smooth fading transition ?

[DustyDesert]

I've updated to the v4.14 hoping this would solve my problem but it hasn't. I've downloaded some other slide shows, like the "Southern Autumn" from the Beechbrook site and he used full screen mode, very clear pictures, with the fading transition and it was VERY smooth on my old computer. Why is that and how can I accomplish that?

~Cindy

[Ken Cox]

Dusty,

you will have to explain YOUR problem

how big the show

# of slides

size of average slide

type of music etc

then also describe your system

ken

[alrobin]

I've updated to the v4.14 hoping this would solve my problem but it hasn't. I've downloaded some other slide shows, like the "Southern Autumn" from the Beechbrook site and he used full screen mode, very clear pictures, with the fading transition and it was VERY smooth on my old computer. Why is that and how can I accomplish that?

Ken, this was Cindy's post from another thread. She is starting a new one, as the subject is different from that of the original thread:

Okay, it's zipped and on my site. I discovered I wasn't "optimizing" images properly, so I pulled up the never before used Image Ready and dug out the manual and actually used it. I hope I haven't optimized the pictures TOO much. They're about 40-70 kb each! I also re-did the rest of the images on my site and now the pages load twice as fast. The file size is now 3.7 MB.

As far as the full screen mode, I tried the windowed mode and don't care for that look. The desktop is distracting. The "fit to screen" button is un-checked, I thought that was supposed to make a difference. I have downloaded other slide shows and they weren't in the "windowed" mode, so I don't know what I should do. I know the fading is REAL hard on slower systems. I haven't upgraded from the 4.01 yet. Would the latest update make a difference in the smoothness of fading transitions?

You can find it HERE

Cindy,

Bob (LumenLux) would be able to answer this better (especially questions about his show), but I can point you in the right direction.

It sounds like your images are fairly small, especially so since they are only 800 x 600. So, if your monitor screen is larger than 800 x 600, make sure they look smaller than the full-size screen. If this is not the case, they they are still being "fit to screen". You can either disable "fit to screen" or reduce your monitor resolution to 800 x 600.

Next make sure you don't have any other programs running in the background, and hogging your pc's resources. You can check the system monitor (available with Win Me, and XP, and possibly others) to see how much available processing time and RAM are being used.

The next consideration is that of transition speed. The best way to get a smooth transition is to use either a "quick" transition (or "cut"), or else a fairly long one (try some different times to see which ones work best). And make sure there is approx 1/2 to 1 sec of time at the end of one transition before starting another one. (in non-sync mode you won't have to worry unless you have made the slide duration (delay) times too short).

The last consideration is that of contrast. Images of similar lightness or darkness dissolve more smoothly into each other.

V. 4.14 might even make image transition look worse (if Igor has "borrowed" some resources for fixing the problems in the new sound player), so updating to it won't help in this case, except make the music playback sound better.

As far as clarity of pictures, these are a function of how sharp they were originally, how well they have been "sharpened" in the image editor before importing into PTE, how well-exposed they were, and also their size in pixels.

Hope this helps!

[DustyDesert]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

how big the show - 3.7 MB

# of slides - 41

size of average slide - 40 kb

type of music etc - mp3

then also describe your system - Intel Celeron Processor, 128 MB RAM, Windows 98 (and was new 5 years ago!)

The show has all fades, and I think it probably works fine on most systems including the one I created it on, but my internet computer, the one described above, plays the music fine, transitions are on key, but there's a shimmy in the fading in and out that I don't like. The show I referred to did not shimmy on the transitions on the very same system I described. I posted my show I'm concerned with in another post, but here it is again http://daydreamsart.com/daydreamsdemo.zip

~Cindy

[nobeefstu]

Cindy,

It possibly may be just the limitations of your video card ... most E-machines of that vintage have pretty basic (bah-hum-bug) video cards.

First Check:

Do a DX diagnostic test (accessable in your System Information) ... see what version of DX Drivers you currently have. Perform some of the tests just to be curious.

Your DX Draw file may be way out dated or your you may require a entire DX version update. Make sure your also running the proper/latest releases of drivers of your brand video card.

It just may be that your video card is not capable to give silky smooth transitions ... and always make sure you have no additional/unnecessary background processes stealing from your what your system already may lack.

[LumenLux]

Hi Cindy,

It sounds like Al may be trying to give me credit for Andrew's (ADB's) show Southern Autumn. My show Sunset Peak was posted about the same time. So, I may not really have the proper credentials for answering. (Thanks anyway Al.) I will just ad to Al's comments that experimenting with your fade effect duration may help find the best possible smoothness for your machine. Also, some slides themselves make a difference. That is color complexity and light to dark vs dark to light slide sequences can make a difference. This could explain in some instances why Andrew's fades are so smooth vs. those on your own show. I did enjoy very much your sample show. Your art talent comes through just fine, but the fades on my particular machine did flutter just enough to detract from your great picture creations.

[alrobin]

Bob,

You are right - I gave credit to the wrong person. My apologies to you too, Andrew. To me, Colorado is south so I was thinking of your Sunset Peak show, Bob.

However, you gave a good answer, as I knew you would.

[DustyDesert]

Thank you so much! I just got up to my ears in some custom work, but as soon as I'm done I'll RE-DO my show from scratch. I used black for my frames between the pictures, which is the MOST contrast I could have picked, and I had the transition time on the custom synchro at 2 seconds! The shows that seem to have smoother fades on my old CPU seem to be at about 5 seconds. Is that correct? I'm referring to Black Country, Life is Life, Olga Photographer, and Southern Autumn.

Thanks, Bob, I'm looking forward to viewing your show! I'd never been to Beechbrook before the other day and have really been enjoying viewing the shows there. It's been very enlightening to see what the possibilities are for PTE! I can't wait to get back to my demo show!

~Cindy

[Guest guru]

Cindy, you said your CPU is a Celeron, but - if I'm not wrong - you didn't say what is its frequency. The first Celeron was 266 MHz on slot1, I think.

[LumenLux]

Bob,

   To me, Colorado is south so I was thinking of your Sunset Peak show, Bob.      

     

And to me Al, Colorado is East. This side of the Rockies is called Utah.

[think(box)]

Hi Cindy,

In summary, regarding the jumpy slideshow fades that you experienced:

• You have used the highest required performance fade scenario that can be defined:
  
• You used the most extreme contrast that can be, from jet black to 100% white or back between slides
  
• You used an intermediate fade time of 2 seconds, while several seconds will be smoother (or effects OFF)
  
• You used fullscreen display (the highest pixel count for a given screen area setting. FYI - the jpeg image size, 800x600 for example, has no bearing on fullscreen fade performance)
  
• Solution: You said you want fullscreen, so your only options to fix are to not use fade from black to 100% white, but instead use fade to gray or some other lighter shade, or to limit screen pixels (see fullscreen tip at end of this reply)
  

When I originally viewed your Daydreams Demo slideshow I may have noticed jumpy fades but didn't make note if it. I just now watched your slideshow again and sure enough I found jumpy fades.

But why are the fades jumpy? Normally we see just a smooth and continuous fade that doesn't appear to be made of many screen repaints, even though it always is(!) When it is smooth it is just subtle and not perceivable. I can say for sure that I viewed your slideshow under the same system and screen settings used for other slideshows that display with smooth fades.

Technical reference information regarding fades, and tips for fullscreen slideshow fade success:

Jumpiness is visible when a computer is too slow. Screen repaints, when visible, are slightly irregular in repaint timing and this makes the effect stand out even more noticeably. The irregularity is because screen repaint rate varies slightly while a system is being maxed out for the fade. Fades generally max out a computer as they are happening. The rate of repaints is simply fast enough to be invisible on a fast enough computer. For any computer a higher screen area setting requries a faster processor speed to perform fullscreen fade repaints as smoothly. For fullscreen slideshows it does not matter to fade performance whether you use 800x600 (0.5 megapixel) or 2560x1920 (5.0 megapixel) jpeg photos, as long as you are allowing enough time for the system to decompress and convert the jpeg image to screen size between slides. Having to allow enough time between slides is a sync slideshow issue only. Non-sync slideshows just slow down and take more wall clock time, although I would prefer that they just make fades more coarse and preserve slide to slide timing....

The fullscreen fade effect performance is limited within your computer by the number of pixels it takes to draw a visible image frame on your computer screen and by your system color settings. It is further limited as perceived by the degree of contrast between the two images involved. Once P2E adjusts your jpeg photo image to fit fullscreen, the original pixel count and color resolution is irrelevant to subsequent fade performance. In summary the parameters that do affect fullscreen fade performance are:

• Increased screen area settings --- because they have increased pixel count in each fullscreen frame
  
• Increasing the system color setting from 24 to 32 to 48 bit color --- more stress to fade effect performance
  
• FYI, beyond 24 bits color setting there is no visible color shade resolution improvement to most people
  
• The degree of contrast between the two images involved
  

For a given slideshow and computer without other app's running, the only option for improvement when fades are jumpy is to use a lower screen area setting. On many systems, 640x480 is as low as you can go. And when at this setting the fullscreen images are not as sharp as at higher settings. This is because 640 pixels or segments horizontally is more coarse and lower resolution than 1024 pixels, for example.

For the widest majority audience viewing success the slideshow developer can only limit contrast between images or the image pixel count as displayed on screen, since the screen area setting at time of viewing varies widely and is usually controlled by the person viewing your slideshow.

Jet-black or otherwise high contrast background tip for fullscreen slideshows:

If you place smaller pictures on a background using a photo tool and then display fullscreen, the fade performance is limited by not only the photo content pixels, but by all of the background too (even if unchanging). You can have small pictures (placed variously) fade more smoothly by simply making the jpeg take less pixels during fullscreen display. Two ways to do this are:

• Make jpegs small and place them using visual object editor so that they do not scale. Pro: Smooth fades --- Con: Image appears different relative size at different viewing screen area settings (unscaled)
  
• Modify jpeg so that it has width or height, but not both, that includes slideshow background color to edge of screen. Pro: An image that you do not want to display fullscreen can have higher contrasts with smooth fade --- Cons: You have to edit your jpeg, and this works best with single-color backgrounds
  

The latter technique is a good one because P2E will not waste system performance updating the background color in some fraction of the total screen view. Fade performance is better because the screen is repainted only where your jpeg exists on screen, and this is not 100% of the fullscreen view.

[alrobin]

This side of the Rockies is called Utah.

Sorry, Bob! I can't see that far from here!

[LumenLux]

Further comments on Al's eyesight or geographical wanderings can be found in a new topic in the Presentations subject area of this forum. The new topic is found there as Geography on the Loose.

[alrobin]

Bob,

See my reply in the new topic on the other side of the mountain!

[DustyDesert]

Thanks, Bill! Your post should be part of a manual for PTE! Very infomative. I will be re-doing my show completely over the next couple of weeks when I can find the time. I have some graphics ideas I'm anxious to try and will make those transition and contrast changes, also.

~Cindy