lathompson

I would also enjoy a translated version, however the link you (Yachtsman1) have provided requires us to translate no more than 150 words at a time. This message I'm posting right now has a total of 89 words in it and 15 pages makes for a long project that might take some time to do. If it doesn't exist in English, I would not expect anyone to take the time to translate the essence of that story, but if it exists in English, it would be nice to read. larry

Guys, someone told me yesterday that YouTube has made some major changes and you have to go in and redo your id and password in order to upload shows. Perhaps that needs to be done. Sorry, I don't do the YouTube thing so that's all I can contribute to that. Good luck! Larry

So, Bart.......... Too much coffee???

That's a pretty interesting plugin, wideangle. Good of you to point it out. I'm going to give it a try. Hope it allows manipulation of the effect, like blurring and perhaps the ability to change the scrambling patterns in various ways.

Peter, thanks for pointing out that 20% image size for tiling. I don't work with tiled images much, so I wasn't looking for that little trick. I did increase my test background to 100%, rotated it to horizontal and it was perfect for a repeating backdrop in my show. Really dresses things up! Thanks again. -larry

I saw a show that a friend sent to me, that he had made and produced online. It was pretty cheap to purchase. It had the Ken Burns effect like P2E, but also had a background image that could be ordered to be complimentary in color to the main image. With every image that appeared, a customized color (matched or contrasting) was in back of it. Sometimes with movement, sometimes static. Yes, this can easily be done in P2E, however it is something that must be done image by image in P2E and if I did this for my clients, I would be raising the price significantly in order to offset the amount of time I spend customizing 80-100 slides in their show. This is fine for those that are willing to pay the premium, however the company online that does this, charges very little for the amazing amount of apparent customization their shows provide. For $35 the online company will do a show with 50 images. That show would take me at least an hour to do and would be tedious, working fast, customizing a background for every one of the 50 images. This would also raise the chances of mistakes. For all of that, I couldn't do this for four times that charge. I'm not about to work for an hour to make $35. that same show would cost them $150 from me. And a show with 100 images is going to really get the cost up there. I wonder if this is something that can be automated in P2E? Okay, changing colors may be going too far with automation, but it got me to thinking about something else.... As a lesser option, how about, after adding a 2nd image (a background) into the 'objects and animation window, you could check a box to put it in back of the first image, fill the frame and order it to stay there for all the images that follow in the show. That would be a one-time operation and the whole show could then be finished quickly, like it can be done now. Perhaps, since it's a second image in each show, you could then customize movement in each image later. Or, simply give us another option for adding a photo as a single, non-movable background to the whole show. The idea is that a decorative backdrop would form a nice side design on the left and right sides of a photo that happens to be vertical? This would be really nice for a show that is 16x9 wide. It could also be very decorative behind an image that is changing sizes, showing the background behind it. Colorful, artistic, sharply defined, or perhaps blurred for effect. Right now, the choices are a solid color, a gradient or an image that is tiled, are the only choices available. Although the tiled image can make some nice wallpaper, it is far from ideal artistically. I would prefer a customized background that I could make artistically appealing in many more ways. Okay, now it's time for one of you regulars to tell me this is possible already.... Ok, do it now, I'm ready! -larry

I agree! This is the simplest and quickest way to get silent sections added. I have the following soundtracks recorded: 1sec, 2sec, 3sec 5sec, 10sec, 20sec and 30 seconds. You can build any length with those. I most always start the show and end the show with the 3 second silent track. The silent tracks allow you to stay within the program and get customized silence where ever and when ever you want it. I love ending some shows with the last image lingering in silence, as it slowly fades to black -larry

I agree... terrific source of sounds/loops, etc. larry

Nothing wrong with a WAG, Ken. I keep a spindle of +R discs only for those few customers that request them. That's not often. Otherwise, I'll set on them forever. Hate 'em. Ken, are you using the VideoBuilder with success? Anyone else NOT having problems with playability? Dave, the thing is, I really like the speed of the VideoBuilder program and I'm sure that the problem I'm seeing is not because of the program. I'm just trying to cover all the possibilities so I can start burning direct with the confidence that I had before. Burning ISO files is an extra step. I'd like to avoid that if I can. Larry

Sorry guys, I forgot to mention that I've used the same brand discs for years now. I burn nothing but DVD-R and the brand is Taiyo Yuden. These have done better for me than all the other brands that come with printable labels. I'm sure the PTE program isn't sensitive to these discs any more than other programs. As mentioned before, I've burned thousands of these discs and never with the failure rate above 8-10%. I'm sure that the problem is simple and probably my fault, however I can't seem to remedy the situation. And, you know, maybe after another 20 or so burns, I might find that 2 out of 4 was simply a fluke. Maybe I'll go another 50 discs with no problem. Of course, I can't take that chance with my clients. I have one order right now for 50 copies of a show I produced. I don't want to have a large percent of those be bad. I need to know if there's anything within the video builder that might be doing this. Monday, I'll do 10 or 15 small shows and burn them. Maybe I have no problems at all and the fluke is simply that. Ken, +R discs have only resulted in more problems for my clients, play problems are very high with them. Seems there are still a lot of machines out there that don't like or don't play +R. I'll stick with -R. Is anyone else having an abnormal number of bad burns?

Just began using the videobuilder, with version 5.5 beta 8. I have done 4 discs for tests and attempted to play them on 6 different machines. 2 players, 4 recording decks/burners. 2 of the decks don't see a disc. the 2 player-only machines see them and play them fine, at least as long as I observed them. This is a higher percentage of problems than I normally get. I tested two of the discs with a customer, since they were their orders. The husband is a software engineer and could not get either disc to be recognized on any of his 2 computers and one player. Any ideas as to why the discs made through PTE are giving me problems? I have used default settings, NTSC and burned at half speed where I could. Of some 4000 discs I've made, I've only had playability problems on about 35-40 discs. These 4 discs just made are defying that fine record.

Ken, not only is PTE's Videobuilder easier, I find it extremely faster than Ulead. I've been using MF 5 and have had many problems and slowdowns. Very slow to burn. Videobuilder however, is fast as a bullet by comparison. I might add, quality is superb.

Ron, the reason for all the view and not comments? Maybe it's the mystery of the secondary title "Anyone using this card....". I know it was my reason for looking. I didn't comment because you ask if anyone had one. I don't. My card is an nvidea 7200. It works fine. Cheers, Larry

Hawk, I gotta tell you, I looked and looked, at least 5 or 6 times. I did not see that little checkbox. Perhaps I wasn't looking on that page. I'm so dyslexic sometimes it surprises me how I get through a day. Sure enough, it was there alright. Damn that's frustrating to miss the obvious. Anyway, thanks for your response. The looping shouldn't be a problem as I think that all players have a repeat play function anyway, however it' nice to know that command is available too. I'll use it so the client doesn't have to think.

My client wants the slide show to begin like it's played from an exe file. No menu. She wants to use it for a memorial and doesn't want the menu to pop up or for the video to stop. I have just made a show using videobuilder and I have to say, the quality is superb. Easy to produce, fast and seems to work perfectly in all my players. Although I love the menu, she doesn't want it and I can't seem to find a way to eliminate the menu option. Is this possible? I can't make an avi and use Ulead, it doesn't work. No music. On my other machine, using Ulead, I can eliminate the menu page, but the program produces a jerky, direct cut from image to image instead of the slow smooth dissolve. Don't understand why that is. I'm kind of stuck. Any suggestions? larry

In the words of an ancient space traveler, "Live long and prosper". Merry Christmas! Happy New Year... Igor! To the rest of you across the world, thanks for helping Igor and team with support and love. Peace, everyone! Larry & Barb Thompson

Is it possible that when you saved it, you saved it under the wrong name or within another folder? Did you move the image files from the folder they were in when you made the show? It's bound to be something basic.

OK Hartmut, Since there is no way to predict how long any given slide will be on screen or how long before the last slide appears, why not make this easy? Besides, it would be impossible to control with a slide show of a predetermined length anyway. Just control the music separately, with another device like an mp3 player, going through a receiver, to the speaker system or your own freestanding speakers. Load enough music to get through the longest program you can envision, then play it and pause or fade anytime/anywhere you want to. Most all stereo receivers have a remote and smooth fades would be a cinch. There are other devices too, this is just my sample, however I don't see how this could ever be a feature in any slide show program. And along the same lines as Colin has suggested, your wife could record a narration, while going manually through the slides. Then make it the sound track of the show. A script would be make it very professional and everything would be consistent every time! larry

I agree with Neil. Download the free program Audacity and edit the ending. It's really easy to add a fade out and cut the rest. Resave as an MP3 and you got it. larry

Ken, it's funny that this post is made this morning and you have mentioned AVG... I just had a virus detected by AVG (updated daily) and it was an older download (LAKESIDE.EXE) that I got from the shows on beachbrook. I've watched it several times and it's never been picked up by AVG before. And on another computer, I have the downloads there too and this morning, AVG picked up a different older show and ignored lakeside.exe. That's very strange as back when everyone was having the false virus attacks, I didn't have any at all. Now, here it is. In spite of this, I will still use AVG and recommend it to everyone. Just thought this might be interesting to pass along.

Thanks for the suggestion Ken. I've used the ATI boards on past PCs and had relatively good luck. One machine needs a uninstall/reboot occasionally, in order to restore the video out function, but mostly no problems. I did read in several threads here about P2E problems with ATI boards so that prompted the inquiry. I'l PM Fred and see what his experience is. I did a search for video board suggestions in this forum but came up empty. Do you recall if Fred was the only person with an ATI board with problems? As far as using MS multimedia desktop, I don't use it and actually don't know what it's about. I keep my OS as bare bones as possible, knocking down on features where I can. By the way, since you mentioned trouble with loading new drivers, I had many problems with my updates too until I read the instructions for updates. You have to totally uninstall the current ATI drivers and go back to basic video drivers. Then I had to load in a sequence in order to update. That worked. At the time, 4 years ago (ice age?) it was the ATI All In Wonder and there was a "package" of features. They had to load in a certain order. Today, I don't know if you can simply load the video drivers alone. Maybe you already know this... I thought I might give up what I know. It might help. Updating drivers is pretty important these days. Things change often. Thanks again! larry

Hi everyone. I have a Vista Home Premium machine and an XP Home machine. Both computers have 1 gig RAM and are pretty new fast machines. I need to get a video card for both and want to get something ideal for P2EXE since I have to buy something. I'll probably use it on the XP machine as I HATE Vista with a passion. I use version 5.0. The cards have to have an SVHS video out jack. Are there any suggestions? I am budget conscious but would like a good card too. I don't play games. I only do video shows and edit a lot of large image files in CS2 for my photography business. I'm open for suggestions. larry

Ron, 8 bit conversion should make it work. You may have 16 bit TIFFs and that would make a big difference on how they are treated within other programs. larry

Rangefinder Magazine for photographers, mostly wedding and studio, USA: www.rangefindermag.com VideoMaker Magazine for pro-am videographers, USA: www.videomaker.com I might add, I'm a member of the Digital Wedding Photographers Forums... There is a lot of discussion about slideshows, software, etc. Yours gets a lot of support. You might make contact with them as they have vendor information and over 4000 very active members in the forum. The forum is ran by Jeff Caplan. http://www.digitalweddingforum.com/ larry

I take my slides to our local Costco store and have them scanned for $.29 each. The results are very acceptable and all the scanning is done very quickly without any labor on my behalf. Costco does all their slide scanning at the store site so the handling is safe from loss. I'm not sure how available Costco is worldwide, however there are surely alternative sources for low cost scans. For doing it yourself, a Nikon 4000 scanner is superb. There are no low cost volume scanners for mounted slides. larry