xahu34

Hello, in the meantime a new version "ATI Catalyst™ 8.1 Display Driver for Windows XP" has been released. Is there any experience with Version 8.1 and the ATI Gamma Problem? Kind regards, xahu34 Munich

Hello, let me add a remark on complaints like "Slow response from Technical Support". When reading this I instantly remembered a song by Melanie Safka from the early 70ies: "They're only puttin' in a nickel, and they want a dollar song". People who need support on 24 hours a day and on 7 days a week may better look for software in a much higher price range! Kind regards xahu34 Munich

Hello Hartmut, thank you for your reply. The effect which you noticed (minor shimmering with panning images) seams to be a quite natural one. In case you also zoom, the shimmering will significantly increase, but can be reduced by blurring the image. The problem that I am talking about is a totally different thing. Here the beamer seems to produce output frames whose upper parts belong to different (earlier) input frames than the ones used for the lower parts. This may happen when the graphics card's frame rate is temporarily too low. The astonishing thing for me is, that the synchronization error appears during constant zooming/panning only if the source consists of a single image. In cases where the images change any 10 seconds (without interrupting the p/z-effect), the error does not occur. In the meantime I learned from others of our camera club, using expensive notebooks with ATI graphics cards and who program their shows with m.objects, that there are similar error effects when using the same beamer. Kind regards xahu34 Munich

Hello karelle, using "Auto spread slides along music" is one possible choice. But what is to do if your song lasts 10 minutes, but you only have images for about 5? You may then use the timeline window in order to place the transitions at appropriate positions, fitting to the music. Then you may load the song to some audio editor (Audacity, Goldwave etc.) in order to cut off what you do not need for your show and to include a fade out for the remaining part. Save this sound under a different name and include the modified sound into you show. Kind regards xahu34 Munich

Hello, until now, when using monitors with S-PVA panels up to resolutions of 1800x1200 with my PC (AMD 64 X2 5000+, nvidia 8500GT, 2GB RAM) I did not recognize any problems with the few shows I made so far: Typically with images having a slight pan-and-zoom effect which continues during normal alpha-blending transitions. Pictures in upright mode are just panned. So, nothing exiting happens. The other day I used the PC with a beamer of type Canon XEED SX50. Here I had to notice the following: Arbitrary sequences of zooming/panning images behaved well, provided that the single images did not stay too long. Images like my panning uprights (15 sec) showed with this beamer a synchronization effect, a line running from top to bottom. Then I tested the show "Cliff Palace" by Lin Evans, showing an impressing single panorama (i.e. long lasting pan/zoom-effect within one image). Here these synchronization effects appeared any 12-13 seconds (sometimes hardly to notice, but actually present). In between, anything was ok. Has anybody made similar observations with this particular beamer, or with other ones? Kind regards xahu34 Munich

Hello fh1805, I think that there is no real need for a change. When preparing a serious show I will work in a similar way as you propose. In this case I will stay inside the corresponding folder for a longer period of time, so, there is no problem at all. I sometimes play with test shows with pte-files located on the desktop. In these cases the proposed new feature (showing folder containing the pte-file) would not be very helpful. I think that wnsoft should work on other problems such as ATI-gamma-problem or richer audio features. Kind regards xahu34 Munich

Hello, when looking at Andy's message, I noticed on one of my machines that a problem has reappeared that I already had under 5.0 and which was said to be fixed in 5.1 (Release-Candidate on December 13, 2007): Doubleclicks on pte-files did not open the clicked object. The registry entry for the open command read as follows: "C:\Program Files\WnSoft PicturesToExe\5.1\apr.exe" %1 Changing %1 to "%1" solved the problem. @Andy: Which folder should be shown, if the pictures addressed in the opened pte-file are spread over several ones? Kind regards xahu34 Munich

Hello, I am in the same position as davegee. My notebook (Fujitsu Siemens) has resolution 1024x768, the beamer I sometimes use has 1400x1050. Then I have 3 choises: 1. I just use the notebook monitor;-) 2. I use monitor and beamer at the same time (pressing some F-key, depending on the particular notebook). Then both have 1024x768. 3. I only use the beamer, monitor is switched off (pressing F-key again). In the 3rd case I can configure the desktop seen via beamer (right mouse-click on desktop > properties > settings) and change the resolution to 1400x1050 (I am lucky that my notebook offers this particular resolution). This may also be good for the graphics system as it only has to produce 1 output instead of 2. Kind regards xahu34 Munich

Hello, sRGB is (as far as I know) the appropriate space for presentations. On the other hand, many photographers like it to work with other spaces like AdobeRGB. Pictures with AdobeRGB look different when using PTE or IrfanView than they look in Photoshop. So, it might be a nice feature if PTE would offer the option (like m.objects does) to map other color spaces to sRGB. Kind regards xahu34 Munich

Hello, wouldn't it be good to have a separate Off Topic Forum, where questions on Virus Protection, FTP Clients, Screen Capture etc. could be discussed? Kind regards, xahu34 Munich

Hello, just a simple way to draw a line, provided that it does not differ that much from a straight one: 1. Open the map (original_map.jpg) in your graphics editor (Photoshop or other one) and draw the line using a brush tool. 2. Save the new map (map_with_line.jpg) 3. Import the 2 images into PTE and make an appropriate transition from original_map.jpg to map_with_line.jpg, using page effects or advanced hour hands with small values for "own thickness of smoothing line". The "transition line" should be rather orthogonal to the line on the map. This effect can be iterated in order to achieve more complex routes (flow will not be steady). Kind regards, xahu34 Munich

Hello Dan D, as far as I know, you can upgrade to Version 5.1 (PTE-deluxe) using your old registration key (or even make an additional installation). The part of the new software which is used for generating PC shows should work anyway , but not the so-called Video Builder. The latter component can be used for burning DVDs from the PC shows you generate with PTE. It needs a separate key. If you decide to upgrade to the full version (including Video Builder) you only have to pay part of the price (20 $). Kind regards xahu34 Munich

Hello admin1, just a question: Will Version 5.2 open the possibility to mix 2 or more audio sources (music and spoken words) in a more sophisticated way than today, e.g using independent volume control curves? Kind regards, xahu34 Munich

Hello, today I am in lack of arguments. I checked the time when I generated my attachment and when I uninstalled version 5.0. So it must have been version 5.1 which produced the corrupt image. Today, I reinstalled 5.0, and both versions, 5.0 and 5.1 do not show any problem. Thus, I cannot reproduce the shown effect on my own machine. Sorry for producing a storm in a glass of water (or a cup of tea, as you may say). A strange feeling still remains. Kind regards, xahu34 Munich

Hello, sorry, but let me quote the text that I added to the images inside my attachment: "Greyscale version of the well-known water liles image which comes with Windows XP in IrfanView and in PTE 5.1. This image has only one channel, generated as follows: Photoshop > image > mode > greyscale". If there is anybody who does not like my style of writing which may be old-fashioned and may not have an American touch, I could offer him to communicate in German;-) Grüße aus München xahu34

Hello, let us finish the discussion. Just regard my contribution as I meant it to be: a warning to be careful with 1-channel images, and as an indication of a possible bug. Kind regards, xahu34 Munich

Hello fh1850, actually I did not change any parameter. If you look at the uploaded file closely, you will notice that PTE shows the same image 3 times at a changed ratio. When you replace the water liles image by a version which is an ordinary RGB-image with 3 identical channels, anything is ok again. I just want to indicate that PTE seems to have problems with 1-channel greyscale images, which you obtain via the Photoshop greyscale function. Kind regards xahu34 Munich

Hello, the attachment shows a well-known image, saved with Photoshop in greyscale mode, as it looks like in IrfanView and in PTE 5.1. Kind regards xahu34 Munich WaterLiles.pdf

Hello, the attachment contains a copy of the file "German.ini" for version 5.0 with a few proposals for changes. Kind regards, xah34 Munich German.pdf

Hello admin1, I am sorry, but my last post was not as clear as it should have been. The association is ok; by the way, I already did what you recommended. So, pte-files show the PTE icon, and PTE really starts when double-clicking pte-files. BUT: PTE starts with the wrong project (the previous one or an empty one, depending on the "Load last used project" option); it does not start with the clicked one. As I said: The effect occurs only on one of my 3 PCs! Kind regards xahu23 Munich

Hello mhwarner, I think what you noticed is a rather natural effect, which you will also see with shows produced with m.objects, a professional German presentation SW (at about 20 times the price of PTE). Moving and even more zooming very sharp images produces flickering effects. I think, this is the reason why PTE even offers a blur-option within O&A. It isn't that bad, if the image is only really sharp when it is still. The mentioned blur-option of PTE isn't that comfortable, as it blurs the image, if it is in motion or not. Here programs like m.object and Wings Platinum (30 times the price of PTE) behave more intelligent. Using PTE it might be good to have the blurred version during motion, but to replace it with the sharp version immediately after motion has stopped. Kind regards xahu34 Munich

Thank you for sending me the link. I am not sure if it really hits my point!? In my case PTE 5.04 really respects the "Load last used project" option. But it refuses to open a particular .pte-file (double-click). It either starts with the last project or with an empty one, depending on the said option. I installed the software on 3 computers (home, office, notebook) but only one of them shows this effect. Kind regards, xahu34 Munich

Hello, when opening a .pte-file (double-click, call it A.pte) with version 5.04, I observe the following behavior: PTE starts with a previously opened project (say B.pte). I have to open A.pte via the file menu. I use WinXP SP2 on a new machine. PTE was installed using an administrator account. It is used with an account with restricted rights. On my older computer, the behavior is different (as I would expect it to be). Are there similar experiences? Another Question: Is it possible to start PTE from the program menu without opening the last project? Kind regards, xahu34 Munich

Hello, just an additional remark to my message from last night to make things more clear. At least for my former, very old PC (with rage 128, no calibration via ATI panel) there are 2 probably independent effects which can be can be noticed: 1. During the period where a PTE-exe runs, a profile loaded by Adobe Gamma, say, is not used. 2. There is an additional shift in brightness, if a profile is loaded or not. The new PTE-Test-Exe seems to reload the lost profile, i.e. it solves problem 1, but not problem 2. Question: Is the brightness shift only a problem for old ATI cards? Al's Radeon card isn't that new either. Regards, xahu34 Munich

Hello, I compared v.5.04 and the test program on an old PC (WinXP, SP2, new version of DirectX) with Rage 128 card and driver from end of 2001: No difference if no profile is loaded. After loading a profile with Adobe gamma loader, a difference could be noticed. ATI panel has default values. But: In any case the images looked significantly brighter compared with IrfanView (even if no profile is loaded) Regards, xahu34 Munich