Beta #2 re-do of Spirits in the Sky

[LumenLux]

When I made my Spirits in the Sky with Beta #1, it was 109 MB file. The range of viewers responses was from "very smooth" to "very jerky" or worse. I then tried it on five other pc's and found it would not run correctly on any of them. By using Igor's suggested image dimension guidelines, I then made seven different versions using Beta #2. I would like to explain more later, but for now I am making three lighter, smaller, but complete versions of the show available. I think it may be interesting to see at what level, the show becomes playable on some of the machines that choked on the original. Shows available now, and hopefully more info and discussion later.

1. Most likely to run, but low quality photos 9 mb file

2. Larger slides, modest quality 17 mb file

3. Same dimension slides, as #2, less compression 22 mb file

Remember the original sequence was 109 mb. There should be differences in quality and playability. Please share your experience if you try these.

[Ken Cox]

Bob

your shows all worked

your transitions are kind of abrupt at times

too many different things -- but you were trying to see what can be done

i viewed on 19" lcd monitor 1024/768 and 29" svhs tv -- no pixellation evident on the tv

times are only approximate - cant write and view - and can hardly write at the best of times -fine movement motor gone in right arm from stroke 10+ yrs ago

1024/768 show smooth if there were jerks i missed them

cust resized Q40

jerk -- 35 secs, 1 min, 2:25 and 3:39 just before pink flower

cust resized Q60

jerks 27 sec, 1:00 min 2:02 , 2:26 3:00 min and there may have been more

there was no jerk at the pink flower on this one

k

[LumenLux]

I'm sorry, I was having trouble managing my web site file locations. I have just re-tested after your message and all should work by either left or right clicking on the links. Please holler again if still a problem.

By the way, I still want to reply to your comments about "after having made a show like that".

[LumenLux]

Thank you Ken, that is now corrected. But I will have to ask you to edit your post to get rid of the "quoted" erroneous linkage. (I think that is the way it works.)

How will I ever learn the 5.0 workings when I can't even link to a file?! Perseverence I guess.

[nickles]

LumenLux,

Tested on 3 systems:

1. ATI Radeon 9250 128mb 4x AGP W2k.....my slowest CPU 1.5ghz Pent4...Intermediate capable video card

2. ATI Mobility Radeon x300 64mb XP Pro....my fastest CPU 2.11ghz...least capable video card

3. ATI Mobility Radeon PCI Express 128mb + 384 hyper-memory(shared?) XP

Home...2nd fastest CPU 1.66ghz duo-core...best video card.

Results:

System 1.

Original 109mb show wouldn't run. 9mb and 17mb ran the same and very satisfactory with some slight jerkiness. DISCOVERY! the apparent jerkiness occurs precisely at the end of the fade from the previous slide for an instant. This only ocurred if the next slide was being panned. It didn't occur if the next slide was not being panned(Igor? you might think about this one). The jerkiness was noticable because I was looking for it...not sure that it would be very noticable to a casual observer.

System 2.

Same results as System 1. Except System 2 would run the original show. Slight jerk at fade end as noted above. Occasional jerks(I hate that word...maybe slight discontinuities?) on original show elsewhere but generally pleasing to watch show.

System 3.

All three shows as smooth as glass even at ends of fades as noted above.

One other thing. I think the video card works directly with a bitmap which is the same size(very large) regardless of the amount of jpeg compression. I think that using a very good quality jpeg shouldn't effect video performance. AM I RIGHT IGOR?

I'll try to run on some other systems tomorrow.

Oh by the way, I still love your show even though I've watched it about 20 times now.

Sincerely,

ken

[JRR]

There should be differences in quality and playability. Please share your experience if you try these.

Lumenlux:

I tried all three on my computer with GeForce2GTS (memory ??)

All three had jumpiness. Title jumped on 9 and 17mb file, but was smooth on largest file

There were smooth effects in all versions (same ones generally)

Overall, 21mb file was best, 9mb nexxt best and the 16mb file the "worst"

[JRR]

Lumenlux

I just tried the three shows on my laptop with a GeForce FX Go 5200 32mb/64mb card (That I understand is a better card than the PC card per above)

Results were slightly worse than with the PC. Title was jumpy on all three files

Hope that helps

[Igor]

Robert,

I downloaded 22 MB version and it works flawless on my PC!

Several moments:

- If it possible, please re-build your slide-shows on newest beta #2

- I've noticed that 3rd, 4th and 5th slides are overlapped. And transition effects of 3-4 slides are longer on several seconds that own slides. It may causes described jerks. In beta #2 we automatically crop transition effect longer than time of slide.

Ken,

ATI Radeon 9250, X300 work with 100% load of video card and for Pan effect on large images we may see that problem. Robert used large images about 2600x2000 pixels. Sometimes even 2 such larges images on one slide. The load of video card when we show moment between two slides are high and only more powerful video card like Radeon 9500 or Geforce 5600 and higher can show it flawless.

Of course, we're still working on optimization and I know that there are some moments to improve to increase smoothness.

One other thing. I think the video card works directly with a bitmap which is the same size(very large) regardless of the amount of jpeg compression. I think that using a very good quality jpeg shouldn't effect video performance. AM I RIGHT IGOR?

You're right. JPEG will be unpacked to bitmap in the memory and loaded to video card. So no difference between various values of JPEG compressions. Size in pixels is only significant factor.

[alrobin]

Robert,

Your show has some beautiful views of Machu Pichu (always wanted to go there, and even more so now!) Interestingly, my wife and I watched a friend's show on Saturday featuring a trip to the same place. Your images are so crisp, and colourful. Also, I like the opening effect where you pan the image of the trees and zoom in at the same time - almost looks like an IMAX movie where the camera swoops in on a scene while suspended on a cable from a helicopter. Don't care for the vertically-shrinking mountains or the one where you stretch the image out horizontally only.

The large revised show ran with a few hitches on my desktop pc, and with fewer hitches on my laptop. The three places they showed up the worst were:

- the image with the long planks bridging a gap in the footpath along the edge of the canyon. (I would have a few glitches if I tried to walk that plank, too!

- the image behind the bunch of pink flowers while the circle is transitioning on,

- the last image, just before the credits - the image dims in distinct steps.

There were a few other minor hitches, but not particularly offensive. It would be interesting to see the same show modified per Igor's suggestions.

I also tried your other three versions. "Q60" siezed up on my laptop when I pressed "Esc". I put the computer into "hibernation" and then restarted, and the slideshow program was still there, but in the background somewhere, but this time I was able to release it from the task manager. Also, the previously-noted glitches were still there.

On "Q40" the glitches were also still there, but they were much less pronounced in the 1024x768 version.

For those posting demos, I agree with Granot. It is the smoothness of the effects and other technical qualities we are testing out at the moment. At least, it would be helpful if the images were numbered so that those of us testing them out could report back as to precisely which image is affected. It would also be helpful if the demos could be kept shorter, so that it doesn't take so long to go through them over and over again.

[jevans]

Lumenlux,

Ran the largest show on self-built machine with Radeon 9200 graphics card, Asus A7V600 motherboard and 1GB RAM. Monitor is 19 in LCD on 1280 x 1024. Most, if not all pans/zooms, etc have slight pause part of the way through the movement but it is very slight. An uniformed viewer may not notice but they are apparent if you are looking for them. Photos are terrific. I know that you are just trying out the Beta#5 facilities but would not like a show with so much movement in practice. Anyway a very good demo of the capabilities of Beta#5.

Jeff

PS : Just downloaded Beta#2 and it will now run on my machine. Only had a quick look so far but would love to know how you get some of those effects. Have not managed to work that out yet.

[JohnFeg]

Ran the large file with NVIDIA 6200. Generally very smooth, only trivial jerkyness in 2 of the zooms.

The photography and the location were breathtaking.

Thank you for sharing

John