Gérard de Lux

You'll find it on the author's (Stephane Bidouze, alias Smithore) website: on this page. This is a link to the video version on Vimeo. His other productions are referenced on the same page. The original show in .exe format is also hosted on our French forum, DiaporamaForum : Eugene le Gene (but I'm not 100% sure that this is the latest version, Stephane may have done a few changes after its first publication on DiaporamaForum). Enjoy the show !

I agree with Xaver. PTE and AV should be seen in a broader perspective. If you organize an International (or even National) AV-festival or event, like the AV Internationals that took place last week in Cirencester, you must accept shows from various origins. I also agree with Yachtsman1 that today's restrictions of PTE Menu building are a pain in the neck. Even if all AV-shows have all been produced with PTE (which is quite restrictive already), you can't build a special menu in order to have a smooth running of your event if the shows haven't been made with the same version of PTE. In this regard, PTE may be well suited for domestic use, but not for a wider use, for example when camera clubs are involved and when not everybody is using PTE (it's a shame, I know, but it's a fact) or when shows produced with PTE haven't been made with the same version as the one used by the organiser to build his Menu. Most of the French organizers of AV-events or festivals (local, regional, national or international) use a 'launcher', designed by a professional who is well aware of the difficulties of organizing large public AV-events where AV-shows of various origins (Pte, Proshow, M-Objects, Wings Platinum, etc.) are projected. In fact, I sould say that this is the second one, as another had been developped earlier by somebody else,and used before, but I have no recent news about its use and development. Since this program is free, but all in French, I'm not going to give its name here because its developper can't give any help or support. But if the French can do it, and they are probably those who organise the more nation-wide AV-events during any given year, others should be able do it as well!

As far as I know, the only rule is that the show shall not exceed the duration of 3'21"; it can be shorter (I've seen on the competitors list for this year that there were sequences of less than 1 min) and you can use any audio or visual effects as long as you keep within that duration. [edit] The file size doesn' matter for the competition itself, and it's said on the rules that they accept images up to 1920x1080 as well as WAV sound.

I hope you will... and I'll volunteer to look after your boat if you leave it in Lux. !

Hello Eric, I have loaded your file on two devices: an original Kindle and a smartphone (Samsung Nexus S) having the Kindle application in it. My findings: On the Kindle: Despite being in B&W, the color pictures render well. In portrait (vertical) mode, the normal or default viewing mode, the text is very small; as I have quite a good sight, I can read it but it's at the limit. If I use the zoom function, at 150% readability is much more comfortable but I have to scroll horizontally and vertically. If I switch the Kindle in landscape mode, then the size of the text is perfect for good readability but I see about only half a page each time... and some pictures are cut in half! Back in portrait mode, it's good to see the pictures in full and to have the full page layout; but I don't know if I could read 250 pages with such a small font. On the smartphone through the Kindle app.: It's good to see the color photographs in colour; and they look bright and sharp. As for the text, like on the Kindle, in full page display, the font is very small, and even smaller because of the smaller size of the screen; thus less readable than on the original Kindle. Here, the size can be increased much more easier than on the Kindle (two fingers movement), and scrolling is made with one finger.The text becomes very easy to read, because it is bigger, but the need to move permanently to the right and then to the left makes me doubt about the possibility to read 250 pages like that. Although this device has an automatic rotation function to switch to landscape mode, it doesn't seem to work with your PDF. I have to add that I'm reading huge books (like the complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which I finished a few months ago, and the complete works of Emile Zola, which I'm about to finish) on these two devices without any difficulty. I think that PDF format isn't well adapted to e-books because it can't be adjusted in size dynamically, i.e. it's a picture and you can zoom in but you then loose words or lines on the borders and have to scroll. Whereas with a 'native' e-book format, the length of the text is adjusted according to the size of the font in order to always fill the screen. I hope that my explanations have been clear enough and that you'll find another solution to have your book(s) published in e-book format !

I have sent you a PM

Just to add images to what Peter, Davegee and CorVdK have said, two illustrative screenshots. The code in the lower windows is automatically inserted by clicking on 'Slide number'. ---

I think that it is rather Nik Software, which is a different company, even if it has some sort of partnership with Nikon Corporation. Nik Software produces, inter alia, Snapseed which is a photo editing application for desktop and iOS, and other tools for amateur and professional photographers like the EFEX series. [Added] see Nik Software website

Yes. Thank you, Peter. For info: Picsel has proposed some changes that I have taken into account and they will be in the next Beta.

There are several historic and practical reasons for some of these inconsistencies, and I agree that there's still a need for improvement as illustrated by your two examples. I have also to "synchronize" with Jean-Charles (Charlie / Aginum) in order to not make his excellent book obsolete (and disturb the readers), which we do almost permanently. The release of version 7.5 provides an excellent opportunity to do these changes since Jean-Charles will have to make many changes in his book. I'll send you a modified file of the French version very soon. Thank you for your input [added later:] I've sent you the modified French text; Aginum has already approved these changes. As I said in my PM, you could also contribute directly to the French forums, Diapositif and/or Diaporamaforum; it would probably be more efficient since Aginum and me are very active members of these forums; it would also have the advantage to associate French PTE users with the proposed changes... and it wouldn't take useless viewing time for the English-speaking community here.

Isn't it due to the fact that the DVD standard is in any case limited to 720x576 px ?

I tried with v 7.07 and it works the way you want (see screenshot below). As I always have the option "Load last saved project" enabled, I opened an existing project, I un-ticked this option and went to an upper level in the file list so as not to be in a slideshow folder; then I closed PTE (even without saving this existing project). I re-opened PTE and the label shown on top is "Project1", thus a brand new project to be started, and not the previous one. I hope that the screenshot below corresponds to what you want to achieve.

Not too bad for a slideshow of yours ! (Ça aurait pu être pire)

Davem, see attached screenshot. And before adding your post, use the Preview function; you'll see if your file is attached/visible or not.

But still missing...

I support this proposal !

For me, it's quite correct as it is, the labels are right; it's the axis of the movement of the gates that counts. In "horizontal", the movement of the gates is indeed parallel to the ground, and it is at right angle to the ground with the option "vertical".

This difference is normal. After extensive discussions on the two French forums about how to translate "Blank", I'm sure that you remember, I have decided to call this slide "--" Cette différence entre les deux langues est normale. En effet, après de longues discussions sur les deux forums français sur la façon de traduire "Blank" (je suis sûr que tu t'en souviens), j'ai finalement décidé d’appeler cette vue "--".

I have done several downloads, one from the link on the forum and two directly from the website with IE9, plus two more with Firefox, and never got the message from SmartScreen Filter and all options have always been available, as well as the label "Publisher: WnSoft Ltd.".

I confirm that the problem is solved (on Win7) by reducing by half the size of the 198 digital clock pictures, and this doesn't really affect the final output quality of these images. As Igor said, it is also possible to reduce the size of the 18 background slides. Having tried that, the test slideshow runs perfectly.

Hello Bert, Apparently, you've been the only one to dare look at this test, although I do think that it's very interesting as it gives concrete answers to many of the questions here! Anyway, here's the solution: This is the order of the 6 pictures... quality (compression ratio in 'Save for the Web' of Photoshop CS5): 50 - 60 - 100 - original - 30 - 40 or as they appear in PTE:

Just to add a note on the side: if you use Photoshop CS (not Elements), it's better to use the function 'Save for the Web' which offers several additional options, can suppress all or some exif data (thus making the file a bit lighter) and uses a 100% quality scale instead of 12-base, which is often easier to understand and makes the comparison easier with other softwares as far as compression is concerned. And don't forget to run the test file attached above and to give your estimates about the visual quality ranking of the 6 slides !

Following what I said above, here's a little test-game produced by my friend Aginum. In the attached slideshow, there are 6 identical slides, size 1800x1200 px. They come from an original jpeg picture at 5616x3744 px. One of these is the original put straight into PTE, without prior downsizing. The 5 other have been reduced in Photoshop at 1800x1200 px with compression ratios ranging from 100/100 to 30/100 (values of "Save for the Web" function). The resulting image file weights are: 12.8 MB, 1,5 MB, 270 KB, 194 KB, 152 KB and 125 KB. Of course, the images are not shown in a logical order - it wouldn't be fun ! as the game is to find the 'quality' (or compression ratio) in decreasing order. Change of image is done with keyboard or mouse action, so that you can stay as long as you wish on the images to study them. Here's the test exe file.

Quality '12' was in any case way too much ! Keep to 7-8 and everything will be fine and smooth, with smaller files and no visible quality difference. It's very easy for you to see: make a short slideshow composed of the same picture with different compression ratios and run it. As soon as you really see a difference, choose the better compression ratio one step before (or after, depending on the way you organise the slides!)

Everything normal for me.