Help request from PC/Mac users....

[Lin Evans]

As has been discussed in the past, making photo slideshows and getting them on the web with some semblance of quality has been an ongoing issue for photographers. We are always evaluating ways of producing slideshows so that both our MacIntosh and PC clients can view them.

Presently there are a number of decent slideshow presentation softwares available for the PC (PicturesToExe, ProShow Gold, ProShow Producer, Vegas Video, Media@Show, etc.) but fewer for the Mac. The issue then whether one has a Mac or a PC is how to create a cross-platform presentation. DVD creation has been one solution, but still not perfect because it's difficult for many to create a single DVD which will play on either Mac or PC. Executable files will play on the PC but not on a Mac unless the Mac owner is running PC emulation and that's not always a viable solution either.

This leaves html, QuickTime, Java, and Flash as the most viable cross-platform candidates. Java has not proven to be either easy to implement or particularly user-friendly and html doesn't allow video type movement so no Ken Burns Effects, etc. QuickTime files are very large so we have begun to experiment with Flash as the most viable alternative.

There are several iterations of Flash out there and the nice thing is that regardless of the software or platform used by the photographer to actually create their slideshow, almost all of these programs can create either an mpg or AVI video output file. There are a number of programs which can be used to convert these files to Flash movies.

There are two basic versions of a Flash movie, SWF and FLV. SWF flash has some limitations which makes it less useful for slideshows, especially for slideshows with Ken Burns Effects (pan/scroll, zoom, rotate). SWF Flash is absolutely limited to 16,000 frames per instance. This means that a slideshow with about 30 frames per second can be no longer than about a bit less than 9 minutes. There are ways to string separate SWF movies together and get around this limitation but if the slideshow has synchronized music, the synchronization won't hold up much longer than a couple of minutes. So the logical candidate is Flash FLV.

FLV Flash is essentially a progressive download which very closely simulates server side streaming except the file is actually streamed from the client's computer. The FLV file is temporarily downloaded to a temp folder on the client side computer and streaming play begins almost immediately so the viewer doesn't have to wait for the entire file to download before seeing the slideshow begin.

There are several companies producing software which can convert AVI/MPG files to FLV Flash. Perhaps the least expensive is Riva Producer Lite (about $30 U.S.D) which does a very nice job. The downside of Riva is that it uses older Flash versions which must be played at higher bitrates to get decent quality. This can be problematic especially for Mac users. For whatever reason, web play of Flash on a Mac isn't as efficient as on a PC so that jerky movement and stop/start issues are more likely with a Mac and Flash movie especially if the bitrate is high and the client resources are marginal.

Fortunately there is a very nice new Flash version 8 which uses the VP-6 codec and produces very small, highly compressed files which still have excellent image quality. The down side is that most client systems do not as yet have Flash 8 installed. This means that Flash Detection software needs to be resident to determine whether the client needs to install or upgrade their present Flash version. The Macromedia default software to accomplish this is not, in my opinion, a very user-friendly creature. Someone who is conversant with java and html really needs to modify this so it makes more sense to the unsophisticated user.

Unfortunately, I don't have the skills necessary to "fix" the Macromedia pop-up so am forced to use is as is. Finally, getting to my issue here, I have created a demo slideshow (nothing special - just a few images) with some Ken Burns Effects, background music and stills to test the Flash 8 suitability for photographer's slideshow cross-platform presentation. The slideshow was output from ProShow Gold as a large MPG then converted to Flash FLV via On2 Technologies Flix Pro software.

Anyone willing to play this and report back from a Mac or PC, your input would be greatly appreciated. If you don't already have Flash 8, the cryptic pop-up should provide a link you can click on to download and install the free Flash 8 player. The slideshow runs about 5 minutes 52 seconds and has a "preload" of 10% meaning the first 10% of the file will download before play begins. The first image of a piece of jewelry has some jerky movement from the body of the "bear" to the head which was present in the original MPG from ProShow. Otherwise it should be fairly smooth with minor jerky movement during fast zooms, etc.

Some flicker will be present on stills with fine detail which pulse with the key frame set to about every three seconds - this is mostly unavoidable. I would appreciate any feedback on overall suitability as seen on your PC/Mac.

http://www.lin-evans.net/flixtest/flixpopup.html

Best regards,

Lin

[Mark McCall]

Originally Posted by Lin Evans

The issue then whether one has a Mac or a PC is how to create a cross-platform presentation. DVD creation has been one solution, but still not perfect because it's difficult for many to create a single DVD which will play on either Mac or PC. Executable files will play on the PC but not on a Mac unless the Mac owner is running PC emulation and that's not always a viable solution either.

Lin,
I'm a beta test for Photodex (ProShow Gold and Producer), and I also wrote the PTE Quick Start Guide, a 5 time PPA An-Ne Award winner. I've used all three programs extensively.

Regarding DVD's on PC or Mac....
A DVD disc doesn't care if your computer is PC or Mac, it only cares if the drive supports the format.

Let's say you burn a DVD+R with Producer or ProShow Gold.
It will play on any DVD player or DVD computer drive that supports +R discs, PC or Mac.
Same is true for -R, or any of the numberous formats available.
+R and -R are the most common.

If a Mac won't play a -R or +R disc created by a PC, (or visa versa)... it's because the drive in the computer doesn't support one format or the other, not because it was created on a PC.

Hope that makes sense.

[Lin Evans]

Originally Posted by Mark McCall

Lin,
I'm a beta test for Photodex (ProShow Gold and Producer), and I also wrote the PTE Quick Start Guide, a 5 time PPA An-Ne Award winner. I've used all three programs extensively.

Regarding DVD's on PC or Mac....
A DVD disc doesn't care if your computer is PC or Mac, it only cares if the drive supports the format.

Let's say you burn a DVD+R with Producer or ProShow Gold.
It will play on any DVD player or DVD computer drive that supports +R discs, PC or Mac.
Same is true for -R, or any of the numberous formats available.
+R and -R are the most common.

If a Mac won't play a -R or +R disc created by a PC, (or visa versa)... it's because the drive in the computer doesn't support one format or the other, not because it was created on a PC.

Hope that makes sense.

Hi Mark,

Yes, I'm familiar with all the DVD protocols and compatibilites - also a beta tester for P2E and a user of both P2E and ProShow since beta days. The problem is that we need cross compatibility from a number of different programs (Mac users can't use either P2E or Photodex products) for clients, many of whom are in other countries. The DVD compatibilities are only within a given protocol - for example PAL and NTSC are incompatible with each other. ProShow offers their Active X web show but most photographers don't care to advertise for Photodex (the "Loading Photodex" logo), won't pay for Producer to get around this and wouldn't buy it anyway as long as Photodex insists on the "dongle" - LOL - and of course it's of no use to the MacIntosh user.

The DVD solution otherwise is only viable when you can physically exchange a disc. The file sizes are way too large for transfer via wire, etc. This is why we have decided that for now Flash 8 offers the best overall solution. It's web friendly, works for both platforms and has no "advertising" built in.

Best regards,

Lin

[Mark McCall]

Lin,
I misunderstood your question.
I thought you were wanting to PLAY a DVD show on a Mac.
I guess what your wanting is to CREATE these shows on a Mac. Correct?
I've posed that question before to Paul Shmidt, owner of Photodex. (why isn't there a Mac version?).

His response was the following:
"The R&D investment necessary to create a Mac version of our software seriously outweighs the monetary benefit.
It would simply cost too much money to create an application for Mac when our studies show that aprox. 3% of the market share for our product is Mac based.
We could not sell enough copies to Mac owners to even break even, much less make a profit".

The 3% figure was his number, not mine. I have no idea how he arrived at that figure, but from the people I've talked to in the software engineering biz, this is a widely held opinion.
I laugh when I see the paltry selection of software available for Mac at our local CompUSA. It's relegated to a small section in the corner of the store.
Mac guys certainly have it rough.

Personally, I don't have an issue with the Dongle, but I've spoken to some photographers who do.
We'd better get used to them. Every title in the future will have some sort of hardware, or soft dongle to deal with.
CS even has it in the "register before you can complete install" trick.
You can't blame software engineers for wanting to protect their assets.
As photographers' we do the same thing by putting our logo into the corner of our images, or watermarking online or hard proofs.

I visit alot of studios when I'm on the road travelling to and from conventions.
Most of the Mac based studios have at least one PC that is solely used to run PC based applications, not available for Mac. PC's can even be networked into your Mac network.* PC's are cheap. Seems like a logical solution.

[Lin Evans]

Originally Posted by Mark McCall

Lin,
I misunderstood your question.
I thought you were wanting to PLAY a DVD show on a Mac.
I guess what your wanting is to CREATE these shows on a Mac. Correct?

Right - a need to have a cross-platform solution which is independent of both development platform and software used.

I've posed that question before to Paul Shmidt, owner of Photodex. (why isn't there a Mac version?).

His response was the following:
"The R&D investment necessary to create a Mac version of our software seriously outweighs the monetary benefit.
It would simply cost too much money to create an application for Mac when our studies show that aprox. 3% of the market share for our product is Mac based.
We could not sell enough copies to Mac owners to even break even, much less make a profit".

The 3% figure was his number, not mine. I have no idea how he arrived at that figure, but from the people I've talked to in the software engineering biz, this is a widely held opinion.
I laugh when I see the paltry selection of software available for Mac at our local CompUSA. It's relegated to a small section in the corner of the store.
Mac guys certainly have it rough.

Yes, he's getting the figure from worldwide sales and market share information. Of course it doesn't make too much sense to invest a lot of R&D for the ROI but then nearly 100% (which is probably what a good presentation slideshow might bring) from that 3% may still represent a hefty profit. It's large enough that Adobe and other large companies are not considering dropping their Mac development.

Personally, I don't have an issue with the Dongle, but I've spoken to some photographers who do.
We'd better get used to them. Every title in the future will have some sort of hardware, or soft dongle to deal with.
CS even has it in the "register before you can complete install" trick.
You can't blame software engineers for wanting to protect their assets.
As photographers' we do the same thing by putting our logo into the corner of our images, or watermarking online or hard proofs.

Yes, as a former software developer myself I understand the need to protect intellectual property, but the hardware approach isn't necessary because there are myriad other ways which it can be satisfactorily accomplished. Just imagine what your computer might look like if all your software had some type of "dongle" associated with it. Personally, I probably have over 100 different software applications on my main development system. I'm not willing to put even one dongle on my ports and I suspect that's holding back the sales of Producer and Photodex will probably have to rethink their position before it's over....

I visit alot of studios when I'm on the road travelling to and from conventions.
Most of the Mac based studios have at least one PC that is solely used to run PC based applications, not available for Mac. PC's can even be networked into your Mac network. PC's are cheap. Seems like a logical solution.

It's at best a kludge solution to have both platforms but some definitely do it because at present it's probably the only way. Our problem is that we service a rather large gallery art clientele which are about evenly split between Mac and PC so we have to support both platforms. Tough, but we try...

Best regards,

Lin

[Mark McCall]

Our clientele is certainly different.

In the old days, all of the art directors, layout personnel and editors we worked with were Mac.
Nowaday's they're all PC, with the exception of one client.

I wonder if the new Intel chip in Macs will allow for easier creation of software titles.

About sales of Producer...
I wonder myself if the dongle hurts sales.
I can only comment about what I've actually seen.
At the PPA National Convention in Austin, I spoke during two seminars at the trade show.
There was a line at 2 sales terminals in the Photodex booth.
I could not see the end of either line.

[Lin Evans]

Originally Posted by Mark McCall

Our clientele is certainly different.

In the old days, all of the art directors, layout personnel and editors we worked with were Mac.
Nowaday's they're all PC, with the exception of one client.

I wonder if the new Intel chip in Macs will allow for easier creation of software titles.

About sales of Producer...
I wonder myself if the dongle hurts sales.
I can only comment about what I've actually seen.
At the PPA National Convention in Austin, I spoke during two seminars at the trade show.
There was a line at 2 sales terminals in the Photodex booth.
I could not see the end of either line.

It (concentrations of Mac versus PC) seems to vary somewhat geographically. We have clients in five countries and the European art community still embraces the Mac while more of our Asian and US clients have switched to PC's except in the Southern California area where we still have much stronger Mac user contingents. I suspect it has to do with the movie industry in S. California where the MacIntosh is still king for graphics.

It will be interesting to see how the Intel chip affects the software development. Actually the thing which may be even more revealing are probable changes in the video cards as a result of the CPU differences. If this ever gets "standardized" in the PC world it will be a great benefit to the developers who try to implement video movement (Ken Burns Effects) on still images. This has been a real thorn in the side for PhotoDex causing many issues which get blamed on the developers but which are really caused by changes and "shortcuts" in video card protocols. It's been a real PITA for Igor at P2E and has greatly slowed his release of beta 5 while trying to work around the mess.

The "dongle" issue doesn't bother some but a number of our business associates have tried and dropped Producer as a tool because of it (the dongle) and a number of perceived "bugs" and many more have elected to go to Vegas Video or wait for P2E 5. Some have even gone on searches to find old copies of the now defunct Xshow. A new product with all the bells and whistles of Producer will always attract early adopters and it indeed created lots of excitement at first, but all is not rosy I fear and the initial excitement has given way to many unresolved issues which have turned some away. The "dongle" has just been the straw which broke the "camels" back - LOL - in some cases... Only PhotoDex knows for certain how the decision has affected sales and even they may not know for certain since they only have ProShow as a baseline to guesstimate P&L. The nice thing is that we may soon have viable competition which may affect future development directions for both P2E and PhotoDex as well as a few other potential competitors. I think some of the older slideshow development programs have pretty much gone by the wayside. Media@Show which had so much potential in coming from the video side was pretty much lost when Cyberlink was sold to the Taiwanese. The seem to have next to zero competence in being able to fix even simple bugs and show no inclination to develop it much further. Xshow had loads of potential but the distributors went under three years ago and left the developer high and dry and not being paid for his code work. Too bad because it had IMHO one of the best user interfaces ever developed. Much easier and more powerful than ProShow Gold but alas lost forever I think..... So who really knows what the future holds??

Best regards,

Lin

[Mark McCall]

Lin,
Maybe this is your answer:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060405/...apple_software

Mark

[Lin Evans]

LOL - I tried to get Apple to implement dual processors so they could be PC compatible back in the early 80's when I worked for them. Had they not been so arrogant then they would have owned the PC world today. It's taken over 30 years but they've finally come to their senses.....

Best regards,

Lin