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Jeff - Thanks for the reply - it was just the push I needed. I can make two clipping "frames" in Photoshop - one for portrait and one for landscape using transparent center and png file export. I guess I'll need to load this on top of every image or is there a way to apply it universally? (Putting an image on top of 357 photos will take me a long time and then I need to do it again for 800X600 screens.) I kept trying to take advantage of universal background and drop shadows inside V5 and also kept trying to get the FRAME object to preform the desired clipping. It would be great addition to have a clipping (cropping) frame object built into the product. Thanks again. Carl

This in regards to new v5 Beta 16. I recently posted my challenges with getting smooth pans during transitions. I've decided the best approach for me is to use smaller images so the slide show runs in less than full screen. So I want the show to run in a window 1024X768 with blue background and shadow behind slide image - all is good. So I want the slide frame to cover 90% of the window - hence the frame should be approx 921 X 691. Because I want to use zoom/pan I will size my images at 1024X768 giving me 10% motion flexibility without getting too small or panning beyond the limits of the frame. Here's the challenge now, when I use pan/zoom or moves the entire frame - not the image in the frame. So I can't seem to find a way to matte around the image (if you will) with a fixed frame that crops my images so as the zoom and pan the frame size and position stays fixed. I've tried every combination of MODE settings (cover slide, original, fit to slide) against each of the project settings (disabled/enable scaling, windowed mode, full screen, etc). Is there a way to set the slide show window size - then set the frame size in that (shadow under frame) that I can then pan and zoom images in the frame without the frame size changing? Thanks - Carl

thanks Lin for these tests and your analysis. for my case. Smallpuzzle - ran great. Puzzle - huge skips and jitter. Rockymntspring - great snow performance - only hesitated during image transitions. I suppose this means my HW is good for in slide animation provided it doesn't get too intense - an lousy on slide transitions. I can't move from this card as it is the only one I've found that supports dual independent ICC profiles. Yes I know that DVD video is lower res - but I also author large res non-interlaced in WMV for PC display only - runs very smooth even at resolutions above 1200 but again, every frame has been prerendered. I'll look for display updates. Thanks Again for your reply. Carl

Thanks for the feedback guys. The Matrox APVe professional card for Video Editing and performs amazingly smooth HD resolution editing work as well as composite animate in Adobe After Effects. True it is not the highest performing gamers 3D card on the market but it's stats are impressive and ability to rotate true 3D elements with and without the the OPENGL library enabled are amazing. Issue is that most of the people I will send pic2exe presentations to don't have hardware anywhere near mine. Also pan and scan really isn't a 3D transform operation. I do have a number of background tasks running and I just took time to cancel and pause the non-critical items but really none of the them are what can be measured as "busy" by any standard. But also I can't expect my viewers to do this either when they run a show so perhaps it is possible that V5 should run at higher priority or some way handle this to ensure it doesn't get interrupted. Before worrying about my own authoring results I think it is best to stick to testing compiled shows by others that people all agree really run well. I just downloaded Showcase_Remarkables10.zip and reviewed the results. It jitters on pan and scan only when there is a transition in effect and once the transition finishes the scrolling literally pops a head a bit and gets really smooth. Almost like it gets "behind" during transitions. (Beautiful photography and photoshop work in the presentation by the way. ) - I thought this was just a case of resolution so I ran the remarkables at 1600X1200 1280X1024 and 1024X768 - my display is a DVI with native at 1600X1200 so the lower resolutions are not really usable but it was interesting to discover that even at 1024X768 I still got jitter and skipping activity and it was at the same places though slightly less pronounced. I know that rendering transitions on top of pans is computationally intense which is why video systems render a new frame for each blend to ensure smooth playback independent of the environment. How does V5 attempt to accomplish this?

I came back after many year absence to look for pan and scan capability in pic2exe - what a great surprise to see V5 B11A. Most of the feature set looks complete - my tests though found images to skip and jitter at the beginning usually get smoother by midsection then jitter again especially a fade transition is used to next image which might also be panning. My PC is quite performance capable as I do all my video editing on it, 2GB RAM etc. I've tried using the various motion controls (linear, accel, etc) but not resolve. Even downloaded sample slideshow exhibited the same jitter - I am running Matrox APVe Card with Dual DVI 1600X1200X 32 - Is the issue I am experiencing related to video or is the product still be polished on this front?