks as though Igor and his team will be introducing the ability to include scrolling Panoramas in future versions of PTE. Any body who has experimented with Panoramas will know that they can be tricky to get right and you may have to spend some dollars to get the right software to do the job. Well last night I stumbled on to this currently Free Panorama Stitcher that I consider to be better than anything else I have tried including the likes of Stitcher and PhotoVista. You can go to the site here:- http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/au...autostitch.html Don't take too much notice of the first example shown on the site but try it out for yourself you too will be amazed. Reading this post you would think I was a marketer of the product but I was just so incredibly impressed at what it can do!! Be sure to experiment in the Edit/Options to get the best out of your Panoramas. The program is less than a one megabyte to download and with it you will be able to produce perfect panoramas, fast, ready for when Pictures to exe can show them.

Thanks Ken lots of useful info there!

I made an 8 second Timelapse sequence made from about 200 images of the clouds forming over a mountain over a couple of hours with a shot being taken every 10 secs. All images were scaled down to 720 pixels in width to fit the standard DVD format. I then went into PTE and made an exe show displaying each image for 40ms (this gave me 25 frames per second - the same as PAL DVD film rate) The result was an 8 sec smooth Timelapse of clouds scurrying over a mountain top. Now this is the part I can't understand. My PTE exe file is about 8MB which is the around the same size as all the images put together. But when I made an uncompressed AVI file in a Video Editor the resulting size was 222 MB!!! How can a video file be bigger than the total of the images being used in the video? especially when one image is one frame. Any ideas as to why this happens?

Igor I have been thinking about the proposed PANNING function in PTE. For this feature to work optimally you need to be able to choose precisely when you want the PAN to start. For example you should be able to do a dissolve from the previous slide straight into the PANNING slide already moving BUT if you want you should also be able to do a dissolve from the previous slide into a static panorama then start the PAN when you want. I think the only way to do this is to treat PANNING separate from Transitions. You do this by having a PANNING tab in the customizable slide options. In this PANNING tab you select when you want the PANNING to start and also when you want it to finish. For example you could then do the following:- *Dissolve from previous slide to the PANNING slide. *Initially the PANNING slide is stationery then 1 sec later it starts to PAN *Then 2 seconds from the end of PANNING while the slide is still panning you can do a dissolve out to the next slide OR *Dissolve from the previous slide to the PANNING slide. *As you dissolve the PANNING slide is already PANNING *1 second from the end the PANNING ends and the slide sits there then dissolves to the next slid (or cuts or whatever) OR Any combination of the above I just think if treated this way the PANNING function will look very polished. The only thing I worry about is whether it will be too hard to have transitions like dissolves playing at the same time that the slide is panning?

I think what Igor is saying is that in the next version of PTE the PAN feature which will enable a single panoramic to be panned, will be based on the same technique that is used to PUSH images currently but because you are effectively pushing a SINGLE image and not one image that has been cut in two you won't have the problem of the delay between images. The question is, is the current smoothness of the PUSH transition acceptable as a PAN transition. In my experience I think the answer is YES, the PUSH in PTE is very smooth. However I think Panoramas are going to be more demanding on system resources and if there is a way to make the effect any smoother this should be pursued especially if shows are going to be played on slower PC's. One question for Igor......Will the PAN transition be Horizontal and Vertical? Another question..... will the length of the Panoramas be unlimited?

Fantastic! In my humble opinion changes to PTE like adding a Pan effect add so much more to PTE in terms of your final visual result, many excellent suggestions have been put forward however many of them work towards making it easier to do the same things PTE has always done. My requirements from PTE are simple, I want to synchronise high quality images with music while at the same time being able to show panoramas....so Igors news about Panning being in the next version (maybe!) is awesome! Also I don't know if many have picked up on this but if PTE can include panning and if this is able to be done vertically, it means ........ we can have scrolling titles just like in the movies!

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Hello all! OK I have updated "Nickles" and "Contaxman" on the Rogues Gallery. I am pleased to report that my computer was not damaged during this process! Please note that the web address quoted above is now out of date and you should use the following to view the rogues page:- http://www.imagescapes.co.nz/forum/forum.htm IGOR - Hows the zooming and panning function progressing? Cheers Andrew

Have found this really helpful site http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm Basically takes you by the hand and walks you through making your own music step by by step, covering (as far as I can see) almost everything! Thanks for the vote of confidence Lumenlux however I don't think I realized the enormity of what I am trying to achieve when I first went down this path, I also didn't count on how much it would consume me either! But what you say is quite true it is very hard to do both the Images and the Muisc in terms of finding the time but hopefully ultimately rewarding!

Al & David Thank you very much for your detailed posts. There is a lot to take in and lots to learn but your comments have been very helpfull. In essence I'm not really trying to go out and make traditional music as such, really my aim is more of a background ambience totally in tune to the images of the slideshow, more like a film soundtrack to something along the lines of "Rabbit Proof Fence" Even though I have never studied music I do have an ear for it, I'll often hear a tune on a movie and it will stay in my head and I will be able to reproduce it in a basic style on the PC but it is very basic. The music I plan to make will be less rather than more and subtle hopefully complimenting the images. So off I go on my voyage of discovery but don't hold your breath for my first production as it appears I have to learn a lot between now and then! Thanks again

I have decided to take the plunge and have a go making my own music to put my PTE shows to. Not having played any musical instrument in my life (apart from a recorder at school!) I am really embarking on a huge learning curve. I am planning to go totally synthesized and use only computer based instruments. I have dabbled around and tried out some software synthesizers and sequencers and managed to get a very basic understanding of how these work. What I need now is a guiding hand on putting everything together to make a soundtrack for my PTE productions. Does any body have any advice or know of any web sites that take you through this journey of "musical discovery"?? There is so much to learn - midi, drum machines, samplers, sequencers, synthesizers Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated. On some of the software synthesizers I have trialled I have been incredibly impressed at the atmospheric ambience you can create very easily and I think this type of sound really suits the types of PTE shows I am planning to do. Thanks in advance for any help Regards

Zoom and Pan are two increasingly popular features sought after by users of PTE and the Wnsoft Team have already indicated that they are working towards these improvements, I think its just a case of sitting tight and waiting for the addition of this feature to PTE, its a day I am really looking forward to!!

The change to the Waveform is excellent! PTE is starting to have the very user friendly layout similiar in some respects to a video editor which is great, the more visual and intuitive an interface is the easier it is to put a show together. Well done to the Wnsoft Team!

Great work Igor In particular the PUSH effect is very smooth and if this is the basis of the future ability to show scrolling panoramas then the future of PTE is looking very bright!!

I was very excited to read in the BETA #2 thread that Igor and the Wnsoft team are looking to include Pan and Zoom in future versions of PTE. This is fantastic news and will mean with the one peice of software for under $50 you can make either High Quality PC shows or DVD shows and both can include panned or zoomed images. In the weekend I showed a couple of shows to my old camera club at their 50th Anniversary, the first show was put together in PTE and got a mediocre response from the club, the second was put together with a Video Editor and included several scrolling panoramas both shows were shown using a data projector hooked up to a DVD player. The show with the moving panoramas fascinated the club and had me staying behind for about an hour answering a myriad of questions but what was obvious was that the addition of motion added so much more to the whole experience. If PTE can implement the pans and zooms into the transitions then one huge advantage PTE will have over DVD is that you will be able to show much higher resolution shows (using a data projector and laptop), the thought of showing a high resolution PTE show via a data projector and including panoramas and zooms makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end!! Needless to say I will be watching with great RENEWED interest as WNSOFT develop the pan and zoom function. And while on that topic to avoid the weaknesses in some other software packages the pans and zooms should have:- * Constant rate of smooth movement throughout the pan or zoom * Be able to pan "left and right" and "up and down" * Have no limit to the length (within reason) of the image being panned As a foot note Igors comment did suggest this change wasn't an easy one so it could be a while until we see it, but hey that was the case with inlcuding DVD in PTE less than a year ago and PTE now this so you never know..

Malcolm If you are using MSPRO7 I just select DVD-Video and Interlaced Video in theoptions dialogue unselecting the Sharpness, Pinnacle and DVD Movie Factory options. This gives great results. As regards to image size go as high as you like as PTE cuts it down to DVD resolution. You don't have to fit the DVD format exactly for example if your images are a more rectanglular aspect than 4:3 you just end up with black bars top and bottom on your DVD but this still looks fine.

Malcolm I used to think that PTE was a very fast way to build the standard frame work of a DVD show using a video editor to add in all the fancy bits, but as I started to use the the video editor more I found it just as fast to make the whole show in the video editor, all new software has a "learning curve" and can appear intimidating at times but like most things practice makes perfect. Eric Yes I agree PTE is a simple and effective peice of software and has been kept small BUT I don't see the simple change of including a scrolling or zooming option is going to change the overall complexity of the program by very much at all or for that matter the size BUT by including this one small feature to allow scrolling and zooming you would do more for the end result of PTE output than any other change to the program I can think of. Surely the ease of putting a show together is not as important as what the final result looks like? Are you going to worry about spending 5mins more to do a show if it can give you a huge increase in impact?

bharkins Hi, I'm using the Ulead MediaStudiopro, ironically I was pointed in that direction by Wnsofts initial recommedation to use Ulead DVD Movie Factory to write the DVD output from PTE! Mike Thanks for your comments. I too come from an AV background and remember the days when I used to dream about doing AV's on a PC and these days I imagine slide projectors are rapidly being overtaken by LCD projectors hooked up to laptops, it is amazing how things change. On thing I would like to say is that I think you have underestimated the power of motion in a presentation, we couldn't EASILY use motion on screen back in the slide projector days but today the technology does allow us, it seems to me if we have a new technology we should enjoy it to its fullest and not just be happy with what we could create in the past. As soon as you introduce subtle motion into a presentation it takes on a third dimension and lets your audiance enjoy a more seemless experience. I don't believe that its too hard to do if an 8kb Java applet can smoothly scroll a 360° panorama on my web site I'm sure its not hard to introduce it into a program like PTE, it basically does it now with the "slide" transition. If you doubt whether today's average PC can't handle multitrack presentations in high quality go to www.globfx.com and download their trial. I'm beginning to rant now but this has been my "hobby horse" for some time so persiverance may be the key Just ONE last thing.... "Blackness fills the screen, the haunting music stirs as a lone fishing boat appears on the screen, as the screen slowly zooms out a huge storm cloud is revealed in the distance appearing to threaten the now tiny fishing boat as the music intensifies......" This could very easily be PTE and truly hope one day it is.

Hello all It has been a long time since I made an entry in this forum but I have been keeping an eye on the progress of PTE. The reason I have been away is that I have been experiment making slide shows with the various Video Editors now available, editors that allow you to create high quality DVD output. Now using a video editor I can basically produce any manner of slideshow I want and include as many images on the screen at the same time, or as many soundtracks or sound effects or scrolling panoramas or titles or fancy transitions or absolutely anything I want. This is great I can produce high quality DVD output with complete control over the end result. Trouble is Video Editors won't let me make a compact little EXE file that I can email over the internet or allow someone to download from my website and this is where Pictures2exe is champion. Its great that PTE can also output to DVD but in my opinion in its current form its just an added extra of PTE not a feature aligned to the original purpose of PTE and that is of course producing EXE files. I think if you had a hard core slide show producer that just wanted to produce DVD's from stills then PTE at the moment probably isn't the best choice, you can find video editor software that will more than meet your every requirement. So at this point in time I mind myself in a frustrating situation, I have one peice of software that will do absolutely anything I want provided I want to output to DVD on the other hand I have PTE a great piece of software that will create great DVD and EXE output but can't:- * Allow for a full scrolling panorama - vertical or horizontal * Allow for MEASURED zooming in or out of an image * Allow for a THIRD or EVEN fourth image to be overlaid on top of what's already on screen. PTE is close but not quite there yet. I think if you could solve the above you would increase you potential market enormously. My suggestion is that why doesn't PTE follow the same lead of Video Editors and have Tracks to produce its shows. It really would only need three image tracks maybe four and two or maybe three sound tracks. PTE is already going this way with the Customizable Sync Window and Overlay of the Sound Track Wave Form why not go the whole way? GLOBFX used this system and the shows it produced were amazing. Scrolling and Zooming, well I just think PTE must have this is in future to stay competitive as it is probably the major point of difference between PTE and a Video Editor at this point in time, Video editors can do anything but 95% of the time the output only requires cuts, fades, titles, zooms, and scrolls the first three PTE can do the last two it can't (YET!) My purpose for these comments is that I like PTE, I like the concept that it has held its own for sometime in the face of some big name software companies but with the shift to DVD output as the primary end result the developers of PTE need to stay sharp and provide software that provides the same DVD result as Video Editors when used with still images BUT have the added advantage of EXE files...then I'll only need to keep one peice of software in my slideshow programs folder!

Hello all 1. Pan & Zoom 2. Pan & Zoom 3. Pan & Zoom Cheers Andrew

Michel I own a Pioneer A06 and have found it a very good DVD writer. Very reliable. Happy shopping! Andrew

Opps!