Per aspera ad astra

[Igor]

Please look at my new presentation: "Per aspera ad astra" (1.5 Mb)

[Ken Cox]

how many nights did you have to stay up to get those shots - the "dipper" looks great

ken

[dilemmania]

Igor,

Such a beautiful presentation, it reminded me that my own creativity is just a whisper of the divine one.

[Igor]

No, those are not my photos! Mainly shooted by the Hubble Space Telescope. You can find many high-resolution photographies on the famous Astronomy Picture of the Day

or here The Best of the Hubble Space Telescope

[Bob]

Igor:

BEAUTIFUL!!

Bob

[LumenLux]

Nice photos. Be sure to thank the software creator too!

[Oaky]

Hi Igor,

Nice program!

I noticed a few problems that I thought I would mention.

On the second frame, at about 14 seconds into the presentation, the music jumps back 2-3 seconds then proceeds smoothly (this is quite consistant) Then this same thing happens at about 30 seconds into the presentation, on the forth frame, (but this time is hit-or-miss---may happen or may not).

Also the music often starts to start over again (runs 2 or 3 seconds) at the very end then stops.

Is this a problem with my processor speed (233MHz), RAM (128MB), or....?

Nice presentation in spite of the glitches.

Oaky

[Guest guru]

Is this a problem with my processor speed (233MHz), RAM (128MB), or....?

Yes Oaky, I think it's above all a problem with your CPU, perhaps with Ram, but sure (thinking about age of your machine) with bus speed, Hdd seek time, video card features etc.

I'm often checking PTE presentations (made by forum members and by me) on old Pentium 2 266 MHz machines with 64/128 MB Ram, 4.3 GB Hdd, 8 MB video card, and only few presentations can run smoothly.

[Tripstrilles]

I have had the same problem and no one could help me. Win2000, Athlon 2000+, 512 MB Ram.

I realised, that win2000 gives not always all memory free - or is it the software we use?

When I start PhotoImpact, some times it begins to start and than hangs. There is a CPU-use of 100 %. After shut down the prozess and restart the program, the CPU-use is minimal. This could be too with PTE. I think, that there is maybe a part of program-code in RAM?

I have given my show to my friends who have much slower computers than I. The show runs perfect there. I always have this problem in preview-mode. If I create a show after preview and view it, the problems are always there. After restart the PC the show works fine.

The same with Win98.

T.

[Tripstrilles]

@ Igor:

So, now I have test and view your show too. First I have viewed some shows of Michel and others with no problems. When I start your show, I have had the same sound-errors like written before. This time at notebook P II 233 Mhz, 192 MB Ram. All other shows are running well. I am in the meantime, that the error must have to do with PTE. Now I shut down my computer and try it again with no software in background.

[Tripstrilles]

@ Igor:

Now I have test your show without any background program. The sound errors occur every time at the same position. The sound springs back, the slide flickers and so on, I have written some time ago.

This errors occur only, when the show is created in automatic timeline-sync-mode.

???

T.

[JRR]

The show runs fine on my computer. A Pentium III, 256RAM, not sure what speed the chip is.

When I say it is fine, the end is a little "rough" at 45 seconds ± screen fades to a blue background and seems to cut out before the fade is fully finished, while the music does fade off, it splutters at the very end.

I assume this is the original design of the show to keep it very small.

The music and the images are very nice during the show.

[Igor]

I consider that this problem (with music glitches) possible under PII-166..300 Mhz with External MP3 player. Because such difficult transition effects as Circle, Hand-of-clock and other take much of CPU resources.

By the way, please, can you check how will play the music in a presentation with using of "Internal MP3 player" option? (in comparison with default External mp3 player).

[Guest guru]

Yes Igor, I agree about CPU clock. But Tripstilles wrote in his first post (see above) that he had the same problem using a Win2000, Athlon 2000+, 512 MB Ram machine, and this is very difficult to understand.

But he said also:

"When I start PhotoImpact, some times it begins to start and than hangs. There is a CPU-use of 100 %".

And as to PTE

"I always have this problem in preview-mode. If I create a show after preview and view it, the problems are always there. After restart the PC the show works fine".

In my opinion, there is a problem about the system configuration, very probably in memory managing.

[Tripstrilles]

I don´t know. Maybe Guru is right? Now I´m at my Athlon PC. The show of Igor runs smoothly without any errors. But after the 6th image the screen turns blue, the music stops and the show closes.

Is this right?

T.

[Tripstrilles]

By the way, please, can you check how will play the music in a presentation with using of "Internal MP3 player" option? (in comparison with default External mp3 player).

I just previewed my Nepal-show again and now I got music errors after 3 images and the images didn´t change. I tried it then with internal player. The errors came a little bit later.

After this I viewed my created show. It runs normal.

Now I have tried another way. I have removed all images from slide list and I have added pictures from an other folder into the slide list. This were pictures, made with my digital camera in format 1024 x 768 - not changed and stored in a photo-software. The preview-mode with the settings and the music of my Nepal-show runs very well. After this, I have added my Nepal-pictures into the slide list and started preview-mode once more. The errors came once more always at the same point and pictures.

Now - could it be, that there is a problem with JPG-format - maybe stored in progressiv-mode .... - ?

But now, after some more tests, I tried previe-mode once more - now it works with my Nepal images 2 times.

In this time I don´t know nothing more.

10 minutes later, without changes at programs and PC, the preview hangs at the same point in show - the music plays normal.

T.

[Igor]

One possible reason can be if DMA mode is not TURNED ON for the hard drive. In this case every accessing of the data from disk requires CPU time. Enabled DMA mode (Direct Memory Access) is always turned on by default under Windows XP. But in Win 98/Me and Win 2000 it should be selected manually (for example, installing of the Intel Inf drivers for Intel chipsets or VIA 4in1 for VIA chipsets).

However we'll try to find an universal way to solve this problem (code optimization).

p.s. also we're developing fully new MP3 player which may solve such problems.