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I am wondering what will be the optimium image resolution (i.e. 720X480) of PTE images if the targeted final product is for NTSC DVD . When I was doing video with Ulead MSP6.5, I stretched the still image from 640X480 to 704X480 (please don't ask me why as this was from trial-and-error) before I dropped them on the timeline, which seems to avoid or minimize distortion (square pixel in computer vs non-sqaure pixel in video). As I have no idea what PTE does when it creates the intermediate .AVI file, does anyone know whether there is any adjustment during the avi file creation process? I am attaching part of the message from the Ulead site regarding Image Distortion (http://www.ulead.com/learning/video5/page1.htm): Image distortion Images are always displayed on a PC screen using square pixels. All image file formats also use square pixels. This means that if an image is for example 640 x 480 pixels, it will display at an aspect ratio of 4:3. The same is not always true of video frames. For example the DV format is 720 x 480 for NTSC and 720 x 576 for PAL, but in both cases the final image when rendered on a TV is 4:3. When these frames are displayed on a computer (e.g. in a preview windows while editing) they are usually slightly distorted - NTSC is horizontally stretched, and PAL is horizontally squashed. When a still image with square pixels is incorporated the different pixel shape must be allowed for, otherwise the image will be distorted the opposite way when shown on a TV. Some editors are smart enough to compensate automatically, others require you to do it manually. One way of doing the latter is to save copies of all your images "pre-distorted" to the equivalent of your video format. Use an image editor to stretch or squash the images horizontally, and use these copies to import into the video. Stretch by a ratio of 720/640 if working in NTSC, or squash by 720/768 if using PAL.

Even if you don't have DVD writer you can burn SVCD video on usual CD-R disc on CD-R/RW writer with near to DVD quality. I've tried with creating SCVD discs and it gives me almost same quality as it could be DVD video. So it better never create VCD video which will looks very blurred and shows terrible transition effects. And DVD or SVCD will make maximally possible for TV details and smoothness of transation effects in your presentations. SVCD video disc can be played on any PC with CD-ROM or DVD-ROM and software for playing of DVD video disc. Or on most of stationary DVD players connected to TV.

PicturesToExe v4.20 beta #5 http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...t=ST&f=2&t=1440 This thread is intended for discussions concerning video part of beta #5

Hope someone here is able to assist me with this. Have a picture cd with the ready made .exe that I would like to reverse engineer so that I can now burn it onto DVD. The original files and pictures are gone and this CD is all we have left to to be able to do this. Is anyone here able to help on how this could be done..???? Thanks a ton for all of the knowledgable people here.!!!!!!

I finally have a DVD burner. My concern is putting AVI shows to DVD, but I also want to convert some old VHS tapes to DVD. I have a Radeon All in Wonder card installed, but have heard there is a problem converting analog video and audio to DVD because the sound doesn't match the video perfectly well. Has anyone tried VHS to DVD conversion with the programs that are suited for the AVI to DVD conversion? Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. ~Cindy Singleton

I have been tinkering around with PTE and trying to get a useable AVI file to burn with Sonic My DVD and have not been having any luck yet. Not only will MyDVD not recognize the PTE AVI and freeze up, but when I go and try and execute the AVI file by itself in WIndows, I get audio but no video. What could be the possible causes of this problem?

I have created "custom" avi files using a panasonic codec. small files work just fine in both studio 8 and click to DVD (sony software). When I create a large file for the entire project, ( 4 gig) neither program can open them. Is there a size limit on the avi files that can be made using pte? I'm new at this and any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm pleased to see the new version of PTE has a way to output an .AVI file, but am hoping I might be able to find other ways to generate a disc playable in a DVD player without having to purchase another program - Ulead DVD Movie Factory. Does anyone have any alternate methods? For instance, Nero will create an SVCD disc from an .MPG file, but not an .AVI and the one program I tested for converting .AVI to .MPG didn't like the PTE-generated .AVI What else might be possible? -- Thanks...

Hi I previously posted a message indicating my success in producing a SVCD using Nero 6. Since then, I have followed the various posts on this subject and now realise that the time it is taking to convert from the PTE AVI file to a saved (not burned) MPEG2 file with my setup is unacceptably long. I have a Pentium III 800 MHz PC running Windows XP (Home). 768 MB RAM, 60 GB HDD (7200) and 40 GB HDD (4500), Rage Fury Pro/Xpert 2000 Pro Graphics (32 MB RAM), and Creative Audio PCI Sound. I have tried various tests using PTE Beta 5 and slide resolutions from 640x480 to 1280x720 (all at 72dpi) and an MP3 Sound Track. Using Nero Vision Express 2 to convert seems to take around 2 to 3 hours for the 6 minute show, depending upon whether I use single pass/normal quality or 2-pass/high quality. The resulting SVCDs play well on my Panasonic DVD Player and Panasonic TV. Using 640x480 slides and the 4:3 format the sequence fills the screen. With the 1280x720 slides and 16:9 format I get an fairly accurate TV image in it's 16:9 setting with very slight cutoff at the edges. I have no desire to get into the technicalities of producing SVCDs/DVDs - I just want to be able to do it as speedily as possible with presentations that match the PTE quality. Can anyone tell me whether it is the limitations of my current PC that is the likely cause of the slow conversion or the Nero 6 software. Eric

When I produce an exe, I generally reduce my JPEG files to around 200KB as some of my clients will have older computers that don't have the CPU power to handle larger files. But when it comes to video output should the JPEG file size matter? I work with different files for video output as I want the best quality possible in the final video. So these JPEGs range from 500 to 800 KB. I just finished a show of about 14 minutes, with about 250 transitions (all fades, 0.5 - 2.0 seconds). When I watch the DVD on my player/TV I see occasional flickering to other slides that shouldn't be there. For example, when slide #159 appears, there are about 7 or 8 frames showing slide #1. The same project produces an exe that plays perfectly on my PC (Pentium 4, 3.0 GHz, 1GB RAM). Is this a bug? Or should we be using smaller files for video output also? To Igor: If it's a bug, I'd suggest there might be some video frame caching that is not being dumped/overwritten properly. Has anyone else experienced this? (I'm using beta #5.) Ray

I've been experiencing very long encoding times w/Pinnacle Studio 8.10 and the PTE AVI files. My usual times are between 2 and three times the length of the movie. This AM I was encoding a PTE AVI and for a 12 minute show encoding had only completed 4 minutes of the show after the better part of an hour! I then used Pinnacle's Expression and got normal encoding times. Anyone else using Pinnacle Studio and have any issues w/PTE AVI encoding time vs. other AVIs? Can you post your CPU and "encoding ratio" (minutes encoding time per minute of video)? (I'm running on a P4 2.4.) Also, I'm losing audio when encoding in Studio - plays OK in PTE, and OK from within Studio before I encode. However, completed DVD is mute when played back on stand-alone DVD player or on DVD drive in computer. Using MP3s. Thanks, Dana

Hello I have a DVD player connected to my TV with SVHS (400 lines of res). I have made an SVCD 480x480 and a Mini DVD 720x504. I can't see any difference in the quality of the shows. Note: Not all DVD players support the mini DVD format and there are only a few programs that can make one. I used NeroVision Express. I was considering buying a DVD Burner but unless there is a difference in the quality I will be disappointed. Has anyone out there also tried this? I have tested with and without transitions and I prefer without. The alpha blends do not compare to the Computer. In fact I think they detract from the show on a Television. Thanks in advance. Ralvis

Now that we have a few weeks under our belts with the PTE-avi beta, I am wondering if some conclusions have been drawn on a few aspects. I know there are several, perhaps many, who have been successful. My questions - (I think these apply equally to DVD and SVCD, correct me on that if I am wrong.) If I want my entire photo to show on the TV (without losing edges of photo and max use of TV screen) - 1. What is the best photo dimension? 1024x768 ? 800x600? 2. Optimum PTE settings as to fit to screen, windowed mode or not, etc. 3. PTE setting to 80% of screen, or 90% etc.? 4. When the "perfect" combination is determined for the TV I am using, how much variation will there be on other TV's that recipients of the show may be using?

Can I download pictures directly from my camera to this program?

When using DVD RW (rewriteable), can we expect what works on the RW will indeed work with +R and -R ?

Thanks for all the topics which helped make my first DVD using P2E. One topic spoke about cropping images to 85%, which is great so my photo's are not to the edge. When I made my first DVD, I found that 85% was perfect to my DVD TV Player at home. It actually becomes almost full screen. However, the "Comment" doesn't show up on my TV? When I play it in my 17" Powerbook computer, the comment is just fine... So I looked in P2E and cannot find an adjustment for moving the "Comment" down. It's only choice it top or bottom or right or left, but no tweak or way to move it down.... Any way around that? I chose DVD in the AVI option box and then import using MovieFactory 2. Or maybe I should be choosing a different option in MovieFactory?? Any help or ideas would be appreciated... It takes about 2 hours to make the DVD. which is way to long, but it looks awesome on the TV. I was so surprised to how sharp every thing looks... Great Job P2E!!! Gary

Anyone else tried this? I just tried it on a DVD resolution show and it seems to work fine. Could be an alternative for sending to folks with OS's other than Windows or for posting to the Web.....and it's free.

Hello.. I have made a tutorial using PTE and TMPGEnc! If anyone is interested, here is the link: Tutorial It has a few step-by-step instructions and hope it is useful! If you have any questions, I will try to answer them to best of my knowledge (I will try to answer the same day, if not I will answer ASP..working these 12 hour shifts at 6 days and has this guy little time to be here or my site ) Please exuse if it is not a professional tutorial..I made it in about an hour..OK? ENJOY! Bart btw... Resolution is set at 800X600 Personal Note: Be sure to have your screensaver inactive and maybe your anti-virus to conserve resources when you are compiling!

Will Ulead enable me to made SVCD'S? Does it have the MPeg2 codec encoder that I need? Or is Igor working on this to have this implemented in his own software? Harry

Asked this question once before but never heard anything. Is it possible to include the exe. file along with mpeg file on the same disc so the viewer can have both viewing options? If so what's the secret, have tried to do it with no success. pip

I reported this a few days ago and it seems that at least one other person can duplicate it: Using PTE Beta 4 and creating a .ptev file for import into Ulead DVD Movie Factory 2 creates the following problem for me: I am unable to change the thumbnail from white block to the frame I have selected for the thumbnail. I have created an .avi file from the same PTE project and do not have the same problem. Is this a bug with PTE or DVD MF2? I have reinstalled Ulead DVD MF2 and have tried the update patch for MF2 as well. Any other ideas?

Ok I'll try one more (5th!) time since we seem to have a definitive place to post these topics now. I want to put small AVI files on my web site as demos so that non-Windows users can see them. This has nothing to do with burning them to DVD or to CD. The issue: when I select custom AVI for output, the resulting AVI file is always the same (huge) size - it doesn't matter what frame size I select. Generally speaking, video files (AVI, MPG, WMV, MOV etc.) are supposed to be smaller when a smaller frame size is used (just like a smaller JPG will produce a smaller file than a larger JPG). It appears PTE is not taking the frame size into account. So I end up with an AVI of about 40 seconds requiring a 7.5 Megabyte file! I've tried this with all 4 betas and get the same result. Any help on how to get this file size down is greatly appreciated! Ray

When I made my first DVD, I wrote it using the DVD option. Using Moviefactory 2 I created it on my CD writer, not DVD. I played it in my computer and it worked great using my DVD software. Then I took it home and tried to play it in my Panasonic DVD Player and it I got an U11 error or something like that. It wouldn't play... So then I took and made a DVD disk and it worked just fine... Can you make a DVD movie on a CD disk and have it play in DVD player or do you have to use a DVD disk?? Also what is the difference between DVD and SVCD? BTW, thanks for such a great forum to help a newbee like me.... Gary

Hi It may be of interest to members that I have successfully made a VideoCD that plays well on a colleague's Panasonic DVD535 Player using P2E Beta 4. I converted my slide show (6 mins of 45 images sized at 750x500 pxls at 72 dpi and a sound track of music in mp3 format) to an AVI file checking the "interlaced for TV" box. Leaving P2E open I dropped the AVI file into Nero Vision Express and created a Nero Project which took around 50 mins to convert and then burned a Video CD at the fastest setting (single pass). The picture quality and sound was very good, the transitions (all fades) smooth, and with perfect synchronisation of sound and picture. I did all this with absolutely no technical knowledge whatsoever and no experience with either P2E or Nero. I've had P2E about 5 weeks and Nero 6 two days (I didn't even read the manual of either before doing all this). This says a lot for the user friendliness of P2E (and Nero). I hope the final version of P2E doesn't change it's apparent compatability with Nero 6.

Let me explain. I know that we all are very busy with what Igor is working on but I have a project that I need some advice. I am about to end the semister at our Bible School and I want to make availabe all the lectures in audio format from the video .avi format. Today I used Roxio "Field Stream" and I did get only the audio but it seems you HAVE to use this program only to play it back. I want a program, would like it freeware, that I can do this and that the students could play the audio cd in the car or in the home in a cd player and the computer (all three) So, does anyone know of such a FREEWARE program that I can do this? Harry