alrobin

Thanks, Ray. I had a look at the 1080p and it performs very much the same way as the 720p on my desktop. I have yet to compare the 2 versions on my laptop/projector combination. I'm coming to the conclusion that there is something lacking in the way that PTE prepares avi's for wide-screen shows. Like Hawk demonstrated, if I prepare a show from 1024x768 images, using the 720x480 avi output parameters, and then render in Windows Movie-Maker at 16:9 I end up with a stretched version of the pte show, but the vertical pans do work just fine. So, I should be able to obtain similar results using 1280x768 images with the same 720x480 output. However, when I use the same settings with 1280x768 images, the final aspect ratio is wider than it should be, and there is a black band between the vertical pans. I've tried every combination of output parameters I can think of, and also tried it out with Nero, Pinnacle and MS Premiere Elements-2, and every trial yields the same results. I also used 720x540, and 720x405 (same as 16x9), but no luck with these aspect ratios either. I'll give it a try using avi's of 1280x768, the same as the images, (if my system will handle that amount of data), and let you know what happens.

Ray, Thanks for providing the video trailer. It's very well done. What program did you use to create it? On the big screen it is actually quite sharp, particularly with some of the better images. On my system the pans and zooms are a bit jerky in places, though. I have been able to convert my shows to wide-screen video using 720p, but still haven't been able to obtain a vertical "pan" without a gap between the images. Hawk has managed to make one using 1024x768 images, and distorting them to wide-screen mode, but I still haven't been able to manage a vertical pan using images already in wide-screen mode (1280x768). No problem with horizontal "pans". But in PTE "exe" mode, the vertical pans are just fine as long as I project them at the same screen resolution. I would be interested in downloading the 1080i version.

Daniel, You can do it now if you use the "Run external application" feature of the "Customize slide" menu. Just enter the name of the video file, and if your file "associations" are set up properly, the video will open in your preferred video player and run when that slide comes up. If you set the duration of the slide to the same value as the length of the video, you can continue on automatically with the slide show after the video has played. The only trick left is to figure out how to make the video program close automatically after playing the video.

Andy, Try this one: www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr.zip

You may have to put quotes around the file name.

Thanks again, Igor, for solving the music problem for us and also for putting a safeguard on the "create" function!

Maureen, I can't think of anyone better to mediate the choice of images and produce this show about world peace. Thanks for picking this up! Ed and Patrick, I agree with your comments about text. As far as the introduction is concerned, maybe someone from each country represented on the forum could contribute a translation for some simple introductory text, after it has been chosen by the producer, and that could be included on the introduction slide. Patrick, my comment about stirring up discussion was meant to be a joke (hence the ) I thought from the sound of your comments that maybe you were playing "devil's advocate" (sorry, I don't know if you use that idiom in French). And, your English is perfectly good, by the way. Maureen and Dave, good luck with the project!

Patrick, Are you sure you're not just trying to stir up some discussion on this topic? First of all, rather than criticize the submissions why not submit some "suitable" ones of your own, and then maybe the project will be more likely to go in the direction you think it should? As far as photo #3 is concerned, to me it speaks of peace (regardless of how sour the woman looks) in that it is a photo of a young couple (who could represent a certain middle east religion) surrounded by buildings of an entirely different and opposite religion. Since I believe that most unrest in the world has begun and continues to exist due to differing religious views, I find that this photo is symbolic of the first thing we need to do in order to have peace - and that is to bring people of different religions together and iron out their differences, and in doing so, make them realize that basically their beliefs are really very similar. Photo 13 speaks of remembrance (read the title) which is one of the first essential steps in eliminating war and conflict. Photo 31 -I don't see a flag there. Photo 17 - maybe the girl is lamenting the absence of peace in the world. After all, in AV it takes the combination of an image with suitable music or sound to convey the whole message. Patrick, with your background in photography, you must realize that photos are very subjective, so what says one thing to one person often draws the opposite connotation from another. Why not post some of your own photos (if you haven't already done so), so we can see just what your interpretation of the topic might be and also provide the producer(s) with some "proper" material to work with??

John, Once you have "associated" your jpeg images with Photoshop (assuming that is your default image editor), you can open an image from PTE directly by highlighting it in the slide list and clicking on "Ctrl-W".

Lin, What if the external application is something like "Notepad" and you want to open a text file which is saved in the root of the CD along with the PTE executible? Or a Flash file? I know it will work from the hard drive, and there the files don't have to be in the root of the drive - just in the same folder.

Kurt, I don't remember if this will work from a CD or not, but normally you just remove the pathname from the application or file you want to run, and put the file or application in the same folder as the PTE file.

FS, First of all, over 1000 of us have been using PTE for several years and don't seem to have the same problem as you are describing, so that rules out PTE as being the source of the problem. I agree with you that you don't want to reduce the image sizes unneccessarily, but it is reasonable to expect that they would be reduced to a size which PTE can handle without encountering flickering, shimmering, etc. You should also accept the fact that, as good as it is in adjusting image sizes to suit the particular viewing resolution, PTE is not intended to compete with PS and other high-end editors, so that implies prior preparation of the images in a suitable image editor - if Picassa works for you, then that's the one you should use. Most of us use Photoshop as it's approximation algorithms are superb. You should not expect PTE to eliminate jaggies - what is a suitable approximation for you might not be suitable for someone else. So, you should be preparing your images first in whatever software works, until it looks good when displayed in your PTE show. And, it will only look perfect on your own PC, through your own projector, as every other combination will be slightly different. The philosophy used in PTE, and I believe this is the correct one, is that it will attempt to show the images presented to it as accurately as possible without all kinds of post-production manipulation. The same rule is applied to colour management, which some have suggested is required in order to project a uniform show. However, this would not please everyone as proper colour, etc., is very subjective, so the approach taken is that each AV producer should do whatever is necessary to the images before importing into PTE. As Dave suggests, it would be nice if we could see some of the images you are concerned with, so that we can try them out in different scenarios, including PTE. AT least give us some technical specs so that we can better understand and assess your situation. Best of luck with your shows!

Very well said, FXD! You've summed it up very well for most of us "dabblers" in creativity. One good thing about PTE is that it doesn't stifle one's creativity by being too complicated or even too expensive. Yet it opens up a window to us still photographers that offers a whole new world of creative potential. And it provides a marvelous opportunity for us to display our work to friends, relatives, and others interested enough to watch.

Igor - you are amazing! Everything seems to work perfectly now! Thank-you so much for your persistent efforts on this. I think you should give Bill Gates a call and offer to solve some of his many problems with Windows!

Igor, Open1: - Tests1 to 4 all returned "MMSYSERR_NOERROR" Open2: - Tests 1 to 4 all returned "MMSYSERR_BADDEVICEID" Open3: - Tests 1 to 4 all returned "MMSYSERR_NOERROR"

Igor, With beta1 the problem with "Preview" is the same as before - no change (freezes on the first image, without any music). I tried running the new beta2, and I get a message "Can not open WaveOut" when I press "Preview". Then when I press OK, the first slide comes on and freezes (without any music) as before.

Tom, You might find my PTE-101 tutorial HERE on Beechbrook (free download) useful - it's a little out of date, but the fundamentals are the same. When Igor releases version 5 it will be even more out of date!

Pixellation is also related to the amount of smoothing or anti-aliasing present. It is more pronounced on sharp diagonal lines and especially lines that have been over-sharpened in one's image editor. A good way to see raw pixellation is with text produced with "anti-aliasing" turned off.

Jill, You should be able to do this in Nero from the temporary avi file that PTE provides. I believe that there are 3 options for your output to CD (or DVD). Give it a try - the message from Nero probably means that it needs to convert the avi file into an mpeg-2 file.

Scotsman, You are probably getting more pixellation for 2 reasons: 1. Your projector is probably projecting at a lower resolution than your pc monitor, and 2. When you project the image, the pixellation is even more noticeable than on the monitor because the image projected is much larger. It's similar to those first very large TV sets that came out back in the early 80's that looked terribly grainy from close-up because the lines were much further apart than on a smaller set.

Ron, See Igor's post above at 10:23 AM GMT.

Steve, What a cool idea! I've done sketches from a photograph before and then dissolved from them to the actual photographs in a slideshow, but never thought of showing the actual drawing of the sketches themselves. Very effective! There are lots of variations on this idea, too, that one could try.

Gilbert, First of all, you should never save a program directly to your desktop - always select a folder (preferrably a new one for a new program), or save it directly to your C drive. When you run Igor's utility and press "Get length and play" you should see the following window: Then if you select an mp3 file (you can use the one Igor included in one of his posts above), you will see the following: If you press "OK" you should hear the file playing. In order to solve the problem it's important for Igor to know exactly what happens with specific controlled utilities like this one and the ones in his following posts.

Igor, As I mentioned in my email, Preview 1 and 2 play fine, but Preview 3 hangs up as before. The normal preview button at the bottom now also plays just fine in special version 4.45a.

Shik, You might be interested in following the thread that Igor mentioned above, and maybe contributing to some of the tests.