MikeL117

Hi Alan and Ian I have no objections to it being shown at either Ashford or Wantage. Not sure I would like to try for a 'D' in AV. Working for the'M' in prints and in another 20 years I might just be ready Thanks again for the comments Mike

Thanks Folks Sweated blood over this one (even more during the adudication as the building the AV) Mike & Chris

I believe this will work, I haven't tried it as I only have two versions (the last release and the latest beta) which I am happy keeping installed. (I am delighted with the new 4.3 I can't see me wanting to go back to 4.2) If you install the full version in the same directory as the last full version (install 4.3 in the 4.2 directory or even in its own new directory) then that becomes the current directory that is used. Then it is a simple process of deleting all the beta directories. I only have one version of Pictures to Exe in my uninstall list. If you have more than this you should uninstall the unwanted ones rather than delete them. The key is kept in the registry and I think it is left there even after uninstalling so it should be possible to uninstall every version and re-install the latest version without loosing the registration information. Keep a copy just in case Make sure you update the .ini file to whatever is required in the new version (I think the options are turned on by default in this release). Hope this makes sense and helps.

I tried a quick test of fade to desktop with Beta 10 as I had not noticed the 'glitch' since Beta 6 (I think). It was there but less noticeable, possibly as the delay after the finish of the final transition is a little longer. With Beta 14 it is almost immediate with Beta 10 there is (on my machine, W2k, dual 1Gig processor, half Gig RAM) almost a second delay. Preview is fine. Nearly there Igor

I like the way the transition is maintained on the last slide, but on a slower machine the attempt to start the transition on every key press can make the process rather difficult to control. On a fast machine it seems to work well.

The object editor only supports transparent .BMP files which you can also produce in PhotoShop. If you create an alpha chanel and save as 32 bit it should give you the transparency you want.

Hi Barbara Try Hypercam from http://www.hyperionics.com I have not tried Camtasia so cannot compare the two products, but Hypercam is only a fraction of the price and the demo is usable except for the small unregistered logo in the top left corner.

Couldn't agree more Al. It is all too easy to forget and use the space bar after using a different button.

Hi Igor I have seen similar to Al's 'glitch' but I also cannot reproduce it. The thumnails (in horizontal slide view) butt-up to each other leaving no white space arround them or the borders of the window. If I resize the thumnails it corrects itself. With me it has happened a few times when it has started or has been switched to but I haven't been able to force it by resizing the view. If I am not mistaken PTE was full screen at either 1600x1200 under Win XP. Hope this helps Mike

You are correct Gerard. Use either Al's suggestion of a dark slide or perhaps even a duplicate of the last visible slide. It appears that the image of the last slide is replaced with the desktop but most of the other parameters apply. I love the effect. Very elegant. There may be some slight issues with preview of this effect not returning to the active desktop, but I have not been able to reproduce it. Suspect it has something to do with the end of the music almost coinciding with the end of the transition. The push and slide effect is much improved (all we need is the option to leave the background still while the forground moves )

Welcome Philip It is a while since I did mine too but I had no problems. What seems to happen is that sometimes the attachment becomes embedded in the email. From looking at my reg code I deduce that (so may be a little out) this method could work. Open Notepad Copy the REGEDIT4[...] bit to the first line then on the next line paste the "key"="...everything up to and including the final quote..." Save this as Reg.txt in your PTE program folder. This is the file to give PTE when it asks for the Registration file So the file should look something like REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\PTE] "Key"="0Z8PKwg... ldsiuhgv..." I believe that it is also possible to enter this directly into the registry but that sounds a little dangerous to me. Hope this helps. Mike

If this piece of music is vital to the presentation have you tried re-compressing it using a reliable compressor (Audacity with Lame is a free option) either from the exsisting MP3 file or, preferably, from the original uncompressed file. I am sure that Igor would like to know what is causing a major crash. If you could email him directly at support@wnsoft.com and offer to send the offending MP3. I agree that PTE should 'fail soft' under all situations, but as you will know with your background it is not possible to test all permutations.

Welcome Christine Like your updated Website. A few of us are hoping that the timeline window will have similar editing functions to the main window, perhaps even live alongside the main window or be quickly switchable. Igor has mentioned that multi-select in the timeline will need a lot of work. Possibly when the light box upgrades are finished Igor and his team could concentrate their talents on the timeline. (is this a possibility Igor?) Mike

Major editing in the timeline can be quite tricky. I think slowly and carefully is the answer at the moment. A lot of us are hoping that Igor will address the shortcomings in the timeline in a future release. We appreciate that it will take a lot of work, but the amazing strides taken with the main editing screens give us confidence it will happen sooner rather than later. Mike

It depends on the version of PhotoShop. In 7, CS and I think 6 (can't remember where it lived in the earlier versions) it lives on the options bar (usually attached just below the menus. It is quite versatile with or without resolution and in any units. Don't forget you can also rotate but if you want correct your perspective you have to not fix the size. The marquee select tools have even more options. Mike

What I have had to do on occasion is to swap the secondary and main displays So that the ouput to the projector is the primary screen and the ond attached to the laptop is the secondary. It works but unfortunatly, on my system, it is rather less stable and often takes quite a lot of persuasion. It has been mentioned before and we hope Igor can in some future version add the ability to select which monitor to use. Mike

Igor Like the vertical layout. Is there any chance in this version of being able to apply customized settings to a multi-selection? I realize there is the difficult question of which settings to change as there is no way to view the exsisting properties of all the slides. Applying the selected properties only is probably the safest option. Keep up the good work. Mike

Hi Bob I can't see why PhotoShop 7 would cause any problems. I have JPEGs from 6, 7 and CS, optimised and progressive without problems. It is probably a minor glitch in the evolving interface. There are times when the new interface has to 'think about' things for a while. Worry not, I am sure that Igor will find the few instabilities before the next beta. try swithcing back to the classic view if it is a problem, as long as the end result is okay. Mike

When I need to produce a piece of video I use some suitable piece of video software. When I do a slide show or AV I use PTE. Each has its own strengths. I can build a slide show in PTE in a half hour from scratch that would take two to get right in a Premier (video editor) or four (including rendering) in After Effects (Special Effects software). I can now save that slide show as an AVI (with no problems) and incorperate it within another piece of video in another couple of minutes. I expect that most of the problems with producing DVDs stems from the variety of buggy, low quality DVD software. Added to this are two other possible culprits; low cost (quality) DVDs causing the player to stutter while it retries incorrectly recorded areas, and user expectations - DVD quality will never match the .EXE quality. There are also far fewer people want, need or have the equipment to produce DVDs than EXEs. YET. If you have video out from your laptop you have an even easier way to make a video that can be viewed by even more people; plug it into the VHS recorder and press record. Mike

I like to have the choice of views. Different views have different benefits depending on what stage the presentation is at. i would like to have the Custom Synchonization view as part of the main screen or quickly switchable. That would save an enormous amount of time when adding or removing slides to a synchronized sequence. Mike

Andrew You are correct about the extra depth added by (often simple) movement and to have overlapping fades with two or more related but asynchronous events... I come to PTE from a stills photography and commercial presentations background. I appreciate what can be done. One of the pieces of software that I use is called Watchout from Dataton which uses multiple timelines and can incorporate video (including high definition and live camera) position, scale and opacity of any object is variable and keyframable. All in real time. But it is very demanding of computer power and it still has limitations - I wish I could easily play a PTE show through it. In a recent three screen show I had video (3000x1000 produced in Premier and After Effects) constantly running in a loop in the background with two separate live video feeds, PowerPoint, words and stills. This type of software takes a huge investment in time and manpower and is priced accordingly. I can see some of this being added to PTE as it develops and, possibly, some of the more esoteric effects available as a separate plugin to help defray some of the development costs as long as there is sufficient demand by the users. So keep riding that Hobby horse. As the user base realise what can be done then I am sure that Igor and his team will provide the tools. Isn't it exciting!!! I will have a look at globFx. Mike

Hi Andrew I agree with some of your vision of a future PTE and I have little doubt that it will get there, in time – but not too much time with the dedication and enthusiasm of Igor and his team. As for now there is (IMO) little need of some the facilities you mention by the majority of its present users. It has become the de-facto standard for AV work the world over and has revitalised the flagging AV scene. It has achieved this remarkable feat by being relatively simple to use and very reasonably priced. A large number of digital AV workers are simply transferring there traditional skills and more complicated software offering significantly advanced features could well be intimidating to its target market and even throttle the expansion and reduce the market. As digital AV matures the users will start to push at the boundaries and, hopefully, PTE will be keeping one step ahead of the majority. There will always be a few, like you, who have seen the potential and would like to use the advanced tools now. We are the ones that must be rather more inventive and find more indirect routes to the effects we want to achieve until the tools are built. Some of us can experiment with other ways of producing presentations and can transfer some of these skills and techniques back to PTE as it develops, sharing the ideas with newer users as we progress. I would desperately like two or more independent time-lines and would probably use that facility in every sequence I produced. There are ways to simulate this to a limited degree and I can wait for ability to do this fully. There are more important work-flow improvements to be incorperated first. I don't see PTE ever becoming a video editor, there are plenty of these about. Although how many of them successfully work with stills? The advanced video facilities you describe can only be done on the most powerful of desktop computers 'in real time'. Don't forget that the size of PTE presentations tend to be 1024x768 or even 1280x1024 far higher than even broadcast standard video. I don't agree that the focus of PTE has shifted now that it can produce video. I see this as a useful extra allowing more people to see the work produced with PTE and to allow sequences to be included in other video presentations. I think I have ranted on enough, sorry. I am sure that somewhere in this mammoth tome is something that is relevant to the initial post, I do go on sometimes. Producing AVs for most of us is fun and using PTE (for most of the time) is fun.

Hello and Welcome Jeanie It is worth looking at the tutorial. Just to point you in the right direction. Open from the File menu only opens PTE projects to look at and include a picture you use the 'File List' window in the left pane. Select the file(s) here and drag and drop them where they need to go int the file list. Hope this helps. Good Luck

As a point of interest. Did you change the timing on the timeline even by a little when you renamed the slides? The effect you mentioned is usually caused be there being insufficient time between the end of one transition and the begining of the next. I have found that (depending on the type of transition, size of image and speed of computer) that between 0.2 and 0.5 seconds gap is required. I find a single long 'page' effect is often all that is required for a multi-line title.

Well Done Igor, Exceptionally stable for a first beta. I love the horizontal view with thumbnails (the perfect place for the customized timeline to live). I have already used the waveform view to help tidy some slides. Can't wait for the new timeline interface when that is complete (multi-select there too, please?) A big improvement in usability. The new fade is even better. Drinks all round for you and your team. Thanks