Great News!

[Lin Evans]

Last night I re-created a slideshow I formerly did with ProShow Gold using PicturesToExe. It was a real torture test and I'm happy to say it performed flawlessly.

That ProShow greatly diminishes the image quality and downsamples to 720x576 for rendering was quite evident in the size differential between the ProShow Gold iteration and the P2E iteration. In ProShow Gold, the executable file size of the finished product was 62 megabytes. In PicturesToExe the executable file size was 130 megabytes. The number of slides was practically identical and the actual run time of 27 minutes was identical.

The difference in image movement smoothness and high resolution image quality was immediately apparent. Details which were missing or muddy on the PSG version were crystal clear on the P2E version. There were a couple problematical slides where I had to use the "blur" feature to "tone down" the detail to permit less pixel "sparkle" or "flicker" during zoom or pan operations. It's apparent that PSG does this by default and you have no control. With P2E you "can" have high resolution and super sharp images on stills and/or tone them down if you need to use the Ken Burns Effects.

Now I'm looking forward to Beta 3 so I can actually "end" the show rather than "loop" it., but the bottom line is that even with a 27+ minute presentation with high resolution images the program worked flawlessly.

Best regards,

Lin

[alrobin]

That is great news, Lin! Any chance of posting the two shows?

The ability to accept hi-resolution images and apply Ken Burns effects to them not only gives PTE an edge over competitive slide show programs, but also makes a move to video less compelling.

[ADB]

Lin

I dare you to upload the shows and send a link to Jason Edwards

[Batman]

Lin

I dare you to upload the shows and send a link to Jason Edwards

I double dare you !!

Please do. I look forward to viewing it like I have the rest of Lins shows. Just for the record I have nothing against P2E, I just prefer Proshow and I am a big supporter of it just as you guys are of P2E. However, I like to keep up with whats new and exciting in other programs. From what I have seen so far with P2E v5 is that its going to continue to be an excellent tool to work with. And once its ready for primetime it will be in my toolbox. I did have problems running some shows on one of my older machines, but my newer machine runs the demo shows created by Lin and others very well.

I started making slideshows using P2E and I still use it from time to time. I also use MOTV 3.

Have a great day guys and yes Lin, please post a link as I have always enjoyed your photography skills.

Jason

[Lin Evans]

Hi all,

I will definitely zip them up and post them but I do have to wait until I can clean off some space on my server. Between the two shows the file size will be close to 200 megabytes and I'm presently running very close to my limits for storage on my isp agreement.

I would like to also "end" the p2e show rather than have it loop as present and I think Igor has that as a feature in Beta 3 which should be out in a short time so as soon as he releases beta 3 I'll re compile the show and zip both up and load them on the server.

I tried to minimize the differences in pan & zoom, etc., by attempting to keep the file sequences as close as I could from memory but there are some slight changes in the P2E iteration and a couple additional slides. Some things which took multiple copies of a slide with PSG were easily done on the same image with P2E but the actual number of slides was very close. I also used some effects such as gaussian blur, transparent background PNG text etc, and such in some places on the P2E show which I couldn't do with PSG but the essential theme is the same and I did include all image in the P2E show in as close to the same order as I did with the PSG show.

The things which were immediately apparent were the smoothness of the pans on large panos and the quite evident increase in resolution on images which were high resolution. Most of my pano shots contain mountain ridges which quickly reveal losses in resolution caused by the interpolation to get back the screen size with PSG. It's not that the PSG show is bad, in fact it's very good. It's just that the P2E is that much better from a photographer's perspective. Once made into a DVD format I doubt that anyone will be able to see any relevant differences since the resolution losses going to DVD resolution are unavoidable. On the other hand when displaying with an LCD projector, etc., or when displaying from a computer on high definition plasma TV screens we will see huge differences.

If I can clean off enough files this week, perhaps I can get them up by the weekend but I need to evaluate what I'm removing since much of it is forum linked on a number of different photo forums.

Best regards,

Lin

[Igor]

Lin,

We plan to add special option which will solve better flickering on some images with sharp details from very small to large zooming.

[ADB]

Jason

Good to see you lurking (well not so much lurking.. ) around the PTE forum. I think the competition between PSG & PTE is a healthy thing, they both possibly motivate the respective developers to continually enhance their product. I think its probably fair to say they are both developing their own niche markets and this also is a good thing.

Hope we see a lot more of you over here as I know you have a wealth of experience and knowledge to share.

I haven't watched a full frame show from PSG for a while but I will be very interested to see Lin's comparison between the two shows.

[thedom]

Can't wait to see both shows !

I was a Proshow (Producer) fan before v5 but now, it's the opposite.

[Batman]

Jason

Good to see you lurking (well not so much lurking.. ) around the PTE forum. I think the competition between PSG & PTE is a healthy thing, they both possibly motivate the respective developers to continually enhance their product. I think its probably fair to say they are both developing their own niche markets and this also is a good thing.

Hope we see a lot more of you over here as I know you have a wealth of experience and knowledge to share.

I haven't watched a full frame show from PSG for a while but I will be very interested to see Lin's comparison between the two shows.

Hey,

Actually, lurking is what I am doing. I only replied because I say my real name in your message and thought wow I must be a jerk...LOL.

Your right, the competition is great for all of us regardless of what program we use.

Well, you will not see more of me over here. I'm not converting. I just like to see whats new and improved with the different programs as I own many. And I'm surely not here to start trouble either as this is P2E's forum and I would never do that. Version 3 of Proshow is being worked on and thats will I will spend the majority of my time. I will continue to check in here and play with the new betas as they become available.

Thanks for being nice

Jason

[Ronniebootwest]

Jason,

Your loyalty to Proshow Gold is to be commended. Maybe you will convert later on as Pictures to Exe gains the upper hand