Barry Beckham

DG Probably 16:10 I think it just has a slightly better format, but its negligable. 3:2 would be fine too. I could even use 1920*1080 and may be doing so soon for one of my PC's.

Colin Its what Lin Evans said earlier in this thread, 1920*1080 is the way we are being taken like ot or not? I started to look for a new screen to replace an old 1024*768 one I have used for recording tutorials for years. Most of those that are reasonable for what I need and a decent price are 1920*1080, so I don't think it is a great surprise to see that resolution out in front. Personally I prefer 16:10 as it is so close to 3:2 it hardly makes any difference to the composition, 16:9 does.

I'm no expert on resolution of projectors. However, I imagine that the format of the projector used would matter; if it is designed to show 1920 x 1080 images and the screen is in this format, then any Sequences produced in any 4 x 3 format would be at a disadvantage as they would not use the whole of the screen. At the present time isn’t it more likely to be the other way around? A 1024*768/ 1400*1050 projector being used to play a 1920*1080 /1920*1200 sequence. However, even if it were the way you suggest why is that a disadvantage? With a projected image the size difference isn’t going to have much impact. The judges are still going to see a large image on screen and any judge who marks down a great sequence because it was not as big as the preceding one should not be asked to judge again. Most UK and European Festivals seem to have used the 4 x 3 format and until recently have specified 1024 x 768. Isn't that because projectors were mostly 1024*768 resolution and slide show software of a few years ago could not cope with larger images anyway. That isn’t the case anymore as we see with PTE, which can handle far larger images and we can see the monitor resolution/format trend by looking at the ongoing forum poll. I think the biggest issue by far for those enthusiasts who create images at the size they want them to project (I guess that includes most enthusiasts) are the settings in the Project Options > Screen Tab > Size of slide and the Fixed Size of Slide (in pixels) That is what I set first of all when making a sequence and then projection on any projector/screen resolution will be fine. Those settings lock in your selections for resolution and display size and no animation will be seen outside of those settings. I think this is one of the best changes made in PTE. For the future, I suppose it will be possible for another issue to crop up for those who create a sequence at 1024*768 and then have it displayed on a projector running 1400*1050. While it will not affect the format, unless those settings are set correctly in the Screen tab the slide show may be enlarged from its 1024 size to 1400 with a slight loss of image quality. Perhaps the major AV events of the future may have to state the intended projection resolution in the original invitation to enter? It doesn’t alter the fact that the size the slide show is made and the Jpg quality settings are the choice of the author and have no place in any rules.

It doesn't sound as though this is possible, but if you can get the show back to the original computer with the M drive. Do a File > Backup to zip, then take that zip file to the other drive, unzip it and open the project file within the unzipped folder and all will be OK

DG That is exactly my point, they can't tell and it's rules for the sake of rules. I entered an AV comp last year and got a first place and nobody was aware that it was a 1920*1200 show and why should they be. I will enter the same sized show this year, but next year, if these proposed rules changes go through I will be outside those rules, but how will they know. I think I know what may be behind it in the case I mention and I don't mean this as a knock at PSG. Many entries where made with PSG, many were animated and they did not come across very well. The laptop they were played on, whatever it was, couldn't cope. I made a daft suggestion that perhaps next year we could use a good powerful desktop rather than a laptop and it might help these shows to display a little better, but it was not considered a serious request. I think the idea may be to reduce the file size to make them run better, but then why specify Q12 jpeg compression that will push the size up again.

Peter "An expert is a drip under pressure" !!! Not heard that before, very funny Here is one sent to me today that I thought was good too While sewing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old Aussie farmer, who's hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Kevin Rudd and his role as our Prime Minister. The old farmer said, 'Well, you know, in my opinion, Rudd is a 'Post Turtle''. Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him, what a 'post turtle' was. The old farmer said, 'When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'post turtle'. The old farmer saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. 'You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb bugger put him up there to begin with.

Now there is another humdinger Denwell, the level playing field. It seems we live in a world (especially Club committees) where we must NEVER do anything that might discourage some poor sole, so we end up with a huge list of competition categories that remind me of buses in any world city. You have to live there 20 years before you understand them. Apparently some people when they enter a competition and don't win, get discouraged, run away and hide and that's the Clubs fault...............? Competing with the best should inspire and if they are discouraged so easily, then they have chosen the wrong hobby:P

DaveG I think it may be interesting to see what the enthusiasts are using. I have had my 16:10 Dell monitor for almost 2 years and I could not go back to a 1024*768 or 1280*1024 screen now. What is your thinking behind the 16:9 option next time ? I have been thinking of upping the resolution of my DVD videos to a wide screen format from 1024*768 to 1280*800, but not sure if it is a bit too soon for some. This poll may indicate how close we are to 16:9/16:10 taking over from the old formats.

Maureen An "Expert" is someone who doesn't feel the need to drum up rules where none need to be applied. They should also understand that stating that Jpegs must be saved at Q12 will not, as they say Assist in providing smooth transitions and projection of entries and avoid large file sizes. As you can gether I am sick of stupid rules being applied to photography, especially those that can't be policed. Rules for the sake of rules. To challenge some of them I can attend a meeting, but I would have to do a 140k trip just try to make them see sense.

There really is no problem in making a slide show at 1920*1200 or 1920*1080 so that you can see it beautifully on your own large widescreen PC Monitor. PTE will then handle the downsize via a 1024*768 monitor or a projector perfectly. I do this all the time for demo purposes and I have mentioned this a few times before. In fact many of you have downloaded some of my slide shows that are made at 1920*1200 and I guess some of you have 1024*768 screens and some 1280*1024 and they play OK right. The top ten slide shows on this page are all 1920*1200 bar Forever Floating to be free http://www.beckhamdi...digslidesw4.htm If you're into wild animation and make images much larger than 1920*1200 for those zooms or pans that go on forever. Then you can introduce some moire effect if you're not careful because you're cramming a large file into a smaller resolution, but I have managed to avoid that without difficulty it's the best of all worlds in my view to do this. You get probably the best looking slide show you can get when the show fills a 27in (or larger) wide screen monitor. If you're a 1024*768 monitor user there will come a time when you scale up to a larger monitor and then those slide shows look a bit lost on the larger flat screens, not the be all and end all I admit, but a good big one will beat a good little one every day of the week. 1920*1200 fits better when made into a DVD and of course 1920*1080 fits perfectly for flat screen TV's of course. The slide shows can be entered into competitions and shown on a 1024*768 projector without any problems. I have done that and won the competition and the "Experts" and viewers had no idea they were looking at a slide show made at 1920*1200 _______________________ On another tack, these same AV "Experts" are suggesting that AV rules next year state what resolution the slide show should be made at (Yes....you have guessed it 1024*768) and they are even stating what jpeg compression setting should be used (Q12). Can anyone tell me why these "Experts" seem to think it is right to lay down rules that cover the creative decisions of the author only? Even if they adopt rules like that, how will they know if I break them? Is it just me getting crankier or is there an army of Camera Club Committees getting their rocks off by coming up with daft restrictive rules that they cannot police anyway. Is it only me who feels that if the "Experts" don't know that themselves, perhaps they should stay well away from making any rules at all

Peter Try ticking the box in the Project Options Screen tab that says Fixed size slide (in pixels) and make sure the size of the slides boxes reflect the 1920*1080 size of your show.

I suppose it could be put there, shall I or you? Barry cant do that - i would have to move the whole thread or take each of the responses and cut and paste into a new thread ken

Ken Well, its not quite so simple as that is it. Does that mean because people on Google want to turn them off they should not be included. Tool tips are very good when your learning a new bit of software and the tip can remind you what the tool does, but they have to be switchable on/off like in Photoshop, because once you become experienced with software they are not required and I agree they can become an annoyance. I come into contact with a lot of new users of PTE, probably far more than most and what must be remembered is the newer user often finds great difficulty in what you and I find easy. Its only familiarity of course and they will understand in time, but I also get a lot of people tell me they use PSG because they were able to get into it easier. Its generally not the readers of this forum that need tool tips and many said they didn't even want sound editing, but the newer user does and they want to be able to find their way around their new, or trial software as easy as possible.

I was not suggesting this for myself as I do understand what they all do, I was thinking more of the brand new user

I appreciate it must be very difficult to come up with a word or two that can convery what the tool or option does and if we took a poll I am sure forum members could add many preferences. In relation to the sound editing I wonder if Cut from Start would be a better choice than Start Time and Cut from End better than Duration. Offset could be come Add Silence at start. Perhaps as PTE is now becoming more advanced tool tips should be considered too. Having said this I do also appreciate that the sound controls in 6.5 may have a limited shelf life and therefore this may be a wasted excersize. Tool tips though can be quite useful even to those who are more familiar with the software. On another point, I wonder if an issue I came across this weekend is something odd on my laptop or others have found the same problem. I did a couple of demos at the 2010 PSQ convention over the past weekend, which is the Photographic Societies of Queensland. I had files pre-prepared for the demo I did on PTE and thought I would use PTE 6.5 beta 7, so current users could see the sound editing. I don't usually use a laptop for demos, but I had to at this event to fit in with many lectures throughout the day. As the laptop only had one drive I located the files I prepared in advance in Desktop>public>2010demo When I went to locate the files from within PTE Nothing would show in the file tree apart from the desktop icon. Although there was a little plus sign beside the desktop icon it would not expand to allow me to get to any of the folders or files there. I thought it was a proplem with 6.5 and opened version 6, but that was the same. I quickly had to copy the files via Explorer onto the C drive to get at them. Is this some peculiarity on my laptop or something within PTE? Any ideas

I have used Audition to do that in the past and just tried it on a PTE exe file. Nothing happens and it seems to be only looking for just a video file. I suppose if you converted your slide show to a video first it may then work, but I think to be a practical thing it needs to be simpler than that.

Yachtsman I am an Audacity user too, but it hasn't stopped me from taking to the PTE sound editing. I would suggest that for every 100 slide shows made, perhaps one needs the facility to fade music in strategic places. Already, making demos and the more conventional slide shows is easier and quicker to complete using PTE sound. Especially the adding of silence at the start of a track. You really should try it and not worry about those who have troubles with it. It really is quite easy once you spend a few minutes with it. JEB I see this much the same as you, but in time perhaps we can see the same facilities we now have in Audacity. Especially if Igor's intentions is to add all the sound editing to the time line. Perhaps we will have a Slide List, a Time Line and a Soundtrack switchable in much the same position as the time line is now. One thought that came to me a couple of days ago is this. Currently we can effectively chop off a section at the front of the music or the end and fade it in/out. We can use the offset to effectively place silence at the start of our music. (probably the most useful of all) We can mix two or more pieces of music using crossfade and we can lower the volume of the entire track, another great option in my view when you need some music, but when it is not essential to the plot. Just background. Until PTE is able to allow us to reduce volume in strategic areas of our soundtrack, I wondered how possible it would be to have a facility that would allow us to export our sound track out of PTE. You can see the reasons. Imagine you are almost finished making a slide show and then get the idea for a little commentary or sound effects to be added to your sound track. You would effectively have to start from scratch in Audacity to achieve that. If we could export the PTE sound track out as one Mp3 we could use an external editor for the jobs PTE cannot do yet. The Time Line Has anyone else had these thoughts when working in the time line. I often find that I want to be able to see the next slide before I hit the new transition button to add it to the time line. Especially important when using PTE as a medium for tutorials I find. I need a reminder to help my decision making on where it is placed on the time line.

Claudia Am I right in understanding you here? Are you really saying that you put full size jpegs into your slide show. By saying that, most of us would expect you to mean, images direct from your camera with no cropping or re-sizing applied. If the answer to that is yes, then that is why your getting the flickering and Moire effect. Your asking too much of your PC Make the images 1920*1080 and set the same value in the Project options screen tab. For zoomed images add 4-500 pixels on the height and width and may find that is more then enough. If your using a laptop, then that is very likely to make matters worse as they never seem to have the same performance as a desktop of the same or similar spec. In that case it is even more important to make sure your images are sized correctly This page may help http://www.beckhamdi...e%20%20size.htm

I am afraid that is not so clear cut as it will depend on how much you wish to Zoom. In my view many users of PTE badly overdo this and rather than add anything much to their show, they actually detract from it by allowing a zoom to go on and on an on an on. However, that is a personal view and I like my animation a little more delicate and subtle. I make my slide shows at 1920*1200 to fit my monitor and if I wanted to zoom an image I would probably add 400-500 pixels on that size making the image 2420*1600. I would use less in some cases.

Joy PC screen Resolution Go to your desktop and right click - Select Personalize with Vista, properties I think with XP - Select display settings and the screen resolution will be displayed bottom left of the Display settings window. See attached TV Screen Resolution A 52 inch plasma is likely to be full HD and that will be 1920*1080

Isn't the simplest method here to just open up the original project file (assuming it is available) and make two shows with no changes at all bar one. One show would be what is currently made, the second would be identical apart from the fixed size of slide box ticked. On the night of the projection do a quick dummy run of the first 3 slides of each sequence and guage which works best. The original one may be stretched a little and lose quality, but if it does use the fixed size of slide version and live with a slightly smaller image, or zoom the projector.

Well, we can look at this anyway we want, but the upshot is that what we see ain't what we get. When our cameras can do the same as the eye and record a different exposure in many different parts of the image, then we won't ned image editing. I wouldn't hold your breath though

Thank you Alan I intend to use it as an opening to tow demoa I will be giving in the next few months Barry

Bill You went to the right place, but what I can do today is to remake it with beta 5. Could you give it a few hours and download it again, I will put a little note on it when done to indicate what beta it was made with. NB. This is now done and you should see PTE6.5 Beta 5 on the Exposure Slide Show text on this page here http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw4.htm B

Thank you Henri, that news is good for the PTE team