AnKo

Hi, Maybe this is like oil on fire or salt in a wound, but when Igor said in december 2011 that with V7.5 the (music) interface will be upgraded/improved I had to think about this discussion a year earlier in december 2010 & januari 2011 . A year has past and PtE can handle video today. High time to deal with the audio interface? Hope we get this very soon! Can we? Regards, André

Hi APLman I agree with you that it will be very usefull when we can get our hands on the transitions better then we can today. To me the transitions are part of the slide. See this threat I once started: You suggest that it would be handy to choose a start and end transition effect as an option. But is the end transition not always the start transition of the next slide? The discussion of the slide duration, somewhere else on the forum, is to complicated for me. And I do not use video. However, I would suggest that the slide duration is the time between the start of the slide, INCLUDING that part of incomming transition effect, and the start of the next slide, INCLUDING the part of the outgoing transition effect. Too me this sounds logic as I make very often use of those grey areas on the timeline in O&A window. Kind regards, André

Hi Dave, Kind regards, André

I have been using a media player for about 3 years now. Can do without anymore. Since last november I have a AC Ryan Mini. Before I had a Western Digital. With both players my MP4's, made with PtE, standard are cut-off about 10%! That is about the size of the safezone. The AC Ryan Mini has a simple option to resize the screen to the exact format of the (HD LED) TV. And now there is nomore loss. Being there as an option (I have seen more media pleyers with this option) it proves this is a problem, I guess. I have no experience with MP4's direcly plugged in my TV. regards, André

Maybe this time Igor can give his comment on this toppic. Regards

I want the use of keypoint to be as flexibel as possible. And since there is no waveform in the O&A to work with movement of keypoint on the fly is needed. I hope that Igor makes it possible to shift some, or all keypoints in any direction, on the fly. Wouldn't that be perfect for getting the music in sync with the effects we make?! Regards, André

Igor, Which suggestion? regards, André

Igor, Sorry then, it must have been in my mind somehow. The timeline works that way. It is realy very hard work to click the pauze button on the right then move the mouse to the left and change a keypoint, set pointer back, move the mouse to the right again to press the play button and repeat this process as needed. On a 24" monitor. There is a option under the right-mouse button but I think thats not handy at all. But I would like this work the way it works on the timeline. Is that possible? Kind regards, André

Igor, I am not shure if it is worked out or a bug, but in the Q&A window, it is no longer possible to move the key-points on the fly. It its a crime to get the key-points in sync with the music when we have to press the stop/pauze buton first, move a key-point and press play again until its like we want it. Before, I am pretty shure it was possible to grab a key-point, drag it anywhere else and drop it, while the slide and music start playing again from the moved key-point again. Or am I wrong? Kind regards, André

Hi Lin, It was not my intention to debate about "all those other wishes and features"; that has been done many times before. I think I did not understand the quoted part Ken refered to and picked out the tone I felt it was written in. My Dutch is much better than my English, sorry. My father was a Dutch veteran in our former colony Indoniesia at the age of 21 from 1946 - 1948, right after WOII. And that war made deep impact on him. All his life he struggled with what he has done and seen over there, and back home his struggle that it was all done "for the good cause". At the end of his life at 64 this was his conscientious mental conflict and I sure hope he has peace now. At the time of the Vietnam war I was 10 - 15 years young. We demonstrate many times against it (make love, not war), saw the horrors on TV and the consequences many years later in movies and documenteries. I've watched "A Pittance of Time" and it came all back to me. Impressive. So I must agree that this is a good example to use video in slideshows. And a great song! Thanks for your reply. André

Ken, True, but this is just one side of the coin, in my opinion. The other side is that as long as development is focused on video implementation, other important improvements should have to wait. Those who are eagerly waiting for an improved interface or better handeling of audio for example, instead of the video implemantation, have to be very patient. Not to mention the very useful wishes and idea's users asked for over time. I do understand that implementation of video in PtE is commercialy essential for the future of Wnsoft. But it will take some time before a stable and bugs free PtE7 can be released. Thats quite normal. So how long does this group of users have to wait for the improvements they wait for? But they wait! Many PtE users are focused on video today, and following the discussions on this forum, I sometimes got the feeling that those others are not always taken serious anymore and get less respect because they have other wishes and therefor an other opinion. But I am very sure they are just as impatience as the group of video users. Kind regards, André

And with v7 the new name is ...... VtE!

Xaver, Lin, Igor, Like you and all others on this forum I think PtE is a terrific product and I do understand why video implementation, as you mentioned, is very important. And so is the audio part I was refering to, the user interface and all other things that are anounced and on wishlists. Yes, if I could choose in what order things would be implemented .... But I am not a marketing expert. I am very greatfull with PtE as it is developing and will have more patience the next time when things are not the way I was hoping for. Kind regards, André

Igor, The audio features that are implemented today themselfs are very nice, but difficult to work with and to keep the overview. So I like to see a more integrated interface to make it easier to see how (parts of) audio tracks interfere with the slides, something like m-objects for example. Others have mentioned this too. There where many discussions about this subject on the forum. And after reading this: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12402&st=0&p=79874&hl=development&fromsearch=1entry79874 and especialy this: Enhanced timeline The timeline display will be given a major re-write so that it can support the display of multiple audio files. I was convinced that this key feature would be integrated in V 7.0 and that was something to wait for. Now it is not implemented I call the audio part in PtE "unfinished". Support of video clips on slides took significant time. But we're trying implement this feature to PicturesToExe at highest level with smooth playback on wide range of PCs. It's a joy for me to see video in real time in PicturesToExe's slideshow with any effects - 3D transformations, Masks, Pan/Zoom/Rotate, etc. Due to complex work with video, probably we will delay advanced audio editing (global timeline with waveforms) for version 7.5. We didn't expect that video support will take so much time. And that is what worries me so much, because it will take quite some time to make video and pictures run together just as perfect as we are use to. Kind regards, André

I agree with Yachtsman1 that finishing the latest audio features (as we all know there are many things to improve here) should have come before these new video features. Finnish the unfinished work first. It worries me that, now video has more interest then the (unfinished) audio part, we have to wait until all upcomming video-, pictures-, and slides-bugs, problems and wishes will be solved first. When will PtE 7.5 with the announced and prommissed audio features be released? Kind regards, André

Hi Dave, Your graphic is very clear in showing the differences in aspect ratio's. But when I look at the top left image, there is a lot less to see then in the botom right image. What format/ratio is the image that you used? In PtE it is possible to show the full image in any given ratio. Used in your example it might give a better overview of those ratio's? I might be wrong but I believe that this is where Ronnie's question is about: what (output) aspect ratio to use with a given format of his camera to prevent losing to much of the original picture with the cropping. Hope you understand what I mean. Kind regards, André

This has definitly my vote too. And it saves a lot of switching from Q&A to viewer and back. Also see here. And as mentioned elswhere, the need for a more graphical OVERALL display/interface is growing paralel with the development of of new options in PtE. Kind regards, André

Hi Lin, You are right that PtE can do make a soundtrack. I have done a some test this afternoon with 7 tracks and 9 soundtracks (music and sound effects) in a 67 slides and 16 min slideshow, but it is hard to keep the overview and it takes some time to get things just right in place and time. I agree with Xaver that a visuale display/interface of the tracks would make working in PtE much more easier. Personaly, I believe that the complexity of PtE today and its future development is just screaming for a visual presentation (interface) of our complete and complex work. To my opinion there is to much clicking, switching and searching. However, next to this critics I wish to make a complement to the PtE team for their great work and effort with this new beta version. It is an important new step. Kind Regards, André

Hi Peter, In short, Lightroom is the darkroom for photographers, like Nikon Capture NX, but with a much more pleasant interface. Working on images is non-destructif, so you always keep the originals. Lightroom catalogs your photo's as well. The slideshow option I never use, but I did use the web publishing options and that worked great. The printing module is quit good, but it misses the proofing. The trick is to use RAW images (like you I have a D70). In the Development section you can adjust the whitebalance and tint (very important) exposure, brightness, contrast, etc. Which is different on jpg's, beacause you can make jpg's look brighter, look lighter/darker, but you can never adjust the original settings you made on the camera when shooting the images. Only on RAW this is possible. That is because the RAW image is just what the camera sensor has shot and which is presented on screen, like a digital negatif, and the elementery camera settings are read out, implemented so that you can change them. And there is much more, like dust removal, spothealing, red eyes, great graduated filters, exporting in formats, sizes and colourspaces, flagging, tagging, marking, make collections, etc. Once a bit familiar with it you will see the advances of Lightroom. It even is possible to use NIK software (colour effects, viveza, etc) as a plugin in Lightroom. But I believe there is not much extra value when shooting in jpg. For me Lightroom (2.7 came out yesterday and 3 beta 2 if available) is a must have and I can only recommand this to all of you photo enthousiast. Only on rare occasions I need to use Photoshop. Kind regards, André

Hi Barry, I agree with Colin that colorspaces are very relevant. You say your work is all in aRGB. Thats fine as long as you work on them in PS for example, and you set PS to use the aRGB colorspace as workingspace. However, aRGB has a wider gamut then sRGB. That means that using aRGB in aplications that uses sRGB you will lose colors and maybe more! So Colin is right when he advises you to convert your work for use in PtE to the sRGB colorspace. Because my workflow starts with RAW/NEF images, and RAW images do not have a colorspace, I have to think about the use of my images. For publishing on internet or for use in PtE I convert them to jpg with the colorspace set to sRGB. When I like to retouch or put in effects in PS I work in the wides colorspace possible: ProPhoto. Because my printer goes as far as sRGB, PS (and Lighroom) will convert those "out of gamut" colors correctly for sRGB. You can see the out of gamut colors with the PROOFING option in PS. My strategy: working on images in the largest colorspace and change the colorspace for the specific use afterwards. Kind regards, André

Hi Claudia (and Barry), I use Lightroom too and I crop my RAW/NEF images when needed. But that is part of my workflow in Lightroom before export/resizing them for use with PtE. So when I want to make a slideshow I use these already developed images (you can FLAG or TAGG them to make selecting them even more simple). For resizing these ready RAW/NEF images I use the next rules,asuming you have a 1920x1200 monitor: 1: select those images which are taken with the camera in normal position (the long size is the top of the image) 2: go to EXPORT 3: select the folder to export to 3: make the LONGSIDE 1920 px and let Lightroom determine the size for the short side (keep aspect ratio) 4: select the RGB colourspace 5: export For images taken with the camera 90 degrees turned (the shortside is the top of the image) you only have to change rule 3 and make the shortside 1920 px. I always use the max jpg quality, just to be sure, and to avoid any discussion about this subject. This way you don't have to crop any image again (just resize) and they will all fit the longside HD output format (1920px) in PtE. Now the "cropping" can be done in PtE itself in the Q&A window by moving the image a bit up or down. This saves a lot of time cropping each image the way you want them and I do not see any disadvantage in it. Kind regards, André

Hi all, Shouldn't it be great to see how the transitions/effects of the previous and next slide interact with the transitions/effects on the slide we are working at in the Q&A window? Now I just quess how my effects will look when making timepoints in those gray areas. But the result is only visible when playing the show in the preview window. Now, most of the times I start and end the effects just after and before the gray areas on the timeline in Q&A, or put it somewhere in there "on the blind". My guess is that these gray "lossess of time" can be very well used to make perfect matched transitions/effects. Maybe this question has been put here before, I didn't search for it. But I would like this a lot! Kind regards, André

Hi Tom, Thanks for this info. I will give it a try tonight and see if there is a loss of quality. Otherwise I stick to the standard settings of PtE and adjust the pans of my pano images. As said before, the quality of the standard HD settings (1920 x 1080) is just perfect and smooth with most DPZ eefects. Kind regards, André UPDATE Yesterday I prepared my slideshow in 2pass 1280 x 720 60fps resolution as suggested by Tom. The result was a smooth show with music as supposed with a filesize apr. 450Mb. Quatity of the images were not as detailed and sharp as 1920 x 1080 but acceptable. The main drawback were the transitions (fade in/out). They were rough and not smooth at all. So I stick to the standard HD setting when converting my slideshows. Soon I will give the 2pass 1920 x 1080 60 fps slideshow a try on my sons Dune 3.0. The WD HDTV is no competetor to the Dune 3.0 I guess.

Hi all, I have tried the 2 pass 50 fps option and compared it with a "standard HD" converted mp4. The reason for my experiment was the gentle stutter I get with long pan's (2 min) in my panorama's and also the thought this results in an max quality mp4. The conversion took over 90 min for this 30 min show (standard setting 50 min) and made a mp4 of 2.6 Gb (standard setting 1.7 Gb). Plying the 50 fps slideshow on my WD HDTV was perfectly smooth as acspected! But ... there were some transitions that didn't show up (without a stutter or a drop of the image). Also the music (.wav) was only there in the still moments of still slides. During transitions and DPZ effects there was no music, but when it was there the music was in sync?! Maybe this has to do with the WD HDTV? There was another curious thing. After I made a little change on 1 image and did a standard conversion again there where also 3 slides that didn't show their transition effects. I need the little higher fps option (30/35 fps) to prevent the gentle stutters on long pan's, but I understood this cannot be set manualy? And what could cause the disapearing of transitions and the music? Is there a Videobuilder problem? Equipment: Vista Ultimate x64 with Intel 9555 quad, 8 Gb Ram, Asus 4870 512Mb. And a lot of patience! Kind regards, André

Hi Ralph and Gary, I can asure you that the quality of MP4's created with PtE is outstanding on the WD HDTV! I guess Daniel can confirm this. As far as I know there are 3 kinds of WD HDTV's for sale today: 1. WD HDTC without DTS, without LAN: plays content through USB HDD or/and USB-sticks (is replaced by the nr 2, but still available) 2. WD HDTV with DTS without LAN: plays content through USB HDD or/and USB-sticks 3 .WD HDTV Live with DTS and LAN: plays content through USB HDD or/and USB-stick AND through LAN The player does what it says: it plays all formats as dicribed on their website without a problem. It plays any copy of any DVD straight form the VIDEO-TS map but I prefer to create ISO's with DVD-Shrink which can be played also with the WD HDTV. Next to that it plays all HD formats and many others! When I bought nr 1 the others were not for sale. I miss the DTS on my WD HDTV (nr 1) because not all video content is with AC3 audio. I do not miss the LAN, while I do have a server. As said before, I bought a 320 GB WD My Passport to playback my slideshows and movies. This combination is small and very easy to setup elswhere. For playing my .flac music I use a Squeezebox connected to my Synology server. Great quality!! Playback music from a WD HDTV is not handy, because you have to switch on the TV on to select music. There are many other mediaplayers on the market today. You might take a look at the others too. Kind regards, André