"Glitch" In Playback

[HaroldB]

Igor,

<< Was it glitch in music playback or just slide had not enough time to be calculated and shown? >>

The latter.

In all the versions of PTE that I have known, if one specifies too short a time between the end of a transition and the beginning of the next slide, the entire presenation "glitches".... typically, the slide keeps on repeating itself a few times.

Unfortunately, "too short a time" seems to be hardware-dependent, so what works on a development machine may not work when a CD is distributed.

What I'd like to see done in this case is that the next side should just be displayed, shortened by the amount of time that is "missing".

IOW, let's say I specified two slides, each with a display time of 1000 milliseconds, and a transition time of 900 milliseconds. Let's assume that it takes 200 milliseconds for the next slide to be calculated and shown. Right now, it gltiches at the second slide becase there are only 100 milliseconds available. What I'd like it to do is simply show the second slide for 900 milliseconds with a transition time of 800 milliseconds. Showing it for 900 milliseconds with a transition of 900 milliseconds would also be OK.

Sure, this is not what the show designer specified, but if I have somebody else seeing my show, I'd sure prefer that my transition is off by 100 milliseconds than having the whole show glitch.

This is an extremely common problem, as evidenced by the number of questions related to this that we get on this forum.

Harold

[Igor]

Really that problem happens only for synchronized show when intervals (not including the time for transition effects) between slides lesser than 500 ms. So, e.g. 1,5 sec. for the effect and 1 sec. for show of a slide are enough for *all* PCs.

It's not easy to realize such system for analyzing of situation.

We can't determine exact time of preparing of next slide, because it depends on size of a picture, type of transition effect.

I need to think about this.

[HaroldB]

Igor,

I certainly agree that allowing 500ms after each transition works just fine everywhere.

But oftentimes the music "works" better with the slides if one uses a shorter interval. And because we are developing the show on a fast enough machine, we can get away, for example, with 200ms. So we don't even realize that this is a problem at all, and we cut a CD of the finished show.

Then somebody takes that CD and puts it into a slower machine. And instead of running, certain slides in the show repeat for a few times. VERY not professional!

I think it would be much better if the show could "adjust itself" when running on a slower machine.

I greatly appreciate your thinking through if there is a way it could do this.

Harold

[think(box)]

Igor, Harold, regarding the CPU performance needed:

Really that problem happens only for synchronized show when intervals (not including the time for transition effects) between slides lesser than 500 ms. So, e.g. 1,5 sec. for the effect and 1 sec. for show of a slide are enough for *all* PCs.

It's not easy to realize such system for analyzing of situation.

We can't determine exact time of preparing of next slide, because it depends on size of a picture, type of transition effect.

I need to think about this.

I proposed a feature in PTE that addresses this in a previous topic. Here is a link to it:

Click to see post about PTE "Performance required by show" proposed feature

It may take a bit of work to code PTE with performance understanding mechanisms, but this will be universally helpful to all P2E show developers. No change is needed to produced shows, just to PTE for the show developer. I think this is worth the effort Igor.