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Of course I don't mind... we're all here to learn, including me, and that's a better way to do this for this example. (But I don't know why you would rotate this?) Ray

Just download it and then double-click on the .exe file I think - this is not the Snow Xmas build that I use but I couldn't find that one on the Internet so maybe it's not supported any longer. Use it just like you would use any other codec from PTE. I have no experience with Avidemux. Ray

Go here... http://x264.nl/

Remember that PTE can output H.264 encoded video in 2 different ways. The way you are doing it is through VideoBuilder into a .mp4 container. You can also choose to produce AVI output (the old way, before VideoBuilder existed) and, as long as you have an H.264 codec installed on your PC, choose that codec and output it to a .avi container (.avi file). More 3rd-party software will recognize your output if you produce it this way. Ray

The files for this are now at www.peoplesoftheworld.org/demos/maskdemo2project.zip Let me know if you have any questions.

OK I'll upload it in the next few days.

Ron, It contains a .mp4 file, which plays the video (there is no audio) if you have a compatible player - e.g. VLC Media Player or Media Player Classic HomeCinema.

This is another demo of something that works fine in 5.5 but works much better in 5.6 - at least for me because I work in High Definition. Many PTE users have probably created something based on Lin Evans' "route demo" and, of course, it works just fine in PTE 5.5. But with masks it is even easier and the file sizes are much smaller - especially for HD output. This is another 9-second video (also about 1MB like the last one I did) that extracts to a .mp4 file in DVD quality. In this sequence we zoom into a detailed map of Southeast Asia and, as we do, the Mekong River flows from its source to its delta. The end result is exactly the same in 5.6 as it is in 5.5 but because this version is done with a mask the size of the file that "acts" as the mask is reduced by 95%! If you work in HD that places much less stress on PTE and your PC to produce the output for the final .exe file to run (if you produce .exe files). If anyone is interested I can upload a lower-quality version of the project file that shows how to do this with masks. Credit goes to Al Robinson for the original idea - I just got it to work with masks. Ray www.peoplesoftheworld.org/demos/maskdemo2.zip

Here's something that I first did in 5.5 with a lot of effort that is made so much easier with masks. Even then, in 5.6 I still had to work around a limitation of how masks are currently implemented - I had to drag the first keyframe of the photo to the left of the timeframe = 0 point before I could size it correctly to fill the frame. This is a 1MB zip file that extracts to a .mp4 file that plays for 9 seconds. As we zoom into a map of Westcentral Asia to the part that is the Tibetan Plateau a mask reveals a photo that I took from a plane flying over the real Tibetan Plateau. The mask zooms in time with the map zoom and at the same time fades to reveal the photo under the mask. I think this is a good example of how masks can be used. www.peoplesoftheworld.org/demos/maskdemo.zip Ray

Igor, Does this version fix the problem with Objects and Animation of text objects that I reported a few days ago under the 5.6 thread?

So now I can find many different ways to get this to work... I hope Igor will respond soon to tell us how this is supposed to work - or not work - in 5.6. I agree with the posts that say if the software allows you to do it this way then it should work! I'm sorry for opening a "can of worms" but the way I did this in my test project is the easiest way I know of to do it based on the way previous versions of PTE have worked without a problem and the way I thought 5.6 should work. I have other projects created in 5.1 and 5.5 where I did the O&A sequence using this approach but where the objects are png instead of text and they all work just fine in 5.6. If all objects are required to start at offset point 0 then what is the purpose of the blue slider bar in the O&A window? Ray

I'll try it and get back to you. Ray

Thanks, Al, for confirming that I'm not losing my mind . I was also able to get some options to "work" but in this case I need the text to appear later than at the beginning of the main slide. I can obviously work around it by having 3 copies of the same main slide but since this has worked in previous versions it does appear to be a bug.

To demonstrate this problem I have uploaded the zip archive of a test project to www.peoplesoftheworld.org/demos/pte56test.zip. This project was created from scratch using the latest 5.6. The O&A sequence is about as simple as it gets but the only view that gets it correct is the O&A view itself. Igor (and anyone else) can you download it (about 2MB) and test it? Maybe something changed for 5.6 that I don't know about so I could just be taking the wrong approach. Thanks, Ray

Lin, I Just wanted to add my own sentiments. I hope everything turns out for the best. I know what you're going through as my own sister is also in very bad health at the moment. Ray

I know it's been posted before that you must open an old 5.5 show in 5.6 and then save it from 5.6 to make all the O&A sequences work. But I now have an old show that works OK in 5.5 but then when saved from 5.6 the same O&A sequence no longer works in 5.6 from any view - mini player, preview, preview from current slide etc. - and the O&A effects are very simple. Anyone else having this problem?

Mark, I'm also willing to test this once you upload your zipped PTE file. Ray

Carol, Well this changes things... I thought you were burning to real Blu-ray discs. So now the questions are can your audience play ordinary DVD discs burned in HD-DVD format? And can they play ordinary DVD discs burned in AVCHD format? The answers will be different depending on what equipment they have. But whatever the answer is you should be aware that ordinary DVD discs are designed to deliver a maximum bit rate of 8Mbps. So instead of choosing the "One pass - quality" mode I recommend you choose one of the "bitrate" modes (Two passes if your PC is powerful enough) and set the Bitrate to no more than 8000. Any higher than this and your audience's equipment may not play it at all. You should be able to get 23 minutes on an ordinary (single-layer) DVD in both HD-DVD format and AVCHD format. I'm not sure about this but I don't think Pinnacle Studio 12 supports 24p. Ray

Carol, Usually you would render at 50 fps for interlaced content and 25 fps for progressive. But in PTE 50p means 50 fps progressive and 25p means 25 fps progressive so you actually can't choose whether the encode will be interlaced or progressive - it will be progressive. Your mp4 file won't be double the size but it will be larger at 50p versus 25p. But BD-R disks (even single layer) will hold enough footage for a wedding sampler that this won't be an issue for you. So again it depends on your audience. If they'll be viewing the Blu-ray disc on a standard, set-top Blu-ray player attached to a standard HD TV they won't notice any difference because the TV will refresh at 25 fps but if they have a Blu-ray player in a computer (Home Theatre PC system) they will notice a difference because their PC monitor is almost certainly refreshing at 50 fps. Even then you'd need 20/20 vision to really notice that difference. Bottom line, burn at 50p because you have nothing to lose by doing that. Also, choose 48000 for the audio sample rate - even if your audio is ripped from a CD. Ray

Carol, The real question is "where is your audience?" If they're in North America or Japan you should choose the 30p or 60p setting otherwise 25p or 50p - for now. 24p is becoming a global standard for transfer of movies shot originally on actual film (celluloid) to digital media such as Blu-ray because that is the framerate at which such films are shot (everywhere in the world), and so it best preserves the original. But very few people today have TVs or monitors that also work at 24p so until 24p TVs and monitors become more common, and because you're not transfering a film originally shot at 24p I'd recommend not using that setting. Ray

Since the topic of watermarking images comes up often here, this site has free software to do that until about midnight PST today (Saturday). http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ I haven't tried this software.

Dave, I'm not "suggesting" this - it is what happens. This is how DVDs can play back 16:9 movies. But you don't need to squash the original images. In video editing software, like Vegas Pro, this is done for you.

Daniel, Yes the file size should not grow too much. But I think VideoBuilder lets you choose any size of output.

Dave, This is covered in my HD Appendix in the guide. It is a setting in the video file that tells the player to stretch out the pixels so that their displayed width is 1.33 times what it would normally be (square pixels).