PtePreview.exe or apr.exe command line mode

[tmmort]

I'd like to invoke the PtePreview program directly, specifying the name of a project file, e.g.,

"C:\Program Files\WnSoft PicturesToExe\5.5\PtePreview.exe" "c:\myslideshow.pte"

This would allow one to create slide shows against local pictures folder without duplicating all the media (pictures & music) in separate generated .exe files.

[fh1805]

But you would not then be able to run your PTE sequence on another PC that didn't have PTE installed.

[tmmort]

But you would not then be able to run your PTE sequence on another PC that didn't have PTE installed.

Yes, that's ok. If I wanted to give someone a copy of the slide show I only need to fire up PTE and create the exe.

Here's why I think this is useful.

I have thousands of high-resolution pictures and virtually all my music is stored in lossless format, mostly WMA. We take lots of pictures and I really like making slide shows set to music, which we view in our living room. PTE is great, but the resulting exe files include a copy of all the media (pictures and music) which is exactly what you want if you are going to store on removable media. But the resulting file is huge, and in essence, doubles the space requirements.

Of course you can resize the images and re-encode the music, but this is a lot of work, and if I'm always just going to be viewing the slide shows at home, why not just use the project file as a script? Another advantage of this approach is that if I notice a few images that need to be edited, e.g., to remove red-eye, then I can go do that and no need to re-create a big exe file again.

A further refinement of this idea is create a Vista Media Center plug-in that lists all your project files, letting you click on one to start the slide show. This lets you create custom slide shows & might have a fairly large appeal to the HTPC crowd.

[xahu34]

Hello,

I think it cannot be recommended to run the shows with images having very high resolution.

Let me propose another feature: It would be nice if PTE would adapt automatically to the actual resolution of the monitor or beamer. This would mean that it creates resampled copies of the images, created at the first run of the project file, and which will be changed automatically whenever it is needed. This is not a new idea, in m.objects these preprocessed images are called textures.

Another possible feature: When creating an exe-file, it should be possible to enter the resolution of the monitor/beamer where the show is meant to run, and PTE should create the exe-file including automatically resampled images of the appropriate size.

Best regards,

Xaver

Munich

[Igor]

"C:\Program Files\WnSoft PicturesToExe\5.5\PtePreview.exe" "c:\myslideshow.pte"

I only would like to say about technical side of this usage of PicturesToExe. That's a normal variant (very large size of image is another question). When you click "Preview" button it works same way.

[davegee]

Xaver,

The beauty of PTE is that it allows you to control your images in such a way that they CANNOT be resampled unless you want to allow re-sampling.

Any automatic re-sampling MUST have an ALLOW or DISABLE switch to cater for those of us who want to preserve the maximum resolution at which images are viewed.

I did once suggest a mode in which re-sampling would be limited to DOWNWARD re-sampling only and NOT ALLOW upward re-sampling to suit the viewer's monitor or PROJECTOR.

DaveG

[tmmort]

I only would like to say about technical side of this usage of PicturesToExe. That's a normal variant (very large size of image is another question). When you click "Preview" button it works same way.

Actually have to include "-FileName", as in in:

"C:\Program Files\WnSoft PicturesToExe\5.5\PtePreview.exe" -FileName "c:\myslideshow.pte"

The slide show does run, however, when invoked in this manner, there is no audio, and each slide has a watermark: "Created with unregistered version of PicturesToExe...".

Is there another command line switch that should be included?

[Igor]

Oh, sorry, I forgot about it. You can't call directly PteViewer.exe due to registration mechanism.

[tmmort]

Oh, sorry, I forgot about it. You can't call directly PteViewer.exe due to registration mechanism.

Ok, I guess that's the feature request then: let PteViewer function correctly as a stand-alone app.

[xahu34]

The beauty of PTE is that it allows you to control your images in such a way that they CANNOT be resampled unless you want to allow re-sampling.

Any automatic re-sampling MUST have an ALLOW or DISABLE switch to cater for those of us who want to preserve the maximum resolution at which images are viewed.

Sorry Dave,

I do not totally agree. To keep it simple, let us consider the standard situation where the show is totally developed in "fit-to-slide-mode". In this case, all images, whose pixel dimensions do not match the ones actually needed, have to be resampled, whenever Preview is started. The question is: what is the best time to do it? Presently, PTE seems to resample the images at runtime. An alternative could be the "dynamic" preprocessing I have already tried to explain. Dynamic should mean that PTE should produce and manage copies which could be used to play the project as long as the resolutions of the copies fit to the actual monitor resolution. In case of a monitor resolution change, PTE should start a background process to go back to the (mostly high resolution) originals and update the collection of preprocessed image copies.

A nice additional feature would be color management. This should mean that the preprocessed copies (optionally) are transformed to sRGB if the originals have a different color space (e.g. AdobeRGB).

Best regards,

Xaver

Munich