PicturesToExe v4.20 beta #1

[Ed Overstreet]

This is the first time I've encountered a software developer who actually invited a wish list for new features! This is wonderful, thanks Igor!

I would especially second Al's second, third, and fifth requests (the "light table," tabular format for block adjustment of timings, and the ability to run fades back-to-back (or nearly so) without flickering). The light table

and tabular format are already available in Al's Excel spreadsheet (and there are a number of third-party sortable digital light tables available, I use ThumbsPlus) but it would be nicer to have these features integrated into the software.

I'd also like to be able to save my own customized Project Options settings so I don't need to reset the defaults whenever I start a new project (e.g., I prefer to turn the mouse off, have the show exit when completed, etc etc). I tend to configure all my shows the same way, and not generally the way the defaults are set. This is a minor thing as it doesn't take long to reset the Project Options, but I'm lazy and would love a personal options setting I could click and reset everything at once.

[JRR]

Igor:

I have not had time to work with 4.20 yet, but I would fully endorse AL's list with Ed's add-ons.

Of course that makes it look as though the Ottawa mafia are in cohoots !!!

Which is not the case as we have not talked together recently. It is just that we tend to use PTE for similar purposes so we are looking for the same things.

The most important to me is the ability to keep the OBJECTS from moving on different screen resolutions ! (But you have heard that from me "several" times before )

Keep up the great work !!!!!

[RayPar]

Hey, Ray, howzit?

The AVI file does depend on PTE being open.  That's why Igor set it up the way he did.  Using his own codec saved him (and us) licensing $ and likely space as well.

Have you pulled an AVI into any Pinnacle products yet?  My computer is down during a remodel, so I can't play w/this feature - one I've been dying for forever!!  :-(

Dana

Hey Dana,

Well, at least the mystery is solved (Igor's earlier thread) as to why PTE has to stay open in order for the AVI to work. As for bringing the AVI into a Pinnacle product I am exactly in the same boat as you are. I too am going through a computer remodeling job (while the Mrs. remodels the whole house ). So I haven't quite yet reinstalled all the programs on my new computer. I'll be sure to post the results as soon as I do.

Ray

[Joy]

I've used P2E beta 2 and created a SVCD using Pinnacle Expression and my CD burner. Unfortunately I don't have a DVD player yet!. I'm going to Walmart to test my CD (if they let me).

[ronwil]

Ed

You ask "I'd also like to be able to save my own customized Project Options settings ......" This facility is there already by creating a template. I use this method as the basic structure for my projects, then modify to suit the needs of the particular sequence.

Ron [uK]

[alrobin]

I'd also like to be able to save my own customized Project Options settings so I don't need to reset the defaults whenever I start a new project

Ed,

Try the template option - this should allow you to save and retain all your custom default parameters.

Edit: Sorry, Ron, I either missed your post, or you hadn't posted it yet when I started mine. Glad we were consistent!

[ronwil]

Al

I can't say "Great minds think the same" in the shadow of all your excellent contributions to this forum.

Ron [uK]

[Ed Overstreet]

Thanks Ron and Al. I hadn't noticed the template option in my excitement as I explored all the other nifty features in PTE over the weekend. I'll give that a whirl. (I still would prefer simple Save and Load buttons at the bottom of the Project Options window, but I appreciate that programming those things might not be so simple, so the template feature it is for now anyway ... One can't be too picky after all )

[alrobin]

Aw, shucks, Ron: You're being far too magnanimous!

[Joy]

I tested my P2E vcd created with Pinnacle Expression on a RCA TV-DVD player and it worked. I actually bought the RCA unit. The file was not the best quality, slight flicker and my photos were not as clear as on my PC. The photos had been resized for the PC and that is probably why they were not as sharp.

[Ken Cox]

another success

i used ver 4.2 beta 2

and

made a multi show -- 3 shows - with roxio's dvd builder

used one show that i had previously made with my pictures [100 dpi]using the beta 1

the exe was 4,248 kb

the avi was 25,394 kb

the other 2 shows were from pictures from the web -- one set was a series of puppies and the other was made with weekly winners of pcworld's photo contest -PC World's Digital Focus Newsletter-http://www.pcworld.com/howto/locations/0,loc,81,tk,dfx,00.asp

both sets were 72 dpi - i elected to use someone else's picts to rule out any bias on my part -- - my own pictures have been adjusted -- in the case of the puppies i wanted to see the hair detail and the mix of pictures from the magazine were all winners

puppies details

exe was 1,143 kb

avi was 25,394 kb

pc world details

exe was 10,815 kb

avi was 53,889

estimated vcd size was 101 mb -- there is +-3 mb of overhead making the menu etc

encode time was 48 mins and 50 sec.

burned at default speed 32x - actual speed varies

total time encode to burn complete 49 mins 25 secs.

final size on the cd-r disk 90.6 mb.

the show was played on a 6 mos old plain Toshiba dvd player sent to a plain 1 yr old Toshiba 29" tv

the fine details of the puppy's hair,ears etc was perfect and the PCWorld show was just as good - my picts were -- well they were of my grandkids so what else can i say:))

my system details

PIII 1.3 ghz 512 meg ram

winxp home edition

dvd builder portion of roxio ezcd platinum 6

be well rested before you start

make sure you have good size text and i would suggest not placing it on the slides -- use the object editor and put it there or as others have said many times make a slide up in a graphics program and put your text on the slide and then insert it in the sequence

verify the operation of every step in the bulding of the avi before starting the final process

a lot of work, but was worth it -- good things dont come quick and easy

ken

[ckfox]

File Names?

I'm with everyone else. This is a fabulous upgrade. The DVD's look great!

One question:

My file names didn't show up in the TV format. Is there a way to make them appear?

Thanks again,

Ken Fox

[Ken Cox]

do you mean the individual slide names

if so

my comments from above posting

make sure you have good size text and i would suggest not placing it on the slides -- use the object editor and put it there or as others have said many times make a slide up in a graphics program and put your text on the slide and then insert it in the sequence

and same is mentioned in other recent threads

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...t=ST&f=2&t=1321

ken

[LisaNeal]

Ken:

I saw your post above where you said there were fine details in the images of your vcd at 72 dpi. What were the other specifications of the files that you used?

I've tried converting to 72 dpi and I'm not seeing the detail in my images that I would like.

I'm using this for portrait viewing sessions and need as much detail as possible.

Thanks in advance,

Lisa

[Tom K]

I also posted the following under the topic "PTE video to disks for TV" but it looks like this thread is where most of the action is:

I just learned of rev 4.20 this afternoon. After several false starts and "coasters" I have successfully created a DVD slideshow (with two shows on it.) I wound up downloading ULead DVD Moviefactory2 to do it but I hope there's something better - it's sloooow. At least it seems that way to me, it took an hour and a half to write a DVD that runs about seven minutes total.

The file sizes of the two .avi files was about 46M and 27M and the total of the files written onto the DVD itself was about 280M - a mere drop in the DVD bucket.

I first tried creating a SVCD with Nero Vision Express but it would not play on my Sanyo DVD/VCR machine. Then I tried a VCD, similar result. It seemed to want to try to and they might work on some other machine, but I'd prefer not to have to buy another DVD player just for this. When trying to use Sonic MyDVD I could navigate to the folder that contained the .avi file and click on it, but the program would lock up and I'd have to Ctrl+Alt+Dlt out of it.

As far as the DVD result finally achieved with ULead goes, it looks very good although there were some problems of a surprising nature. The first slideshow (of a friend's wedding) used all fairly rapid fades of 200ms for the transitions and the slides were onscreen for 1-2 seconds - 161 slides in 4:26 (I do not like slow-moving slideshows!) The fades all looked great, just like on the PC and the audio sync was also perfect.

The second slideshow (of this year's Reno Air Races) used all quick cuts - no transition - and the slides were onscreen for something less than a second - 206 slides in 2:36 or about 3/4 of a second per slide. Surpisingly, the quick cuts is where I saw problems. Maybe every tenth slide or so there would be horizontal bars seen as if one slide were caught halfway transitioning to the next, kind of a comb tooth effect. I don't know if it had anything to do with the rapid pace of the slides or if it is an artifact of the quick transition. I'm kind of thinking the latter as at one point I had about 7 slides in two seconds and didn't see any problems there. Requires more investigation I guess.

That's my $.02 so far.

And thanks a ton Igor and crew!!

[JasonHudson]

I just clicked the AVI button, opened Roxio DVD Creator 6, inserted the PTE show, and burned it to a DVD and played it back in my living room on my TV. Too cool! Thanks!

It says that I must currently choose "synch slideshow to music duration." Will this be changed in the future so that I can make my own transitions?

Thanks in advance,

Jason Hudson

hudsonphotos.com

[ronwil]

Jason

Welcome to the forum

With "Synchronize slideshow to music duration" you can make your own transitions by clicking on "Customize Synchronization" and using the timeline for positioning and the "Customize Slide" button for transitions and effects. I know it works because my trial use of AVI was with a project using the method I have just described. Good luck.

Ron [uK]

[Ken Cox]

Lisa

the picts from pcworld range any where from 30 to 375 kb and must not be larger than 640/480

see

PC World's Digital Focus Newsletter-http://www.pcworld.com/howto/locations/0,loc,81,tk,dfx,00.asp

and have a look at the archives and you can and save the picts and experiment

the puppies were 11 to 58 kb at 720/540 -- the picts are part of a series -- picts are taken real close up with a wide angle lens to accentuate their noses -- sort of a fish eye effect

another site to visit is

http://www.mplonsky.com/photo/Gallery.htm

he has picts of bugs that are sharp at 72 dpi -- i had good success puting some of his shots in a proshow vcd

dont know what else i can tell you

the puppy file is 14 slides 13 animal slides and an intro slide [the text on intro slide does not convert nice]zipped they are are 452 kb -- small enough to email if you want to play with them

email me at

pbyk@sympatico.ca

ken

[JRR]

Igor:

I finally got a chance to briefly work with 4.20. (the non DVD features - am I the only one )

Control of synched presentations is neat !!

I hope in the 40% other improvments you will be able to sneak in disabling (or controlling) the mouse scroll wheel. I mentioned that a short ago as I have discovered that some people absent-mindedly play with their mouse wheel while watching presentations, a fix, at your convenience would be appreciated - in amongst the other "few" request you are trying to deal with.

Now that synched shows are controllable, the absent-minded playing can upset synched shows.

Thanks again

[Barry Beckham]

Igor

Would it be possible to rename all the slides as a batch once they have been pulled into the slide list. I find that I have names of all sorts by the time I am at that stage and would love to be able to rename the lot. 1,2,3 etc

The other option would be a display of thumbnails of images in the left panel that I can see all the time to select from.

Another nice thing would be, to be able to go straight into the time line from the main screen. I find I often jump back and forward and would love a shortcut button on the main screen.

bbdigital

[Ed Overstreet]

Batch renaming of files is possible in third-party "light table" software, if you have it and if you sort your slides before working with them in PTE. For example ThumbsPlus has an "auto rename" feature which makes it easy to rename images in a numerical sequence once you've sorted them on the screen. However that software costs more than PTE does; but it (and other similar software) is also very useful for keeping track of your photo archives on CDs or other storage media.

Batch renaming would be a great feature to add to the "light table" feature Al Robinson, Jim and I were voting for earlier in this thread, though it would be redundant if you could click-and-drag images into the show list directly from the light table. Sequential naming is only important if you have a large number of pre-sorted images you want to import into your show in the current versions (without in internal light table)

[Marcovelo]

Thank you Igor (and Sergey) for this new release ! Great work !

To Igor's question: "What's about another new features of v4.20 beta?" I too second Al's suggestions, and also add 2 others:

both are to improve "Run external application" feature (Customize Slide/Tab Main/Advanced options).

1) allow "Run external application" to accept one parameter (argument): just add a text field to be used as argument to the external program called. If this field is empty, no argument will be passed to the external program (like today's behavior).

This will be really usefull for users calling external programs from PTE shows (like me). For example: MyUtility "filename.ext".

2) add a new option to "Run external application" to allow PTE to wait until external program completes. This can be a check box (for example something like "pause show until external application returns"). When the external app is launched by PTE, the execution of the show is suspended (like actual "pause mode") until external app exits.

This can be used to help in building menus (in this case externals app can be others PTE shows, without the need to use "run application after last slide" to come back to the menu).

Also, it is usefull to display a movie (or whatever) in the midlle of the show, and then continue PTE show when the movie is finished.

In "non synchronized shows", it would be really great if the music can continue to play during external app execution (can be an option too).

Of course, in "synchronized shows", the show would be in "pause mode" (thanks to the new feature "Permit the control of show": great !).

In a programming point of view, this requires the use of only 2 functions of Kernel32.lib: "CreateProcess" and "WaitForSingleObject" (for example).

Thank you.

Marco

[fredor]

Do I have to download a new version or is there an upgrade

[Ken Cox]

Fredor, welcome to the forum

there is a beta #2 of version 4.2

see

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...t=ST&f=2&t=1317

ken

[Danabw]

Hey, Ray, howzit?

The AVI file does depend on PTE being open.  That's why Igor set it up the way he did.  Using his own codec saved him (and us) licensing $ and likely space as well.

Have you pulled an AVI into any Pinnacle products yet?  My computer is down during a remodel, so I can't play w/this feature - one I've been dying for forever!!  :-(

Dana

Hey Dana,

Well, at least the mystery is solved (Igor's earlier thread) as to why PTE has to stay open in order for the AVI to work. As for bringing the AVI into a Pinnacle product I am exactly in the same boat as you are. I too am going through a computer remodeling job (while the Mrs. remodels the whole house ). So I haven't quite yet reinstalled all the programs on my new computer. I'll be sure to post the results as soon as I do.

Ray

Hey, Ray. Glad to hear I'm not the only one suffering. Before it was "Hope we're done by Thanksgiving." Now it's "Can we pleeze finish by Christmas!?!"

Just got my main computer back up (temporarily) so I hope to do some testing soon!!!!

Dana