Problem with new PSG 5 PC executable

[Ironman69 Profile Private message]

Hi everybody, I'm from Italy....sorry for my bad english....
I've used PSG4.5 for long time and now i' trying to use PSG 5. This is my problem:
with PSG 4.5 when I made and executable file I set "Windows size", "rendering" and "resizing" with the same value (i.e. 1600x1200), quality 100%, audio and video quality 100% and I obtain perfect file.

with PSG 5 (the same with PSP 5) is it possible to set only Windows size but and the file exe quality is bad.

The strange thing is that if i open with PSG 5 a show made with PSG 4.5 and I made a file exe it is OK.....

Please Help Me.....where i'm wrong???

Fabrizio

[DickK Profile Private messageWebsite]

You're probably doing nothing wrong. The way EXE output works in ProShow 5 is significantly different than before. Many people were confused with the options in version 4 so they attempted to simplify it. I think they achieved that but we lost some control in the process. Personally, I would have left it alone but they didn't ask me.

To get the best quality set the two quality sliders (image and video) to the max, set the window size however you want it (but see below) and do not check the full screen box. That's all the choices you've got now but it can produce a nice output.

What can go wrong though is a mismatch of the window size you choose, the actual screen dimensions and use of the full screen box. I find the best results when

1. The window size choice exactly or very closely matches the aspect ratio chosen. So if I made the show as 16:9 then I want the window pixel dimensions to match that, so the EXE doesn't resize/redimension anything as it displays.

2. For the same reason I want the dimensions to either match my screen exactly or be a bit less--again, the EXE doesn't need to do anything to make the output fit the actual display.

For instance, I tend to use 1440x900 or 1680x1050 as the output. The first is smaller than my screen but a nice size for a typical widescreen laptop, the second is exactly my desktop screen. Both of those are actually 16:10 not the 16:9 PSG uses when building the show, but I don't notice any significant issue there.

3. Don't use the 'full screen' option because it forces the EXE to expand/compress one or both dimensions of the video output on-the-fly and I see a significant loss of sharpness when it does that.

I can't be sure that's what is going on in your case, but experiment with it and see what happens--hope it helps.

Dick

[Ironman69 Profile Private message]

Thank You Dick....I'll do some test!

another question....
in Edit\Preferences\Playback what is the righ value to set???

[DickK Profile Private messageWebsite]

I forgot about that setting--this is part of why their attempt to simplify things seems to me to have worked on the surface and failed below that. Here's what the built-in help says about that setting:

The Rendering options allow you to set the size ProShow will use to render your images for the previews while you are working on a show. You can also set the Target Size for image resizing when creating EXEs or Presenter-based output. Unless you have a very specific need, it's best to leave these at their default settings. These settings have been chosen to achieves a nice mix of quality and speed.

This whole area has the subject of considerable discussion and confusion. With Version 5 ProShow got a whole new engine for playback on an EXE on a PC--that's what Presenter does standalone or inside an EXE. It now acts to make what it thinks is best use of the PC's capability, specifically the graphics card. So when we make an EXE, the settings used to create it during the output creation (the settings we already looked at) don't entirely control what we see during playback (this screen). Here's what PhotoDex sent to another member when he asked about this:

"Presenter based outputs (EXE) = there's no control over what render mode is used and you have no control over the playback resolution. You cannot force EXE's to playback at a specific rendering resolution, and adjusting these settings in preferences has zero affect on this (i.e. GPU on/off). Note that when GPU is enabled during EXE playback the rendering resolution for the EXE is determined by the resolution set for your primary monitor in windows. (Dick: emphasis mine)

GPU On/Off = Turning GPU on/off only affects your preview and playback experience from with in the ProShow software. Making changes to this setting will NOT help with EXE playback after publishing.

Target Size for resizing during EXE and PX creation = This is the value that ProShow resizes your images to, taking zoom values that you have set on your layers into consideration, to ensure that you always get the best possible image quality during playback of your EXE after publishing. Note that this isn't rendering resolution, this is image quality or the resolution of your images. The default target size for image resizing is set to 1920x1080.

Software Fallback Resolution = This value is the maximum rendering resolution that is used if GPU is off when previewing or playing your show from within the ProShow software. This does NOT have any control over what software fallback resolution is used for EXE playback after publishing. If the machine that the EXE is playing on fails to playback in GPU accelerated mode, the software fallback resolution is hard set at 800x600, period.

Hopefully this helps a little on the preference settings and their purpose. With Executables there are two aspects, image quality or clarity and rendering resolution or performance. Regarding the reported comment about no longer being able to hard set the image quality and rendering resolution as part of the EXE output, this is correct. This is no longer an option. However, ProShow automatically determines the best target size for images used in the show based on their set zoom value set in slide options and the target size set in preferences to ensure the best quality for each image that is being displayed on the screen in EXE playback.

For the best quality and performance during EXE playback make sure you use high resolution images in ProShow, make sure you don't decrease your target size found in preferences to something lower than the default (match target size to monitor resolution at the least) and make sure you have a newer video card (less than year old) with at least 512mb dedicated video RAM, so your EXE will playback using GPU acceleration for smoother playback during complex effects and motion in your show.

For people that hand out the EXE to various people for viewing and want to ensure they get consistent quality and performance we recommend NOT using EXE and using HD video output. It's universal, meaning it will playback on any platform and the quality and performance will always be consistent from one machine to the next assuming the computer can playback video files of course."

Now, all of that may just confuse you some more--it did me--but the bottom line I took away from it was: if an EXE is the intended output, start with big images, match the aspect ratio in rendering, match the monitor in rendering and leave that output preference setting alone. I can't say absolutely that this is best, but it does seem to give me good output. If real control of output resolution is needed then I'll render to a video format not an EXE and use that.

I hope that helps but don't feel bad, this has confused everyone.

Dick

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

In addition to Dick's comments, a couple of other considerations here - even for a show where the exe is small enough that you could try to email it to someone, most mailers will block .exe files due to the amount of malware that gets sent around that way. You will also find a lot of folks out there that will not run an exe no matter who they got it from (for the same reason). Probably the best way to distribute it would be an mp4 file in one of the common resolutions of your choice (even a Mac can handle that).

mikey

[Martin Profile Private message]

I have also experienced this when creating an executable. It looks amateurish having the window not fully expanded, the screen looks messy and can be distracting and when you do expand the window the quality of the image deteriorates. I think it would have been better to replace Window size with Image size, this way the size of the image would stay the same if you expand the window to Full Screen. Hopefully they will look at this.

Martin