Igor

Al, A little correction, 128 MB enough for ideally smooth playback of Pan/Zoom/Rotate effects. If don't use slides like 3400x2200 8 MPix and larger.

Barry, I still can not see difference in speed. Both - EXE file/Fullscreen Preview and Preview in Visual editor have same speed. I set 100% scale of view in Visual editor to see same picture and all works exactly equally. Maybe it's visual illusion? Or probably in Visual editor Preview is not enough smooth and it gives such effect.

This flickering is moire effect. In this case I found several reasons: - Unsharp mask or Bicubic Sharper method (almost always causes moire, don't use these functions for Pan/Zoom/Rotate). - Tree with high details (frequent reason of the moire) - And using "Original size" for the objects together with Panning. Possible solutions: 1) Apply slight Gaussian blur. 2) Or use more large images (1024x768 instead of 512x384) (with our "Blur" option). In this case you will have sharp picture without moire problem.

Lin, "old moon was too sharp for the small zoom so I made some changes." We plan to add special option - "Use MIP mapping" for such objects with small zoom it will improve visual quality.

I think it's right to that mouse click selects object on the top. But I agree it's difficult to work with objects on several layers. I'll think how to help with this work. It's in my TODO list.

No difference, but our function will include all used files in the project and you will not miss something.

Granot, Please use useful function - "Create backup in ZIP" archive (Main menu | File).

Thank you, Jean-Pierre! A very nice demo, especially animated text!

In the next beta we will show warning for "Create back in ZIP" function in case of non base latin symbols. It's OK now. Thanks We spent much time to reach ability of showing images pixel in pixel without resizing in 3D mode with hardware acceleration. If you have 1024x768 screen resolution and image 1024x768 it will be displayed exactly as is, without bluring and without resizing. Or if you set "Original size" it also will not be resized/blured on any display - exact show pixel in pixel. We compared screenshots in graphical editor (via subtraction of layers) - no difference at all between original and screenshot from a screen. As you also noticed images in PicturesToExe v5.00 can be placed with sub-pixel accuracy (between pixels). Also this sub-pixel positioning of images during animation gives so smooth Pan effect.

Jeff, Radeon 9200 unfortunately is not enoug fast for v5.00 slide-shows with Pan/Zoom. Only reduced images will work fine. In PteShow I used 2400x1600 images - and they requires modern video card. Try this example: http://www.wnsoft.com/test/PteShow_H.zip Does it work better than http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/show/PteShow.zip

Well known, unfortunately, problem in 3D games. If you disable Nero Scout, will "System" process takes 13% of CPU resources? As I discovered Nero Scout all time scans files on PC and probably it provokes antivirus to check up these files. I even don't know how we all will watch HDTV films or slide-shows on PC where such behaviour of antivirius will disturb normal show of TV. We're trying to solve this stupid problem. I posted yesterday specail test slide-show which solves this problem.

Steve, Thank you for letting me know about these two problems! I've sent you email. There will be no problem with producing AVI video in v5.00. We use only offical Microsoft's DirectX API for hardware acceleration. I see very well solution for Pan/Zoom on old video cards: - Smaller images size (1024x768 for example). - Creating of DVD disc via AVI file. - Or using of free Microsoft Media Encoder 9 which produces WMV9 video 1280x720 with HDTV quality. As I know, HD-DVD and Blue-Ray support WMV9 video.

In beta #2 we fixed problem with "Complonar vector" message. It's impossible (technically) to resize zero size object.

You can select such objects with 0 value of Zoom usign Objects Tree (right-bottom part of the window in Visual editor)

Jean-Pierre, We found one interesting problem. It better to use only English symbols in names of files if you will publish source files of a project. Because ZIP archive doesn't store files in Unicode format, and when I unpack this ZIP in Russia or in other country with Cyrillic symbols, I'll see damaged symbols in names of file (like problem you found in About window). Specified French symbols will be replaced to specific Russian symbols. So I can not open this project in PicturesToExe. Only WinRAR product with packing to RAR archive correctly packs/unpacks national symbols in names of files. Of course, this problem never occurs with EXE file of slide-show (even packed to ZIP archive).

Jean-Pierre, Please re-download original PteShow I reworked in beta #2: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/show/PteShow.zip and compare with new PteShow_H version

Ken, I forgot to say that if you find some problem in "PteShow_H" test, please compare with this our official demo: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/show/PteShow.zip

Test for modern video cards, where PTE v5.00 slide-show work smoothly: http://www.wnsoft.com/test/PteShow_H.zip Please run this test one time for 1 minute and then press Esc to close. Let me know, if you'll find any problem with music, or with jerks or another problems. We're working on optimal parameters of slide-show and it will help us to find better solution. (This test doesn't have memory leaks. Please don't test this moment.)

Jean-Pierre, Sorry! Please send me your name in Word file.

I forgot to say about grouping of objects. Just add "Frame" object and insert new image to this frame object. Now if you move this frame, inserted objects will be moved too. If you rotate or resize frame, inserted objects will be moved, too. p.s. by the way, did you see new About window in version 5.00?

Mike, It' s a bug in new drivers from Matrox. They just disabled very important function in their new drivers. Please install previous more old drivers. Unfortunately Matrox has very bad drivers for Direct 3D. Lin, It's a very good idea! Thank you. We need time to think and discuss this idea - I thought that we could create manager of templates for quick adding of your Pan/Zoom effects. Now we need to concentrate on current important problems and re-activate "old" PTE functions. After this, we'll work with your idea.

After we changed time of a slide (e.g. from 4 seconds to 7 seconds), we can't proportionally changes positions of keypoints. Because we don't know old time for moving keypoints. It's necessary to do it at same time at one call: change time of slide + change times of keypoints. Because of this: - Or automatical changing of keypoints when we change time of slides. - Or special window in Visual editor via button (to change time of current slide and proportionally move keypoints of objects on this slide). I can't resolve this dilemma already several months.

Robert, So button in Visual editor with appearing of new window where we can enter new time of a slide and checkbox "Proportionally move keypoints"?

Aha, the good question! I've waited when somebody will ask about this moment. We have two kinds of keypoints: - Exactly located at moments of beginning, ending of a slide and ending of a transition effects. These keypoints shown with "+" symbol on the timelines. And they will be automatically moved if you change time of a slide or duration of a transition effect. - And freely located keypoints, you wrote about. We still can't decide how to better do. Proportionally move these keypoints as you described above, or add special option for it, some button in Visual editor?

Ken, No difference between grayscale and color images. Video card always stores images in color (RGB). Performance/Quality option in NVIDIA drivers doesn't affect on quality of PTE 5.00 slide-shows.