Timeline oddity

[JRR]

OK, I am finally coming around to using ver 5 (ver 5.6 even ! Being an old purist I have been using 4.49 and only fades - still doing that for the most part, but I like the new screens in 5.6 !

However I am having an oddity with the timeline

In the two shows I am working on, the blue triangle runs along smoothly in the timeline for the first and last 31 seconds. But in between the 31 second marks, it stalls at the start of the grey area of each transition along the timeline and then jumps ahead to the end of the grey line and carries on to the next grey line

But the on-screen transition carries on as though all is OK.

This happens when I am in my preferred TIMELINE OPTION AUTO SCROLL 2

If I switch to AUTO SCROLL 1, all is OK through the timeline

I suspect I must have something set wrong, somewhere ?

I have checked with another experienced PTE user and he is not having the problem.......

[Antbrewer]

Hello JJR,

I thought your post was interesting so I turned on 5.6 to see what setting I used as I hadn't experienced your situation.

I have mine set to auto scroll 1 so I changed it to 2 and see a similar jerkyness that you see. The blue arrow seems to stop for a second at various transitions however the miniplayer isn't affected.

Something to do with one's graphics card perhaps?

As I don't use this setting normally it won't upset me but I'm sure we will hear the reason shortly.

I'm off to the dentist now.

Anthony.

[davegee]

Hi both,

I tried both Auto Scroll 1 and 2 and neither produced the symptoms you describe.

Perhaps some details of your graphics card and its RAM would be helpful?

Mine's a GeForce 7600 GS with 512Mb of RAM. By today's standards that's not as up-to-date as I would like but I don't want to risk disturbing anything by upgrading.

DaveG

[JRR]

Specs for desktop are:

NVIDIA GeForce 6200 128 mb on video card

1 gb RAM on computer

Sorry to hear you have same issue Anthony, but also glad to hear it is not just me !

Thx

[Antbrewer]

Hi JJR,

Having seen a similar 'stuttering' to this morning on 5.6 on one particular project file, I tried the same on 5.5 and it ran smoothly. Also all my other projects run smoothly on both 5.5 and 5.6. on auto scroll 2. Why just that one should be jerky I have no idea.

In answer to DaveG's point my graphics card and ram are more than enough to run everything I have done so far on PtE.

I wondered if the file size on any image would be the reason or whether PZR might be a cause too but I have checked this with various projects and all are smooth.

As I said this morning I set the timeline on auto scroll 1 so I do not have problem at all. Perhaps this is a minor glitch which you can live with?

All the best.

Anthony

[JRR]

Anthony

All my file sizes are the same 1280x960.

Yes it is "minor", but having used Scroll 2 for 6 years (at least) it sure would be nice to figure out what is causing it.

As I say it starts at the 31 second point on the timeline and goes back to normal 31 seconds from the end of the show

[Hawk]

Hi Jim

I have just picked up on this topic and thought we would check it out on our end.

We also have the same problem with stutter of timeline once it starts to move using ( Timeline options - Auto Scroll - Style 2 )

Style 1 works perfect.

In our show we tested, the timeline started moving at slide #4 - (at the 23 second mark) and ran smooth to this point. Once moving it hesitated at slide #5 and continued to stop at each slide point untill transition was completed.

The only exception, was the last slide - no hesitation at slide point.

Another observation was that during a transition, we had no response or slow response to Pause Button of the Mini Player.

I did change many settings with no luck, including turning off ( hardware acceleration )

** However I did turn back on Hardware acceleration and unchecked ALL CUSTOMIZED settings and it worked smooth as Style 1

These were simple fade effects along with - Customized Slides set at Time Duration 3000 - (2) Rhombus - (3) Rectangle - (1) Curling of page - (1) Gates - (2) Hour Hand - (1) Page effect.

So I am not too quick to blame it on the video card, as I have no issues with basic annimation / pan and zoom with O & A objects.

Also tested 2 other shows with Style 2 which did not completly stop at slide points but a definate stutter during transition period.

As the program defaults to Style 1, I have never switched it to Style 2 untill now.

Ver 5.6

3 gig ram

128 meg card

Image size 1024 x 685

[JRR]

Hi Hawk

Well I am "glad" I am not the only one with the issue.

I never noticed the sluggish response to the PAUSE so I went back and tried it

Yes I have the same issue only it is worse now. It used to only stall at the grey transition line, now it is spluttering along the whole line.

I also figured out the why it reacted 31 seconds from the start and wenmt back to normal at 31 seconds from the end. That is the halfway point on my TIMELINE that is visible on my screen. i.e. the point at which it would normally start scrolling at the front or stop scrolling at the end

If I zoom in, then the same issue starts at the new halfway point.

[davegee]

Jim,

I have tried this again and still cannot duplicate your symptoms?

The show I tried it with uses 1200 pixel high images (quality 12).

Is anything going on in the background apart from PTE?

There is no anti-virus or anything of that sort running on the machine I tried it with.

It might be worth temporarily switching off anything of that sort and/or using Ken's favourite ENDITALL and try that?

DaveG

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi All

Can someone point me in the right direction to check this, I know auto scroll is in timeline options, mine is ticked option 1. However I've never used it, I think, how is auto scroll activated?

Yachtsman1

[davegee]

In the TIMELINE view with Style 1 selected, the blue cursor moves along the timeline.

In Style 2 the cursor stays in the middle of the display and the timeline scrolls along.

The "Don't use Auto-Scrolling" seems to default to Style 1.

DaveG

[JRR]

Further to post #8 above:

When I said the spluttering was worse, I have just noticed that I was using a different show.

When I use a show with just fade transitions, Scroll 2 stops only when going through the fade, otherwise the blue triangle carries on fine. During the stoppage the pause and stop buttons are not effective.

However when I run a show of animations (pans and zooms) with a fade between each one, the blue triangle stops on the fade and then splutters and stops during the animation. During which the pause/stop buttons are not effective.

In all cases the show continues normally, it is just the scrolling that is the issue

No difference with my Anti-virus (AVG ) turned off

[Hawk]

Hi Jim and others following this thread

Further to my testing this problem

My monitor is 1680 x 1050, this full screen causes the timeline to sputter using Scroll - Style 2. If I reduce the screen size of the PTE interface to approximately 1024 x 768 in size - Style 2 seems to work as it should.

However a weird finding - even with PTE re-sized to say 1024 x 768 if I click anywere on the desktop with left mouse button it Pauses the Mini Player ????

Jim, if you get a moment can you check on your system this desktop click - pausing mini player.

[JRR]

Ralph:

Yes weird as you say......

My screen is 1280x1024. With PTE open on the full screen the timeline scroll 2 does the spluttering as we have seen, reduce it to about 1024x768 (approx) or smaller and everything sails along smoothly as you say.

Yes left clicking in the mini-player pane causes it to pause and start upon a new left click. you can repeat this as many times as you want.

Left click in the file pane (left side) and it stops and opens up the image you clicked on. Click again on the mini-player start button and away it runs again, but the left click anywhere in the min-player pane won't pause it. To get the pause with left click anywhere on mini-player pane, I have to stop it and send it back to zero and hit play.

[Hawk]

Jim

Thanks for verifying.

What is strange to me is this pause of the mini player in my case happens if I click anywere on the desktop or even the taskbar ( outside of PTE interface )

I can watch a video movie and click anywere without it interupting.

As to the hestitation with Style 2, I am at my wits end after making many changes with no luck.

Guess we will have to live with Style 1 until Igor can come up with an answer.

DaveG

I also turned off my Paretologic real time scanner - locked down the firewall and turned of the virus scanner, still the same problem with hesitation of time line Style 2.

[JRR]

What is strange to me is this pause of the mini player in my case happens if I click anywere on the desktop or even the taskbar ( outside of PTE interface )

I can watch a video movie and click anywere without it interupting.

Ralph:

I double checked that clicking off the PTE window would not pause the play in the mini-player (I had not checked that)

It does not

Only happens when I left click within the min-viewer pane as observed before

[nobeefstu]

Jim & Ralph,

Im not experiencing your Scroll 2 issue with 1024 Screen @ 256 MB video card.

Have you both tried turning off - Advanced Options | Show Real Slide in Slide List to see if any difference in the scroll issue ?

Note: You may have to turn off the setting ... then close/restart Pte to effectively test.

[JRR]

Have you both tried turning off - Advanced Options | Show Real Slide in Slide List to see if any difference in the scroll issue ?

Note: You may have to turn off the setting ... then close/restart Pte to effectively test.

Didn't make a difference at my end. I restarted PTE to be sure

Thx for the suggestion

[Hawk]

Hi Stu

Thanks for you post and comment in this matter.

Have you both tried turning off - Advanced Options | Show Real Slide in Slide List to see if any difference in the scroll issue ?

Yes Stu

As Jim mentions the same hestitation occurs also on my system.

Jim

I think it is all boiling down to the 128 MB graphic card with a screen size larger than 1024 x 768.

In my case this is a new monitor 1680 x 1050 - 22" and I should be running at least a 256 MB card and at best a 512 MB card specially for ver 5.6.

Shortly after I purchased the monitor the computer with 256MB card gave up on me so I ran over and picked up this used Dell that has an onboard 128 card. ( for now )

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

DaveG is running a 512MB, Anthoney's card seems to be sufficient with no problem and Stu you mention no issue with 256 MB card

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

In the above posts, Jim and I agreed that shrinking the PTE interface down from full screen to approx. 1024 x 768 solved the scroll style 2 problem.

So this evening I did change my monitor screen resolution to 1024 x 768 and - yes the scroll ran smooth.

Not sure if related

I also created a FAST horizontal pan to simulate the speed of the timeline playback, and as expected - jerky.

A longer slow pan will be acceptable.

Igor

I think if this is the case then may I suggest the F.A.Q. on the WnSoft page should be edited to a minimum requirement of 256MB card, or mention a maximum screen size 1024 x 768 with 128 card.

As to my problem with the Mini Player pausing when I click on the desktop or taskbar while running PREVIEW well this could be another seperate issue all together. ( post #13 )

[JRR]

Ralph:

I dug out my two laptops and and at first thought your theory re the video card size was the answer, but.....

Laptop One:

Toshiba M30 NVIDIA GeForce Go 5200 64mb, 512mb RAM screen res 1024x768

Auto Scroll 2 ran fine. (I forgot to test for left clicking in the mini-player pane to see if it would pause)

Laptop Two

Toshiba U200 Intel 945GM Express 128mb, 1gb RAM, screen res 1280x800

Auto Scroll ran OK !!!!!

Left clicking in mini-player pane would pause the run. And again if I left clicked in File pane (this time without opening an image from the file) and then tried left clicking in the mini-player, it did NOT pause.

[davegee]

Hi Jim,

Tests that I have conducted and reported on elsewhere here today, TEND to suggest that Graphics Card Memory has nothing to do with it.

A laptop with an nVidia Graphics card with 64Mb of RAM handled everything I could throw at it AS LONG AS HARDWARE ACCELARATION was turned on.

Without Hardware Accelaration nothing would work smoothly!

DaveG

[JRR]

Hi Jim,

Tests that I have conducted and reported on elsewhere here today, TEND to suggest that Graphics Card Memory has nothing to do with it.

A laptop with an nVidia Graphics card with 64Mb of RAM handled everything I could throw at it AS LONG AS HARDWARE ACCELARATION was turned on.

Without Hardware Accelaration nothing would work smoothly!

DaveG

Dave:

I checked to be sure, hardware acceleration was turned on my show

[davegee]

Jim,

Have you tried the advice here:

http://www.deskshare.com/Resources/article...celeration.aspx

it does not seem likely but worth a try.

DaveG

[JRR]

Jim,

Have you tried the advice here:

http://www.deskshare.com/Resources/article...celeration.aspx

it does not seem likely but worth a try.

DaveG

By Jove, I think you have it !!!

My hardware acceleration was set at full, I dropped it down a notch and the Auto Scroll 2 was OK.

Mind you while typing this I went back and checked again, and it was much better, but still spluttered once. So I knocked the acceleration down another notch and it seems almost perfect, there is am infinitesimal non-smoothness, but you have to be watching very closely for it.

Let's see if that solves Hawk's problem too.

Looks like this will solve the issue and let me have my favourite Auto scroll style back, I'll just have to watch out and see if the setting change affects anything else.

I still can pause the mini-player by left clicking anywhere in the mini-player pane, and again, if I left click in the file pane and then try left clicking in the mini-player pane, no pause.

Thanks !!!

[davegee]

It might be that the two Hardware Acceleration settings were/are conflicting.

DaveG