Colin Walls Posted March 4, 2003 Report Share Posted March 4, 2003 I received a show made by a friend using PTE 3.8. On his PC and my desktop, it runs fine. On my laptop, which is rather resource-starved, it runs apparently OK, but the music finishes before the slides.Is this because the video is slower? This seems illogical, as I would have assumed that the PTE timings are from the time that display of one slide is started until the next is tarted.Should one expect identical behaviour on different machines?[i just bought PTE and look forward to making my own shows.]Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alrobin Posted March 4, 2003 Report Share Posted March 4, 2003 Colin,Welcome to the Forum!! You should find lots of interesting chat here, as well as answers to your most burning questions about PTE and digital AV in general.To understand your problem, you should be aware that due to overhead in handling the transitions at the same time as the music, etc., and the fact that some pc's do this more quickly than others (faster processors, more video RAM, etc,) the image times could easily be out of sync with the music on different pc's. The music is sacrosanct - no variations in speed, or delays in running, are allowed. Hence, if something has to give, the video suffers. You can see this effect when you run a video clip from the internet on a slow pc - the video can become quite jerky. (actually the sound can suffer, too, but this usually means that something is really missing! )With PTE, the only way to attempt to make the images and sound coincide is to use synchronization, either automatic, or programmed, using the timeline. Even here, however, problems sometimes arise when the processor can't show the images in time to keep up with the sound. In this case you will observe some wierd effects, such as some images "blinking", or the sound refusing to play, etc.My laptop is the opposite to yours - it has more resources than my desktop, so shows run much better on it than on the other pc.Hope this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaroldB Posted March 5, 2003 Report Share Posted March 5, 2003 My laptop is the opposite to yours - it has more resources than my desktop, so shows run much better on it than on the other pc.Al,Until Igor gets around to fixing that annoyance with PTE execution going weird when the transition times are "too long" relative to the slide duration, it makes a lot of sense to develop PTE shows on the slowest machine you have!Harold Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRR Posted March 5, 2003 Report Share Posted March 5, 2003 Until Igor gets around to fixing that annoyance with PTE execution going weird when the transition times are "too long" relative to the slide duration, Harold:Not sure I agree with you this time. The transition time vs duration time conflict is the problem of the person setting up the slide show. A message about that might be nice (but only after we get the ability to change the transition type from the TIMELINE In the meantime the grey lines on the TIMELINE will tell you if you have a problem.The "show-maker" should fix any conflicts themselves, I don't want PTE arbitraily deciding what I wanted vs what I entered Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Walls Posted March 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2003 Thanks for the responses so far. Nice to find an active forum with friendly, helpful contributors.It would be helpful if there were some guidelines to make presentations as portable as possible. Since part of the point of PTE is to enable anyone to play the result, these guidelines would be valuable. On the other hand, if my experience was isolated and unusual, that would be good to know.Thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRR Posted March 5, 2003 Report Share Posted March 5, 2003 ColinThere are some autorun utilities available at the beechbrook cottage site.As well there have been several fairly recent threads that talked about autorun CD's, if you did a quick search (search feature of the forum) I think you can find what you are looking for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaroldB Posted March 5, 2003 Report Share Posted March 5, 2003 The transition time vs duration time conflict is the problem of the person setting up the slide show. A message about that might be nice (but only after we get the ability to change the transition type from the TIMELINE In the meantime the grey lines on the TIMELINE will tell you if you have a problem.The "show-maker" should fix any conflicts themselves, I don't want PTE arbitraily deciding what I wanted vs what I enteredJim,IMO, the problem is primarily when the show designer runs tolerances close, and the show runs perfectly on machine A, which is a fast machine where slides can be loaded quickly, and blinks and stutters on machine B, which is slower and takes longer to load slides. It can be quite embarrassing if machine B is the machine you use to present to a thousand people .Keep in mind that what I want is for PTE to handle the situation gracefully by automatically decreasing the transition time, as opposed to blinking and stuttering unpredictably, which is what it does now. What's the upside in having it behave unpredictably?For me, this is actually quite an important change. And considering the number of messages that are posted on this forum regarding this problem, I think it would be really beneficial for PTE.Harold Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRR Posted March 5, 2003 Report Share Posted March 5, 2003 Thanks HaroldUnderstand your concern.In the meantime, I guess it is a case of compromising and the maker adjusting the timing factors to prevent the problem. PTE is still the best software I have seen for AV shows, but it can't be all things to all people right away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alrobin Posted March 5, 2003 Report Share Posted March 5, 2003 Harold, I agree with your suggestion. This is exactly why, IMHO, most conflicts occur - when the maker goes by the book, watches the grey lines, and still the show acts up. I always set up a show on my slower pc and then run it on the laptop for audiences. However, on the latest show I made, I thought I had left plenty of space after each dissolve (approx .5 sec), and still there were timing glitches.My suggestion to Igor on this would be that if these differing pc time constraints can't be designed around, then PTE should be made less sensitive to them. For example, when a conflict occurs, the program should be designed to jump to the end of the transition, and then carry on with the next transition. As it is now, some funny things happen, such as a slide suddenly going black, and then starting to dissolve again. Just jumping to the end of that transition, and then carrying on would be less noticeable, and more acceptable. This is how the electromechanical system I designed once worked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Walls Posted March 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2003 For example, when a conflict occurs, the program should be designed to jump to the end of the transition, and then carry on with the next transition. I 100% agree with Al's comment.It seems to me that the start of each transition is the primary "timebase". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ltdedorc Posted March 5, 2003 Report Share Posted March 5, 2003 As it is now, some funny things happen, such as a slide suddenly going black, and then starting to dissolve again. As I have mentioned in replies to other posts in the forum, I do not use the sync feature, but instead time the music to the slide show and use the internal player, the repeat music after playing and the close show after the last slide features. On my computer or faster ones ones, the end of music and slide show is within seconds so the repeat music & close slow after last slide does not significantly impact the "asthetics" of the show. And the affect on slower computers (Pentium II vs III/IV) is minimized where the the slide timing is off (taking more time to load and show the slide) and the music ends way before the last slide but without the drastic sync show blackout / dissolution effect.If I relie on the external player on the slower computer, the music and/or slide show at times skips or flutters. So I stay with the internal player even if the sound quality is less but it isn't disruptive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pushu Posted March 5, 2003 Report Share Posted March 5, 2003 I have found that the music always ends with a slide left to go. What I always do is to have a ending title slide (I use my studio name and logo) and usually put it in twice with a dissolve between them. that works great for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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