What are some advantages?

[peterharper]

I'm very glad to hear that Pictures to exe is so close to release. I've heard a lot about this program in comparison to its competition. So far, I can definitely tell this program is tops in image quality. What I like best about Pictures to exe is what you put in is what you get out. That's definitely not true with the competition. I'm less clear on what some of the other advantages are. Can someone shed some light on what Pictures to exe has that its competition does not? In my case, my experience has mostly been with Memories on tv and Proshow.

Peter

[Lin Evans]

Hi Peter,

I'll touch on a few of them. First let me say that Memories On TV Pro, Proshow Producer and Proshow Gold are very, very nice programs. Each are feature rich and there are things such as drop-in video clips, adjust images within program, some sound editing capabilities, etc., which Producer and Gold can do which are not currently possible with PTE. Also with Producer there are advanced masking features, Flash and Presenter output for web and some dynamite transitions which are very nice. These are also things which are not possible with PTE.

Now for PTE's features not available with Producer, Gold or any other commonly available presentation slideshow software. You already know about hardware rendering and image quality. Memories On TV Pro doesn't make executable files, of course so that's one feature. Producer and Gold do, so that's a shared feature with PTE, but of course without high resolution output by hardware rendering.

Three of the very powerful features not shared with other programs are parent/child relationships, off-center rotation and object calls from within the program.

Let's start with off center rotation. Normally, in a slideshow program images rotate on their center mass axis. So if you choose to rotate an image (let's use a silver dollar as an example) the dollar would "spin" clockwise or counterclockwise so many rotations in such and such a time span. Of course you can also do this with PTE. But PTE goes much farther in that you can move the axis of rotation anywhere you desire. With this feature coupled with unlimited keypoints (keyframes in producer lingo) you can describe circles, bezier curves, elipses, etc. For example, let's say you wanted an object or small image to circle around the perimeter of the monitor rather than rotate on its own axis. You simply move the center of rotation to the center of the monitor and when rotate is used the object or image circles around on the screen.

Now let's discuss the parent/child relationship. This feature lets you make any object a child of any other object. This can mean child, grandchild, great grandchild, etc. A "child" takes on the attributes of the parent. So if you rotate the parent, zoom the parent, pan the parent, etc., the child follows this action precisely. But, if you wish the child can also perform its own independent zoom, pan, rotate in conjunction with the animation of the parent. So how does this work in a practical example?? Let's take the above off-center rotation example. When you move the axis of rotation to the center of the screen with the object at the top or sides, the objec rotates around the screen. But when it reaches the bottom the orientation is naturally reversed or "upside down". What if you wanted it to remain upright while rotating? The you could simply duplicate the object as a child of the original, set the rotation for the child to the polar opposite of the parent, make the parent invisible with the unlimited opacity capability and when the object rotates only the child is seen and the orientation stays upright regardless of the position on the screen. This happens because the parent is rotating 360 degrees in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction and since the child follows this animation, the normal rotation for the child would be as the parent. But if you set the rotation for the child exactly opposite that of the parent without changing the child's default center-mass axis of rotation, the child will mirror the circle described by the parent but rotate on its own center mass in the opposite direction at the same rate as the parent thus the net effect during the circle movement on the screen is zero rotation or stasis in regards to it's center-mass axis regardless of the position of the child object on the screen.

Another possibility is to rotate a cube and see all six sides rather than the three sides possible with Producer or Gold. Let's say you want a helicopter to fly level across the screen with the tail rotor rotating normally but with the main rotor blade rotating horizontally? With the parent child relationship it's easily accomplished. You can't do this with Producer or Gold. What if you want to animate a picture and rotate it on not only the X and Y axis independently, but also on the Z axis? This too is possible with PTE.

Finally, the ability to use object calls from within the program. This gives you the possibility of running any external executable file from within your slideshow program then returning and continuing on seamlessly with the slideshow. You can easily make your own menus and do things not possible with Producer or Gold such as immediately jump to any slide number from a menu called from within PTE. Pop up a menu slide from an invisible button, click on slide 23 and immediately go to that slide, etc. Control your slideshow manually, automatically or both by a navigation bar. Sure you can pause a Producer slideshow, but try to random access to any slide in the show.

Then there is total control over zoom, pan and rotate characteristics. PTE shares llinear and smooth zoom with the others, but it also has non-linear accelerate, decelerate, and smooth which the user can adjust to any curve. So complete control over this between any two keypoints. Also there is "perspective zoom," another feature not found in the others.

The bottom line is that Producer and Gold and Memories on TV Pro are essentially programmed approaches while PTE is a low level tool to let the user create their own "program". It's not nearly as feature rich as the other three but in many ways much more powerful from a "low level" programming perspective.

Best regards,

Lin

I'm very glad to hear that Pictures to exe is so close to release. I've heard a lot about this program in comparison to its competition. So far, I can definitely tell this program is tops in image quality. What I like best about Pictures to exe is what you put in is what you get out. That's definitely not true with the competition. I'm less clear on what some of the other advantages are. Can someone shed some light on what Pictures to exe has that its competition does not? In my case, my experience has mostly been with Memories on tv and Proshow.

Peter

[jfa]

Peter, welcome to the forum and PTE.

Lin has given you an excellent, balanced and detailed answer to your question regarding PTE vs Memories On TV Pro, Proshow Producer and Proshow Gold.

The only point I would like to add to his answer is this forum.

The level of expertize and promptness of answers to questions, from the basic to more advanced can sometimes be a little overwhelming as they are so good. Also the tutorials made and posted here by many PTE users is a very valuable source of information. It's like having an interactive manual at your fingertips.

Then there is the support given by Igor and the team at Wnsoft which is beyond anything I have experienced with other products.

Finally I would advise a little investment of time in PTE from which you will be rewarded many times over. Good luck.

[Barry Beckham]

Peter

You may have heard the saying "Jack of all trades, master of none"

I have quite a strong belief in this statement. I would much rather my slide show software delivered superb image quality and didn't worry too much about automatic sound and fades and all the other add on's

Those software packages that are so feature rich are often a little lacking in the ability for us to be more creative and they have other issues too, like those you have already picked up.

Is there anything more important than image quality in a slide show software? Not in my book and I will take PTE any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

The of course we have PTE5 that just gets better and better.

Barry

www.beckhamdigital.co.uk