Maximal quality of images for slide-shows

[potwnc]

I'm surprised nobody in this thread seems to be thinking forward to HD formats. Yes higher resolution projectors are getting less expensive all the time, but so are HDTVs. I only scan now at 1920x1080 (and higher for images that will be zoomed/panned). I can say from first-hand experience that 1920x1080 images look superb on good-quality HDTVs. As for video, well I've posted before that current PC technology is just too slow to render from .exe files at that size, but encoding to 1920x1080 .avi (which PTE can already do) does not have to be done in real-time - only playback has to be done in real-time, which is possible with today's medium-quality PCs.

If anyone has downloaded any of the 1080p (or even 720p) content from microsoft.com, they will already know how stunning the quality is. The only missing part of the link is that PTE - as far as I can tell - produces .avi files that cannot be encoded to HD! (I posted about this a few days ago in the video topic - Windows Media Encoder 9 crashes with every codec I've tried and this appears to be a bug in PTE).

This is by no means a plug, but Pinnacle Studio 10 will be out in October and will support HD video from slideshows, with pan and zoom, and will render .avi files that WME9 will encode. PTE is falling behind and I think Pinnacle 10 will be a real threat unless it catches up!

[Igor]

We'll check up work of PTE with Windows Media Encoder 9

Thanks for letting me know about this problem!

[LumenLux]

The declaration from Igor regarding 1280x960 size slides.

The endorsement by Patrick.

The urging by Michel.

The useful comments by several others.

To help me understand and to see what my own eyes could see, I made a short presentation both at 1280x960 and at 1024x768 (my "normal" resolution on both my 17" CRT and my 19" LCD. Anyone that would like to also compare, can download on Beechbrook (thanks Bill ) at Afternoon Journey (two sizes)

Now, from the comments of this and related threads, and from viewing the two cited presentations, my observations follow.

1. The main advantage of making a show at 1280x960 is for those viewers who like to use their screen at 1280x960.

2. If a viewer's screen is at 1024x768, the 1280x960 show looks just as good as the 1024x768 version of show, but no better.

3. On my own 19" LCD, I'm not sure I can see a difference between viewing the 1280x960 on the 1280x960 screen vs. the 1024x768 show on the 1024x768 screen.

4. On my old 750 mhz PC (17" CRT) the larger file sizes of the 1280x768 slides, makes the transitions in Afternoon Journey un-smooth and sporadically uncertain.

It seems to me, that items #1 and #2 above, make a good case to use the 1280x960. Items #3 and #4 provide little incentive and at least some dis-incentive.

I would be interested in your experience with the two posted versions and in my observations above.

[Michel]

On my old 750 mhz PC (17" CRT) the larger file sizes of the 1280x768 slides, makes the transitions in Afternoon Journey un-smooth and sporadically uncertain.

Robert, two comments:

1 - 750 mhz is "inadequate" for transitions of pictures with much informations as your (some pictures contents many flowers...full)

2 - I'm curious to know which video card you use ?

I saw your shows and I have no problem with all the transitions (PIV - 2.8ghz - Geforce).

[LumenLux]

The old PC: P3 776 mz has graphic card: NVIDiA GeForce2 MX/MX400 I don't know how much memory on it.

The newer PC: P4 540 3.2 Ghz has graphic card: ATI Radeon 600 Pro PCI-E, 256 mb DDR video memory, TV out, DVI

I am not currently very knowledgeable about these cards.

[jevans]

Before reading this thread, I made a post covering the same topic on the thread dealing with different screen sizes. However I think the post is relevant here also so I will repeat it below.

Just some further comments regarding screen sizes for this discussion thread.

My camera when set to 5 MP, gives an image size of 2560 x 1920 (aspect ratio = 1.33). When preparing images for a PTE show, I resize them to 1024 x 768. However my monitor (a 19 inch one) has a screen size of 1280 x 1024 (aspect ratio = 1.25). I therefore have 3 options as follows :

1. leave the image size at 1024 x 768 and view as a window on my monitor.

2. set the image to use the full screen in PTE (using Project Options – screen – fit to screen so that the image fills the monitor screen.

3. crop the images to 1280 x 1024 so that they fit the monitor exactly as a full screen image.

I have decided, as a general rule, to use the first option. This is the recommended size for PTE and particularly for slide shows using a digital projector. I accept that viewing the show on my monitor does not use the whole screen. If I use the “ fit to screen” command, the images will fit the whole screen but at a slightly reduced quality.

I also sometimes burn a PTE show to a DVD to view on a wide screen TV. Interestingly tests have shown that the “Safe TV Zone” rectangle in the object editor is exactly correct for a 1280 x 1024 image when burned to a DVD. However for a 1024 x 768 image, the “Safe TV Zone” appears to be 60 pixels too wide.

I note the comments about using 1280 x 960 as the standard sixe for PTE. I will try this as it has the advantage of being the same aspect ratio (1.33) as the original phot and hence easy to resize in Photoshop.

jevans

I also sometimes burn a PTE show to a DVD to view on a wide screen TV.  Interestingly tests have shown that the “Safe TV Zone” rectangle in the object editor is exactly correct for a 1280 x 1024 image when burned to a DVD.  However for a 1024 x 768 image, the “Safe TV Zone” appears to be 60 pixels too wide.  

This a quote from a previous post of mine. I have done some more tests and realise now that the safe TV area dimensioins depend on what viewing size your monitor is. My monitor is 1280 x 1024. In the object editor of PTE, this size is selected as the default option and the safe TV zone is 1150 x 892 pixels. An image of 1280 x 1024 whose content is contained within the safe TV zone rectangle will all be visible on a wide screen TV set to wide screen.

However the safe TV zone in the object editor when viewed with a monitor setting od 1024 x 768 is 918 x 662 pixels. An image whose size is 1024 x 768 and whose content is within the safe TV zone will be too wide when shown on a wide screen TV. BUT, I think that anyone who has a monitor whose default setting is 1024 x 768 will get the correct safe TV zone.

jevans