nickunwin

Hi Lin, The slideshows perform fine as Native MAC app's, it's just the AV output to mix down onto DVD that's causing a big issue. I've tried the HD MPEG4 and the AVI options, but have found the only one that creates a file useable by iDVD/FCP etc is the Vimeo option. While the HD MP4 files *will* play using Quicktime player on the MAC, any attempt to transcode the files either aborts immediately (as in iDVD rendering to disk), or just gives a transcoded file with a blank video picture and an audio track that's ok. There must be something in the MP4 wrapper that is out of kilter or not being recognised . The export to AVI option gives me files with audio only and which are deleted immediately when clicking the OK button. I've tried using the AVI's to stream the video into transcoders such as MPEGStreamclip (eg like some old DVD burning programmes required), but again, only the audio makes it through. I've tried transcoding on several different systems - both PC and Mac - the files give me the same results irrespective of OS, no video. I wish PTE had a straightforward AVI option to output to file and not delete at the end . By the looks of it, I might have to hack the videobuilder prefs file and find what it's doing with Vimeo output that it isn't doing with the other options and see if I can up the quality that way. (Oops, looks like the forum has remembered my old forum login on this computer!)

Neat Al, it helps a lot I've been trying this out today and it works well. I would still like to see a timecode marker facility added though - along with the ability to save the markers and music to a template file. This would allow key points to be stored for individual tracks and would really help speed up slideshow production if the same track was to be re-used with different pictures - eg in slideshows for weddings and portrait shooting. For those sort of shows you want a quick and easy setup, picking music and just dropping in the right number of slides... I've been testing out a couple of slideshow generators today with a view to seeing how quick & easy it is to produce a PZR show, and how easily those shows can be dropped to DVD and other media like iPod/Web/WindowsMobile. In comparison with a few other competing products (not ProShow I hasten to add), PTE has a few areas which can be made slicker & quicker. PTE is great for producing tightly integrated one-off shows which you can spend hours & days on (the other prog's don't come close to PTE in this respect), but unfortunately PTE is not so great for producing repetitive shows which need producing in a short time . Adding the timecodes & the abilty to automatically generate an initial set of PZR values would really add value to PTE.

Hi Igor, The following might be a useful idea for people wanting to easily and quickly create audio timesync'd slideshows... especially those who create slideshows for weddings, engagement sessions etc Provide a facility for the user to listen to the audio track on it's own (no slides etc). While listening to the audio, the user can add a timecode marker by clicking an add button (or pressing a key - eg spacebar). This would make it easy for someone to put markers in on beats, or at key points during the audio track. once they finished listening, they could then add slides to the project and choose an option to sync slides using these timecode markers. The slides would then be distributed along the timeline with their durations set by each corresponding timecode marker. - eg slide one starts with the music, slide 2 with timecode #1, slide 3 with timecode #2 and so on. This would make it very easy for a user to sync music & slides together. OK, the sync may not be exact, but for someone doing quick repeated 'production' shows (such as weddings), then it would be a great timesaver. A couple of other ideas to add to this one: + Allow the timecode markers to be saved as a template (then the songs can be re-used again easily without having to redo the listen/mark each time.). + Add the abilty to generate an intial set of random motion effects across the entire timeline using the pan/zoom and cross-fade effects as default. Again, this would save a lot of time in the initial setup of the slideshow for people making lots of them. They would only then need to review each slide and make sure that the pan/zoom effect was centred on the right 'focus' - eg a persons face. Feel free to e-mail me if you want any further explanation of the above!

I would like to see the ability to sync an audio track (music or speech) across a section of slides - eg starting at a particular slide instead of the beginning of the show. For example, at present I use a two part presentation - 1st part is talk and manually change slides. 2nd Part is a sync'd audio-visual. 1st part is variable duration depending on how much I talk...2nd part is a fixed duration according to the slides and music. At the moment, I have to create two separate slideshows and run one after the other as I can't fix the soundtrack to the timeline (I know which slide it starts at...but not the time!). Because they are run as two shows, this often means that the desktop is visible during the changeover between shows, and doesn't look 100% professional. It would be great if the two shows could be rolled into one, with the music being synced across a particular section of the slides eg between slide 100 and 280. If this could also be extended to work multiple times then it would be really great.... eg: slides 1- 100 talk (no sync or audio track) slides 101 - 200 AudioVisual (sync'd audio track) Slides 201 - 220 talk (no sync or audio track) Slides 221 - 300 AudioVisual (sync'd audio track) etc etc.

Hi Igor, No problem - unfortunately PC's aren't the most reliable things ! Thanks for the e-mail with the key.

Hi Igor, I think you've a problem with the registration server - I received a key with the same text as Sean did when I upgraded earlier today. I've e-mailed you a copy of the reg.txt file. Sean - don't worry, Igor will sort the problem out .

In V5 the emphasis on 'slides' is slightly less with you having greater use of objects and Animation effects, so what about something like 'Lock Audio to timeline' or 'Sync Audio to timeline' ?

Gary, Click on the 'project options' button, then choose the 'Screen' Tab. The option you are after is not initially visible on the tab - you need to scroll down a bit - it's below the 'Set for existing slides' button in the 'Additionally' section. At least I think that's the option you're after HTH

Hi Igor, Thanks for getting Beta 9 out for us all to play with ...lots of fun exploring the new version in the next few days! One thing I've noticed already, and I'm not sure if it's intended behaviour or not, when using the keyboard to move forward/backward through slides the transitions only work going forwards to the next slide - a simple 'fast' switch happens when moving backwards....

Aww, had hoped you might have had some of the Elinchrom heads - will give you a shout sometime soon.

John, It is frustrating that the keyboard controls aren't up & running in V5 as it also prohibits the use of any wireless remote presenter/clicker units to control the slideshow. Until Igor unlocks the keyboard and mouse controls in V5, the only way around it is to try and split your slideshows out into separate sections - use V4 with the bits you want to run manually, and then run the V5 pan/zoom slideshow to continue from the end of the V4 one. The only downside with this method is that you get a brief flash of the windows desktop between the two slideshows - which doesn't look very good. It's far from ideal, but it's the best we've got at the moment . Need to catch up with you at some point as I might be looking for some help on studio flash units . Cheers N

Hi Igor, Is there any chance that the option to allow keyboard control of the slideshow can be enabled in the next beta release? I've a couple of presentations in April which I would like to be able to manually 'step through' one section while speaking, and to then switch to an automatic flow of slides without any intervention from me. This is possible in PTE4 - but obviously PTE4 doesn't allow the use of any of the Ken Burns Effects, and I would strongly like to include them in the show. I can do this by splitting the slideshow and linking a PTE5 slideshow to run at the end of the PTE4 section - but this introduces a 'flash'/'flicker' showing the PC desktop as the programs swap over - and it doesn't look very professional As a second request - I've been looking at the remote presenters/clickers (handheld laser pointers with 3 or 4 buttons on them to allow cordless control of the PC). These presenters are all geared to MS Powerpoint presentations using the Pg-Up (left), Pg-Dn (right), b (blank screen) and F5 (start) buttons. Of these PTE supports all the functions except 'b' for blank screen. It would be nice if PTE could also allow the user to pause/blank the slideshow when the 'b' key is pressed, and to resume when a key is pressed, or if the left/right or F5 keys are pressed. Keep up the great work - PTE is great

John, Depends on size of venue etc. If for bigger halls, want something self contained, easy to carry and with guts (and you're not too bothered about stereo) then one solution may be to go for a combined speaker amp such as gig musicians use. If for smaller stuff for workshops etc, then something from PC World would probably do just as well . Catch you l8r m8.

John, Before buying a new card, make sure that you have updated your NVidea drivers to the very very latest, and that your motherboard drivers are updated too - especially if they use an NVidea chipset eg Nforce2/3 etc. I bought a 256Mb XFX6200 for an older PC a few weeks back and seemed to have major problems with it and PTE5 Beta - with Igor's help I finally managed to nail the problem to the Motherboard NVidea drivers not being fully up to date and not fully installing. Once that was sorted out, then the XFX6200 performs without issue - even on the old AMD Athlon 1250 PC. HTH

Hi Igor, So far your 32bit app runs fine under x64, I've not had any issues at all in either 4.48, or V5 Betas. I'm not too sure if there'd really be any benefit in you doing so, but out of interest - do you plan to release a native 64bit version?

Hi Igor, FWIW, I haven't notice this on any of the three systems I've been testing PTE5b2 on - all are profiled with Monaco Optix and use the Monaco Gamma Loader - 2 are on NVidea, and one on ATI Radeon.

Opps , you're right there - the 256Mb GF6600 is the other card in the 2nd PC that I've also been testing . So many numbers, so similar!!!

I've been exchanging information with Igor over the last few days regarding a strange problem we've had with a new graphics card. We'd previously used an old 64Mb NVidea Gforce 2 MX400 card in a PC, and while it worked with PTE5beta, it had a few issues with being slow. So, I decided to upgrade it to a 256Mb XFX6600 (AGP). After installing it, PTE5 performance seemed to have plummeted almost to the point of unusable! Not at all what was expected . PTE would work OK for the 1st three slides, and would then seem to hesitate for a second or so when a slide disappeared before carrying on - the music would play normally. After a lot of help from Igor with test programs, I finally found that neither PTE nor the Graphics card were the problem - it was the nForce2 drivers for the motherboard. It seems likely that the uninstall software for the old graphics card also took out the MoBo nForce2 drivers, and that that badly affected the performance of the CPU, RAM and IDE subsystems. So, if you've had some stutter, hesitancy or performance issues with your video cards, also make sure that you have installed the latest and greatest drivers for the *rest* of your system too! A very big thank you to Igor for all his support, it is unusual to come across such dilligent help in the software world these days!

Igor, I think I may have found a clue to the problems I've been experiencing - I've sent you an e-mail with details and a request for a new version of your demo slideshow.

Hi Igor, Have sent the requested info through to you - hope it helps.

Hi Igor, Thanks for trying - unfortunately there is absolutly no difference visible between the two versions, nor between them and the ones higher up the topic. I've tried tweeking a few bios settings, no improvement either. Guess the CPU just doesn't like it! What actually happens when one slide "disappears"? Would improving the disk sub-system help, or is it CPU intensive?

Hi Igor, Just an FYI: I've been trying to get PTE5b2 to run more smoothly on my wife's PC (AMD Athlon 1.25 with 1Gb ram), and have just updated the graphics card in it to an AGP 256Mb XFX6200 (GPU 300Mhz) which was installed yesterday (latest NVidia drivers). We've found that the performance has actually worsened since changing the card - while the video motion is smoother when it is running, the change over points (cross fades) between slides now cause severe stuttering following the disappearance of the older slide, sometimes causing the new slide to "halt" for a couple of seconds (music continues in the BG). With the old 64Mb GF2 MX-200 card, things stuttered, but not so badly . Neither of the two files above shows any discernable difference, nor is there any improvement on subsequent loops. Guess it's time for a new CPU/Mobo

No, it's not so difficult - but the big difference is that they don't have to do it while moving the shots around the screen simultaneously. From what I understand, colour conversions need to undergo at least two transformations - from the original to an "neutral" intermediate, and then from the intermediate to the target colour space. Try doing that on the fly, with very large photos flying around your screen whilst fading out. Then add in another shot zooming in and fading in too, and a few other bits such as text (still a colour image at the moment - eg PNG) whizzing around and you begin to see the headache that Igor would have . It seems a few PC's are already having problems feeding the images into the video card memory..think how much slower it would get if he also had to contend with colour management . I once accidentally turned on the in-built colour management in the DVD player on my laptop (Not the colour profile done by a colorimiter like the Optix or Spyder). It took me ages to work out why all the movies had suddenly begun to play back jerkily - and they're only small "pictures" running at 24/25 fps. If I turn colour management on in Breezebrowser or CaptureOne, then things slow down, even on an x2 dual processor system - but I can live with it because I'm only looking at one shot and taking my time. Make life easier ..ask for and stick to sRGB (or one colour space!)

I think you've given an answer to the issue yourself in your last sentence. Should we really be asking Igor to spend a lot of programming time simply because a few people can't follow rules/guidelines/best practice? Look at it this way - it's one way to cut the entries and make the judges lives easier - that way they might even get to the pub quicker. Sort the cause of the problem (your entrants) and don't stick a plaster over it (Igor/PTE+Colour Engine)

Hello John, Agreed, they do need to take into account the working space of the output device - but it is the competition organiser who should stipulate the requirements Eg entries should be submitted as sRGB files. Would you have expected a slide competition which was going to project the slides to cater for all sizes of slide? What about the guy using his home brew with big glass plates? Or would the judges have sensibly set a few guidelines such as 35mm or suchlike? While it would be very nice, it is a bit unfair to ask Igor to have to build in a complex colour profile conversion engine to work in realtime and at high res & refresh rates.