What Can I Do With PicturesToExe?

[Lin Evans]

A fairly common question I'm asked and I generally answer with a long winded verbal explanation of the myriad features beyond the capabilities of producing incredibly good and clean presentation slideshows.

I decided to create a show which demonstrates some of the more esoteric capabilities of PTE beyond the normal slideshow of photographs. This one is too large for SlideshowClub so I'm posting it here. It's finished but I may have to go back and convert a part of it to video for those with less than optimal video cards.

It runs perfectly smoothly on my rather powerful i7 Intel with a top-end video card, but the part of the show which displays an icosahedron with 3620 separate active video displays stutters on my old nVidia 8800GT card which only has 500 meg of video RAM. I would appreciate any feedback from those who have the bandwidth to download and try it about smoothness - especially on the icosahedron.

Updated now and size will be reduced to about 278 meg - flaw found in copy/paste function causing dropped frames. Data reconstructed for smooth operation on icosahedron and spelling errors corrected in text. It's as smooth as silk on my old PC now. Both Mac and PC versions now online - I won't rework the video right now...

http://www.lin-evans.org/pte/whatcanido.zip (about 278 meg optimized zipped Windows exe)..

http://www.lin-evans.org/pte/whatcanidomac.zip (about 279 meg optimized native MacIntosh exe)

http://www.lin-evans.org/pte/whatcanidozippedavi.zip (aboute 428 meg zipped 1280x720 converted avi)

PTE Converted AVI at 1280x720 resolution is now linked as well above.

Thanks,

Lin

[Ken Cox]

Lin works fine on my oldest system -- full screen -- smooth as silk

ken

Computer Profile Summary Computer Name: KEN-3 (in WORKGROUP) — KEN-3 Profile Date: Monday, July 14, 2014 3:18:06 PM Advisor Version: 8.4 Windows Logon: Ken new Click to try Belarc's Security Advisor for Android Operating System System Model Windows 7 Home Premium (x64) Service Pack 1 (build 7601)
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ATAPI iHAS224 B ATA Device [Optical drive]

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Slot 'A1_DIMM0' has 4096 MB (serial number A1_SerNum0)
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* Operating System is installed on c: Network Drives

[Lin Evans]

Thanks Ken,

That's good to hear. I didn't want to create a video display for the exe of the icosahedron because it would further increase the file size by a considerable margin.

Best regards,

Lin

[smithrg]

Hi Lin, very smooth, on my PC. (Specs below)

However, my PC cannot render any H264 show, that I have made.

[davegee]

I should have copyrighted that Icosahedron!!!

[Lin Evans]

LOL - looks good doesn't it with 3620 video screens playing? Actually, I think JPD would have to have copyrighted it. He had one rotating in one of his shows from 2009 !! Of course we didn't have "styles then" and you definitely took the pain out of creating one! Thanks!!

Best regards,

Lin

[davegee]

Ah, but you need to look at the two methodologies, perhaps?

DG

[Lin Evans]

I'm not sure what his methodology was... he was creating all kinds of interesting geometric constructs. Some of them I could duplicate while others eluded me entirely. For example, the way he created Penser Avec son Pinceau will always be a mystery to me. I understand the use of thousands of masks to get the lines, but the brush and colors elude me even if I could use Excel like he did to generate data for the PTE file. I could use small color files to fill in the solid colors, I've done that in a few shows, but the brush strokes were a "stroke" of genius.

Best regards,

Lin

[denisb]

Hi Lin,

It's just the limit for my graphic card (5 years old):

Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q8300 2.50 GHz RAM 6 GB
Windows 7 64-bit
Nvidia GeForce GT 220 1024 GB

The icosahedron rotation is not smooth but if i desactivate Aero (return to windows classic theme) and stop antivirus then it's perfect.

Best regards

Denis

[Lin Evans]

Thanks Denis,

I thought that might be the case with some of the older video cards and less powerful systems. My XP system is also a core 2 duo Intel and I have an old nVidia 8800GT card with 512 meg RAM. I'm ordering an nVidia 750 Ti card tonight to replace the old 8800GT. The 750 Ti has 2 Gig RAM and doesn't require two slots and the extra power that my old card does so it will not only be much more powerful but also consume less power. It's on sale on Amazon with free shipping for $138 U.S.D.

Best regards,

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Hi Robert,

It seems you should have plenty of power to render an h.264 - I'm wondering what might be the problem ... I have a similar ASUS with a 3GB video card and an i7 with 32 gig of RAM and it works fine for that. There must be some other issue at work other than the specs. What kind of failure do you experience?

Best regards,

Lin

[Lmoreels]

Both version, win and MAC works fine on my Macbook.

MACBOOK PRO

2,3 GHz Intel Core i7

16 GB ram 1600 MHz DDR3

Intel HD graphics 4000 1024 MB + NVIDEA Geforce GT 650M 512 MB

480 GB SSD HD

Also use Parallels - WIN 7.

Luc M

[denisb]

Hi Lin, very smooth, on my PC. (Specs below)

However, my PC cannot render any H264 show, that I have made.

PTE x264.exe has stopped working.jpg

It's sometimes antivirus. Try to stop antivirus when you make HD video.

Denis

[PGA]

Hi Lin,

The two hour wait for it to download was well worth it! It ran as smooth as silk on my system (spec file attached).

Peter

PC_SF Report 2014-07-15.txt

[cead]

Hi Lin,

Interesting and beautiful series; runs great on my PC (2,40 gigahertz Intel Core2 Quad - Windows 7 32bt)

Regards,

Frans

[smithrg]

Hi Lin, when I try to make a MP4 show, in Videobuilder, the program will get to between 75% and 99%, and fails.

The last show I tried, got within seconds of finishing, and I got the message above in thread # 4.

Thanks for any suggestions you or anyone might have. (Denis, thanks for the antivirus suggestion.)

I am including a link to zipped backup, on Mediafire,(50 MB) if anyone would check the show, for flaws. (other than amaturish construction)

Thanks, Robertg

Sorry for the highjack, should I add this to Trouble shooting?

https://www.mediafire.com/?oz2qcplmcbrxc6o

(Quote)

Hi Robert,

It seems you should have plenty of power to render an h.264 - I'm wondering what might be the problem ... I have a similar ASUS with a 3GB video card and an i7 with 32 gig of RAM and it works fine for that. There must be some other issue at work other than the specs. What kind of failure do you experience?

Best regards,

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Hi Luc,

Thanks! It's great to know that the Mac version works fine. Not having a Mac I always worry that I may have missed something...

Best regards,

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Hi Peter,

Wow !! Two hours download - Thanks!!! Your 16 gig of RAM and GT 640 nVidia card seem to be quite sufficient. I'm hoping that the nVidia 750 Ti card I ordered for my old core 2 Duo Dell XP system will be sufficient. I suspect it will be fine. Years ago when I upgraded from my old nVidia 8600 GT to the 8800 GT I thought I had all the video power I would ever need. I had to shoehorn a 750 watt power supply into the old Dell to furnish the required power for the big power-hungry 8800GT which needed a power supply of at least 450 watts and a connection the little 300 watt power supply provided with the Dell didn't have. I almost had to bend the case to get the new power supply and all the cables into the rather compact Dell case and then the 8800GT took up two slots but has served well till now. The new 750 Ti only takes a single slot - will work with even a 300 watt power supply, doesn't need the extra power supply cable and is multiple times the power of the old 8800 GT. On paper it seem like the perfect match. I'm anxious for it to arrive so I can try it out. I'm actually glad I put the big power supply in because the system is whisper quiet. I can use a Blue Snowball microphone sitting on my desk for tutorials and there is absolutely zero noise from the system. My new ASUS powerhouse is great but it's definitely anything but quiet. I think I'll keep the old system as long as it will work just because of the extremely quiet power. The fan is so quiet and vibration free I have to put my ear on the the system and check the lights to be certain it's working. I leave it on 24/7...

Best regards,

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Hi Frans,

Thanks!! That's good news. It seems that it isn't too much for the majority of systems which people are using today and that's good because I really don't like to convert parts to video so that they will run on older systems. It compromises the image quality in many cases.

Best regards,

Lin

[davegee]

It runs really well on my system - no glitches of any description.

10 Minute D/L.

DG

[Ken Cox]

Lin

ran test on Shirley's laptop

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and it work fine even with avg doing a scheduled scan

also ran it on the latest Desktop which has more meat than the Cooler

ken

[Lin Evans]

Hi Ken,

Wow! I'm surprised it ran smoothly on the laptop - that's good news.

Best regards,

Lin

[Johnwnjr]

I successfully downloaded and ran this wonderful piece on a 3 year old PC but wondered if it would download and run on a 6 month old Samsung Laptop with Intel ® Core i5-3210m CPU @ 2.50Ghz 2.50GHz with memory (RAM) 6GB. 64OS X64 based processor and Windows 8.1.

It downloaded in about 5 minutes and ran perfectly on battery power! There may have been a little shimmering as the 3200 frames moved in front of the moon but it was hardly noticeable.

regards. John

[Lin Evans]

Hi John,

Thanks so much for testing it for me! That's great news...

Best regards,

Lin

[PGA]

Wow !! Two hours download

Yep! I always get long download times when I try and download items you post. Never have that problem on any other site. I guess I must hit the rush hour in Denver. Or is it that your file is sat in a queue at the East Coast waiting to get its passport stamped?

regards,

Peter