How to play P2E Slideshow on Web

[Lin Evans]

It seems that recently there have been numerous new users of PicturesToExe who wish to have their slideshows available on the web for people who visit their web sites to play without having the user download an executable file and play it from their computer.

There seem to be a good deal of mis-communication about this - so this is my attempt to point those who wish to do this in a direction which will help them get started. First a few things to keep in mind.

1. P2E creates an executable file which can be run from any non-MacIntosh type PC from the hard disk or from a CD or DVD as an executable file. This file has the extension ".exe" which is a format which can't be run directly from the web for numerous reasons.

2. P2E "indirectly" can be used with other software such as Ulead's DVD Movie Factory to create a DVD slideshow which can be played on a television using most newer DVD players which support DVD-R, etc., or on any Windows based PC using Windows Multi-Media Player or other similar software. To do this P2E produces an AVI "Template" which allows the third party software to produce a viable DVD show from the PicturesToExe code.

3. There are several ways to play slideshows over the web including HTML code, Flash, ActiveX, DirectX, etc. Slideshows on the web "should" be kept to smaller file sizes with reasonably compressed images to conserve memory and resources. To convert a PicturesToExe slideshow to one of these other formats requires third party software and can't be done directly by P2E at this time.

4. There are two basic ways a reasonably long slideshow on the web can be played. The first way is called "streaming" where specialized server side software spools out the slideshow a little at a time so the user's computer and web connection can "keep up". This streaming software is very expensive and requires lots of technical expertise to set up and must be done on the server where your website resides. For all practical purposes this approach is limited to large commercial operations who have the staff and resources to put out such a streaming product. It's really not an option for most individuals.

The second way in which a slideshow can be "streamed" is a process which for all intents and purposes appears identical to the end user. Technically it's done differently by spooling out the slideshow to the host's computer and then streaming it from that point. The software to do this is very inexpensive and very easy to implement. The up side of true streaming is that there is no way for the end user to "steal" the sideshow because it never resides on the viewer's computer. The down side is expense and technical difficulty. This second way where the slideshow is actually transparently downloaded to tue viewer's computer and streamed from there does present the slight risk of theft. Obviously for most of us we could care less if someone is sufficiently technically inclined as to steal out slideshow. If we really cared we wouldn't make it available as an executable to be downloaded, so the issue of "theft" is really moot.

Now - just how can we create a slideshow in P2E and have it available on out website to be played directly without the user having to download an executable file? My solution is to use Flash. Other's have different opinions, but as of yet non have made their "solution" available, so here's mine for what it's worth.

I use a product called Riva Producer Lite - Cost? $30 U.S. Link Below:

http://rivavx.de/?downloads

You will also need to download the freeware Riva Player which can be downloaded from the same link above.

How do you do this once you have Riva Producer Lite???

First you create your slideshow using PicturesToExe. Next, instead of creating an executable, you click on "Video" as if you were going to create a DVD. But instead of using the default Video Codec, you click on the small circle next to "create a custom AVI video file" then click on the block "Video Codec" and choose Microsoft MPEG 4 Video Codec. Select the video size you want to have the show and let PictresToExe create the file. This will take about the same length of time as it does to create a DVD slideshow.

Once the AVI/MPEG movie is created, you feed this to the Riva Producer Lite engine and provide the paramaters which are needed such as buffering time in seconds, etc., an Riva will create the code as well as provide the means to upload this code to your site. The Riva Player is simultaneously loaded to your site and when the user clicks on the link you provide them (this link can be inside your web code or just a link) the movie will play and you will have what you desire - a P2E show on the web.

It will take most of you a couple hours of playing with Riva to get the hang of doing this - they have their own web site with forums for help. It's VERY easy to use and we have had no complaints from our commercial customers about quality of presentation.

Is it as good as an executable file on the computer. Absolutely not. Is it good enough for web purposes? We sure think so and so do our customers. Is there a better way? I don't know - I haven't found one yet or I would be using it myself. It works for Windows or MacIntosh based PC's visiting the web. If the visitor's PC is not Flash enabled, this fact is automatically detected and the program will send them to where they can quickly download and install all necessary code to make their computer Flash enabled.

Works for us -

Lin

[Guest Techman1]

Lin,

Thank you for taking the time to create this thread. I believe it should help many people and hopefully clarify some information surrounding PTE & web sites.

I have a question, I was looking through your site and didn't find any flash presentations that I could view the quality of this process. Do you have any that can be shared that started out as PTE slideshows? By the way, you have some excellent photographs on your site!!!

Also, does "Riva Producer" create standard flash files (.swf)? I noted you mentioned their player (is that required to view these)?

Thanks in advance for your response.

Fred

[ContaxMan]

Yes - this is a very helpful contribution. I'd like to see what this technique is capable of.

[Lin Evans]

Lin,

Thank you for taking the time to create this thread. I believe it should help many people and hopefully clarify some information surrounding PTE & web sites.

I have a question, I was looking through your site and didn't find any flash presentations that I could view the quality of this process. Do you have any that can be shared that started out as PTE slideshows? By the way, you have some excellent photographs on your site!!!

Also, does "Riva Producer" create standard flash files (.swf)? I noted you mentioned their player (is that required to view these)?

Thanks in advance for your response.

Fred

Hi Fred,

Riva actually encodes as FLV rather than SWF because SWF files have an absolute limitation of around 18K frames per instance and many slideshows exceeding about 9 minutes running time when converted to 30 frames per second would greatly exceed the SWF limits. The FLV format is a "streaming" effect which has no limit in absolute frames but is limited only by the storage capacity of the host (server) and viewer's computer (client). Though I have no P2E samples, I do have one test sample which is a "worst case scenario" we created to test this method. It has no "rhyme or reason" and uses the Ken Burns Effects (pan, zoom, scroll, rotate) indiscriminately just to push the frame rate. The slideshow was created in ProShow Gold (for the Ken Burns Effects) then converted by Riva and loaded to my server via Riva's own FTP. Here's a link - remember that this is a "worst case scenario" with about a seven second buffer (will take around seven seconds before the slideshow begins after the link is established). You can use "mouse over" to see the control panel for the player. When the curser is removed from the frame the controls will "dissappear". This demo is designed for broadband and used full frame, large and uncompressed jpg's. Smaller and more highly compressed jpg's would make the show run smoother and require much less buffering.

http://www.lin-evans.net/testflv/rivatest.html

Best regards,

Lin

[ContaxMan]

Very impressive - thanks for the link.

[JRR]

Lin:

Very helpful !!!

Maybe you should post it on the regular forum too ??

[ContaxMan]

then click on the block "Video Codec" and choose Microsoft MPEG 4 Video Codec

Microsoft MPEG 4 Video Codec didn't appear in the options. Any ideas?

[Lin Evans]

then click on the block "Video Codec" and choose Microsoft MPEG 4 Video Codec

Microsoft MPEG 4 Video Codec didn't appear in the options. Any ideas?

I'm not certain why they would be different unless perhaps different versions of Windows may have different codecs. I'm using Windows XT home edition on this particular system. Also, I think these various codecs may be downloaded via the web. Maybe Igor can tell us whether some are supplied with P2E or perhaps P2E is simply reading what is available on the individual computer??

Below is a screen snapshot of what I see. You wouldn't necessarily "have" to use the one I suggested, but simply one which is amenable to most Windows systems. Without knowing what you actually have on your computer I wouldn't know which to suggest but maybe you can do a screen snapshot (use IrfanView or something) and post an image of what you have....

Lin

Link to Codecs Snapshot

[mysty]

Lin this is very good information and your site is very impressive. I have a lot to learn yet I know it but thats OK I have already learnd a lot so far.

Thanks for all the informaiton.

[LumenLux]

Yes, your results are very good Lin. Thanks for sharing.

Can you, or someone, tell me how the use of such on-line shows compares to downloading the same shows, as to bandwidth or any other potential limitations of any web host?

[Lin Evans]

Yes, your results are very good Lin. Thanks for sharing.

Can you, or someone, tell me how the use of such on-line shows compares to downloading the same shows, as to bandwidth or any other potential limitations of any web host?

The show I used as a sample was pretty well maxed out in terms of features which sap resources and the FLV file was about 62 megabytes which is about 20% larger than the executable file to run the identical show. Shows which have the Ken Burns Effect really need about 30 frames per second to give movie-like smoothness, but shows such as present iterations of P2E which are essentially stills with transitions don't really need quite so much overhead and probably would play well with 15 frames per second.

With 30 frames per second the total overhead is about 100K for the Flash player and associated files plus the slideshow itself. Essentially, as far as web resources in terms of storage, downloading an exe file from a web site and storing an FLV Flash slideshow are a wash.

The primary differences are that if you store an executable file with a link for downloading, the viewer must wait until the executable has downloaded then run it. This requires some expertise in that they must know where the downloaded file was stored then they must know enough to click on run, browse to the file and run it. The "up" side is that the quality is going to be superior to what you get from a Flash show on your web site. The images may be larger, transitions smoother and they can re-run the show which now resides on their hard disk at any time. The other down side is that it will only work on a Windows based PC.

The up side of doing it with FLV Flash is that the slideshow begins very quickly and spools to the viewers screen. Also it's available cross-platform so that MacIntosh users as well as Windows users can see it. But another down side is that someone with a dial up connection probably won't be happy with the results so it's pretty much reserved for broadband users. Of course one "could" make the slideshow with relatively tiny display size and make it amenable to dial-up as well as broadband. The other side of this coin is that most with dial-up connects will not have the capacity to download an executable file of more than about 10 megabytes size without undue constraints in time and patience.

There really isn't a perfect solution, just a matter of choosing the best of the available choices according to your needs and intent.

Best regards,

Lin

[ContaxMan]

Thanks for your help.

I've found a source and downloaded the codec and exported the avi. Now to get to grips with the Riva software.

[Guest Techman1]

Thanks again Lin! Excellent information for all.

Regards,

Fred