Lin Evans

Hi Peter, To a degree that's true, but if you watch the video carefully you will see identical areas which are before stabilization and after stabilization and the stabilized views lose their sharpness. You can try it for yourself with a free trial of Mercalli or other stabilization software. I use Mercalli and Warp stabilization with Adobe Aftereffects and it really doesn't matter which - if you have significant stabilization the pixel sharpness is adversely affected by the stabilization algorithms, there is no way around this. It's especially evident if you are watching on a high resolution and large display. I use a 30" 2560 x 1600 display for editing video and the before and after stabilization versions are significantly different with the stabilized versions losing the crispness. As I said, sometimes it's unimportant and sometimes not depending on subject and background. Run them simultaneously - put the before and after entire videos in PTE on the same slide and watch them simultaneously and you will immediately see the difference. Fortunately with PTE we can sharpen the stabilized version and bring it close to the original in many cases... Below is a screen capture to demonstrate this at essentially the identical point in the two videos. See the red arrows... Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, Yes, the "fish eye" is really not true "fish eye" with the GoPro, it's just extreme wide angle distortion which, for example, makes tall buildings on the right and left extreme appear to "tilt" or "lean" in toward the center of the image. Distortion correction with a video corrects this appearance then allows you to "crop" the areas of edge along with some top and or bottom which are necessarily left after the fix so you can retain the aspect ratio if you like. So the "fisheye" correction is indeed a distortion correction algorithm. The PD software actually adjusts on all the axis as Mercalli, but it's "automatic" and you have no control over it. With the more expensive software you can pick and choose the type and degree of correction which gives you more flexibility but at the greater expense. Here's an example from what is probably the best distortion correction software available for still images, DXO ViewPoint 2. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, Actually, for your GoPro, ProDrenalin probably is the better choice, but it actually doesn't have nearly all the bells and whistles of Mercalli for doing stabilization, rolling shutter correction, etc. What PD does do that Mercalli doesn't as Aginum says is correct for the normal distortion of your super wide angle lens in the GoPro. The difference in image stabilization is that ProDrenalin has only basic stabilization while Mercalli does multi-axis stabilization. Best regards, Lin

Hi Aginum, I may have accidentally deleted part of your post - could you repost your 11:35 pm information it is missing. If you don't have it I'll try to get Igor to recover it. Sorry if I have overwritten - that sometimes happens when I copy/paste for some reason... Best regards, Lin

Nice job Jeff! I loved the old railway and deserted machine show with the big ANC lathe. Amazing how, in the old days, most every part of the trains were built by the railways on-site. Great choice of background music too. My only change would be to add a couple seconds or a black slide at the end to let the music end less abruptly. I too believe black and white was the best choice for this - give it the antiquity feel it deserves. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jeff, Thanks for checking it out... It's looking like it will run on most systems smoothly which is great news... Best regards, Lin

Hi Mur, I created an mp4 at 1280x720 resolution then converted it to avi with PTE's conversion. It's not a good as the exe, but I think you will be able to see it on your system. The link is below - about 480 meg zipped avi - I'm including the link in the original post... http://www.lin-evans.org/pte/whatcanidozippedavi.zip Best regards, Lin

Wouldn't this preclude shows which are interactive? Best regards, Lin

Thanks Dave, I'm wondering why the big bottleneck for Peter? It must be something in the routing slightly different for his location... Best regards, Lin

Hi Mary, I had suspicions that this might be part of the reason some are not using the "web-safe" version. I don't use I.E. on my 8.1 system, but I get the same warning from Chrome (or perhaps it's coming from the OS through both Chrome and IE). Best regards, Lin

I think it's just one of those internet mysteries. Some downloaded it in 5 minutes which is about how long it take me. Probably in one of the many different systems involved there is a bottleneck which throws a wrench (a spanner in your neck of the woods) into the process - LOL. Best regards, Lin

Hi John, Thanks so much for testing it for me! That's great news... Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Are you running Win 8.1? 8.1 doesn't use Microsoft Security Essentials, that's considered "obsolete" by the new Windows. It has its own built-in security system which is ostensibly better than Security Essentials and it updates itself with regularity. I'll upload a web-safe PTE file and test it since I haven't done that since perhaps four updates ago. If it still balks and does not automatically recognize the "web-safe" file as safe, I'll notify Igor, but I doubt there is much that can be done about it. It's very much like the situation with Apple where the zipped native Mac PTE file on the latest Mac OS has to have operator intervention to load and run because the file isn't recognized as coming from the "Apple Store." Apple's "greed" (they want a piece of everyone's action) just makes it very inconvenient and as long as Apple users put up with that arrogance, it won't get any better in my opinion. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Actually, on my Win 8.1 system I get a warning that the show may be a threat even though using the "web safe" version. I think perhaps that the built-in security on Win 8.1 is like the Mac - it sees everything as a threat, even digitally signed executables. It's "possible" that others have seen this and just assumed that if they are going to have to bypass the warning anyway that they might as well skip the extra step? Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, Wow! I'm surprised it ran smoothly on the laptop - that's good news. Best regards, Lin

Hi Frans, Thanks!! That's good news. It seems that it isn't too much for the majority of systems which people are using today and that's good because I really don't like to convert parts to video so that they will run on older systems. It compromises the image quality in many cases. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, Wow !! Two hours download - Thanks!!! Your 16 gig of RAM and GT 640 nVidia card seem to be quite sufficient. I'm hoping that the nVidia 750 Ti card I ordered for my old core 2 Duo Dell XP system will be sufficient. I suspect it will be fine. Years ago when I upgraded from my old nVidia 8600 GT to the 8800 GT I thought I had all the video power I would ever need. I had to shoehorn a 750 watt power supply into the old Dell to furnish the required power for the big power-hungry 8800GT which needed a power supply of at least 450 watts and a connection the little 300 watt power supply provided with the Dell didn't have. I almost had to bend the case to get the new power supply and all the cables into the rather compact Dell case and then the 8800GT took up two slots but has served well till now. The new 750 Ti only takes a single slot - will work with even a 300 watt power supply, doesn't need the extra power supply cable and is multiple times the power of the old 8800 GT. On paper it seem like the perfect match. I'm anxious for it to arrive so I can try it out. I'm actually glad I put the big power supply in because the system is whisper quiet. I can use a Blue Snowball microphone sitting on my desk for tutorials and there is absolutely zero noise from the system. My new ASUS powerhouse is great but it's definitely anything but quiet. I think I'll keep the old system as long as it will work just because of the extremely quiet power. The fan is so quiet and vibration free I have to put my ear on the the system and check the lights to be certain it's working. I leave it on 24/7... Best regards, Lin

Hi Luc, Thanks! It's great to know that the Mac version works fine. Not having a Mac I always worry that I may have missed something... Best regards, Lin

Hi Robert, It seems you should have plenty of power to render an h.264 - I'm wondering what might be the problem ... I have a similar ASUS with a 3GB video card and an i7 with 32 gig of RAM and it works fine for that. There must be some other issue at work other than the specs. What kind of failure do you experience? Best regards, Lin

Thanks Denis, I thought that might be the case with some of the older video cards and less powerful systems. My XP system is also a core 2 duo Intel and I have an old nVidia 8800GT card with 512 meg RAM. I'm ordering an nVidia 750 Ti card tonight to replace the old 8800GT. The 750 Ti has 2 Gig RAM and doesn't require two slots and the extra power that my old card does so it will not only be much more powerful but also consume less power. It's on sale on Amazon with free shipping for $138 U.S.D. Best regards, Lin

I'm not sure what his methodology was... he was creating all kinds of interesting geometric constructs. Some of them I could duplicate while others eluded me entirely. For example, the way he created Penser Avec son Pinceau will always be a mystery to me. I understand the use of thousands of masks to get the lines, but the brush and colors elude me even if I could use Excel like he did to generate data for the PTE file. I could use small color files to fill in the solid colors, I've done that in a few shows, but the brush strokes were a "stroke" of genius. Best regards, Lin

LOL - looks good doesn't it with 3620 video screens playing? Actually, I think JPD would have to have copyrighted it. He had one rotating in one of his shows from 2009 !! Of course we didn't have "styles then" and you definitely took the pain out of creating one! Thanks!! Best regards, Lin

Thanks Ken, That's good to hear. I didn't want to create a video display for the exe of the icosahedron because it would further increase the file size by a considerable margin. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, Yes, I just wonder what they were thinking - it would be, I think, a far more useful feature for the time-lapse purpose than for miniature simulations. I suspect the Japanese think differently than westerners. They are enthralled with things like godsilla and such so this may reflect that attitude. I tried Mercalli and it works very well as stabilizers go, but it takes quite a toll on image quality; so much, in fact, that I decided to use a tripod for all my videos to avoid having to use Mercalli or any other stabilizer. Best regards, Lin