Run time differential

[keepsake]

We recently purchased PTE, and are realy enjoying the ease of how the program runs. Our problem is that when we preview the show and time it out for music we get one time, then when it is run as a pte file we get a second, and from the cd we get a third time. Why do we get this difference? Is it from there being no music? Or is it a glitch and there is nothing we can do about it? Also is there a way with in the program to find out how long our show is with out playing it and using a stop watch?

Thank you.

Keepsake Productions

[RayPar]

Keepsake,

Welcome to the PTE community. The only time you will get consistent timing for your music and slides is if you synchronize your show to the music. In the project option, is your show synchronized to the duration of the music? If not, your mileage will vary every time you play your show.

Ray

[alrobin]

Welcome to the forum!

Unfortunately, the same functions take different lengths of time on different pc's (different processor speeds, time to read files from disks, time to manipulate the graphics, etc.

The only reliable way to achieve consistency in PTE, other than by leaving very long times between transitions, using short transitions, etc., is to synchronize to some music. Even in this case there can be problems with running the show on different hardware if transitions are too tight or image files are too large.

One of the requests already made of the PTE Admin design people is to provide an accounting of total time based on all the individual interval times and times "on-screen". We are hoping that this will someday be provided in the program, even though, in the case of an unsynchronized show, it will give only an approximate duration.

One way to see all the timing used in the show is to import it into the "Adjustor" spreadsheet model, described HERE in this forum.

Good luck with PTE - I am sure that in time you will find it as useful, versatile, and enjoyable to use as the rest of us have.

[think(box)]

Greetings Keepsake and all,

I have noticed the same and characterize P2E behavior as follows:

When you set a simple display interval and for this example have transition effects disabled, the way P2E works is it takes an unaccounted-for period of time to load and decompress a photo, and then it starts the clock for the next. Example timing:

Modestly well sized, relatively high resolution JPEG file load and decompress time: 0.3 seconds

Time value entered for display per slide: 1.0 second.

Net interval realized during show playback: 1.3 seconds

Then if you read the photo from CD-ROM the longer access time to just get the JPEG file from CD could result in a net interval of 2.0 seconds, even though you chose 1.0 second.

PTE could be modified to keep track of the actual time-of-day elapsing, such that it could give you precisely the interval requested (Igor, please!) but it won't always work. For example if it takes longer to read in and decompress photos back-to-back than your chosen interval, then either the interval would have to be missed or some photos would have to be skipped. I prefer the former of those choices. Someone else may say show timing is paramount and insist on the latter (or both options).

So for now take forum members' advice - either synchronize your show (works great!) or live with approximate timing (for now, at least). And Al's Adjustor can help you do sync with ease. By the way, even if you synchronize your show be sure to make your JPEG image size modest if you plan to show pictures at a fast rate like every 0.5 second. Modest JPEGs are sizes like 800x600 (forget about dpi unless you are scanning things or printing them). P2E can display VERY large images, but the larger it is the longer the image formation time. Beyond a certain point there are no display monitors good enough to show the resolution as well. For playback performance metrics you can check out a test I made, documented in another forum note. See my May 7, 1:49PM reply at the following link and check out other posts in this topic:

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...ct=ST&f=2&t=639

Check out other topics as well. There is a wealth of help in this forum

Cheers,