Youtube at 1600x1200 resolution

[Lin Evans]

As those who have been following the progression of output to Vimeo and Youtube discussions know, Youtube supports very high resolution HD output.

One of the new features on PTE 5.6 is the addition of "custom" output for Youtube. For those photographers who don't wish to crop their slides to 16:9 aspect ratio but still would like high definition, high resolution output on Youtube, you can now set resolutions as high as 1920x1200 for your output. I find 1600x1200 works very, very well and is equivalent in optical resolution to 1920x1080 (2 megapixel).

I have posted a slideshow using PTE to upload to Youtube at 1600x1200 resolution. I believe it works very, very well, especially is you don't need pan, zoom and rotate. As you will see in the slidshow it is possible to have some smooth "animation" if you do it correctly.

For broadband - click on the link below then on the "watch in HD" at the lower right. Then click on the full screen icon and watch in full screen. If your display supports 1600x1200 you will see the show in full resolution and if you are watching on 1024x768 it will automatically downsample for display.

I suggest starting the show then hit the "pause" icon and let the "gas gage" move ahead a couple inches depending on your broadband connect speed. This will avoid stopping for download to "catch up."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzmfXwJCFnE

Thanks again to Igor for implementing this possibility without having to jump through hoops to get this resolution! I think it's a great feature for PTE and to my knowledge not shared by the competition.

Best regards,

Lin

[orizaba]

As those who have been following the progression of output to Vimeo and Youtube discussions know, Youtube supports very high resolution HD output.

One of the new features on PTE 5.6 is the addition of "custom" output for Youtube. For those photographers who don't wish to crop their slides to 16:9 aspect ratio but still would like high definition, high resolution output on Youtube, you can now set resolutions as high as 1920x1200 for your output. I find 1600x1200 works very, very well and is equivalent in optical resolution to 1920x1080 (2 megapixel).

I have posted a slideshow using PTE to upload to Youtube at 1600x1200 resolution. I believe it works very, very well, especially is you don't need pan, zoom and rotate. As you will see in the slidshow it is possible to have some smooth "animation" if you do it correctly.

For broadband - click on the link below then on the "watch in HD" at the lower right. Then click on the full screen icon and watch in full screen. If your display supports 1600x1200 you will see the show in full resolution and if you are watching on 1024x768 it will automatically downsample for display.

I suggest starting the show then hit the "pause" icon and let the "gas gage" move ahead a couple inches depending on your broadband connect speed. This will avoid stopping for download to "catch up."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzmfXwJCFnE

Thanks again to Igor for implementing this possibility without having to jump through hoops to get this resolution! I think it's a great feature for PTE and to my knowledge not shared by the competition.

Best regards,

Lin

Hi Lin,

I just saw your Youtube HD Slideshow, which is marvelous in terms of pictures and music, and HD as well, but... Youtube HD is still missing a lot!

Look at your fades in/out, always "jumping", look at "bubles" in water, near the end... May be it is HD but it is as well Low Quality in terms of Internet video, don't you think so?

I don't like Youtube, neither Vimeo, for these purposes because both suffer from this low quality in terms of movement. Besides, when you say that we must avoid pan, zoom and rotate (and "bubles", I would say...) you are puting aside necessary items to build a good slideshow, and PTE doesn't deserve such a punishment...! This is just my opinion, for sure, but I am so much enthousiastic of PTE that I can not consider to minimize all its great performances just because Youtube and Vimeo have still a long way to walk.

Besides this, PTE "invented" this fabulous ".exe" way of sending and viewing at once in true HD, I think it's not at all necessary to use Youtube or Vimeo.

I had to say this...

I am sorry to insist, Lin, but could you give me some advice about what I asked in my post dated 15 Jan in topic Scrolling Text Over Multiple Slides, concerning size of my project (100 MB)? Is it possible, when project is ready, to split it in 3 or 4 parts, I mean, executable parts.?

Thanks and regards,

Jose

[Lin Evans]

Hi Jose,

Actually, fades are that way with Flash and both Youtube and Vimeo convert the very excellent MP4 h.264 to Flash FLV. This is one reason I suggested looking at the Transparent Player which supports streaming MP4 h.264

The water effects actually look quite good on my system - they are not really "bubbles" but circular ripples from a "drop" of water. I suspect your broadband is responsible for them not looking normal. Out of curiosity, are you certain you were watching the show in full screen HD? The reason I ask is that I went back and checked again and it looks pretty good even on the fades. The really "jerky" fades are at low resolution, low bitrates.

Web presentations can't equal a good executable, but the HD on Youtube allows users to display slideshows without fancy animations in very good quality and that's about as good as it gets over the web unless you want to use very small images. The essence is that there are trade-offs all around and PTE can put out HD resolutions which the competition can't match at this time over the web.

I don't thing the output of Youtube is low quality for internet video at all. I think internet video is all actually low quality compared to BluRay or HD. HD on the web is in its infancy and only if and when broadband can support much higher bitrates will we be likely to see seriously good web video.

I would agree that executables are far better, but executables present problems as well. They are not cross-platform compatible so people with MacIntosh systems can't see them. Also the trend today is to use these web video services such as Vimeo and Youtube. No, they re not nearly as good as we would like, but even someone with a slow broadband can see high resolution images this way where they could not do so with DVD, etc.

I know of no way to split the executable. What you can do is divide the show by copying a number of slides to a different show. You would have to handle the background sound manually and then perhaps have one show call another via either a menu or last slide calling next show.

Best regards,

Lin

[orizaba]

Hi Jose,

Actually, fades are that way with Flash and both Youtube and Vimeo convert the very excellent MP4 h.264 to Flash FLV. This is one reason I suggested looking at the Transparent Player which supports streaming MP4 h.264

The water effects actually look quite good on my system - they are not really "bubbles" but circular ripples from a "drop" of water. I suspect your broadband is responsible for them not looking normal. Out of curiosity, are you certain you were watching the show in full screen HD? The reason I ask is that I went back and checked again and it looks pretty good even on the fades. The really "jerky" fades are at low resolution, low bitrates.

Web presentations can't equal a good executable, but the HD on Youtube allows users to display slideshows without fancy animations in very good quality and that's about as good as it gets over the web unless you want to use very small images. The essence is that there are trade-offs all around and PTE can put out HD resolutions which the competition can't match at this time over the web.

I don't thing the output of Youtube is low quality for internet video at all. I think internet video is all actually low quality compared to BluRay or HD. HD on the web is in its infancy and only if and when broadband can support much higher bitrates will we be likely to see seriously good web video.

I would agree that executables are far better, but executables present problems as well. They are not cross-platform compatible so people with MacIntosh systems can't see them. Also the trend today is to use these web video services such as Vimeo and Youtube. No, they re not nearly as good as we would like, but even someone with a slow broadband can see high resolution images this way where they could not do so with DVD, etc.

I know of no way to split the executable. What you can do is divide the show by copying a number of slides to a different show. You would have to handle the background sound manually and then perhaps have one show call another via either a menu or last slide calling next show.

Best regards,

Lin

Hi Lin,

Thanks for your comments which are very reasonable, as always.

I went back as well, and I can confirm that I used HD mode fullscreen. Fades are seen in a "step-by-step" mode, as well as water drops. Besides, I downloaded 100% MP4 file before start playing, so I think that it can not be a broadband problem. On the contrary, seeing in Standard mode, fades are perfect but image quality is "bad". So, I can not understand how is it possible that you get good results in your system. My CPU, memory and graphic card are very, very good, so I can not imagine that it is a problem of my computer.

At last, what I mean when I spoke about Youtube/Vimeo low quality, is exactly what you said: "HD on the web is still in its infancy"!

Concerning TRANSPARENT PLAYER, I have missed your recent first article on this subject, but I went to it now and read all 18 posts, including long Josh explanations, as well as visited Josh's site, saw demos, etc.. Inclusive, I asked Josh a lot of information because I became very much interested in this new TP for my "unique" private video blog...!

I considered your opinion, of course, about TP beeing, now, the very best FLV H.264 or MP4 H.264 web player in the world, and I am considering buying it to install in my blog.

The purpose is almost exclusively to get a much higher download speed, and so, to be able to put much higher video bit rates in my videos and get more quality.

But, in fact, I doubt...!

As you say, TP does not turn download speed higher. That's what I think as well. But Josh says that everything is instantanely! He gives his embeded demo video as example, made with some 128 kbps video bit rate, or so. (I can not go back to his post to confirm, because this is second time I am writing all this again, I lost first script...!).

As I can understand, 128 kbps is not a good example at all in a steady video piece like his. I don't like to be "convinced" with such tricks!

In my videos to post in blog, I always use FLV H.264 800 kbps plus 48 kbps for audio, so a total of 848 kbps, 25 fps. I wished I could use the double! But I have a download speed 1000 kbps maximum from host server, so it is necessary to pause a little at start before playing without interrupting.

On the contrary, downloading HD from Youtube, I have a 2400 kbps download speed. I measure all these speeds with DU METER.

My point is: could TP get a download speed similar to this 2400 kbps? And I could start using MP4 H.264 instead of FLV H.264. I don't use MP4 now because I don't want to wait for total download to start playing.

That's what I am waiting for Josh's reply.

What could be your comments on this subject?

Thanks, and best regards,

Jose

[Lin Evans]

Hi Jose,

Something is not right with your playback of the HD mode. From your description that standard mode fades are smooth but image quality bad (this is normal) but the HD fades and water animation is "stepped" it would appear to be a bandwidth issue. However, since you waited for the full download before playing we can rule that out as an issue.

This leaves us with an issue apparently of bitrate or possibly your player not functioning quite correctly with h.264. I can assure you that the HD playback is very smooth on my system and fades and water drop animation quite smooth, actually there is litttle difference between my executable and the HD playback over Youtube on this show for me. First, have you downloaded the latest Flash implementation from Adobe? Second, what is your web default player? I'm certain there is a simple explanation for the great difference in what we see.

You may want to read this:

http://www.aweber.com/b/1CiS3

Ken posted the link to the above and it might help wring out the problems you are experiencing. Your playback of the HD videos on Youtube "should" be very, very good. I suspect it's a player issue rather than a hardware issue because almost any decent video card should be able to handle 1600x1200 playback smoothly without issue. I changed my default web player to the HomeCinema one suggested by Igor, but I think for the Youtube playbacks of HD that the default is to the resident Flash player. To get the playback right I suspect you need to be sure you have the very latest Flash player installed correctly. Sometimes it's necessary to uninstall the old player before installing the new one per the link above.

Perhaps someone else who has watched this show in HD on Youtube can comment on their experience.

Best regards,

Lin

[Almark]

Hi Lin that HD you tube thingy was just great. (watched on a full HD, hi spec PC)

[Lin Evans]

Hi Mark, Tom,

Thanks for the feedback. We need to find out what the problem is with Jose's situation. It seems he has plenty of hardware resources so must be a configuration or player issue.

Best regards,

Lin

[LumenLux]

Hi Jose,

Perhaps someone else who has watched this show in HD on Youtube can comment on their experience.

Best regards,

Lin

Lin, I watched your YouTube HD late last night. I was surprised that my viewing experience seemed closer to what Jose is seeing. I will try to find time today to seek an explanation. I did not view except in HD mode, but I did confirm that and yes indeed on my current pc structure the "step-by-step" was clearly evident and annoying enough that I would avoid in every case if an .exe of same were available.

With your pointing possibly at improper graphics card set-up, that may be where I start to dig. I had just prior to viewing, installed a new card to test. So first thing I will do is view on another pc with a different card.

I am glad Jose stepped forward with such an honest observation, because I was indeed surprised to think so badly of something that seemed so good to you.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the feedback,

Obviously, it's either a player issue or setup issue of some kind because the playback is really very, very good - about the same as the executable on my system and apparently on a number of other systems.

The first thing I would try would be to download and install the latest Flash player from Adobe. It almost sound as if your system and Jose's system are not handling h.264 correctly. To double check this, you might make a 1600x1200 quick sample from PTE of perhaps three slides and test playback on your system from the C: drive to see how smoothly that plays the fades. If that works correctly, then try uploading it to Youtube and play it back in HD and see if you get the same response. I'm betting that the problem is the Flash player so that would be my first test.

Best regards,

Lin

[Lin Evans]

O.K. guys,

Here's what I have discovered. It's apparently a situation of both Flash player iteration AND hardware which is causing the difficulty. All following systems are running Windows XP home edition.

I have three systems up and running simultaneously with different video and processing power. My main system is a Dell with 4 meg RAM, an nVidia 8800 GT video card with 512 meg RAM. The second system I have running is a Gateway with two meg RAM and an nVidia 8600 GT OC (overclocked) with 512 Meg RAM. The third system is a notebook with only one meg RAM and a Trident 16 meg video card.

All three have the latest iteration of Flash player 10 and the latest Macromedia Shockwave Player.

The notebook displays the images well but totally hangs up on the transitions and sometimes just locks between fade of one image and another. Simply not enough power to run the 1600x1200 files with fade transition.

The Gateway with a very good 8600 OC GT card plays the animation smoothly but "steps" slightly on "some" but not all fades between images.

The Dell with the 8800 GT plays flawlessly both transitions, ripple animations and images. Since the Dell has the most video power and the most system RAM with a slightly more powerful CPU than the gateway, I suspect that the differences we are seeing have more to do with the video card than other hardware.

What this leads me to believe is that perhaps 1600x1200 is a bit much for the "average" system, especially if the video card isn't one of the top game cards. What I should do is probably redo the slideshow at perhaps 1024x768 and see if it makes a big difference.

The more people who test and report back on their experience, the better we can determine how well this will work for the majority. Please tell us your video card, amount of video RAM, pc processor, etc.

All this information can be easily obtained by going to the "start" then "run" and type in "dxdiag" without the quotation marks then "run". After the diagnostic has run, click on the "System" tab to get the CPU and RAM then on the "Display" tab to get information about the Video card and video RAM.

Knowing these details and how the 1600x1200 slideshow performs on your system will go a long way toward helping decide optimal output for Youtube to present your slideshow to the most people.

Best regards,

Lin

[LumenLux]

HP1095c (desktop) P4 3.2 ghz 3gb ram Adobe Flash V10 DX 9.0c (PCIe) ATI Radeon HD2400 xt 256 mb "ThatRainbow" video transitions stepped

Dell GX260 (desk) P4 2.4 ghz 1 gb ram Adobe Flash V10 Dx 9.0c (AGP) Nvidia GeForce 6600 256 mb "That Rainbow" video transitions stepped

(Just today, updated Nvidia drivers, and Flash to V10, yielded no visible improvement. I wondered if it became worse!

Acer (laptop) AMD Sempron 1.8 ghz 958 mb ram ( 1024 less 64mb integrated graphics) Adobe Flash V10 DX 9.0c video and .exe stepped transitions.

The integrated graphics lists as Sis 760 Rev00 64mb

[orizaba]

O.K. guys,

Here's what I have discovered. It's apparently a situation of both Flash player iteration AND hardware which is causing the difficulty. All following systems are running Windows XP home edition.

I have three systems up and running simultaneously with different video and processing power. My main system is a Dell with 4 meg RAM, an nVidia 8800 GT video card with 512 meg RAM. The second system I have running is a Gateway with two meg RAM and an nVidia 8600 GT OC (overclocked) with 512 Meg RAM. The third system is a notebook with only one meg RAM and a Trident 16 meg video card.

All three have the latest iteration of Flash player 10 and the latest Macromedia Shockwave Player.

The notebook displays the images well but totally hangs up on the transitions and sometimes just locks between fade of one image and another. Simply not enough power to run the 1600x1200 files with fade transition.

The Gateway with a very good 8600 OC GT card plays the animation smoothly but "steps" slightly on "some" but not all fades between images.

The Dell with the 8800 GT plays flawlessly both transitions, ripple animations and images. Since the Dell has the most video power and the most system RAM with a slightly more powerful CPU than the gateway, I suspect that the differences we are seeing have more to do with the video card than other hardware.

What this leads me to believe is that perhaps 1600x1200 is a bit much for the "average" system, especially if the video card isn't one of the top game cards. What I should do is probably redo the slideshow at perhaps 1024x768 and see if it makes a big difference.

The more people who test and report back on their experience, the better we can determine how well this will work for the majority. Please tell us your video card, amount of video RAM, pc processor, etc.

All this information can be easily obtained by going to the "start" then "run" and type in "dxdiag" without the quotation marks then "run". After the diagnostic has run, click on the "System" tab to get the CPU and RAM then on the "Display" tab to get information about the Video card and video RAM.

Knowing these details and how the 1600x1200 slideshow performs on your system will go a long way toward helping decide optimal output for Youtube to present your slideshow to the most people.

Best regards,

Lin

Hi Lin,

I am amazed with all your interest, and fellow PTEs as well, trying to find reasonable explanations for (not only mine!) problem of "step-by-step" fades in Youtube HD.

I have been away for some days, that's why only now I step in the discussion.

Ok, my report is:

01. I have indeed latest version of FLASH PLAYER ACTIVE X (10.0.12.36) installed.

02. I didn't have SHOCKWAVE PLAYER 11.0.3r471 installed. I installed it but problem persist.

03. My computer: INTEL PENTIUM 4 CPU 3.60GHz (2 CPUs)

Memory: 3072 MB RAM

Graphic card: RADEON X800 XT ATI 400MHz 256,0 MB Driver: ati2dvag.dll v 6.14 dated 29.09.2007 (there is a new version 8.12, dated October 2008, and I will install it soon, trying to see if problem is overpassed)

Considering your own reports, Lin, and other fellow who made his report, I am starting to think that "step-by-step" fades are due to Graphic Card's memory: problem occurs with 256 MB, and it does not occur with 512 MB. Besides, I think it's logic. May be that updating driver (as told above) problem is overpassed, but I doubt. However, I don't see why your GATEWAY (512MB) "sometimes" gives problem...! Is it because Memory RAM 2GB is not enough? By the way, I saw somewhere that more than 3 GB memory RAM in XP is of no effect at all, 3 GB is maximum usefull. Is this true?

So, I agree that 1600x1200, is perhaps too much for many, many people who only have 256 MB in Graphic Card.

But 1024x768 I think is too "little". I know that you want to keep 4:3 format, but I should prefer changing format a little bit and have more resolution, such as 1280x1024 (5:4), which runs perfect with 256 MB graphic gards like mine. The small slideshow I sent you, Lin, is 1280x1024, lots of fades and one big pan, and no problems at all.

Best regards,

Jose

[Lin Evans]

Hi Jose,

Thanks very much for your excellent report and explanations. I agree, it could well be that 512 meg GPU RAM may be necessary to play the 1600x1200 youtube video at HD. I'm not certain yet what role, if any, system memory may play in the issue. Hopefully, more forum members will try this file and report back on the results.

Yes, Windows XP can only use 3326 meg of RAM as reported by dxdiag. Since it comes in even increments of one or gigabyte modules I chose four to get the most out of the system.

I didn't get the slideshow you sent - could you send it again please?

Best regards,

Lin

[mhwarner]

Hi Lin,

I have viewed the YouTube show in HD full-screen and also experienced the "stepped" transitions. Although I am on a satellite connection, I did let the video download almost to the end before I actually played it. Interestingly, after it played, I went into my Temporary Internet Files cache and copied the video to another folder. I then ran the MP4 with Igor's recommend Media Player Classic Homecinema player. The transitions were greatly improved, but still a bit "stepped" or jerky and not quite as smooth as we are used to in the .exe files created by PTE.

I have a Dell I6400 laptop with 1.66GHz dual core Intel CPU, 2 GB of Ram and my Flash version is 10,0,12,36. Graphics card is ATI Mobility Radeon X1400.

FYI, I did purchase the Transparent player but haven't had time to upload anything. I have experimented with it some locally however, and I noticed the same sort of "stepped" transitions on a test .mp4 show I created with PTE. I was wondering if it was just me or something unavoidable. I don't recall now how I sized the show or the settings when I created the MP4. It will be interesting to see if we can come up with some overall settings that will work well with less than "top of the line" hardware.

[orizaba]

Hi Jose,

Thanks very much for your excellent report and explanations. I agree, it could well be that 512 meg GPU RAM may be necessary to play the 1600x1200 youtube video at HD. I'm not certain yet what role, if any, system memory may play in the issue. Hopefully, more forum members will try this file and report back on the results.

Yes, Windows XP can only use 3326 meg of RAM as reported by dxdiag. Since it comes in even increments of one or gigabyte modules I chose four to get the most out of the system.

I didn't get the slideshow you sent - could you send it again please?

Best regards,

Lin

Hi Lin,

Yes, I sent it to you, and you comented it, on January 14, under topic "SCROLLING TEXT...

By the way, I just started a new topic under "DVD, Video,..." because I am getting really upset with download speeds from my host server. I need some help and I risked to put some (silly?) questions...

Regards,

Jose

[Lin Evans]

Hi Mary,

Would you mind running dxdiag and reporting tha amount of video RAM it shows? I did a search on the ATI site and thought they have a comprehensive list of specifications for the X1400 they do not specify the amount of video RAM. What we need to discover is whether the difference in 250 meg and 500 meg may mean the difference in smooth fades and some animations and "stepped" appearance or whether it's due to some other factor.

Best regards,

Lin

I have a Dell I6400 laptop with 1.66GHz dual core Intel CPU, 2 GB of Ram and my Flash version is 10,0,12,36. Graphics card is ATI Mobility Radeon X1400.

[mhwarner]

Hi Mary,

Would you mind running dxdiag and reporting tha amount of video RAM it shows? I did a search on the ATI site and thought they have a comprehensive list of specifications for the X1400 they do not specify the amount of video RAM. What we need to discover is whether the difference in 250 meg and 500 meg may mean the difference in smooth fades and some animations and "stepped" appearance or whether it's due to some other factor.

Best regards,

Lin

dxdiag reports 256 meg, which is what I recall when I purchased the laptop.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Jose,

O.K., yes I did get that one, I thought you were talking about a new file, sorry.

No question is ever silly, only perhaps silly answers - LOL.

Best regards,

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Thanks Mary,

That's another "slightly" jerky for 256 meg RAM video cards.... Hopefully we will soon have some definitive answers.

Best regards,

Lin

dxdiag reports 256 meg, which is what I recall when I purchased the laptop.

[nobeefstu]

Lin,

In your tests ... you may also want to include the memory transfer rate :

"The right way to compare the memory performance of different chips is through their memory transfer rate, which is calculated using the formula (clock x bits per clock ) / 8."

Heres a list of cards that includes details of ATI X1300

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=88&pgno=0

nVidia - http://www.techarp.com/article/Desktop_GPU...vidia_4_big.png

ATI - http://www.techarp.com/article/Desktop_GPU...n/ati_4_big.png

Note: they list memory transfer rate as memory bandwidth.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Stu,

Thanks! Excellent idea. As soon as we get enough responses I'll try to chart them and see where we are on this.

Unfortunately, the chart doesn't include Mary's X14 but judging from the X13, X13 Pro and X15, series it's probably between 8 and 12.8 GB/s. This is decent for a notebook computer but considerably below even the old Radeon 9800 Pro 128 meg which has a transfer rate of 21.76.

The transfer rate of the nVidia 8600GT is listed at 22.4 GB/s and the 8800GT at 57.6 GB/s. So "if" it's a transfer rate issue, or if this is a major component, since even my 8600 GT card has "some" minor stepping at times while my 8800GT is as smooth as silk, we can expect that Mary would experience the stepping issue with this size MP4 or Flash h.264.

Best regards,

Lin

[nobeefstu]

Lin,

The links in the previous post were for Desktop units.

Appears the X1400 may be a build for Laptops only.

Here's a link I use for Laptop units. X1400 is listed.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of...ards.130.0.html

[Lin Evans]

Hi Stu,

A quote from that page: Looks like this card may not have sufficient power to handle the 1600x1200 video smoothly.

Best regards,

Lin

ATI Mobility Radeon X1400

ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 is part of the lower middle class. The performance can be compared with an elder X600, but technically it is a X1300, which is scarcely 100 Mhz higher clocked.

For not very demanding DirectX 9 games the card is sufficient.

Because of the AVIVO video technology the card can help the CPU decode MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9 and VC-1 video formats.

[orizaba]

Hi Jose,

O.K., yes I did get that one, I thought you were talking about a new file, sorry.

No question is ever silly, only perhaps silly answers - LOL.

Best regards,

Lin

Hi Lin,

OK, no problem at all.

My ATI RADEON Graphic Card X800XT is 32 GB/s.

Thanks for your help concerning "DOWNLOAD SPEEDS" (other Topic).

I did "ping" and "tracert" all Internet around, and I discovered an European Hosting Service in Amsterdam with ping 67 ms (compared with my actual POWWEB 120 ms).

I contacted them, I made a test download and I got 1,8 Mbps average (compared to POWWEB/USA 850kbps average). This is not bad...! In case I transfer my hosting to them, it will be to a VPS, which is more expensive than actual shared POWWEB, I hope it is a good service.

Lin: what about second part of my question? Concerning the use of some kind of download accelerator like DAP? Forbiden or not, possible or not, too much "silly" or not...?

Thanks and regards,

Jose

[Lin Evans]

Hi Jose,

I'm not familiar with DAP so am looking into it. I'm not certain about how it works - how it's possible to really accelerate the downloads beyond the limits of the connection and the server. I'll get back on this as soon as I know more about it. My gut feeling is that these "accelerator" type programs don't really work but I could be very wrong about this because I really don't know exactly how they do what they claim to do.

I was able to find this mini-review and partial explanation. Nothing I have seen leads me to believe that there is anything "illegal" or "forbidden" about using it, it appears to just split large files into smaller pieces and seek out multiple sources and the best "connection" speeds - at least that's what I gather from first read.....

http://www.download.com/Download-Accelerat...4-10037157.html

Best regards,

Lin

....... Lin: what about second part of my question? Concerning the use of some kind of download accelerator like DAP? Forbiden or not, possible or not, too much "silly" or not...?

Thanks and regards,

Jose