uuderzo

I never tought that this was achievable with PTE... Wow. Really nice! Regards. Umberto.

Thank you Lin. It's important for me to put in evidence that this was a team work. There are photos by several photographers, not only mine. But the pleasure of using PTE for assembling the show was all mine Regards. Umberto

Hello all! Finally I managed to put to Vimeo a piece of my latest slideshow. This slideshow is a divulgative show about some of the caves near Schio, Italy. It is designed to be viewed in four parts. Each part has an introduction by a speaker. Photos are taken by many photographers. There is also some of my photos. I must thank my speleologic group, Gruppo Grotte Schio CAI and the Photographic Federation of Speleologic Federation of Veneto, Italy for the photographic appareils. This is the third part of the show. Grottando nei dintorni di Schio - Pasubio If possible, I'll be glad to know your opinions. Thanks for watching. Umberto.

Colin, It is obvious that each step must be performed with the knowledge of what we are doing. I know that if I take RAW images ad use them in a slideshow I will suffer memory problems. I know that PTE was designed to be resolution independent, this is a great thing and I love it. I noticed that my machine can handle 4-5 full resolution images with a decent smoothness, and I use them when designing the slideshow. I also know that the final output of my work will go on a 1024x768 digital projector, so I need to optimize all pictures to gain the best performance on the output device I know I'll use. I like the idea to work resolution independent (and to keep the resolution independent project safe, so when new projectors will come and new hardware will come, I'll be ready for them). But I also like the idea that PTE can help me to optimize at pixel level all files, and that I can trust its algorithms and I know that this is the best optimization. All with a single click. As I said, everything needs our head to decide what to do and how to do, but when automation is possible I welcome it. Regards. Umberto.

Yes DaveG, You're right. Maybe there is the case of nested pictures or frames (with the possibility of nesting the zoom), but the parameter to be considered is only the zoom. This function could be easier to implement than I tought initially. Obviously the function should only shrink images and not enlarge them (since I think it's enough the linear or bilinear interpolation of the GPU for this). I imagine this behaviour: select a project and specify an output folder. In this output folder all data sould be copied: audio, project, images and so on (even images not modified by the algorithm). The need is to isolate the starting data from the optimized data, so I know that the original is still here and not messed with other optimized things. After this "migration" to another folder if I wish I can delete the original one and keep only the optimized. Colin: Yes, as DaveG stated, my wish is exactly to being able to work without worrying about resolution and optimize only at the end of the process. More freedom for experiments. Regards. Umberto.

Colin, I had little experience with PTE, only when working to my latest show. But i sincronized about 200 photos with music. When I started working to the project I did not know how I had to move each picture. I followed the music path and tried to adapt pan, rotation and zoom of each picture both to the music and to the picture itself, trying to build a story with images. When doing that I could not resize all the pictures to the final resolution since I did not know the best resolution each picture needed due to the effects applied. So, at the end of the work, I had to watch and re-watch it and decide the best resolution. Many times I exceeded in resolution because the calculation was too complex (nested panning, rotation and zooming... aaargh!) I think that a function that is able to perform such boring calculation for me could be useful. Regards. Umberto

What about a feature that processes all the images used in a slideshow optimizing them by the size defined in the screen settings (if present)? This function should examine all the panning/rotation/zoom applied to each image and calculate the optimum size for that image. I think that this would be really useful, especially when size matters. Regards. Umberto

I'm fully with you Peter. I know some people that, when I showed them PTE, they replied me: "well, that's really a good program, but what a pity I cannot add more audio tracks and fade between them!". Really, many people don't need complex audio editing capabilities, just adding more sounds and fade between them. Personally, my needs are simply to positionate music tracks where I need to, fade between them and, occasionally, add some sound effect with fade. So being able to work with a variable number of tracks will mean more freedom to me. Finally, performance should not be a problem, since that when building the final exe all could be mixed together. Regards. Umberto.

Uhm... I had a look at the options. There are three options: 1. no autoscroll: ok, it does not scroll but it's annoying 2. autoscroll style 1: super-ultra-fast scrolling 3. autoscroll style 2: super-ultra-fast scrolling... I don't notice any difference. Yes maybe if I work pixel perfect, with style 2 I don't find myself at the end of the timeline, but a little mouse movement leads me to the same result of style 1. Something I'll feel more intuitive could be a "style 3" that causes the scrolling to advance only when I move the mouse, and of an amount equivalent to the mouse movement like if it was over the visible timeline, and not multiplied by an high speed factor. Regards. Umberto

I don't know if it is a intuitiveness point... maybe yes. It frequently happens that I look at the slide sequence by dragging the cursor over the timeline. It's more precise than the curson on the mini player since the range is wider but... when I'm captured by the mini player screen and I don't see that I'm reaching the screen boundaries with the cursor, then the timeline start a super-ultra-turbo-fast scrolling and I found myself at the end (or the beginning) of the show. Then I must find the lost cursor position by moving the timeline with the scrollbar and the story begins more and more (I'm a distract one, eheh). Maybe a slower scrolling speed can be useful for people like me. Regards. Umberto

Igor, Just performed some testing on b4. The freeze before mipmapped picture comes in is still here, but it's less noticeable. I must say that the show I use as test performs continuous panning and zooming in starting and ending slides, maybe this prevents the mipmapping "builder" to take enough time to prepare all the mipmaps. Obviously, if the first slide remains still before the mipmapped image comes in, there is no freeze at all, well, maybe there is but it's not visible. Anyway, personally I think that mipmapping is not so big trouble since I think i'll live without it if my machine cannot support it well. On the countrary, the "acceleration after fade" effect does concern me a lot, since it is not avoidable. It looks like the new algorithm performs some kind of averaging on previous frames time renderings, maybe with the purpose of smoothing the adaption to different frame rates... but this has the effect that a fast frame rate change needs about 1 second to be readjusted. It's really noticeable. Maybe on faster machines the frame rate does not change too much between fade and after fade (two pictures and one single picture) but I suspect that this should be noticed also on faster GPUs. I wait some good new on this aspect Regards, Umberto.

I can try the new beta this evening. I don't have my laptop with me now. Please be patient. Thank you, Umberto

Igor, thank you for replying. I sent you a PM about the difference between mipmapping problem and "jump after fade" problem (or better: "acceleration after fade" problem) Regards, Umberto.

Xaver, My notebook is a Sony Vaio SR-11/M with Intel onboard graphics chip. I was completely satisfied with this laptop and PTE... but now something seems broken in the new PTE version and I fear my (new) laptop is already not enough to run it. But since in 5.5 there was no problem, I still hope something can be done to make new PTE work well also on my machine class. Anyway, I choosed PTE because it worked wonderfully on my machine, and now I'm a little sad with this situation. Umberto.

Yes, and I understand the behaviour of Del key in slides mode. But in timeline mode the Ins and Del keys behaviour seems switched. In fact if i type Ins, the slide following the cursor is shifted to the cursor and the cursor is placed after the slide fade. Instead, if i type Del, slides are moved to the right. It looks like and insertion (of time, not slides), not a deletion. Pretty strange to me. Umberto.

Igor, Sorry if i bother you with this topic but i made more deep tests (now with 5.6b3). Two cases: 1. With Aero active: less performance but no "jump after fade" effect. 2. With Aero deactivated: good performance but a noticeable "jump after fade" effect. Instead, with 5.5 there was good performance and no "jump after fade" both with Areo activated and deactivated. Please have a look at the timing algorithm. I wish to be able to use newer PTE versions without the need of purchase another laptop (I just purchased this one, sigh!) Thanks. Umberto Umberto, Regarding your post: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....ost&p=57810 We'll check up. Apparently it happens because of slow video card. on fast enough video card it should works fine. Several users even wrote us that new version work more smooth now.

Trying this option I noticed that the animation "jumps" when the mipmapped picture comes in. Maybe due to the time needed to compute mipmaps? Umberto.

Igor, I did some testing disabling Aero Glass interface. Performance seems better now but still something is wrong for me. I explain better: when performing a fade between two images obviously the frame rate lowers. This happens in 5.5 and in 5.6b2 but, in 5.6b2, it happens frequently that when the transition is over, the remaining of the animation performs a jump and it seems that it tries to recover the lost time. For example: Say that I fade between a still frame and a Ken Burns Zoom in effect. During the fade the zoom effect goes with its speed but... when the fade is over the zoom jumps and accelerates for a few frames until it restores its (apparently) original speed. In 5.5 this does not happen. 5.5 performs the fade with a lower framerate but does not jump at end of the fade. So the loss of framerate is not visible to the audience. But in 5.6b2 it is visible (and annoying). Perhaps on a very powerful machine this effect is not noticed. Maybe the frame time prediction algorithm has been changed since 5.5? I feel the 5.5 behaviour is more and more pleasant. Thanks. Umberto

Ehm... One question about the purpose of the Del key. When I'm in the timeline and select one or more slides and then press the Del key, My expectation is to remove the selected slides from the timeline. The current result is to make the previous unselected slide longer, shifting all the selected slides on the right in the timeline. What is it supposed to? Maybe I'm missing something. Thanks. Umberto

Igor, You guessed right. Now I understand why with Aero the slideshow is less smoother. I'll perform some testing disabling Aero and let you know asap. Thank you. Umberto

Igor, I'm using Windows Vista Home Premium SP1. The performance index, if it may be useful, is 3.7 Thank you. Umberto

I played my latest show both with 5.5 and 5.6b2. Same project, deactivated useless background sw, replayed many times with both 5.5 and 5.6. I noticed that 5.6 has less smooth animation. I'm working with my laptop that has an onboard intel gpu (Sony VAIO SR-11M) and 5.5 works well with this machine. On the countrary 5.6 seems to have more power requirements and my laptop does not produce so smooth transitions. This is a pity since I choosed PTE due to the fact it works well on my machine. I understand that newer transition effects may require more power, but hope that if I keep working with old effects the performance will remain unchanged (or even better if possible). Is it a known issue? Will it be fixed? (Hope yes) Thanks... Umberto

Wow! Last friday we finally had our show! All went wery well, and i'm really happy to be a PTE user. I have only one question, not regarding PTE but the audio system in general. I admit i'm not a show expert, so I got in trouble when I attached the line out of the laptop to the tehatre audio system and, when plugged the laptop to the power plug, an humming noise was heard. So I had to keep the laptop on batteries, and plug into the power only when the anchorman was speaking (because there was no music, so I unplugged the line out from laptop). It happened with 2 laptops, so I think it's not a laptop fault but something else. Did someone experienced such trouble? Reading on internet I discovered that this effect is called "ground loop noise", and there exist "group loop isolator" filters that claim to solve this issue. Is it right? How do you solve this trouble? Thank you... Umberto

Igor, does this option affect performance or prefetching times? Thanks. Umberto

I'm with you. Till now I had no need to reset to defaults, but think that if i need to, I'd like to reset only what i'm watching, not all the app. And, of course, also the global reset is useful. Bye! Umberto