alrobin

John, Jim has answered most of your queries and concerns so I'll just add to his remarks. I too have just purchased a wide-format laptop and "matching" projector, but with a slightly smaller resolution (1280x768), the idea being that I will not be projecting very often onto a 20-ft screen, so do not really need the extra pixels. Also (and this is the real reason), it was about $2,000 less-expensive. I don't like to crop if I don't have to, either, but there is no ideal hardware (that I know of) that will fit the exact aspect ratio of one's camera. So, my preference is to go wide-screen (in my case, 1280x768) and accept the presence of the unused black bars at the sides. Fortunately I have that little extra headroom over the "usual" 1280x720 ratio so I achieve a little more efficient use of the available pixels than I would otherwise be able to. Or, to put it another way, with an aspect ratio not quite so wide, there is less unused area in the side-bars. One issue which does present itself as a consideration is the use of the "push" transitions in PTE. In order to be able to project both horizontal and vertical "push" transitions, the aspect ratio of the slideshow must be exactly the same as that of the projector - hence the need to crop slightly (in my case, off the top and/or bottom of my images. This is sometimes more difficult to achieve than cropping off the sides). But, in this world, you can't "have your cake and eat it too"! Now, DVD's and HDTV projection are another issue all of their own.

Bill, "DVD Movie Factory" is "Ulead", one of the suitable video programs I mentioned - it is one of the preferred programs for transferring PTE shows to video format. You mentioned Elements 2 and upgrading to "4" - I assume you are referring to Photoshop Elements 2, as I believe Premiere Elements is only up to version 2 at the moment. I just upgraded to Premiere Elements 2 and am very happy with it at the moment - it's features are a notch above those of the other lower-priced video-creating programs and it is much more user-friendly. (e.g. it has multiple tracks (both sound and video), the ability to mix videos and individual images and apply panning effects, etc. Am still learning about what it is capable of. Sorry, I am not familiar with Photoshop Elements, except to know that it contains most of the critical features of the pricier "mother" program. Don't know about version 4, either.

Well, Ron, maybe Cindy's shows are small enough, or use small enough images, and simple transitions, that they will play on any windows based computer. Those were her words, not mine! However, all other things being equal, PTE will in general work on any windows-based pc.

Bill, You can't use the avi capabilities of PTE to create a "video" of both the flash introduction and the pte show together. However, if you create your flash "movie" to an avi file, and then use the video features of pte to create a temporary avi, these can then be combined within a video editing program such as ULead, or Nero or Pinnacle or Adobe Premiere Elements, etc., to combine all avi's to an mpeg format suitable for dvd's. Let us know how your experimenting with this works out.

Check out Guido's site . He has a good selection of classical pieces.

Jeff, Congratulations on your wide-screen results. I was not so luck y on my first few attempts, but finally was able to produce a wide-screen show that looked ok in the projected image. However, the real test for wide-screen is a show with both horizontal and vertical "push" transitions. I was able to achieve a connected "pan" effect in the horizontal direction, but when the show attempted to "pan" vertically, there were black bars between the images. I put this down to improperly-sized original images, and have yet to construct a test to verify this. Good luck with your wide-screen shows, and thanks for the feedback!

I too had no problem on a DSL link. It was a little slower than with some, but still downloaded at a nominal 155 kbps, while the small file next to it downloaded at 179 kbps. While the excellent, carefully exposed and composed images are very sharp, they do not fill the screen, and yet there was a bit of "flicker" on some transitions, so I suspect that the images may be unnecessarily large and/or very high-quality jpegs.

Ron, Just to clarify this further, Dusty's "open" applies to opening the zip file and then the slideshow, whereas what I was referring to was the downloading of the file from the website in the first place. Dusty, May I suggest the following wording for clarification? "Show Information: All of these shows are zipped EXE files. They will play on any Windows based computer, full screen, without any special software required. To download a show, just click on the link, choose the option "save" and select a location to save the file. Alternatively, 'right-click' on the link, choose the "save target as" option, and select a suitable location. After download is complete, go to the selected location, open the .zip file, and copy the exe file to the folder of your choice. Then when you double-click on the exe file the show will begin. Press the "Esc" key to quit the show at any time. Shows were created using Pictures to EXE and Adobe Photoshop."

Jeff, Select "Custom" in PTE for the avi, and you can select the dimensions you want. You will get much larger files, though.

Dusty, A more precise way to download files is to "right-click" on the link, and then select which option you want to use.

Brian, I think it may be the registration number that Felicity is having a problem with. That's why I suggested she contact Barry - I don't know what sort of arrangement he has made with Igor if he is distributing PTE via CD's, or whether the copy on the CD may be a trial copy, only??

Felicity, Welcome to the Forum. I would send Beckham digital an email or give Barry a call if I were you.

If you download Marco's demo from Beechbrook, there is a text file describing the process and instructions on how to run the demo. He created it with "Swish", and used a utility developed by boxig which, along with several variants, can be found at his site: ThailandPhotoAlbum . Sorry, Granot, I didn't notice you were already replying!

Ken's suggestion is still the easiest. It's a lot of work, especially in a large show, and even worse with a number of shows, to go through and change the pathnames for all sound and images in each show.

Yes, that is consistent with what I found using Vision Express. I suspect it is generating intermediate images much larger than those used in other avi-creation programs like Pinnacle or Premiere Elements, as their avi files are about 1/4 of the size. The reason why the temporary avi file from PTE is so small is because it is still relying on PTE to provide the image information and so doesn't have to stand on its own. And, you are right, using the custom avi option with custom codecs does produce a permanent avi file, but it may not be compatible with all video-rendering software. In my limited testing I have found that the PTE codec works best. Igor, too, has indicated that this is the preferred one to use. For menus, I have found Pinnacle's "Studio 8" and Adobe's "Premiere Elements" to be the most user-friendly in setting up break points and "return to menu" control points. Studio 8 seems to have the most options for font types, graphics, and menu and title designs, etc. of all of the programs I have tested. I just received my copy of Elements 2, so don't know yet what it can do.

Stonemason, I agree with you re the need for discussion and debate - everyone is entitled to one's opinions, and I respect yours. This issue is unnecessarily complicated. I have just recently started to experiment with it, and hope to someday incorporate it into a revised PTE tutorial. However, this topic is becoming less confusing as new improved versions of the various programs are produced. Re building mpeg2 into PTE, there are a lot of other issues at play here too which would make it difficult for Igor to keep up with continuing development: licencing costs for the various codecs, a multitude of different standards (mpeg2 is only one of the formats that the users would request), rapidly changing standards as new features are added, increasing demands by consumers for better picture quality, new breakthroughs in hardware capabilities, etc., etc. Once mpeg2 was added to PTE, everyone would also want the ability to combine two or more shows, add fancy menus and even fancier transitions, etc. Video is a whole world of its own! But, who knows - maybe when HDTV production becomes a household capability, and if video resolutions continue to improve, we will all be shooting video some day! By the way, has anyone noticed that you can now add a smilie within the text wherever the cursor happens to rest?

stonemason, This is really too much to ask of a program like PTE or ProShow or any other program not dedicated to video. There really are too many variables, and the video development situation is too volatile, as you can see from some of the discussion above. In order to keep PTE affordable, Igor has to work with a minimum of technical staff, so video is best left to the video experts while Igor and his team concentrate on the issues particularly important to being able to put together effective AV sequences from stills. It's a little like the auto repair business - when I took my car in for a transmission flush recently, my mechanic had to send it out to a specialist. When I wanted my AC fixed, I had to go to a different specialist. I would much rather have to purchase a separate specialist program to do the video conversion (or programs, since one program never does it all just the way you want it to do), than to have Igor waste his precious time building the capability into PTE, just to be able to say that it can create an mpeg video file. In fact, IMO, it's kudos to Igor for taking the option as far as he has!

You're welcome, Jeff. Further to my earlier post, Ken and Ralph and I have been communicating our test results on a number of technical fronts, and I should let you know what I found regarding Nero Vision Express. The stand-alone "avi" file I created with this program is much larger than the ones created with "Studio 8" or "Elements", so they might not be too practical for your situation where you want to combine 10 different shows. For example, for my "Emerald Isle" show, I found that the avi file sizes were as follows: Temporary PTE avi file: 91.4 Mb: Nero "Vision Express": avi: 8.10 Gb ! final mpg file: 434 Mb ("standard" 5073 kbps). (I obtained this result twice in a row). Pinnacle "Studio-8": avi: 1.95 Gb; mpg #1: 407 Mb (video: 6000 kbps, audio: mpeg, 224 kbps, 48 khz); mpg #2: 223 Mb (video: 5073 kbps, audio: mpeg, 224 kbps, 48 khz). Premiere "Elements 2": avi: 1.95 Gb; mpg: 493 Mb (quality: default ??). I used 720x480 for all tests.

Lin, You said it better than I did! And, if I might add, when you consider the wealth of ready, friendly assistance, information, and discussion here in this Forum, PTE again chalks another plus in its favour.

Steph, Welcome to the Forum! I think what Lin was saying was that while ProShow and others have features which PTE lacks, they also have many other problems which PTE also lacks. And while PTE may be lacking today in some areas as you point out, that this deficiency will be more than rectified in the new version 5. However, only Igor knows at this point, so there is really no point in debating it.

Well, that may be, but it's a close relation to MPEG (MPEG-4, actually). It amounts to virtually the same idea, anyway.

Ken, My "avi" file from MS "Movie Maker" was 917 Mb, whereas the equivalent "wmv" file was only 26 Mb.

Ray, Thanks again for the information - I think I'm starting to get my head around this. Yes, you are correct - the original image sizes in my slideshow are 1280x768 because that is the native resolution of my new digital projector. Most wide-screen projectors apparently use a native resolution of 1280x720, but my Mitsubishi is one of few that gives you that extra headroom so that the usual 1024x768 slideshows, and the usual TV programming, will project without undue cropping or resizing. I don't really have an application for HD (yet) but I'm interested in it from a technical point of view, and the best way to learn about somethng is to try to make it work. Please let me know when and where you put your show on-line.

Jeff, The dual avi system worked for me in Pinnacle - in fact it was the only way I could get Pinnacle to recognize that the two avi's, one for each of 2 different shows, were in fact different. It kept giving me a repeat of the first one when I tried to use the temporary avi's created by PTE. Obviously, as Ken indicates, the ideal way to creat multiple shows is to go directly from different instances of PTE into a movie program such as Vision Express or Nero, etc. You mentioned that the quality when you used mpegs instead of avi's was not as good as from avi files - this is to be expected since mpeg files are much smaller than avi files due to considerable compression. We know that taking a jpeg and then editing it again results in a lesser quality jpeg than if we go back to the original uncompressed image and do any further editing on it, so the same principle probably holds in video. If your intent is still to avoid having to keep 10 copies of PTE open, then I would suggest you keep experimenting until you find a system that will accept your "permanent" avi files as sources for the final composite DVD.

Jeff, The Nero program I use is called "Vision Express 2". Instead of "making a DVD", select "make new movie", select the temporary avi file, and then select "Export/Custom", and choose "avi" as the file type. This procedure in Nero is unnecessarily complex, and it took me over half an hour this morning to remember the sequence of steps in order to find the "avi" option. In fact I already had a message prepared to send you and tell you I had made a mistake and couldn't remember how I had done it before, and then I went back to the program and this time I found the option again. Nothing is simple in this video world!