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LumenLux: Thank you for your comments. I love kids because they are so innocent and seem to get enjoyment from simple things. They are also much more photogenic than adults. It's ashame they must grow up. I hesitated posting this slideshow...who wants to be bored with someone else's family photos...but what the heck...it's my favourite slideshow. thanks again, ken

Bart: Thank you for the thoughtful presentation...a great president and man. ken

Chris: I must agree with Patrick:

I'm sure you visited Ken Cox's, "How to Prepare and Burn a DVD" in this forum, If not spend some time there. It's been a couple of years since I used ULEAD (several versions ago) but I know I wasn't very impressed but I suspect that they've made improvements. About 3 months ago I made the following post: MY PTE to DVD Method I know that method has worked great for me. DVD Lab mentioned in that post has a thirty day trial download. It's a little complicated to use at first but has excellent help and once you figure it out it's very simple to use. It also provides more flexibility for the user than any of the software I've tested. It requires a MPEG-2 encoder. I think they market a version of tmpgenc that also has a trial period. It has excellent help and their site is full of excellent tutorials and faqs. A cheap alternative is NERO Burning Rom 6. I used to use ROXIO but quickly threw it in the trash can when I evaluated NERO. It does it all and has a very good MPEG-2 encoder. It also has many other video goodies. I normally use NERO to burn my DVDs and CDs although DVD Lab will also burn them. It also has a nice feature called RECODE that permits you to re-encode a 10gig commercial DVD ROM to fit on a 4.7 gig DVD R. I'm pretty sure you can use it under a 30 day trial. I think it costs around $70. I have used it to sucessfully create and burn PTE DVD slideshows...but although their encoder is very good it is also very slow. Their help is not near as excellent as DVD LAB. Their site is here: NERO Burning ROM I would suggest you download the trial versions of these and try making a small slideshow on a DVD+RW with your NEC 1100a...just to get a little experience. Another excellent site that is a must to visit is: VideoHelp Wish you success...and will watch for additional posts. .....ken

Hello Fuzzy: I hate to see a guy left dangling. I've been watching your post thinking that some one more knowledgable than myself would respond. I guess not. I think the enormity of your slideshow has made people a little nervous about responding. I am not a professional, which may be what you need...but I'm going to try to answer one or two of your questions, make some general comments and suggestions, and ask you a few questions. 1.) Is your ultimate goal to produce a DVD that you desire to mass produce or is this a small onesy-twoesy situation? 2.) Do you have a basic understanding of a DVD's structure and creation? Do you know what is meant by Authoring a DVD? Root Menu? Chapters? Scene selection? 3.) There are two basic types of DVDs in common use. The kind you buy or rent at the local video store are professionaly made on a DVD Rom media that normally are dual layered and normally have a capacity of around 10 gigabytes. The equipment required to burn these DVD's is fairly expensive and would normally be available only at a professional video studio. The other type of DVD is the kind you buy at a local computer store. These are normally referred to as DVD -R, +R, -RW, and +RW. These are the kind normally used by computer/video hobbyists such as myself and have approximately 1/2 the capacity of DVD Roms (4.7 gigabytes). The DVD R burners are relative inexpensive. DVD Roms will play on all DVD players, newer DVD players will also play the DVD Rs, older DVD players may or may not play DVD Rs. I consider the DVD Roms to be the more reliable media. I own three different brands of DVD players, all three will play DVD -R and +R. Two will play DVD+RW but not DVD-RW. The other will play DVD-RW but not DVD+RW. If you intend to mass produce and market, you should seriously consider discussing this project with a professional video studio that has the ability to burn the more reliable and larger capacity DVD Roms. 4.) If you intend to go the onesy-twosey route I suggest burning both DVD +R and -R. The cost of the media is relatively inexpensive. I've made several DVDs that contain multiple PTE slideshows. A DVD uses a highly compressed video format referred to as MPEG-2. The person that creates the MPEG-2 varies the extent of compression. This compression is comparable to JPEG compression in photography. You can make a highly compressed JPEG photo but the picture quality will suffer proportionately. I have found that with PTE slideshows a compression that permits around 1 and 1/2 hours on a single DVD yields very good results. A three hour slideshow would require at least two DVDs. 5.) I would suggest that you break your slideshow up into 8 or 10 individual slideshows. These could be individual photography lessons. On a DVD these lessons would become Chapters of the video. These Chapters or lessons would be selectable by the user from the DVDs Root Menu. The Chapters or lessons can be further broken up into scenes. A standard DVD player will play an entire Chapter and then return to the Root Menu to permit the user to select the next Chapter with the DVDs remote. 6.) The individual slideshows that you produce with PTE should play non-stop with no pause buttons. On a DVD the user pauses the video and goes to the next scene. 7.) An example of a Root Menu that I used for one of my personal multi-slideshow DVDs can be seen here: Example of Root Menu Of course in your PTE project the thumbnails would be related to a specific Photography Lesson. 8.) Would your DVD need to be NTSC or PAL? 9.) I suggest making a short slideshow, and have a DVD created of the slidshow to ascertain the resulting quality before doing the entire project. In the photo world people are often disappointed with the quality of photos that are displayed on a television. TVs just don't have near the resolution of a PC monitor I think I've said enough for now. I hope this helps and does not confuse. I will be watching for any questions you have concerning this post. KEN

I am far from being an expert in the area of video but will try to answer some of your questions. I have made several DVDs for NTSC from PTE slideshows that I am quite pleased with. Concerning screen resolution: Unless you have an HDTV, don't expect the same quality of image on your TV as you get on your PC monitor. A TV creates the image from 400-500 horizontal lines, or effectively 400-500 pixels. Set your PC monitor to 640x480 and look at your PTE slideshow, this will probablly be the best you can expect on your TV, as the resolution will be similar. Think in terms of pixels and lines instead of inches. Does a 2"x3" slide measured with a ruler on your TV, actually measure 2"x3"? I made an earlier post of my method that can be adapted to PAL. You may have already read it but it is located here: My PTE to DVD Method You might go through the following thread that discusses resizing AVIs for DVDs that was posted a couple of months back: Resizing for AVI? The following useful site is reference in this thread: A Quick Guide to Digital Video Resolution and Aspect Ratio Conversions I hope some of this might help. ...ken

LumenLux: I visited Zion years ago. Since viewing your presentation, it's now high on my list for a revist. As I remember, God's rock splendors are so very huge, they are almost impossible to put on film. Your photographic skills in capturing they're beauty and essence was very well done. Your music choice was very nice and flowed perfectly with each scene. The entire show was extremely pleasant and soothing to watch. An excellent creation. The finish you chose was very unique and added polish without cluttering your main show. I'm sure I will be borrowing from this idea. Either you were very lucky in getting the shots of the gobblers or they were actually stuffed birds you setup as props...just kidding. Thanks very much for sharing your experience..... Ken

Larry, I'm glad it worked out too. I'm also curious like Fred. It would be nice to see a short sample...if possible. Good luck, ken

JeffLunt has posted a new PTE show here: One Week in My Life It is definitely worth a download. It's the kind of show that makes you want to be there sharing the experiences. Beautiful scenery..excellent photography...paced very well..and nice music. ken

Michel, What can I say that others haven't? Gosh...Ooooh....Marvelous...Neat...Thoroughably ejoyable...excellent technically...even better artistically. I envy your talents... Well done! Thanks for the letting us view it, Ken

Fred: Microsoft advertises a free Power Toys Funpack here: PowerToys Fun Pack It's evidently for XP only and I don't run XP...says it supports video to scr. Ken

Fred: I came across this a while back. Don't know anything about it but it indicates that it will make a scr from video. I haven't downloaded it but it says free, but could load your computer up with commercials? Media Saver If you try it let me know how it works. ken

I have only been a participating member of this forum for 2-3 months but have been a PTE user for several years. I participate in several photography related forums but this is by far my favourite. I enjoy the very international flavor. I have found all particpants to be very respectful of others, friendly and quick to respond to those that are seeking help with PTE. Thank you all. And Igor, thank you for such a wonderful piece of software. I always promote it to my fellow photographers...it can't be beat. For guests and those new to PTE I urge you to download and go through an excellent PTE tutorial created by AlRobin that is located here: PTE 101 Tutorial Enough said...ken

Thanks, Ron

Larry, I've posted some sample screen captures of one of my multiple PTE slideshow CD's here: PTE Example Menus I also use this same type menu for DVDs I make with PTE video. In these samples clicking on a thumbnail picture will cause that slideshow to be played. Clicking the "More" button goes to the next menus of slideshows as shown in the More screen capture. The "About" button is a plug for Igor and PTE. When I make slideshows I normally enable "permit control of show" in PTE's main project options. This permits the viewer to navigate and pause the slideshow and music at any time. By depressing the "Help" button on the main menu the viewer gets an explaination of how the function works. The Help screen capture depicts this screen. Hope this helps.

Your site is very well designed, unfortunately I am english speaking and have never had the opportunity to learn French. I downloaded and viewed "Mariage de Peggy et Gérald" and "The Rose" frome the MediaShow section. I also downloaded and viewed "Les Ibis" from your PTE section. The two shows from MediaShow were not anywhere near the quality as seen in the PTE show. When I played them the text was "cut off" on the right side and could not be fully read. "Les Ibis" was impressive, professionally prepared, with beautiful photography, blended with good music and transitions. I gather that "Le Vesinet" is a suburb of Paris? Very beautiful. My wife and I both enjoyed watching it. When I have the opportunity I plan to view some of your other shows. Thank you for sharing them.

If you have lot's of photos on your computer and trying to find one for a PTE slideshow...I've found the following viewer very useful to quickly locate one. EXIF Viewer...it's free...very fast for viewing jpegs...and also EXIF info.....located here: EXIF Viewer

Not a solution but a last minute thought. Open your *.pte file in notepad and restore as backup*.pte so that you have a backup of your original in case you might need it.

I've sometimes had a problem if I double-click on the .pte file instead of opening the .pte file from PTE file menu, but doubt that this is your problem. There are some sharp people on this forum, hopefully one will read your post and offer some help. Sorry I couldn't help...but I'm still thinking abot this one.

Open your ".pte" file with notepad and scan through the text looking for where the location of your picture files are supposed to be. This is an example for the first picture in one of my .pte files: [slide1] ShowPic=1 Picture=D:\JPEG Files\Botanic Gardens\Botantic_00.jpg PTE thinks my first slide is located in the directory "D:\JPEG Files\Botanic Gardens\" If you've relocated or renamed your directories it can screw this up. I've done that before and messed things up. In notepad under the edit menu you can do a find and replace of text strings and correct this. If not careful you can screw things up worse than they are. The safest bet is to move the files and music to the directories that the .pte file says they should be at. Hope this helps. Repost with your results or what you find and I'll be checking in for it. .......KEN

Mellow: Under Project Options: Check the following: Synchronize slideshow to music duration. and Permit control of the show. If you do this, the music and show will stop if you depress the "Pause" button...and it will resume if you depress the "pause" button again. Function <F1> will give the person viewing the show a navigation help. In this mode the navigation bar at the bottom can't be displayed. I provide this function in all the shows I create but most people evidently don't. I prefer this to the navigation bar. You can put instructions to reach help on your first slide if desired. If you download one of my shows from Beechbrook Cottage, run it and depress the <F1> key or <pause> key you can see how this one works. The arrow keys permit you to backup or go forward also. My shorstest posted slideshow is here: Dedicated to Willie At least this function is available in PTE 4.20

I recommend removing them. Regards, Ken

What an excellent presentation! It made me feel that I was participating in the festivities. Your timing of sequences and music was better than any I've ever seen. I could tell you must have spent much time to get them right. They were definitely right! The photography was excellent along with your music and sound selections. Bravo! Bravo!

George: What can I say...an absolutely stunning show...trip of a lifetime...superb photography...wonderful music...the lions will put you on edge...birds are beautiful things...fantastic animal shots...people scenes were good and blended in very well. My hat's off to you for a most wonderful production. Thank you for sharing....ken

I just viewed this show and have viewed American Fisherman several times. Very, very nice. The transitions of B&W to color to "painting effects" were pleasing to me. I am not a technical critic. I view presentations expecting a feeling to be conveyed to me. Although, I'm from the interior of the USA, and spent little time on our coasts...your two presentations conveyed a nice but haunting feeling. I could almost feel the ghosts of fishermen come and gone...the boats are dissolving into the sea as many of the fishermen surely have. Your two shows are definite "keepers" that I will watch again and share with others. Thanks for sharing with us....