Different computers

[Tripstrilles]

Hello, last week I made a show with 70 pictures with my new computer (Athlon 2000+). The first 8 pictures are only text-pictures with different time to appear, the effect is fading 1500 ms. After these pictures, the normal show starts. Every picture in auto-synchronise-mode 5 sec. effect time 3000 ms.

Now my problem. Why is there no synchroniation - text/music - with the first 8 text-pictures on a slower computer - here duron 700 -? The music plays normally, but the fading text-pictures appear too late and so the music will finish before the show ends.

The setting of effect duration is 3000 ms, but the effect is on my athlon 2000+ much quicker. So, when the music ends, I am missing 7 or 8 pictures.

How is it possible to make Shows with PTE, running at other computers with synchronisation of pictures/text/music?

Sorry for my bad english.

Greetings from Germany

Tripstrilles

[Ian]

Hello Tripstrilles

On your "text" pictures, are you adding the text on to a blank slide in PTE or are they rasterised images that you have created in Photosop etc? If the latter, there is no reason why the auto-synch should treat them any differently to photographic images.

I don't tend to use PTE's built-in text feature but I'll have a go and see if I get a similar problem.

Ian

PS - what's the weather like in Germany? I'm going to Berlin for a 3-day trip on Thursday and I expect its pretty cold!

[Guest guru]

Hi Tripstrilles!

But are you sure you have selected "Synchronize slideshow..." in "Main" section of Project Options?...

[nobeefstu]

Hello Tripstrilles ,

Verify your " Synchronize Slideshow " setting as Guido suggests.

Also verify your " Auto Sync" or Custom Sync" settings. In "Auto" setting PTE calculates your timing equally ... In "Custom" setting you must calculate your timing.

Is it possible you are trying to blend the different settings ?

[LumenLux]

Hey Tripstrilles - Your english is plenty good. We like "bad" english here. I mean it is great that we can have input from around the world because members like you are willing to write english. It seems most everyone also enjoys seeing the shows from all over the world. So when you have a show to share, we are ready.

[Tripstrilles]

Hello, thank you for your reply. My settings are:

Main: display each slide for 5 seconds

Music: play background music; listing of mp3-files to play

Effects: enable transition effects, smoothing line 40, duration 3000 ms, duration for fade in/out 1500 ms

For the first 14 slides customize settings to display, sample 10 sec., 12 sec. ...

The following slides with default time 5 seconds.

The problem is, the speed of the effects takes much longer with a slower computer like duron 700.

Although I set the duration of the effects to 3000 ms, they come to an end much earlier then 3000 ms on a faster computer. Therefore the time to display a slide with a slower computer is my problem. When the music has to finish with picture, sample 30, it finishes with picture number 27. Then the next song starts and the whole show is no more sync.

When I say in a software: do the effect within 3 sec., the duration of the effect has to be 3 sec..

Last saturday I have taken my big-tower to a birthday-party to present my show. All other computer I tried were to slow. If I make a slide-show at a slower one and I watch it at a faster one, it will be too fast.

???

@Ian: The text-pictures are made with PhotoImpact, stored as .jpg-file - small size -.

You are right. The wether in Germany is rather cold. At thursday it will be about minus 7 degees Celsius.

Greetings from Germany

Tripstrilles

[Guest guru]

All this is quite normal, Tripstrilles. It's for this reason that Igor introduced the Sound synchronization, that connects the pictures to a soundtrack (which has a constant and firm duration).

When the Sync function didn't yet exist, I remember there were each week some posts by forum members who complained of loss of synchronization with different computers. I had made several experiments for Igor about this: from a Pentium II 266 with 64 MB Ram to a Pentium III 900 with 128 MB I noticed differences up to 5-6 sec in one minute!

You have to consider that a show with pictures AND audio is a hard job for the CPU, and especially transitions (above all fading transitions) demand many system resources. So it's normal that a slow processor is not able to work as quickly as a fast one.

I hope my talk has been clear enough.

[HaroldB]

All this is quite normal, Tripstrilles. It's for this reason that Igor introduced the Sound synchronization, that connects the pictures to a soundtrack (which has a constant and firm duration).   . . . .

You have to consider that a show with pictures AND audio is a hard job for the CPU, and especially transitions (above all fading transitions) demand many system resources. So it's normal that a slow processor is not able to work as quickly as a fast one.

Guido,

Since this question DOES come up very often, I have a question for you.

Now that Igor DOES have the logic for synchronization (which seems to work EXCELLENTLY on different systems subject to the limitation of hardware speed), do you think it would be an advantage for Igor to turn a NON-synchronized show (one that is defined by intervals set at the show or individual slide level) INTO a synchronized show internally at PTE run-time?

IOW, using the intervals specified by the user, PTE could "plot" transition points on an "imaginary timeline", and then execute using the synchronization code. It seems that doing that would eliminate the complaints of this type as well as possibly simplify the internal PTE code.

Am I missing something here?

Harold

[Ian]

To reply to Tripstrilles earlier point, I still can't understand why the synchronisation is poor if you are definately using the timeline feature.

Assuming you are, then the start of each transition is triggered by a fixed location in the audio track so the two things should play back consistently on different computers. The one limitation is that the speed of each transition is still governed by the processing power of the computer playing back the show. This means that if you encode a show on a fast machine and then play it back on a slow one, the dissolves will be a lot slower than you originally planned.

Also, if the next picture cuts in before the previous one has finished dissolving, there is a risk that the show could loop round the previous slide until it 'catches up'. For this reason it is good practise to allow for a margin of error before fading in the next slide so that the show will work on slower machines.

Did Igor respond to the PTE file you sent him?

Ian

[Tripstrilles]

Hello, I didn´t use the timeline-function. How does it works?

I need for example for the first 10 text-pictures a synchronization with the music of - zaratustra -. Then 3 songs background music and the display time for each following picture 5 sec.. The synchronization with timeline will work well. But what is about the pictures during the 3 songs. Is there a possibility to use timeline too (automaticly), that, perhaps picture nr. 30 ends with song nr. 1, picture nr. 48 ends with song nr. 2 and picture nr. 60 ends with song nr. 3 ?

Here I mean: after a customize synchronization, an automatic synchronization (calculated by PTE) for one or more songs and after this a customize synchronization once more for some sound effects.

I hope you did understand me.

Greetings

Tripstrilles

[Ian]

In Project Options tick the "customise slideshow to music" checkbow then press the synchronisation button. Press Play to start the music and 'new transition'to trigger the next slide. If you are using v3.8 you will see the transition in the preview window.

You mention that you are using several music files. I find that it is better to combine these into one file as this seems to give a more reliable exe file than using several smaller ones.

Ian

[LumenLux]

Harold, whenever I come up with an idea like yours, I too then wonder "am I missing something.?" And maybe we are, but my first reaction to your idea is "ahaa! why not?" It sounds good to me. I do hope some of our serious tech PTE users can either endorse or point out that we are missing something. Then Igor would have another fun challenge to keep him interested.

[Oaky]

Boy, This is weird,

On the old forum I posted my findings of a slide show running at different speeds on different computers and it seemed as if noone believed me. Even Igor posted some response that sounded as if he questioned my findings. Now it seems to be common knowledge that such a problem exists. As I recommended when I first posted my findings: I wish Igor would add a feature allowing the person who views the slideshow to select the speed (if the slideshow maker chooses to allow that feature to be accessed).

Well, at least I glad that I wasn't going crazy with my findings!!

Oaky

[nobeefstu]

Oaky,

Its always been well known and well documented fact of the different speed issue in PCs and the timimg in the presentation ... actually an over-discussed topic. We here at the forum tend to go thru "cycles" in restating this to new users.

You must not have followed the discussions close enough that ... if you use Syncronization to Music settings ... you will "not" have the different speed issue as you describe.

The REASON Igor implemented this FEATURE was to resolve the difference in PC timing issue ... HOWEVER ... the "User" must SELECT to use this FEATURE. If the "User" fails to SELECT this feature ... they will continue to get the "different speed timing" issue you have posted.

Your reply however doesnt indicate whether you used Syncronization to Music settings ?

[Guest guru]

Guido,

[...] Now that Igor DOES have the logic for synchronization (which seems to work EXCELLENTLY on different systems subject to the limitation of hardware speed), do you think it would be an advantage for Igor to turn a NON-synchronized show (one that is defined by intervals set at the show or individual slide level) INTO a synchronized show internally at PTE run-time?

IOW, using the intervals specified by the user, PTE could "plot" transition points on an "imaginary timeline", and then execute using the synchronization code. It seems that doing that would eliminate the complaints of this type as well as possibly simplify the internal PTE code.

Excuse my late reply, Harold. Your idea in undoubtedly interesting, but I think it could complicate either the internal PTE code AND program utilization.

Now we have two options:

1. If we want manual control of slides duration and a generical soundtrack, we can use PTE without synchronization. This way we can employ a music shorter than our show, and select "Repeat music after playing" in Music tab.

So the soundtrack will surely end together with our presentation.

2. If we need an exact synchronization, or more simply a sound file that ends as the same time as the show, we can utilize the "Synchronize" function, that allows either to customize accurately the pictures/sound synchronization, or also to have an equal slides duration, determined by soundtrack duration and number of slides (sound duration / numner of slides = duration of each slide). This second way ("Timed points" | "Add arranged points" in Project Options Main window) is very simple, and doesn't demand any additional job.

Is this not enough?

[HaroldB]

Is this not enough?

Guido,

It just seems that this question, about shows running differently on different machines, comes up so often that it might just pay to change the way PTE operates internally and eliminate the problem. Your guess is as good as mine whether this will be simple or hard to do.

FWIW, I'd much rather have Igor working on additional features like preview from the middle of a show and being able to change the effect and effect duration from the synch window than fixing this. It was just a thought.

Harold