1024 x 768 v 1400 x 1050

[Ken Cox]

sell to one of the members to practice with -

ken

[Ed Overstreet]

Forgive me for maybe muddying the waters on this issue, and perhaps I don't understand entirely how the "fixed size of slide" feature works, in which case I will stand to be corrected. But here goes.

Some of us (me in particular) produce EXE shows not only for projection but also to view on our monitors or to share with others whose display devices may vary in resolution. Some of that subset of producers (me also) don't prefer to make multiple versions of the same show, at different resolutions.

So what I do is create a show at 1400x1050 (which is what my club's current projector can handle), but my shows all have the "fixed size of slide" box ticked OFF and the display set for Fullscreen. It is my understanding that if I do this, my show automatically resizes (up or down) to fit whatever display (projector or monitor) it is currently running on. If, on the other hand, (and here is where I may stand to be corrected) I were to use "fixed size of slide" and produce a show at 1400x1050 which I, or a friend or family member, decide for whatever reason (most likely limitations of their equipment) to display at 1024x768 or even 800x600, my show is going to display enlarged beyond the dimensions of that person's screen, not a very tempting option for me as a producer.

So my preference is to create all my shows at what I think is a reasonable size (1400x1050, which certainly looks fine when up-scaled to 1600x1200 on my CRT monitor) but never using "fixed size of slide" as a project option, keeping that box ticked OFF -- so that when showing on someone else's equipment -- especially at a smaller screen resolution -- the show will look "normal" and not be cropped. Also when displayed at a larger resolution, the show will automatically up-sample on playback, fill the screen, and still look reasonably good (assuming the difference in resolution between the original show and the playback device isn't too extreme).

If I am using PNG or smaller-scaled JPGs tiled on a canvas in my show, then I believe my options are to scale them to taste in O&A (in which case presumbly they'll resize automatically on playback as needed) OR if I want to be really safe, I'll do all tiling in Photoshop on a 1400x1050 canvas and insert JPG copies of the canvas into my main timeline (granted, this excludes the possibility of animating the tiled objects, but generally that isn't a big concern for me as I don't use pan or zoom all that much, and almost never with tiled objects).

So for me, the "fixed size of slide" option is something I am never tempted to use.

And for the record, I've never seen a 1024x768 projection of a 1400x1050 show, nor a 1400x1050 projection of a 1024x768 show, that bothered me, when taking this "fixed-size-of-slide turned OFF" approach.

I am presently working on a couple of retrospective shows, drawing on some images that I created at 600x400 some years ago when the software and hardware I was using were much more limiting than what I have today, images for which I can't find the original captures or un-resized scans and for which I either can't find the original slides nor want to go through the agony of re-scanning those slides I can locate. Those 600x400 or 600x450 slides (mingled with my now-standard 1400x1050 JPGs) I've decided to tile into my show, using either the O&A or the Photoshop-canvas approach, as seems most appropriate and easiest for me. This is preferable IMO than having PTE up-scale my 600x450 slides to 1400x1050 slides; I've tested that, and the 600x450 images start to look pretty soft and sometimes even a bit pixilated on display. But tiled in Photoshop or O&A more-or-less proportionately relative to the 1400x1050 images with/over which they display, they look fine. (I hope this isn't worded too unclearly.)

Different strokes for different folks, I guess, but unless I seriously mis-understand how PTE works, there can be some drawbacks to using "fixed size of slide" if you either don't know what display resolution will be used to view your show or intend your show to be used by more than one viewer, where you know or suspect that those viewers don't all use display devices at the same resolution.

So my advice to our club members who ask for it has been, "size your images to fit on a 1400x1050 screen or canvas and set Project Options in PTE at "fullscreen" with the "fixed size of slide" box ticked OFF. Unless you want to start producing multiple sizes of your shows (which means multiple sizes of your JPGs), which is more work and tedium than even a retired person like me is remotely interested in getting into

Also the approach avoids the very real financial and technology-overload concerns that Eric has voiced and that I share with him. Even without being on a pension, and especially being on a pension, there comes a time when I tire of feeling, or being told, that I have to buy the latest and greatest techology (whether computer, camera, or projector) every year or two. At some point most of us are going to draw a line and say "this is good enough for me, I'm not upgrading any more, it just isn't worth it, and I'm tired of subsidizing Nikon, Canon, Panasonic etc. at the expense of other uses for my limited funds."

An option that I'd be very tempted to suggest to competition organizers is to provide competitors the option of telling the organizers what resolution they want used for their shows, and re-setting the display resolution during the event as requested during the schedule of shows. It doesn't take that long to do and isn't all that disruptive, especially if you have enough shows at different resolutions to justify grouping them before/after a break. One might argue that differences in resolution might disadvantage some entries, but I've heard that argument made in print competitions where 5x7 and 8x10 prints are up against 11x14 prints, and in my experience a great photo (or great AV show) is going to blow out the competition no matter what size it is, and a weak entry isn't going to be helped by a larger resolution or display size. But then I don't bother entering competitions any more, so it's easy for me to say this ... I have entered a lot and have organized them, though, and I really bridle at being told I have to fit my shows or images into a fixed size. In fact, I'd boycott the bloody event if I were told that ... But again different strokes for different folks.

For me the real question is, does the technology exist to serve me, or do I exist to serve the techology? For me that's a rhetorical question.

[davegee]

Ed,

Having faced the same problem over the last year I would ask:

Why 1050 high?

There are a growing number of 1920x1080 projectors now in use and they are the highest you are likely to find in common usage. This resolution also applies to LCD TVs.

On the other hand the norm for home PC monitors is fast becoming 1920x1200 (OR BIGGER) so passing shows on to friends might involve them viewing your 1050 high show at 1200 high.

There is no easy answer but thinking along the lines of catering for the HIGHEST res you are likely to come across in NORMAL circumstances why not make your shows at 1080 high or 1200 high?

DaveG

[Ed Overstreet]

Ed,

There is no easy answer but thinking along the lines of catering for the HIGHEST res you are likely to come across in NORMAL circumstances why not make your shows at 1080 high or 1200 high?

DaveG

Interesting question, Dave. I guess the honest answer is probably part-inertia (on my part), partly also that it arguably doesn't much matter. The difference between 1050 high and 1080 high, at least, is trivial and wouldn't make any noticeable difference. Even 1200 high is only slightly more than 10% greater (linear) resolution, which I don't think is going to be noticeable on viewing or for the system overhead to do the up-sampling on the fly. My trusty Edmund Scientific Company lens resolving power chart, which I've used for literally decades to test all my cameras and lenses for resolution (based on a 1950s USAF chart for reconaissance cameras) has steps of 10-12% increments in resolution (depending on where you are in the chart), and while those differences are visible at 300% magnification on a monitor, at 100% magnification I find it's pretty hard, at least for my aging eyes, to see a 10-12% resolution difference. Ditto on a print. Which is why I don't get too concerned most of the time about the tech tests on different manufacturers' lenses that get all excited about 10% differences in line pairs per mm ...

At some point I'll probably eventually start creating JPGs at a somewhat larger height, but even the jump from 1050 to 1200 isn't nearly as big, especially in percentage terms, as my last jump from 768 to 1050 and certainly from 600 to 1050.

My own workflow involves creating JPGs immediately after editing the NEF file in NX2, then eventually retrieving the JPGs for an AV show, rather than going back later to the NEF and generating the JPGs a year or two later. So as long as that's my workflow and until I see a compelling reason to change it, I'll stick with a standard JPG size of 1050 high until display devices get significantly higher than that (and as I mention above, I don't consider 1200 high enough of an increment yet to get concerned, unlike what I faced a few years ago going from 600 or 768 to 1050.

Mind you, it is pretty agonizing this weekend looking at 600x400 images and trying to figure how to integrate them into a show with 1400x1050 images without the tedium of re-scanning old slides, if I can ever find them. (The newer 600x400s were from NEFs and I am easily able to resize the NEFs for those slides I care about, but my old film-slide collection is another long, sad story I'd prefer not to read ) Digital photos are a heck of a lot easier to catalogue and retrieve than 35mm slides, at least the way I stored the things back when I still was shooting them ...

Food for thought, maybe I'll think about upscaling the size for the next big chunk of files from our next trip, since I'm finally caught up on all my AV projects at the moment (from images shot before this year).

It's all pretty arbitrary at the end of the day, as is the 4:3 vs 3:2 debate, which is totally driven by arbitrary industrial-standarization decisions made by goodness-knows-who and inflicted on the rest of us . But the issue of aspect ratio (something I refuse to get excited about, generally ignore, given my proclivity to crop my images however it makes sense to me to crop them, and then work around a way to display them reasonably well) is another horse we've all flogged to death on other threads ... Hence my comment about who serves what and why, and my refusal to let any technician or judge lecture to me about why I HAVE to use a specific aspect ratio or a specific file size. I use what looks reasonable to me and works into my current workflow and work preferences comfortably.

My Dad took some marvelous snaps of my sisters and me as we grew up, on 2.25x2.25 film through a pretty primitive (by today's standards) camera lens, the negs and prints can't begin to stand up to what my D200 and D90 can produce, but I wouldn't trade one of those snaps for my entire photo collection if I had to. There's a lot more to photography, and to decisions about which photos you keep and which you don't, than technical minutiae. At least in my opinion. (As I tell some club judges who sneer sometimes at "snapshots," which of your photos do you REALLY think people 200 years from now are still going to be looking at -- given that probably for 99% of us only our direct descendants are going to be interested in our photos. I know which of my Dad's pix I kept and which I tossed in the landfill ... Sobering and humbling thought, really ...) But I guess I digress. Must come with the onrushing onset of the big 65.

[jkb]

I have been reading Peter's initial question & all the answers with interest as all my sequences have been made at 1024 x 768. One thing that no one has mentioned is the problem of timing when upsizing a 1024 x768 show to project at 1400 x1050.

This may not be noticeable on short sequences or ones which do not have critical timing of pictures to music. But I have had it happen to one of my own sequences, made at 1024 & played on a 1400 projector via a laptop. The sequence went out of sync!! Then, presumably when the next buffer load of information was read it came back in sync only to drift out again. The audience did not notice the problem but I certainly did!! It was a fairly high spec laptop that was running the show, so I do not think it was question of running out of memory or processing power. I don't know the exact spec as I was using the club's equipment where I was giving a talk. The sequence in question was 12 minutes long & did not have O&A it was just straight dissolves. So I hate to think what will happen to one that has a lot of fast animation!!

This is a concern for the Nationals competition & something I also raised with the organisers, but have never had a reply!

Maybe viewing the sequences at home on a small screen they will look ok, but when projected onto a large screen as used for this competition I have concerns that the images will not look as good as when projected at their native resolution.

Maybe the Judges need to be made aware of which sequences are being upsized (& maybe which are downsized) The differences may only be slight, but I am sure that authors will notice if the sequence is not projected as well as they had intended even if the audience do not.

Full details of the Nationals Championships including entry/booking forms & rules can also be found on the AV News website

Jill

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Well said it's nice to know there is someone out there with the same concerns I have.

Was your laptop screen on or off when the problem happened, was your sequence in 5.6.

Yachtsman1

[jkb]

When the sequence ran out of sync, the laptop screen was on & that was also displaying at 1400 x 1050 So I suppose it was having to upsize 2 displays. As it was not my equipment I wasn't in a position to alter anything or switch off the laptop screen.

From what I can remember the sequence at the time was made with version 5, it was a while ago so things may be different with a sequence made in version 5.6 of PTE

One thing I have noticed on doing some tests, is with another sequence originally made in version 5.0 where I have a horizontal pan. The image is set to 1530 x768 & set to 'Original' Mode in the Common Tab of the O&A. This was so that it would keep the full horizontal width. At the time I only had a 1024 x 768 monitor so all of the images displayed at the full height of 768.

Displaying it on a monitor which is 1200 x 800 all of the other images are resized to fill the height of the screen ie 800 pixels. They are also increased in width to keep the aspect ratio of 4x3. This is what will happen if projected at 1400 x 1050, the image is increased in both height & width to fit the display resolution. BUT the horizontal panned image is not resized & still appears at 768 high. So a black bar appears at the top & bottom of this image. This is not too noticeable at 1200 x 800 but if increased to 1400 x 1050 on a large screen the difference would be really apparent.

I now realise that I should have set the mode of this panned image in PTE 5.0 to be 'Cover Slide' & not 'Original' as this will then allow it to be increased to match the display resolution.

When converting to 5.6 all of the images were automatically set to 'Fit to Slide' But the panned image was still shown at a smaller height than the others. I think this is because PTE recognised that my display was now 1200 x 800 & so set the 'size of slide' in the Screen Tab of Project Options to be 1067 x 800 It also ticked the 'Fixed size of slide' box. All of the other images have the zoom set to 100 in the O&A Animation tab, but for the panned image this has now been set to 143.393 even though in version 5.0 it was set to 100

Even setting the 'size of slide' to be 1024 x 768 (which would result in the images being shown at the native size rather that projector resolution) the panned image is still shown at a smaller height than the other images.

I am not quite sure of the way PTE has adjusted the images, all I know is that it is something to watch out for when converting sequences from earlier versions.

Also if you have any sequences with images set to original mode, be they panned, zoomed or png images, they will not be adjusted to fill the new resolution. So it is something to bear in mind when sending sequences off to competitions etc.

Jill

[Peter Coles]

"Also if you have any sequences with images set to original mode, be they panned, zoomed or png images, they will not be adjusted to fill the new resolution. So it is something to bear in mind when sending sequences off to competitions etc."

So what must the authors do then, poor things? So what must the authors do then?

Today, I received a digitised version of the most "Awarded" Sequence in the world, in all time. The words just happen to be written by me. Now, if this digitised version of the Sequence were to be sent in to an event using a 1400 x 1050 projector (which, incidentally, it has no chance of being sent, because the authors are aware of such problems!), it would not be shown to best advantage. All this seems rather sad to me and, in some ways, a retrogressive betrayal of our heritage.

Not quiet so, for this Sequence, "Mororway", is now to be shown in the oldest continuous Annual International AV Event in the world, later this year. In Epinal, France. It is here that digital AV was born, long, long before PTE was even thought of; when digital projectors cost more than BMWs and "crashed" even more frequently than their motor counterparts!

So what must the authors do now, poor things? So what must the authors do now?

What they do is cry, silently!

And they leave the technicians to pass by into their anonimity.

But for whom do they cry?

"Weep for yourselves, not me"!

Weep for your anonimity.

Peter

[Ken Cox]

PETER

sad but they call it progress

how many times have you been answered " gee i didnt know that"?

ken

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Which is precisely why I bought a second 1024x768 XGA projector, hopefully they will see me through to that graet darkroom in the sky.

Yachtsman1

[Peter Coles]

"The Great Darkroom in the Sky"

An AV worker was once very concerned about when he died, so he asked the local Vicar, if there were decent 1400 x 1050 projectors in heaven. The Vicar said he was not sure but he would try and find out! He would pray.

Next week, when asked about it, the Vicar said that there was good news and bad news!

Lets have the good news first: Yes, there are wonderful projectors up there, not only that but there are wonderful audiences too, who clap loudly at anything you have made, for as long as you like; even standing ovations are built-in to each performance!

What's the bad news?

Your first Show is next Tuesday!

Peter

[Peter Coles]

I understand, from Peter Brown, that there is to be an article about the National AV Championships in the next edition of AV News, the magazine of the Royal Photographic Society Audio-Visual Group. This will contain my statement about trying a 1400 x 1024 projector brought to my home by Eddie Spence to play some of my 1024 x 768 Sequences which contained several .png images, and also my concern over Sequences which were other than 4 x 3 format which did not pay particular attention to the guidance within the "Information Pack". I hope this thread within Beechbrook, together with the forthcoming article by Peter Brown in AV News, will encourage an even more confident participation within our National Championships in Leicester later this year.

Peter