Image size

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Following the posts after my dissertation about problems for DVD users if their images are sized as suggested in the original post.

Barry, I think your assumption that shows with large picture counts are not as extreme as you suggest is just a throw away remark. My wedding dvd producer suggestion is only one section of PTE users. I would assume you would be able to enlighten us all to what you have encountered in the production of your commercial instructional dvds?

Peter

I have just done an experiment adding a 5 minute voice over from a previous show to the 60 minute music sound track which is work in progress with the current dvd. Both tracks had been save as MP3, one 55mb the other 5mb, I imported them into audacity and exported them as a joint MP3 and yes, you are quite correct, the file size stayed the same at 55mb. You learn something everyday.

However this does not change my basic point that producers of DVD's with picture counts in excess of 300 would have problems burning them to a DVD if they start increasing their picture resolution above the much used 1024x768.

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1

[bwat]

I do not rate myself as an experienced user of PTE but from making my first PTE show anticipated future inrease/improvement of projectors so have always used images of a higher resolution than 1028x768. My early digital camera was a compact using 4x3 format so I resized all images to 1600x1200 (easy maths for 4x3 conversion) since purchasing a digital SLR with 3x2 format have resized to 1500x1000 (again easy maths). The images have always been saved at maximum JPG compression (100% on my simple editor I use for resizing batch files and I belive 12 in Photoshop).

The images are generaly 700-1000KB each and in a 10 minute show using 130-150 images with 20% or so using PZR and other animation give a PTE exe file in the order of 120-130MB. I have put 4 such shows (equivalent to 40 minute show with 500-600 images) on a single DVD with animated menus and the ISO image file is only 1.7GB.

With the future outlook of even higher resolution projectors (and monitors/TV's) I will be increasing the base image size of all images from now on.

Regards

bwat

[Ronniebootwest]

This is a very interesting thread and I am following it with great enthuisiasm. I am not a newbie to this size thing and, have long suugested that 'Big is better'. Indeed, Ken Cox and I have often laughed at those who stuck doggedly to the 1024*768*72 school. I have always produced slide shows at whatever my monitor size happened to be.

However, I am confused a little about the discussion taking place in this thread concerning 'resoltion and size'. It appears that you are all talking about the size that you are saving images IN PTE, I have always saved at quality 6 or 7 (maybe I will now begin to save at 12) But, what about saving of the image in Photoshop? If the image is used as 'straight from the camera' what resolution should it then be saved at? At this moment in time, I save at my monitor resolution of 90.1 (for slide show images) and at 300 for images that will be printed. What is the acceptec norm please?

Ron

[Barry Beckham]

Eric

I suppose a wedding DVD could be an exception to the rule as they generally do have many more images than a pictorial AV. However, they have a limited appeal only to the close family. I would have little or no interest in someone elses wedding DVD unless they were a part of my family and even then I am not sure I could sit through 300 wedding images.

In actual fact I did make a slide show resently that had 180 images and ran for 36 minutes. I agreed to put together a slide show for an aquaintance in Australia, but didn't appreciate at the start how many images he had shot and wanted me to use. I did suggest alternatives to using so many images in one go, but that was what he wanted. It combined two visits to the East, one was India and the other Tibet. I think that if you had a greater than average interest in Tibet and India, then you could probably sit through the sequence once, but I had to do it to check the slide show I had made worked OK and that was difficult enough. With the greatest respect to him the slide show was too long, with insufficient variety, or quality in the images to help sustain a show of that length. In truth it is as boring as hell. In these circumstances you can advise, but the paying customer gets what they want in the end.

For those of us putting together shows to primarily entertain, long shows are a disaster in my view. I think all AV enthusiasts fall into this trap at some stage or another, where their creative juices overpower good sence and it is only much later that the penny drops. I know I have, probably still do from time to time. It is probably better to break large slide shows down into more manageable sections. The images can still be used, but perhaps instead of a 36 minute sequence we could have produced 4 or 5 shorter sequences covering Tibet, the temples, the mountain people, then India and its various parts. Not difficult to do that and present the whole thing, but in bite size chunks. Now, you stand more chance of people watching it as they can do so over time and when they want to.

To be plonked down in front of a TV for a 60 minute AV, that you can't eject or escape from.................torture!

I am not sure what you mean regarding "what I have encountered in the production of your commercial instructional dvds" In what respect, length of the PTE demos and slide shows, length of the videos.?

I also am not sure that picture size has a great bearing on the final DVD size, but I am not sure about that, see my post above that no-one has confirmed or put me right on yet. I thought Lin or the Dom would be able to tell me if my assumption is right or wrong. I make very few DVD's. Having said that, is a 300+ slide show the norm? Probably not, so the obvious thing to do is to make the show larger for PC use and then reduce size for your DVD, but I say again. This isn't a command from on high, just a suggestion that technology has now given us options we didn't have a short while ago.

Ron

I have always saved images at level 6 as you probably know. You have seen lots of my slide shows and demos. Are there a quality issue in them caused by my save methods? Sometimes some aspects of these debates border on the ridiculous, here we are debating whether level 6 or 12 should be used when we have one member making a show smaller than the screen its shown on. More quality will be lost that way than in any other aspect of image production. Quality is not all about pixel count or compression when saving. They play there part, but not the be all and end all. Quality is achieved from a multitude of photographic and post production techniques and you can often get better results by getting the Photoshop work right than any save issues.

[Ronniebootwest]

Barry,

I appreciate your comments and agree with them but you have not answered my question.

You are still referring to the 'quality of the save in PTE, i.e quality 6. What settings do you save your jpegs

at in Photoshop, e.g. 1920*1200*72 or something higher?

Ron

[Ken Cox]

Barry,

I appreciate your comments and agree with them but you have not answered my question.

You are still referring to the 'quality of the save in PTE, i.e quality 6. What settings do you save your jpegs

at in Photoshop, e.g. 1920*1200*72 or something higher?

Ron

see

http://www.scantips.com/basic1c4.html

http://www.microscope-microscope.org/imaging/image-resolution.htm

http://www.ibateman.co.uk/wcc/av-group/av-resolution.htm

http://gdesroches.free.fr/formation/fnumerbase_en.htm#72

http://gdesroches.free.fr/formation/fnumerbase_en.htm#tail

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10102&pid=65862&st=0entry65862

ken

[Barry Beckham]

Ron

I never originally raised the jpeg compression issue, I only responded to someone else and stated what I had been doing. I have saved the images for the PTE shows I have made since I have been in Australia and since I started using the larger monitors at 1920*1200 at level 6

However, based on my demo slide show a day or so ago, in future I think I may create my images at full resolution and save them at level 6 just as I did with the high resolution demo, but to be honest, its likely to be a while before we need to seriously consider resolutions above 1920*1200 (famous last words, these could be) so I think my advice to anyone who asked the question what sized images do I need it would be this

Create your shows at 1920*1200 or 1920*1080 despite the fact that you may well be using 1024*768 or 1280*1024 screen resolution now.

Then to address Eric's point, what if they are using an old PC that struggles to cope with the larger files. Don't worry about it. Create the show at that size anyway, make a backup in zip and re-size the backup to meet the needs of your PC. Keep the original, which is effectively your raw file. You can go back to the high res original at any time and create what ever format you want and should you find yourself using a large monitor 3 years down the line, all the shows made in that time will fit your new screen.

[dpeterso]

Two points to clarify/confirm/correct from some of the above posts...

Secondly for Ken. You are correct when you say that PTE stores an image file once irrespective of how many references there are to that image within the sequence. So Dave's tests where he simply repeated his use of a handful of images have produced the correct, if to him unexpected, result.

regards,

Peter

Thank you Ken and Peter for clarifying why it looked like my experiment was invalid. I did in fact use the same image 50 times in the experiment.

Dave

[Ken Cox]

Thank you Ken and Peter for clarifying why it looked like my experiment was invalid. I did in fact use the same image 50 times in the experiment.

Dave

DAVE

lets go back to the 4 series of pte - we would use multiple duplicate sides for spacing in order to put titles in -tick box not to show pict and - i never use photoshop so i would make the titles up withe the forerunner of present o/a

very quick and dirty and this why so many of us old bucks still want the ease of the pre 5 series - it was based on the KISS principle

ken

[Guest Yachtsman1]

There is also another point to consider in this matter. Exe files being transported via the internet to Beechbrook & Mediafire are going to take much longer to up or download. Personally if an exe file exceeds 15mb I won't up or download it because of the time it takes. I live in a rural area and the broadband speed is not as quick as some i've heard of.

Barry imagine the ordinary man in the street buying a DVD, would you not agree he would be upset if it ran for only six minutes? The 600 plus pic jobby I am in the middle of is a documentary about Leyburn, where I live, covering as many commercial and social aspects that go on in the town. It's for a specific audience. The intention is to have a premier in one of the local halls, split the show into two halves, with a couple of complimentary shorts to pad out an hour and a half. The aim is to pander to people's vanity in wanting to see if they are included.

At the end of the show they would also be able to make a donation to the charities sponsered, and buy a copy of the DVD. This type of event is prevelent in rural areas where people don't have easy access to the big city temptations. The town is very community minded and this type of event is always well sponsered.

So the main aim of the show is to get as many of the local community on the seats, give them an hour and a half of free entertainmet with a raffle and basic refreshments thrown in. make sure the ending gets home the message of why they have attended and then get them to open their wallets.

The Charities being the recipients of the proceeds being Cancer Research UK, Yorkshire Air Ambulance, & the British Heart Foundation, all have provided some of the images in the show, the remainder are mine, my wife's, about 10 of the townsfolk, and includes a section called "the way we were" composed of images dating back to the late 19th century.

Anyway I've prattled on enough, there's no Grand Prix this weekend, the telly & the weather's c**p so what better than spending an hour on here gabbing to myself?. Some images from the show below. (not mine BTW).

Yachtsman1

PS the postman starts the show!

PPS, is that another bug in the new version of the forum??? The postmant is a portrait image sized at 768x1024 MMMMMHHHHHH

[Barry Beckham]

Eric

Barry imagine the ordinary man in the street buying a DVD, would you not agree he would be upset if it ran for only six minutes? The 600 plus pic jobby I am in the middle of is a documentary about Leyburn, where I live, covering as many commercial and social aspects that go on in the town. It's for a specific audience. The intention is to have a premier in one of the local halls, split the show into two halves, with a couple of complimentary shorts to pad out an hour and a half. The aim is to pander to people's vanity in wanting to see if they are included.

Yes, if you buying a bag of do-nuts you expect to get 6 and would be annoyed if you only got two, but its not the same thing. I presnt many hours of video broken down into subjects. If I put 5 hours of solid video on each DVD that would he horrendous. No,one would sit through that lot. Slide shows are the same.

If you have a lot of ground to cover with your AV break it down into those bite sized peices and people will watch it. Present it in one lump and if the viewer has any control they won't watch it all. Most people when cornered are too polite and worry about causing offence to the author. They will sit through a long presentation, but in their own homes, they would be hitting the stop button way before you are 25% in.

One of the things I learned in my early days with AV, film and disolve units is that if you present 12 & 5 minute sequences on different subjects with different music and a different mood, you will be asked back to the club again and again. Present a 60 minute travelogue and you will get one visit only. You will not be invited back next season.

Its common sence and doing it for charity makes no difference whatsoever. Your good intentions and well meaning with not make a 60 minute slide show any more watchable.

[Barry Beckham]

Perhaps this thread is suffering the same as a large slide show

Howevre, nobody has confirmed my earlier statement that I would like confirmed as true or false.

Currently when we create a DVD through PTE, as a part of that change all the images will be reduced to 720*576 for the DVD. I assume there is some variation to allow for format issues, but generally the images we create will be reduced to 720 by whatever. So, it doesn't matter in DVD terms whether we start with a file size of 1920*1080 or 1024*768.

Is that because members are not sure either or the thread was missed.

[Ken Cox]

Perhaps this thread is suffering the same as a large slide show

Howevre, nobody has confirmed my earlier statement that I would like confirmed as true or false.

Currently when we create a DVD through PTE, as a part of that change all the images will be reduced to 720*576 for the DVD. I assume there is some variation to allow for format issues, but generally the images we create will be reduced to 720 by whatever. So, it doesn't matter in DVD terms whether we start with a file size of 1920*1080 or 1024*768.

Is that because members are not sure either or the thread was missed.

Barry

i found that you have more leeway if you use 1920*1080 -- you never know, you might want to zoom certain picts

ken

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Take those shades off Barry, you're missing the point again, we/I aren't talking about a camera club audience, we/I are talking about the general public. What do you do when you visit the cinema/theatre, get up every 5 minutes to go for a pee.

Gone to bed, after I've had a pee.

Eric

Yachtsman1

PS nobody mentioned the stretched image in my post above, is it another bug.????

PPS just checked it again & it's not stretched now? maybe the laptops tired to.

[Barry Beckham]

Ken

The statement I made assumes a static show, I just want to know what PTE does to a 1024 pixel image as opposed to a 1920 to prepare it for a DVD

Does it, as I suggested reduce them all to 720?

I dunno really

[klintott]

Perhaps this thread is suffering the same as a large slide show

Howevre, nobody has confirmed my earlier statement that I would like confirmed as true or false.

Currently when we create a DVD through PTE, as a part of that change all the images will be reduced to 720*576 for the DVD. I assume there is some variation to allow for format issues, but generally the images we create will be reduced to 720 by whatever. So, it doesn't matter in DVD terms whether we start with a file size of 1920*1080 or 1024*768.

Is that because members are not sure either or the thread was missed.

Perhaps so Barry, but I prefer to use Photoshop to resize an image. With Photoshop I can do an unsharp mask prior to saving (changing image size will have some affect on sharpness) - also Photoshop may have a better algorithm when re-sizing than the PTE software. Therefor prior to creating a DVD I re-size all the images first. I haven't attempted to test the difference in quality.

Ken

[Barry Beckham]

Ken

I think your missing my point a bit and the lack of response to my question may mean others don't know either.

This isn't about resizing images as much as what PTE does to our images when a DVD is created. If a standard DVD resolution is 720*576, what would happen to a show created at

1024*768 and one at 1920*1200 when it goes through the DVD process?

Do all the images from both shows start off the same, but get reduced to 720 for the DVD. I am not sure if that is the case or not and I am happy to bow to greater wisdom on this point.

BTW Changing image size can have a dramatic affect on sharpness, it all depends on what resolution you are starting with I guess.

Photoshop may have a better algorithm when re-sizing than the PTE software. The trouble is we hear all this technical stuff, but how often does it relate to what we actually see with our eyes.

[Barry Beckham]

I think I have been able to answer my own question, but once again I stand to be corrected.

I have just taken the high resolution show I posted a couple of days ago and made a backup in zip

From that bakup I resized two sets of identical images, one set at 1024*576 (16:9 format to fit my 60 in plasma screen edge to edge) The second version was created at 1920*1080. (ALSO 16:9) The 2 DVD's display identical on screen. I have been going back and forth between them and I cannot see a difference.

So, perhaps if I resized the images even further down to to 720*405 (also 16:9) before making the show, I should see no difference in that size either. Should have thought of that when I did the original test I suppose.

I now have two DVD disks created

1. Contains two idendical shows one started off at 6144*3840 and one at 1024*576

2. The second disk also contains two identical shows one created from 1920*1080 and one at 1024*576

Both DVD's record a total file size of 423 Mb

[dpeterso]

I think I have been able to answer my own question, but once again I stand to be corrected.

I have just taken the high resolution show I posted a couple of days ago and made a backup in zip

From that bakup I resized two sets of identical images, one set at 1024*576 (16:9 format to fit my 60 in plasma screen edge to edge) The second version was created at 1920*1080. (ALSO 16:9) The 2 DVD's display identical on screen. I have been going back and forth between them and I cannot see a difference.

So, perhaps if I resized the images even further down to to 720*405 (also 16:9) before making the show, I should see no difference in that size either. Should have thought of that when I did the original test I suppose.

I now have two DVD disks created

1. Contains two idendical shows one started off at 6144*3840 and one at 1024*576

2. The second disk also contains two identical shows one created from 1920*1080 and one at 1024*576

Both DVD's record a total file size of 423 Mb

Barry -

While you're in the testing mood, can you see a difference on your 60" plasma of a show made up of images saved at # 12 compression in Photoshop and the # 6 compression shows you have been doing? This is the question I can't answer without a HDTV.

Thanks,

Dave

[Barry Beckham]

Dave

To be honest I am not generally one who does this sort of testing, but the thread makes you think and I must have time on my hands at the moment .

I am not sure that your suggestion would be a great test to be honest. If you can't see a difference between the file sizes I mentioned earlier, then a jpeg compression test is not likely to show much. I think you are far better doing that sort of test on a PC screen, but my gut reaction, (which I will temper a little by saying I stand to be corrected) is that it will not make the slightest visible difference to your slide show.

I have been using level 6 for years and I think by now I would have spotted some evidence of a visible difference in quality. I havn't.