AnKo

Hi Gary, I use the Western Digital HD TV which I bought last summer. It plays almost anything, is very small, portable, easy to connect with a external HDD or USB-stick and very cheap (< € 100,-). The WD HDTV is connected through HDMI to my LCD TV and analog to my stereo receiver I use a 320 Mb WD My Passport HDD (usb) to put content on. Now I can look at HD content in many formats or normal DVD, Avi, Mpg, etc, and my photo's (jpg), listen to any music (mp3, wave, flac, etc), and watch my slideshows!! This is one of the best investments I did this year. Take a look at their website: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=30. Regards, André

Hi Roger, I love Lightroom's workflow and it's interface. I use the developing, organising, tagging and printing options in Lightroom. The other options work great too, but I never use them. For PtE I use the output options for rescaling to either 1920 or 1080 in order to get the HD resolution and change the photo's to the sRGB colorspace. Simple and fast. I love the program and would recommend Lightroom to all enthousiasts in our world of photography. André

Chapper, Just to be sure, did you installed DirectX 9.0c? Andre

Hi Barry, I think a resolution of 1920*1080 isn't a bad standard, but what I am not so keen on how much I would have to crop off the top and/or bottom of the images from my camera format. As a matter of fact, I do not crop my D70 images. I just resize them to a width of 1920, not concerning about height and like you, I work with a 1920 x 1200 LCD. This resizing is very easy to do with Lightroom in a batch. Isn't it so that as long as you keep the aspect ratio the same, an existing slideshow will automaticly be filled with the same images in (any) other resolutions (but with the same name)? This gives you a lot of freedom to produce the same slideshow in differend resolutions, but with the same aspect ratio. And as long as consumers switch to 16:9 LCD TV's this is a good strategy in my opinion. About the size of images, I ment the size of RAW images, not opened. Kind regards, André

I preffer to follow the HD standard (1920 x 1080), since I use PtE to prepare shows on the TV screens. I believe the resolutions of digital camera's will not go any further then the high end camera's of today (12 Mb/image), because of its limitations in storage and handeling on PC's. Like others here, I will redo any old slideshow in to the HD standard of today. With Lightroom (non-destructive) my NEF images can be "tagged" as part of any "collection" (read: slideshow) I want to make. This will make it very easy in the future to export any givin old slideshow collection to new JPG resolution images, without the loss of quality. To play my HD slideshows I make use of this very cheap HD (and other formats) media player. Its easy to connect and to transport. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=572&language=en Regards, André

Hi all, I think this option looks very useful but has a backside. An option like this can easily ruine any slideshow when changing to many slides. Example: 12 slides of 10s = 2 min. Changing 2 slides to 20 sec will leave 4.444 sec for the other slides. This could make any slideshow a mess in my opinion. I also agree with Xaver that this will not be easy to program. Changing individual slides in time, while the total time of slides may not change, and stay in sync with the duration of the music will give problems as long as the Autospread function is ON (because we want that option to do its work too). Igor can clear up this sky for us. Kind regards, André

Hi Dave, Thanks for your reply. I did not explained my resizing correctly. I resize (in Lightroom) all NEF images to the 1920 longside of my monitor. Comming from 3000 x 2000 that means that the shortside ends up somewhere at 1280. With standing images I resize the shortside to 1920. Not 1920 x 1200. The reason for this way of handeling my images is that there is a lot to crop (and loose image) when resizing to 1920 x 1080. Now I make use of the full width of my monitor and can move the image a bit in O&A, while standing images match the screen longside resolution so I can pan up or down. This way I am able to use all of the image to show, without cropping. When making a HD MP4 I select 1920 x 1080 and let PtE do the job. Also I have read on this forum that using the monitors resolution is a good starting point. In fact, my PC system is able to handle my full size images easily. Using fullsize images will give me compleet freedom in O&A without loosing image quality, I guess. But you are right when saying to resize to 1920 x 1080 cause of the HD resolution. Now I "virtualy crop" in O&A and make a pan if needed. I feel I am on the compleet wrong road with resolutions and have to spend more time in understanding this issue. Kind regards, André

Hi Xaver, I am sorry if my post suggested that I have no respect to others who need to use these options. That is not my intention. Clearly I am not familiar with these options. As I said, these options are confusing me. I followed the discussion in which JPD promoted the benefits of his "gale" method, but found it to complex to understand completely. But I understand the need to have controle over resolutions (and now even better). Still my question stands: Thanks for that! It make things clear to me. Kind regards, André

Hi All, To me the option to choose for virtual or fixed size is confusing me. I make HD MP4 most of the time which, by the way, look perfect played on my WD TV connected to my 32" LCD TV. In the DISPLAY-tab I choose 16:9 as output format (while my display is 16:10). My images are downsized to 1920 x 1200 (16:10). In the virtual size box there is an other format filled in automaticly with an other, smaller, resolution! Changing this to 1920 x 1200 the output format is changed back to 16:10. But I want 16:9 output (DVD) format. Until now I leave them as auto filled in by PtE. But is this the right thing to do? My question is how to deal with these parameters in order to get a HD MP4 of the best quality (downsized to full HD 1920 x 1080)? I just don't understand the relation between these options and the final output formats in DVD-builder. Why not use aspect ratio's ONLY. NOT linked to any resolution? Wouldn't that stop the whole discussion about resolutions? Kind regards, André

Ivor, Have you tried a reinstall of your video drivers? And secondly a reinstall of your soundcard drivers? Both after deinstalling the drivers and a reset of the system. In my experiences the combination of these twe drivers can cause BSOD easily. André

And so am I!! Kind regards, André

Just to put this very usefull request in the spotlight again. Kind regards, André

Just to put this very usefull request in the spotlight again. Kind regards, André

Wideangle, Last month I changed from XP to Vista 64x ULTIMATE. I am not realy shure, but I believe ULTIMATE has benefits over the other versions for QUAD COREs and networking. Maybe Conflow can complement this. The reason for my desision was I wanted a core2quad (9550), 8 Gb RAM (very cheap today) and the Ati 4870 512 Mb videocard (good value for money). This all works on a Asus P5E deluxe mainboard. And I am very happy with it!! Before I went into the store I did some research on internet to check the compatibility of my hardware (printer, scanner, etc) and NEEDED software. The compatibility with Vista 64x is much improved over the last months. So I downloaded all the needed 64x drivers and patches in advance. PtE works with no problems, just like many other "old" software. For me, Lightroom 2.1 is very important. It has a 64x version and that works like a flash! So does PS CS3. Conflow is right, within a year or so there will be a Windows 7. Until then its up to you. For me, I believe I did the right thing. Hope this will help you make a discision. Kind regards, André

Hello all, I am following this discusion from the start, because it's about a fundemental issue of PTE. And NO, I do not have the time to study all the explenations from JPD and others, so normaly I would not have mixed up in this discussion. But I dont like the way and the tone of this discussion at this stage. Therefore I believe Igor and his team need to make a discision on this matter as soon as possible to take the cold out of the air. All of us, with or without the knowledge of resolutions as in this discussion, want the best for PTE. So lets take all remarks serious without damaging any of us forummembers. When I make a slideshow in PTE I expect the output to be exactly as I made it. WYSIWYG. So after telling PTE what kind of output I want, PTE should just do its work and that's it. PTE should make an .exe work on all screens, and PTE should not cut off my work when making a DVD. And I do not want to get through a million options while considering which to choose to get a correct output, keeping in mind that this and that .... PTE should do just that for me. More options means less intuitive. More options means more user UNfriendly. More options means higher knowledge of PTE. More options means better hardware. For me, the power of PTE was it's intuitive interface and the fairly simple way to produce nice slideshows. Keep it that way. That sounds easy, but I am sure many options could be build in the software without any interferance of the user. I prefer to wait a year for this kind of development, instead of being confronted with new features every 3 or 4 months and learning that PTE has changed it's whole interface just to realize them, bringing needless confusion and discusion. More is not always better! Igor and his team should make a discision which direction to go: quality or quantity. Now, it always was quality. But with new features like making youtube and iphone video PTE will soon be a product for a large marked of people who are not AV freaks like we are. And that is not the audience Wnsoft pointed its market strategy on at the start. I wish Wnsoft good thoughts. André

John and Peter, I agree with you that this should be a huge upgrade to PtE. Maybe it is also useful to make it possible to change the standard font for O&A in the prefference tab for the project, like we can do so for the textline right now. Regards, André

Hi all, This discussion is needed, but at this moment far away from the subject. I agree with all of you who say to keep things simple, but I understand that future development for Winsoft is main business and therefore needed to keep up with the competition. PTE is famous for its picture quality (the products of what we make) and its simplicity. This discussion is started about the way PTE presents our products, made with PTE, on TV/LCD/DVD/beamer/exe/etc. We all have problems with it, and so will all new users. To me, next to the quality of PTE slideshows at this moment (V5.52), there is a big need for solving this serious problems in producing WYSIWYG on TV/DVD/LCD. Igor give us a option to solve this problem. First we should anwser him on this subject. For those of us, and I am one of them, who wants to keep PTE user friendly, take a look at the other forum in which users/we can do future requests. There is 10 years future development in there! And looking at PTE over the last year, there is made a giant step in programming our wishes. It is going too fast at the cost of userfriendlyness (if that is a word). I suggest we give Igor and his team more time to think about the future of PTE as main product for Winsoft. In the mean time they can optimize the features we have today in PTE. That said I believe Igor have a good solution for one of the most important problems we all encounter today: output on TV/LCD/beamer/etc. But also has JPD. Let's concentrate on that. Kind regards, André

Hi Cèlou, This is just what I ment with my request: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8218. It will make synchronising effects on a single slide so much easier!! André

Hi Geoff, Good question. As you do, I make my shows in 16:9 aspect ratio. Are you working on a wide screen 16:9 monitor? Now my monitor is 24" wide screen and shows 1920 x 1200 px which is the same as 16:10 aspect ratio. Making 16:9 shows gives me black on top and on the botom of my monitor. To get back to your question, if you work with a 16:9 monitor, I gues its best to keep your monitor resolution as the minimum resolution. It makes working on a wide screen monitor easier I believe. But there is much discussion on this subject. It bet it will depend on the LCD TV resolution too. All the images I work with are used in the original resolution. Sure, it makes show bigger and you have to take care of the moiré effect, but it is so much easier to prepare a show, because there is no resizing whatsoever. By the way, working in 16:9 has one big disadvantage: images taken with the short side up (where the camera was rotated 90 degrees) are hard to display completely in 100% zoom. Horizontaly taken images are just great! As you, I like to know what others use as resolution in this case. Kind regards, André

Hi all, If I may put in my quarter. The problems we start to encounter are due to several things. First of all, PtE is developping to a more and more complex piece of software. Programming is getting more and more complex for Igor and his team because they build on the basis of version 5.5. They looked forward in the future and wrote the software in a way they can be build future features on. Meanwhile new features means sometimes new problems and they have to be solved by programming. I gues sometimes that isn't easy at all. Secondly, there all our wishes, experiences and findings. Sometimes these help to solve known problems with PtE, sometimes they help living with these problems and sometimes its just asking for more. But all the time Igor and his team have to evaluate the problem to the botom and find a way, whitin the software (lets say the PtE engine), to solve the problem in a way future planned developments can still be implemented. Take my word for this, that isn't easy at all and consessions should be made sometimes Working this way has a disadvantage too: the software isn't that "clean" anymore. And slowly there sneaks in more memory consuming, more CPU power that is needed and more GPU-power that is required to make our shows work as we planned them. Last, but not least, we use all these wonderful new features PtE offers us today! So now we put PtE everytime to the test and search for it's limits. So, on one hand we get what we want now PtE is more and more AV orriented, on the other hand our hardware has to be able to make use of all these new features. I do not want to be critical in any way to anyone, but I think we have to keep this in mind. To get back to the subject of this topic, there was a memory violation error. As mentioned before: a hardware issue. The auto-save option will help us only not to get rid of our work completely, but will not solve the problem. With the above in mind we have to consider to keep our hardware specs up to date. For me, that day will come sooner then planned and I have to considder buying new hardware too now PtE is developing so rappidly. I have a deep respect for Igor and his team in making PtE the best AV-software there is today for a fair price. And my complements for all of you on this forum, because with your interaction PtE would not have been what it is today! But 5.5 beta 8 is asking all of my hardware, and yours. We have to live with that as it is part of our hobby, I gues. kind regards, André

Hi Xaver, Now I understand what you mean. You are right, that is a problem. Well, reading all the wishes writen on this forum, Igor has a lot of decissions to make for further development of PtE. It will make programming much more complex for the team, but this will return in a piece of software that is outstanding! But personaly I think there is a backside on the evolution of PtE too: PtE might get too complicated for many users and the accent might shift from high picture quality in favor of so many AV options. We already notice PtE needs a fairly good graphic card and some CPU-power. I wonder, how will PtE 6.X will look like? Still I like the way PtE develops to a specific AV oriented piece of software and Igor and his team are doing a perfect job. Complements to them! Kind regards, André

Thanks John and Xaver. Lets hope there are more forummembers that agree with us, so Igor will puts this on his featurelist. kind regards, André

Hi Xaver, I do not understand this correctly I gues. Isn't it so that, when adding a new keypoint between 2 existing keypoints, this will only effect the existing animation if you want to change that same animation? For example: you have 2 keypoints which is a zoom-in. Creating a new keypoint between these 2 keypoint will only effect the zoom when this keypoint is used to modify the zoom. But when it is used to, for example, pan a bit, then the zoom effect is not modified? Kind regards, André

Hi Xaver, http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8218 I believe this is a must have and will boost up the power of the timeline. Lets hope Igor and others will see it too. Kind regards. André

Hi Igor, On the timeline we are now in control of where slides should start with the music. We can change the possition of slides. But many of us do have effects on slides for which it would be great to sync them on the music as well. Right now this is possible by try and error. In 5.5, when we stop previewing the slideshow somewhere on the timeline and switch to the O&A panel, the keypointer is in the beginning of that slide. This makes it difficult to make corrections to effects somewhere in that slide. It would be very helpfull when there would be a blue keypoint on the exact place of the moment we stopped on the timeline. The timeline and O&A panel are in sync with each other. This way it is much easier to correct effects. It ould be even more usefull when it could be toggled on or off. Do you think this would be something to get on your featurelist? Thanks in advance and thanks for the great work you and your team do all the time!!! André