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Steve... I understand... and agree. Thanks.

Steve... Not to beat a dead horse...but when I make a show, I always make it synch'd to music (because I have not figured out how to use the timeline... ). But when I include the navbar, the music will stop when I pause or use the reverse or forward choices and the music will pick up where it should when I unpause it. I don't find that the navbar 'will screw up' the show. I wonder if I am doing something different from what you are doing. When you use the navbar, does it create a problem with the syn'd music? Thanks... Gary

I will be sitting next to the fireplace, waiting for Father Igor!!!!!!!!

Yiks!!!! Igor comes through again. Can't wait for V5. Thanks, Gary

Well, I didn't like setting the mouse keys because you only have 2 possibilities. So if you have the left for Previous and the right for Next, you don't have one for Pause. But you have just openned my eyes a bit when you mentioned the use of the keyboard. I just tried the Pause key and the arrow keys to control the images. Gee...you learn something everyday!!! But I do like to make the screen to be around 95% with the black boarder and the Navigation bar at the bottom. Just my thing. But now I will try the keyboard on other slideshows to see if it works there. Thanks... Gary

Greetings, I have downloaded my share of PTE shows off the Beechbrook site. I am wondering why most people do not choose to put in the Navigation Bar to allow the viewer to gain some control of the show. Sometimes I would like to pause to see a particular image or go back or forward to see one. I try to include it in my shows. Am I missing something here or is it just not a popular thing to do??? Thanks... Gary

I was able to convert the 'bad' midi file to an mp3. If I can, I will try it out on laptops to see what happens. Much thanks... Gary

Igor... Yes, I see what you mean now. Thanks so much for spending time on this problem. I would have never guessed it was in one of my midi files. I will see if I can replace it with one that works and does not have that blank space at the end. But, great information to know and how to examine the midi's I use in the future. Thanks again.... Gary P.S. But not to beat a dead horse, the big question in my mind is 'why doesn't the problem occur on my desktop PCs?' I create the slideshow and it plays just great but then if given to someone, it might not work due to a unknowing bad midi file. Perhaps, Brian's discussions come into play and it is just something we have to deal with on a PC by PC basis.

Igor... Thanks for the information. But I am not sure which midi file you are talking about. I have 4 different midi files in the show. The one I think might be the one is FUN7.mid. It seems to stop playing about 1 second before the stated time length. Is there a good way to detect a 'bad' midi file before I put them in a show. They all play correctly in Media Player and WinAmps. Since the problem only appears in some PCs and laptops, I guess the best thing is to wait for the 5.0 update to fix this problem. Thanks much for your testing. Thanks... Gary

Hi Brian... Your discussion above is quite interesting. It has really peaked my interest. And it creates even more questions in my head. I went to see the Properties for my memory stick and found that the Policies tab allowed for 2 choices: optimize for quick removal and optimize for performace. The choices allow for enabling and disabling write caching. Not sure if this has any relevance to the problem but interesting. On my desktop, I have the 'optimize for quick removable' selected, but the icon to 'Safely Remove Hardware' still shows and I do go through that process before I remove my memory stick. I also wonder now where my memory stick fits in the 2 types you mention. But I assume both types are causing 'problems'. I am tempted to put the file on a non-512 memory stick and test it but I don't have the stick or the laptop. Maybe I am just looking through rose colored glasses, but I would think that all memory sticks would be plug and play--as it would be for a floppy disk, or external hard drive, etc. , not needing any "setup". (What would you look for in a Manual for this Setup you mention?) Well, it will be interesting to hear what Igor comes up with and whether the never version 5 will do away with this 'problem'. Thanks... Gary

Brian... Thanks for checking further with this. The explaination about Memory Matrix Mapping is very interesting but way above me. I don't quite get it. I have never heard of someone needs to do something to the laptop to use a memory stick. Do you mean that the Virtual Memory setting has to be set in a special way? Since Igor had the same problem with my file, and he sees some strange things going on, maybe it will be something he can tweek in the program so it will avoid having to tweak the Laptop. But, just to make it more complicated, I had the same problem playing it on a friends desktop PC. Igor said that the new version of PTE might solve this issue. Hope so... Thanks again... Gary

Hi Igor... Thanks for looking at it. When I have played it on my desktop PC, where the problem does NOT show up, I do, however, notice that some slides do seem to be displayed a for a bit less time than the others. Gary

Greetings, Thanks to all for thinking about this problem. I just FTP'd the file to Igor. I hope he can dissect the problem. I don't think it is a "power saving" issue. These laptops were on display do they were not set to shutdown or go to a screen saver. I can't come up with any 'reason' for this to happen. And unfortunately, I don't have access to any laptops to do any more testing. I don't think the store appreciate me going from PC to PC with this large file. They were helpful once but I don't want to push it. I think Igor will be able to figure it out and it will be the right answer.... And just to be clear, the screen doesn't shutdown or go blank. The screen will show a little 'flutter' just as it is about to freeze up and then the current slide will just freeze up on the screen and stay there but the music will continue to play. Strange or what??? Thanks... Gary

I don't think a screen saver had anything to do with the slideshow freezing up. All these laptops were on display at the store and the salesman closed down all the background programs. I can't say for sure but it seemed that only the large PTE file would freeze up, rather than the smaller sized ones. If you care to try my slideshow, I could upload it to you but it is pretty big...46.3Mbs. I have broadband so I don't mind. But it is strange that I tried about 5 laptops and they all, except for the Pentium 4, froze up. After a few minutes, the current slide would just stay frozen on the screen but the music would continue playing. I created them recently in 4.43. Maybe it is just this one slideshow but it is difficult for me to do any testing since I do not have my own laptop. But I will try further testing. Gary

I have been using PTE for a long time. The slideshows always work on my desktop (P4, 2Gb RAM). Recently, I tried to play a 47Mb slideshow that I brought to a friends house. I played it off a Cruzer 512Mb memory stick on his laptop and it froze-up after a minute or so. Then I played the file, using the memory stick, on his desktop. It froze again. I didn't have time to examine exactly what type of processors he had and assume it was just some low powered PCs or a USB1 port. However, now I am looking to buy a laptop and I am using these slideshows to test laptops to be sure I will not having a problem showing them on it. I went to Best Buy with my memory stick loaded with several slideshows. When I played the 47Mb slideshow (playing it off the memory stick), the show froze up. The music continued to play but the screen freezes. I expected this to happen on the Celeron M processors, maybe. But it also happens on faster processors. The only one it played without freezing up was a laptop with a Pentium 4 processor and 512K RAM. It also froze up on a Gateway with the Athlon 64 processor (1.7Gh?) with 1Gb RAM. I thought, maybe, it was due to playing it off the memory stick. I also copied it to the HD and it still froze up on the Gateway. I want to get a laptop that will not have these problems. Can anyone tell me why this is happening? Is it the RAM or the processor or.....what???? Can anyone tell me what are the minimum specifications that I need for a laptop to play PTE slideshows without this type of problem??? Thanks.... Gary

I had a slide show on a 512MB Cruzer. I tried to play the show (around 48Mb) using the Cruzer plugged into his desktop PC's USB port. The show started but froze up after a minute or so. I then tried it on his portable PC and it did the same thing. I was not able to copy the file onto his PCs and try playing it directly from the PC. But my question is what would cause it not to play on his PCs. I have no problem playing it on my desktop PC from the Cruzer card. His desktop might have had a USB1 but his portable had USB2. What might have cause this problem? Thanks... Gary

bd... Interesting to hear your problem. Just yesterday, my project started to have similar problems. After I added a bunch more slides, the "Start preview from current slide" would not start the preview if I tried it toward the end of the slide show list. It just sat there. It would work if I chose a slide in the earlier part of the list of slides. Also when I would start the show fromt the start, it would stop at somewhere short from the end of the show. The music would stop and show would stop, suddenly. I fiddled around and, just by chance, I noticed that the "custom synch..." was checked. I switched it back to "automatic synch..." and it went back to working normally. Maybe there is a bug of some sort. But it does not seem to be happening to too many people. This is not a solution or a fix but we both may have a problem that might be fixable in future versions. I really have no clue as to why it happens. I always use the "automatic synch..." because I just am not sure how to use the "custom synch..." method. Gary

Yes... I have Photoshop CS. But I can use the new 'tools' that you all have recommended. Now I just have to get busy and use them. I am not sure exactly what I want to do but having some new tools will help in the 'creative' process. Thanks all. Gary

Thanks much, Brian. I will fool around with these tools. They look pretty neat. Thanks.... Gary...

My problemis that I have Midi song that plays fine when played outside of PTE; however, when used in PTE, the tune sort of breaks up toward the end. Not sure why PTE does this. I was hoping to just convert it to MP3--maybe that would help(?). But I have read that you really can't convert a Midi file. Given that I have had disappointing results with many 'converters', I was looking for a freeware program that would simply let me edit out the part that goes bad. Maybe I could just salvage part of the tune. Are there really any Midi to MP3 converters out there that work? I have looked and have not found one that appears to do this. Thanks.... Gary

When I open an midi (using Import) and then hit the Play icon, the little black triangle moves down the music wave but I don't hear anything. This happened to the previous version and the current version. I checked all of my sound control levels and they are all set at max. Can anyone tell me what I might be doing wrong???? I can hear mp3 and wave files but not midi. Thanks... Gary

I'm glad you brought up Audacity. When open an mp3 (using Import) or a wave file, and then hit the Play icon, the little black triangle moves down the music wave but I don't hear anything. This happened to the previous version and the current version. I checked all of my sound control levels and they are all set at max. Can anyone tell me what I might be doing wrong???? Thanks... Gary ================ ADDED: Never mind...I meant to say 'midi', instead of 'mp3'. I rewrote it as a new post......

When I am in the Object Editor, and I want to insert an image, the inserted image covers the entire original image. I understand that I need to resize the inserted image down to a smaller image. Is there a guide as to what size I need to resize it too??? I'd like to bring in two images to be side by side, over the existing image. Any help will be appreciated.... Thanks... Gary

Ralph.... Thanks for your tip. Yes, that is another interesting way of doing it. I'll download your show and take a closer look. Al (thanks) says that Igor might just be putting what I am looking for. I hope so. I think it would be very useful. Thanks all for your ideas.... Gary

Hi Boxig, I gave it a try but it would not open the PTE slideshow. I put in the slide name...3001.jpg and it showed up in the JumpToSlide's little window but nothing happened. But for most of the people who would use my PTE slideshow would not understand the use of the JumpToSlide program...not too computer literate. At this point, I will fall back to using the PTE Button that will take you to the first of a group of images....such as "Goto Image 3001 of 3001 - 3025". That will at least help break the images down to sections. They can then just jump to any section they want. Maybe the PTE gurus will be able to build in a button to do this in the future..... Thanks for the idea.... Gary