JEB

Lin, Yes we are reading from the same page. I have just run through both shows again on both m/c’s and results are as before. Desktop – both shows “smooth as silk”. Laptop - Both shows have a little flicker (compared to desktop) as the pieces move into place (both shows about the same). I confess it is difficult to identify which pieces as they move at different rates but it’s certainly not as smooth as the desktop. I confirm that the most noticeable stutter is with the spinning goat in the small show! Very odd! Regards John

Lin, Thank you for your reply. You may be interested in the following. I have run both of your shows again on my laptop (ATI XPRESS 200M) and desktop (NVIDA GeForce FX5600) machines with the following results. My desktop machine gives very smooth results with both shows. With both shows my laptop gives an occasional minor stutter (perhaps a better word than flicker!) as the pieces move into place. However, the disappearing, spinning image in the “small” show, stutters quite noticeably (to my curious eye) on the laptop. This is something I am going to have to live with for some time as I only purchased the laptop about six months ago. However I suspect that other people may not notice. Also, being aware will make me extra careful when putting shows together on my desktop not to exceed the limits of the laptop. Being totally honest I am most unlikely to produce anything that will reach these limits in any case. Thanks again for your interest. John

Ron, What more can be said? First class! Keep them coming (Please)! Regards John

Igor, I recall some months ago when graphics cards were being discussed that I asked about the one I have on my HP laptop. It is an ATI RADION XPRESS 200. I understood at the time that this was well up to spec. However I have never seen any ref to it in any postings similar to this posting and would appreciate your reassurance as I still get a "little" flicker on panning and do not know whether this what I should expect if my card is not in fact up to spec. Thanks John

Lin, Thanks for this tool. I thought others may be interested in these results. 5 year old PC with GeForce 2MX small file ok with a few jerks. Large file would not play images only music. PC with GeForce FX5600 both files fine Laptop with ATI RADION XPRESS 200M small file fine but large file a little jerky. Regards John

Jeff, Al, Thank you both for taking the time to reply to my post. That has deffinately cleared up a number of doubts in my mind. Regards John

Folks, I have been watching the Forum avidly for the past months and trying to absorb as much as I can about V5. Not being technical I am happy to leave all the testing and discussion to those of you who are clearly very able to contribute during the Beta process. Consequently I have only dabbled, timidly, with V5 up till now. I have also been reading the excellent tutorials that are beginning to appear. (Incidentally I agree that it would be great help if these documents, together with their comments could be posted at one central point) I do however have a number of thoughts that I would appreciate someone clarifying for me and perhaps for other lesser mortals, if they can spare the time. It was always my understanding with V4 that one of its great strengths was its small file size (i.e. we could work with very small image sizes 200 Kb-ish!). If I understand things correctly we are now talking about enormous original image sizes (i.e. Mb’s). I can understand that a panorama is clearly larger than a standard image but surely only proportionally. I can also see that objects and actions are going to have an impact on file size. I also understand that a much larger image would be required in order to retain quality if zooming was being used. I assume and please correct me if I am wrong that where PAZ is not being utilized we will continue to use small image sizes. Comments on above would be appreciated. It came like a bolt out of the blue recently to me that Objects could be regarded as Layers in PS. - Please don’t tell me I’m wrong! If I am correct, would it not help to also have a graphical illustration like the Layer stack in PS as an option to the present method which as far as I can make out could become confusing unless clear titles are given when these objects are being created. Views please. Regards to all you dedicated people and in particular to Igor and his team. John

Thank you Igor for your continued interest. I have not had any problems since I changed my firewall and antivirus set up. Regarding Beta 3 I, like some others have been resisting the temptation to get too involved preferring to leave it to others much more able to help evaluate and assist directly in this stage of development. I have however a number of questions I will post separately once I have gathered my thoughts together. Thank you for your professional attitude. Regards John

Lin & Al Thank you both very much for your responses. I will let you know Lin how I get on in a few weeks time. I am getting ready for a trip to Italy so will not have sufficient time to play till my return. I don't want you to think that I am ignoring your detailed response. I think I understand the concept now but as you say I need to play. Just for your info. it is a river project I am involved with so clearly it will be a blue line and as we will be tracing it from its sourse to the sea it broadens as it reaches the sea so there is going to be a bit of detailed photoshop work to be done! John

Lin, As with many of the other examples that are beginning to emerge I am most impressed. As a relative new boy to this arena I have not yet got too involved with 5 as I am waiting for you "magicians" to help Igor iron out the initial problems. I am particularly interested in how you achieved the moving "route" as I see an application for this in a forthcoming project I am involved with. Any "step by step" explanation would be most appreciated. John

Slight judder on pans. OK on zooms Music OK NVIDIA GeForce 2MX Will try other m/c later John

Hi All, I am now "bomb proof" to use Brian's expression. My techie arrived this morning and as I think I indicated earlier was on exactly the same wave length as Brian, spent a few hours and sorted out my e-mail, antivirus and firewall problems. Not only that I now have the laptop connected via a wireless connection as well as my two desktops (one via USB and the other via ethernet). Still trying to get access to my printers from each PC but that's not a big issue as I do have access to shared documents. Thank you all for your help, it's very much appreciated Regards John

Brian, Thanks very much for that, I really do appreciate everybody taking time to respond. As it happens I made contact with a local tech last night and am awaiting his arrival as I type. I hope to put a number of issues to rest by lunch time. On talking to him on the phone he is saying many of the things you good folk have been saying so I grow with confidence with each passing hour!!! Regards John PS I'll post an update later - so watch this space!!!

Brian, I'm using XP Home and regularly let the system upgrade from the M/Soft site. What prompted all this was (apart from all the problems mentioned earlier) that suddenly today I could not open e-mail attachments and got a message telling me that my EZ subscription was due to be renewed (no notice given - just bang!). This made me decide that the time was right to make changes. On the basis of earlier responses I did a search for AVG and NOD32 and found a lot of poss feedback on NOD32 so I have downloaded that to my e-mail m/c (PC1). However I am still getting the same message when trying to open attachments despite the fact that I uninstalled EZ before installing NOD32. As this is beginning to get out of control I think I had better take this up with my Broadband e-mail supplier in the morning. It's almost like they don't want to let me go - or am I just being cynical! Thanks everybody for your input. I will give your replies thought over the w/e. John

Hi, Forgive me if I appear to be a bit dim, I am! My two m/c’s are connected independently to the router and are not networked. I did have them networked at one time but found that it was not worth it in my situation. I am the only user, they are both located side by side and my PTE/PS (PC2) m/c has the scanner and the colour printer connected. It is connected via an Ethernet cable to the router and this is the m/c which presently has the firewall, both have antivirus. The other m/c (PC1) which I use mainly for e-mail, Internet browsing etc has a small black printer connected to it and is connected to the router via a USB connection. If I understand you correctly neither m/c requires a firewall as the router is performing that task but both should have antivirus and presumably anti spy ware (why is that not all one product? – another opportunity to get money out of us I presume!). I would appreciate confirmation but I guess it’s not as simple as that – or is it! John PS About a month ago I took the opportunity to download a Beta version of a new Microsoft product that has been getting a lot of publicity recently (forgotten its name i'm afraid) and that was a disaster. I was not able to open e-mail attachments and it took me hours talking to my Internet provider before we realized what was causing the problem.

Thank Al I understood that there was a firewall on the router when I bought it but was convinced by my network provider that it was best to PURCHASE one for the desktop, through them! That is why I only put it on the one m/c! John

I am quite certain that this is not the correct place to post this request but I am beginning to get a bit desperate. I have eTrust EZAntivirus on both my desktop m/c’s and their Firewall only on the one I use for PTE and PS etc. I am not aware of any problems associated with the antivirus but I am certain that the Firewall interferes with a number of activities notably when playing PTE shows. All is well if I switch off the firewall, which seams to be defeating the purpose. Both m/c’s are connected to broadband via a router. I remember having similar problems with Norton antivirus in the past on another m/c. In fact when I recently purchased a new laptop, primarily for running PTE shows via my projector, it had Norton installed so the first thing I did was uninstall it as I would rather not put this m/c on the Internet than run the risk of screwing up! What do you folks do? Have you had similar problems? What do you do about Firewalls and Antivirus I have heard people mention that they use free services but have steered clear of that up till now. What do you think? Sorry for posting this here but I suspect I am not the only person to have had these experiences. In desperation, John

Total Pointers 17757535 Peak Pointers 1971 Peak Mem 68451188 bytes Leave Pointers: 2 (64 byte) Regards John

Thank you all for your rapid and considered responses, particularly at a time of such great excitement! At least I am reassured that I am not doing anything too daft at the moment. I must look into raw more seriously especially as, if I have picked this up properly, raw is not as demanding on storage as TIFF. Correct? The benefits of being able to capture so much detail with raw for subsequent processing are definitely intriguing. I mentioned before that I do have an external HD. It is connected via a USB port to my main desktop PC. Do I understand correctly that I should be able to interchange this drive with another PC, say my laptop? It is powered independently from the PC. Regards and all the best with v5 tomorrow. John

I am aware that JPEG files deteriorate with use. Although my camera can capture in Raw or Raw + Jpeg I only use Jpeg. Presently I store my images on an external drive and back up to DVD periodically - though to be honest, probably not frequently enough. When working on an AV, I take a jpeg copy of the images I require from the external drive to a Working Folder on an internal hard drive and work on those images from there (a copy of the original). I do the same if printing (i.e. take a copy of original). My concern is that I have heard that many people convert their images to TIFF, which I understand does not deteriorate with use to the same extent as Jpeg. I have not followed this course as yet as I find that I like to keep most of my images, even though I may never get round to using many of them (but which?) and to do this with TIFF would have a major impact on storage. What do others do? Should I bite the bullet and convert everything to TIFF? Your comments and advice would be appreciated. John

Igor, I have two desktop m/c’s – one for e-mail @ Internet (PC1) and one for graphics (PTE, Photoshop etc) (PC2). I also have a laptop for projection. PC1 - (NVIDA GeForce 2 MX) PteShow.exe – This stutters mainly during the vertical pan, not so much but a little during the horizontal pan Flowers.exe – Perfect. PC2 - (NVIDA GeForce FX5600) PteShow.exe – At first run this stuttered in the vertical pan though much less than on PC1. I then disabled both the antivirus and firewall (eTrust) and ran it again and it was perfect – not a flicker. I switched the firewall on again and got the minor flicker again. Flowers.exe – Perfect. Laptop (Compaq nx6215) - (ATI RADION XPRESS 200 M) PteShow.exe – As PC 1 & 2 – some flicker on the vertical pan. I do not let this m/c near the Internet so some time ago I removed the Norton antivirus from it as I was having trouble with it (not for the first time with this product – on other m/c). However this m/c has what I understand to be a Microsoft Firewall (Windows Security Centre), which I have not been able to find out how to switch off to check whether this is causing the problem. Flowers.exe – Perfect. Hope this is of help. John

Thank all above for your interest (including Maureen who replied off line) for your interest and advice. To the more cautious of you, I am afraid I have to say that your advice, though appreciated, is being totally ignored! Caution and I have never been close bedfellows, as I know to my cost – and no doubt be reminded of yet again! You will perhaps have gathered, if you have been following this thread, that last night at our AGM the project was given resounding approval. I feel I owe you all a little explanation of what we propose to achieve. There is nothing unique; indeed it has been done before many times, I know. We like many towns, have a local river and we simply plan to try to tell its story from its nearby source till it joins another river about six miles from our town, a total of about 12 miles. The river will be the catalyst but almost more importantly, there are a variety of photo opportunities, historic and social on its immediate environs, which we hope concentrate on. I don’t wish to bore you with detail but at the same time I would like keep you up to date with developments and reassure you that all the advice given has been duly noted and is being taken seriously. Time last night did not permit further action other than virtually gaining 100% support for the project and a commitment by all to get involved at least in capturing images. We will divide the river geographically and agree (or allocate!) beats. We will be capturing Landscape, Natural History, Architectural, and Portraiture, Leisure activities etc. over our closed summer season. We will reconvene next Thursday to put this plan into effect. It was felt that not only would this action contribute to the project but also provide personal opportunities for capturing material for the various winter competitions. We have potential plans for lectures and teach-ins that no doubt will be developed with the passage of time. Any further advice will gratefully be received. Regards and thanks again. John

For the record I note that we can only place one vote and like I am sure many others I have both a desktop and laptop. I have voted GeForce FX5600 for my desktop. However my laptop has an ATI RADION X200M Regards John P.S. - I'm beginning to get excited!

Thank you all for taking the time to reply. Yes perhaps I should be more explicit. But where to start? I am a relatively new member of my camera club but from what I can gather there does not appear to be any significant AV tradition or experience. I have been producing a few “shows” largely for my own entertainment for some months now using P2E and have been trying to generate some interest within the club. It would appear that, this being spring (even in Scotland), the seeds are beginning to germinate. The reason for my panic post is that I have been asked to raise the subject at our AGM on Thursday with a view to those club members interested, agreeing to shoot appropriate images over the summer months while the club is in recess! We have a topic and I am presently putting together a shooting strategy for putting to the meeting on Thursday. All of your advice is appreciated and being carefully considered – any more is welcome! It is possible that nothing happens but while the enthusiasm is there I am keen to nurture it. Thanks again. John

Hi, You can certainly do what (I think) you want. I think what you have to do is to go into "Project Options" and click on "Customise Startup Window" then select your image. That then brings up that image at the start of your show and remains till you hit the start button or exit button. I'm sure that these buttons are generated automatically if not then they can be created. I'm certain somebody else will confirm this or correct the detail - but in any event I'm sure you can do what you want. It may even be possible for seperate music to be played from that slide but that's just a guess! John