File size Limit

[Barry Beckham]

Can anyone remind me what the size limit is for a PTE exe file. I seem to recall reading it was 2 gig, but a search doesn't seem to be fining me the information

[davegee]

http://docs.picturestoexe.com/en/techniques/exefilesize?s[]=file%20size

DG

[Barry Beckham]

Thanks. I have had a query about a 4GB show that plays OK within PTE, but no sound when the exe is created. I guess that the file size is the cause. Not sure what makes the slide show so large

[davegee]

If there is a Video in the file then it "might" be possible to use the “Do not include file to Exe” feature to bring it under the theoretical 2GB limit.

The Video file can then be added to the "Safe Executable" in the folder and will be found without further action by the viewer.

DG

[Barry Beckham]

Yes, I think I need some feedback from the author on how the file size has become so large. It would seem logical that there is quite a lot of video in there.

[Ken Cox]

Barry

why not suggest to the author to join the forum in order to get first hand info??

Igor would surely appreciate new members!!!

ken

[PGA]

Barry,

If the user has simply "trimmed" the video by dragging in the ends in the Timeline, I think that would result in the entire video clip being included in the EXE. Whereas, if they trim the video in the PTE Video Converter all the unused material will be left "on the cutting room floor".

regards,

Peter

[Barry Beckham]

Peter

Yes, video is treated much the same as sound in that the whole sound would be included in the exe, unless the Convert Tracks Option is ticked. Its wandering off here a bit, but am I the only person who asks why? The exe file doesn't need all that surplus added. We have it all at our disposal in our project file, so why in the exe where it just produces larger files sizes and therefore problems. Trimming off what is not used, music and Video should be default.

I am waiting for a reply to try and ascertain if we are talking about video with this query, which we probably are. I just have in mind a 5 minute sequence that was submitted to our last Queensland AV competition which contained only stills and was 750MB in size. For you and I it would have been 30-40MB

[PGA]

A sequence of 5 minutes duration would use about 50 images and 5MB of WAV audio. Therefore each image would be just under 15MB. That points to the images being at the original size as captured by the camera.

[Barry Beckham]

Very likely

[Barry Beckham]

Just for info. The issue does not involve video and is a slide show containing 480 images and 44 minutes of music. I think the answer is almost certainly that the images were used at high resolution and maybe saved at too high a jpg compression.

Even if 1MB was allowed per image and 100 MB for music, the file size would be under 600MB. Looking at my own files I am hard pressed to find images that are 500k in size, most are around 300k

Ken

Sorry mate he has had to make do with second hand info from me. No offence taken

[PGA]

Barry,

44 minutes of WAV file would be 440MB, which is "peanuts" out of a 4GB file. If we subtract that from the 4GB and divide the remainder by 480, we get an average image file size of 7.5MB. Even if I save images at Photoshop JPEG Quality = 12, I struggle to get anything much bigger than 3MB from the D300s and 2MB from the D70. An average size of 7.5MB is monstrously large! I wonder if the image files are all PNGs? I have found that a typical PNG is much bigger than the equivalent JPEG.

Peter

[davegee]

My current camera produces 10Mb 100% quality JPEGs from RAW Files.

It's "only" 24MP.

The current "Top Gun" (File Size-Wise) is 36MP (?).

The next Big Gun promises to be 52MP.

So it is not beyond the realms of possibility that BB is right.

DG

[Barry Beckham]

To get up that sort of 4GB file size, I guess lots of tracks could have been used to make up the 44 minutes. Those tracks could add up to considerably more than 44 minutes and If they are wave, rather than Mp3, that could be an issue too. If the convert tracks to Mp3 tick box wasn't ticked (why do we need that anyway, all exe's should do this by default) and 1 minute of a 10 minute track was used, all 10 minutes would be included in the exe. (again why? I cannot see any possible advantage)

Its the only way you could get a file size that huge.

This is an interesting question though because it is an indicator of where a newer user of PTE is likely to fall into the AV pitfalls. Its those pitfalls that should be dealt with, within the software, if possible, so it doesn't happen or is less likely.

[RobertAlbright]

I hope we don't lose sight of Barry's suggestion earlier in this strand that 'The exe file doesn't need all that surplus added. We have it all at our disposal in our project file, so why in the exe where it just produces larger files sizes and therefore problems. Trimming off what is not used, music and Video should be default'. I agree that when the producer converts to .exe, all surplus material should be excluded.

I'm amazed at the jpeg files being discussed here. Mine are usually between 1Mb and 2Mb at 1920x1080 px. I don't believe that there would be any discernible difference in image quality by having bigger files than this when using a Full HD projector. In the RPS International Festival 2014 images were projected on a 16 feet x 9 feet screen and looked superb at this kind of size. Most festivals don't even use a Full HD projector. Obviously looking at images on smaller screens and monitors than 16 feet makes even less difference.

[davegee]

Robert,

Whilst not disagreeing with what you say, PTE gives you the opportunity to trim the excess in two ways.

1. When you convert video, you can trim the excess video at that stage in the converter. Only the portion that you want in the Project is included in the EXE. See Here

2. Converting the Audio Tracks to MP3 when creating the EXE does more or less the same thing - only the portions of the Audio used in the Project are included in the final EXE. See Here

DG

[RobertAlbright]

Thanks Dave. I was aware of the trim option but if the trim isn't applied I think bb's point is still valid.

On the second point you rather imply that creating the .exe automatically converts the higher resolution options, say WAV, to MP3. I didn't think this was the case and it may not be what you meant.

The important difference between 1. and 2. is that in 2. by default the .exe file excludes material not used in the project whereas in 1. the video by default leaves the material in unless it has been trimmed in the converter. This increases the size of the file unnecessarily.

I think bb's point. is that 1. and 2. should be consistent in the way that they are applied to the project.

[davegee]

Hi Robert,

I am not sure that you understood?

1 talks purely about video - MP4 and AVI etc

2 talks purely about audio tracks - WAV AND MP3 etc

I was merely pointing out that there are ways already in place to deal with unwanted sections of both video and audio.

If Igor can deal with this "problem" I am in favour of it.

DG

[Barry Beckham]

The issue I raised right at the start was caused by simple inexperience of using PicturesToExe, a place we have all been at one time or another. Huge Jpgs were used, taken directly from the camera and hardly compressed resulting in file sizes 7, 8 and even 9 MB. Video wasn't an issue at all, just lots of huge images. The issue is now solved

Robert

Thank you for the support. I have raised this issue before about sound and what the exe contains, but often the suggestion gets lost in the thread and I wonder if that makes it hard for Igor to spot those suggestions which may have merit. just to be clear for anyone who doesn't quite follow what I was saying.

If you made a 5 slide demo with images of 200k each, you will have a 1000k file for the images alone. If you used 20 seconds of a 10 minute track of music, you could be adding at least 10MB to a little demo lasting less than a minute. Total size 11MB. Picturestoexe retains the entire track within the exe file even though you only hear 20 seconds of it.

You have to have the knowledge to know this, then find the command for it in the Project Options > Audio Tab. It's a small tick box, easily missed, but when selected the music is automatically trimmed back to just the 20 seconds you used. The resulting file size of your small slide show would now be around 2MB, probably less. If an author used three different music tracks of 10 minutes length each in a slide-show, but through editing cut each down to just 1 minute, (a distinct possibility in a three minute sequence). The file size could still be 30MB longer than it needed to be.

Question 1. Why pad out an exe file size with any sound at all that we are not hearing, when we have it at our disposal in the Project file and couldn't get to it from the exe even if we wanted to.

Question 2. Doesn't yet another tick box make the software just that little more complex for no reason I can possibly think of. (not for the initiated on this forum, but other users and those who haven't discovered PTE yet)

Solution. All exe files should be set by default to trim sound back to only what is used. Remove any options for this from the audio tab.

[Boogie]

BB, you say:-

...............then find the command for it in the Project Options > Audio Tab. It's a small tick box, easily missed, but when selected the music is automatically trimmed back to just the 20 seconds you used...........................

Where is the small tick box you mention? In v8.03, Project options/Audio tab, of the 3 tick boxes I see, none say anything about automatic trimming. If it is there, I certainly missed it!!!

[jt49]

... Where is the small tick box you mention? In v8.03, Project options/Audio tab, of the 3 tick boxes I see, none say anything about automatic trimming. If it is there, I certainly missed it!!!

Convert tracks to MP3 for Exe.

Regards,

jt

[jt49]

The MP3 option does not always deliver the best result. In the attached example, running about 5 minutes, we just have a short audio clip in the beginning and one at the end, with silence in between. The MP3 version produces a lot of MP3 encoded silence

Regards,

jt

thunder.zip

[David Porter]

Hence the file size of the MP3 exe file is 10.6mb as against 1.41mb of the WAV exe file - is that what you are saying?

[Lin Evans]

...........

Solution. All exe files should be set by default to trim sound back to only what is used. Remove any options for this from the audio tab.

Hi Barry,

Doesn't this somewhat limit the flexibility of PTE? Probably the reason that we are given the "option" for creating the mp3 which effectively trims sound not used rather than just defaulting to this is that when, as JT points out, there are only parts of a longer audio track used perhaps at the very beginning and at the very end of a lengthy sequence, the silence is encoded as mp3. This could easily make the size of the mp3 much larger than the original. Let's say that the original mp3 audio was 2 minutes in length, but the slide show is 7 minutes in length. Then the mp3 becomes seven minutes rather than three minutes because it was used at the beginning and at the end of a lengthy show and all the silence in between becomes encoded as mp3 silence. Then there is the issue of people who use WAV and do not want it encoded as mp3 for quality purposes?

[jt49]

Hence the file size of the MP3 exe file is 10.6mb as against 1.41mb of the WAV exe file - is that what you are saying?

That's the consequence of encoded silence.

Regards,

jt