Igor

Eliot, It seems that your mail server blocked attached registration key. I just sent again you a letter with the key.

Dear Harry, I've sent you my letter this morning. With kindest regards!

Text animation effects will appears with new Visual editor of objects in v5.10 (after v5.00). I think in the more far versions we'll add support of inserting of video clips. You are right with the new graphical engine. It's a base for many future versions. You raised very interesting theme. How you consider, when HDTV appers will most people still use usuall photos in slide-show or prefer inserts video clips in HDTV quality instead of Pan/Zoom/Rotate effects? Moreover maybe photographers even will prefer to use not creating of slide-show in real-time, but editor with encoding video. However it's a slow variant to always wait.

Thanks. I just sent you email with request about more details.

We'll check up work of PTE with Windows Media Encoder 9 Thanks for letting me know about this problem!

1280x960 aproximately in 1,5 times larger than 1024x768 1600x1200 aproximately in 2,5 times larger than 1024x768 So I consider that 1280x960 is more reliable variant than 1600x1200. Also 1280x1024 screen resolution becomes more and more popular now. But 1600x1200 is not wide used at this moment (except of professionals mainly). If you use LCD/DLP projector (1024x768), PTE will reduce 1280x960 to 1024x768 (reducing in PTE is a very fast operation, you can ignore it at all) and will show all effects for 1024x768.

I highly recommend to use 1280 x 960 images with file size 300 - 500 KB. Such image size will allow to reach terrific quality of photographies with many details. If you have 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 screen resolution on your display, such large images (1280 x 960) will look very well, exactly when you used earlier 1024 x 768 images. But there are many 17", 18" and 19" LCD displays today with 1280 x 1024 screen resolution, also 19" CRT displays, and notebooks with high resolution displays. Users who have such displays will see wonderful quality of your photos if you use 1280 x 960 images. I think it's an optimal choice today.

In the next version we plan to add an option which will allow to ask the password to unlock expired slide-shows. Of course, as an option, as usually.

I just performed test to find optimal quality for images for PicturesToExe slide-shows. I've found that maximally sharp picture with more details can be reached if you use images at least 1280x960 It's a best choice for CRT/LCD displays with 1024x768 or 1280x1024. In this case: 1) If your display is 1280x1024, image will not be resized (excellent result). 2) If you have 1024x768 15" LCD display, it will be resized to 1024x768 and result (as I found) looks same as we could resize photo in Photoshop using Bicubic resampling! So PicturesToExe reduces image very well with result in the most cases exactly as Photoshop does (of course, in case of Bicubic, without unsharpen mask). But PicturesToExe not very well enlarges image. For example 1024x768 image won't look well (blurred) enlarged to 1280x960 on 17" or 19" LCD displays. Because of this, I highly recommend to use 1280 x 960 size for your images in slide-shows and it will give maximally possible terrific quality of picture on any displays.

The new version will have a special option - "Keep screen aspect ratio" (1,333 by default). So slide will looks equally on any display, as a picture of DVD movie.

Please visit your profile page and set "Daylight Saving Time" option.

Ken, what speed of connection during downloading? Our site located in US and at home I have 109 KByte per second on my 1 MBit ADSL connection. p.s. at least PTE is only 1,4 MB, not 50 MB

PicturesToExe v4.43 http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr.zip (1,4 MB) What's new in v4.43: * Fixed bug with an error message during overwriting of a template in PicturesToExe.

Please, it's was not difficult. Solving of this bug took only 5 minutes, I added only two words to the code to fix this problem. It really was my mistake with overwriting template. Try PicturesToExe v4.43: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/pte443.zip (1,4 MB)

Yes, you right! I see the problem, too. It will be fixed today in v4.43

Michel, You can open template, modify it, and then call "Create template" and give same name. PTE only will ask you about overwriting of template. But I just found that PTE may show error message. It absolutely works, only PTE mistakenly tries to overwrite exactly same existed file in the template folder. I'll fix it tomorrow in the next version. Thank you!

Ok, I've added this option to my TODO list. Thanks!

Also during development of new graphical engine we discovered several critical problems. Some solved, for some we've found other solutions. We contacted to NVIDIA and ATI. Today I'll send two bug-reports with examples to Microsoft and to INTEL, with descriptions of two new problems with using DirectX. Of course, even if they will be solved later in new DirectX/or drivers, we won't use that code and found another solution.

It's a very difficult task to find optimal usage of video card for perfect Pan/Zoom/Rotate effects (sharp picture and smooth motion). Several other products have some problems with it. Not enough sharp picture, jerks in motion and even narrowed color range in case of PhotoStory3 because of WMV re-compression. So all this requires much time to tests all ways and choose only one. We've added PNG support, Main picture can be transparent GIF or transparent PNG. New option for a background image of a slide "Fit to screen".

Thank you for your work!

I see at least a month for the first beta. We're working as it possible fast to prepare it. Please wait a little more!

Currently we consider that Geforce 3, or Geforce 4 MX 440, or ATI Radeon 8500, will be quite enough for absolutely smooth Pan/Zoom/Rotate effects even in hard 1280x1024 screen resolution. For 1024x768 it will enough Geforce 1 or Geforce 2 and maybe even Riva TNT2. Opposite, it won't require modern CPU, it's absolutely enough even Celeron 900 Mhz. So if you plan to buy new notebook, choose any CPU, but prefer models with NVIDIA or ATI video accelerators. It will possible to use large photos 1600x1200 and maybe more for enough quality of Zoom effect. I suppose the only limitation for larger photos will be more long time between slides. Also as I've tried with earlier tests of our new graphical engine, photos looks *much* more sharp and with more details than in some another product mentioned above. It was *very* difficult task. In any case any slide-show will work on any PC, even on Windows 95 and with very old video card 1 MB of video RAM. Also as usually 1,5 MB of PTE and instant run of a slide-show and PTE.

Ok, it shouldn't be difficult. I agree with you, that it was necessary to add it for a long time ago. I also agree that JPEG is the best choice for almost all photographies and PNG for special effects with partial semi-transparency.

Not a problem. It will possible to Pan/Zoom/Rotate partially semi-transparent PNG image (main picture of a slide) across static background of a slide.

I think we'll able to add PNG support to PicturesToExe in the next version. Including PNGs with alpha channel (partial semi-translucency).