alrobin

Igor, This is like asking "what do you want for Christmas?" My list would be: 1. Scalable (proportional) objects. Also an indication on the slide list as to which images contain objects. 2. Light ("dark") table so an external program for this isn't required. This should also be linked to the music player so that one can visualize the show in thumbnail format and still hear the background music for making appropriate rearrangements. (i.e. the slide could be highlighted when it is "on", as the music plays.) 3. Ability to view PTE parameters in a table format in order to make global changes to timing, change image folder names, etc. 4. Smoother dissolves for large images, especially from black to light images (i.e. finer "granularity" or more steps in the fade process for long dissolves.) 5. Tighter transitions - should be able to put transitions "back-to-back" instead of having to leave 1/2 sec between each one. 6. Edited: Lastly, please fix these three known bugs: (i) don't allow "Project Options" to reset customized comments unless the maker wants them reset. (ii)allow recognition of a sound file on the "Sound" line at the bottom of the main window (under the slide list) if it is in the same directory as the project files. It works in this manner everywhere else except for this particular input. (iii)problem in Win XP (pointed out recently by JRR): if you add the name of an external file to be opened by an object button, but the file does not exist yet, the pc seizes up, and nothing except an off-button or pulling the power supply cord will shake it loose. Thanks, Santa! And, I really have been good - well, most of the time, anyway! As for the other features you have already added, they are great! Just what we needed. Edit: Maybe more customization of the navigation bar would be useful, or else a choice in nav bar design (so it is less obvious on the image). Also, for use during the running of synched shows, the ability to skip ahead or back 5 or 10 slides instead of only one would be useful and would add a "fast-forward or reverse" capability. These buttons could be programmable by the maker to choose the number of increments (5, 10, etc.) these jumps should be.

Jim, I second your "thank-you", and also thank you for suggesting this and campaigning for it.

Ah, I thought so! And, thanks, Mido (and Michel), for your holiday treat! I think now I've seen everything! Imagine, PTE used for recipes! I never would have believed it, but ..... (another title might be foie "gross"! ) Thanks for doing this - I think I know now why it's so expensive! Got any more good recipes? By the way, this must be the first slide show with the new 4.20.

Lee, Try this THREAD. Also a search will lead you to other postings on the subject, one which has been discussed on the forum since day 1. Hope this helps answer your question.

Try THIS LINK.

Etienne's show, "City in Danger" is an excellent example of a social commentary using PTE. The images, music selection, and synchronization are superb. I recommend it highly, both for its AV techniques, and also for its very effective application of some interesting special effects in putting across its message. The architectural photography in the show is excellent. Etienne, would it be possible for you to give us a little more information about the show and maybe yourself, too? e.g. location, source of background music ( it almost sounds custom-made ), etc.

Thanks so much, Igor! You have been very busy! I look forward to trying out all the new features. It's so nice to have a software producer who listens to his customers!!

Hi, Marco, I think I understand now. Thanks for being so patient. My experience in Flash (not very much when it comes to using actual images), is that with large images, the zoom and pan effects have not been very smooth. But I think I may see what I have been doing wrong. Instead of using the "scale factor", I have always used two images, one normal and the other cropped, and then used a "tween" from one to the other for the zoom transition effect. Your way sounds more effective. I'll give it a try and let you know what I find out. Thanks for the info!

Hi, Mido! Congratulations on being the 1000th Forum member!!! Welcome to the best Forum in the world! I just read your profile - I think I know what you mean!!! Michel must be a lucky man! Something tells me this was all planned!?

Hi, Marco, You hit the nail on the head in your replies. I agree with you on all points. I'm not sure I understand you, though, in the above quote. Do you mean to use this as a means of comparing the two programs for smoothness? Or are you referring to a way to achieve a smoother pan or zoom? By the way, there's nothing wrong with your English - at least nothing that a nice English girlfriend wouldn't be able to fix!!! It certainly is a lot better than my French! Keep up the good work! And please entertain us with a slideshow soon based on all your travels!

Ron, Maybe I should add a comment here about my previous post. I wasn't meaning to be critical of the fantastic job done by Granot in designing the utility or of Marco for all the work he put into his demo. My main criticism has to do with Flash - it was designed many years ago, and it's slide-show capabilities haven't been improved much over the years. It was designed to be a web authoring tool, and for that it is great, albeit still limited in terms of smoothness. Granot and Marco have put it to the best use they could. I didn't think Robert's comments in the other thread were critical - merely responding to Marco's request for feedback, and indicating his own preferences for his own slide shows. And he pointed out a genuine glitch that Granot or Marco can probably respond to, and maybe even correct. I don't consider myself a "techie", but I do have high standards. However, probably not as high as a few other Forum members and PTE users. I'm looking forward to seeing your Flash-enhanced shows!

Hi, Granot, You've done a great job on this utility - I already have some applications in mind. And the utility works well and is easy to use. My involvement in this was very minimal, so all the credit goes to you and Marco (also for his great demo). My suggestions were mainly cosmetic, or to make the instructions easier to follow. I don't know how many PTE users use Flash or Swish, but maybe some enterprising types will pick up the cue and start designing some generic Flash intro files or animated effects to go with member PTE shows. Granot: maybe this is another thread for your multi-program web site??

Hi, Marco, Thanks very much for doing this. Your demo illustrates very well some of the many possibilities with Granot's Flash utility. You asked for feedback, so I'll give you my personal views on this. Approx. three years ago I was exploring the use of Flash to make slide shows (before I found PTE). While I found you can produce some really nifty graphic effects, my results in achieving smooth dissolves, and smooth movement of images on screen were very disappointing. I should explain that I was mainly interested in super-quality full-screen images with smooth fades and dissolves between images. But Flash, being primarily a small-image, web-based application, doesn't quite fit the bill. However, this new utility brings us one step closer to that goal - through PTE we have the ability to use high-quality large-screen images with excellent transitions between them, and now with the adjunct of Flash, we can incorporate some pretty impressive graphics. The pans and zooms, however, are still not quite good enough for my needs as they depend on the use of fairly highly-compressed images in order to achieve smoothness of operation. Even PTE, with all its fantastic capabilities, suffers from an inherent limitation in effecting smooth transitions, particularly where fading from dark to light images is involved. Igor has indicated that he plans to improve this capability by as much as a factor of two in the next release, which should allow PTE to dissolve smoothly between images as large as 1600 x 1200 pixels, provided one has the video and microprocessor hardware to match. Maybe Flash will also someday also improve its ability to handle larger images. Could you please explain in more detail how some of the special effects were accomplished so that we will know which effects are implemented in Flash, which ones are achieved through the special utilities, and which parts are created in PTE, itself. One limitation in using Flash overlays is the lack of a true transparency. It is great if, as you demonstrated, you have the luxury of a black or white background over which to superimpose the Flash movie, but I have an application where I would like to be able to superimpose it over an ordinary background image. However, in the situation presented in your demo, it was very effective. Thanks again for all the effort you (and Granot) put into this capability, and also the demo. I am sure that I will find a use for it, particularly in adding a new "twist" to my titles.

Here is Ron's original posting on this: Object Stabilizing

Marco & Granot, The demo that Granot sent me to try out doesn't hide the taskbar. Is this a different demo than the one Andreas is using? I have no trouble with this utility - it works great for me now that Granot has fixed up the Flash loop control. Thanks very much, both of you, for all your work in perfecting this useful utility.

There is a quirk in PTE's handling of comments at the moment. If you customize your comments in Project Options to show Slide Number, for example, and then on the main window, write in "Slide #" in front of the numeral appearing on the "Comment" line below the slide list, everything will be fine until you go into Project Options again. Now if you preview your show, the added text will have disappeared and you will be left with only the original slide numbers. There is a way to partially get around this, however. If you set up your customization the way you want in Project Options, then un-check "Set comments for all slides as" near the bottom of the "Comments" dialogue box, the original customization (i.e. Slide Number in this case) will still be there for each slide, as well as the added text, "Slide #" for each slide to which you added it. You can then add custom text at will without fear of it disappearing when you next open Project Options. The main problem with this work-around is that if you now add new slides, they will not include the customized comments, and if you re-check "Set comments....." you will lose all the extra text. Ken and I have exchanged emails with Igor on this but I don't know if he plans to fix it in future versions.

Hi, Cindy, The smoothing line really only affects the moving transitions (circles, wipes, etc.). It has no effect on the fades or cuts. So, you really have to decide whether you want a harder or softer transition, bearing in mind that the softer it is (higher smoothing line thickness), the more jerky the transition will be due to the greater amount of processor resources required. If you have the pc resources, and want a smoother transition, go for it. If not, then maybe back off to less than 40. Myself, I find that 40 (the default) meets my requirements, and yet is not too high that the transitions flicker. It's very subjective, and you really have to experiment.

Guido, Glad to see you are at least still listening in, ready to step in when we step out of line, or get stuck on some difficult audio problem. Hope you are well - at least you are keeping busy! All the best, my friend!

Ed, Welcome again to the Forum! Yes, you should resize the images. As I mentioned in another thread, I have used 1600 x 1200 images, but I had the monitor set at that res also. If your images are too close together, and/or resizing is necessary as in your case, the show will go out of sync just trying to keep up. Try a simpler show first, with smaller images, further apart, as a test of the sync, to satisfy yourself that it does work. As a rule of thumb, with a system such as yours, I would say that the max size should be no more than 1024x768, or the size of the monitor, whichever is greatest, and compressed by approx 50%. You can go higher if your pc resources will allow, but this is a good benchmark.

Hi, Ed, Welcome to the Forum! You'll find lots of people here willing to help, and also waiting to benefit from your experiences with PTE!

Just a further note on this, I just put together a show using images 1600 x 1200 pix in size, compressed at 70%, (between 300 and 700 kb in file size), with a "wav" music file of 165 Mb, played directly from the CD, and the music plays as smooth as silk! And, at the same time, I have my browser, email, system monitor, anti-virus, MS Messenger, and Windows explorer all open in the background. I should mention that another key component in this is plenty of RAM space. (I am using 768 Mb, so that helps a lot, given the enormous amount that Windoze uses up! ) The image dissolves, of course, are a bit "flickery", but I can fix that with longer dissolves, or "cuts". Igor, you have done well with this new music player!

Here are some interesting findings on relative performance between PTE shows using .mp3 vs .wav music files. Due to the vast number of different parameters involved, and the fact that the measurements were taken over a period of a few days, these results are by no means rigorously scientific. However, one can draw some interesting conclusions from them. ________________________PTE 3.80___________PTE 4.14 ________________________Wav, Mp3;_________Wav, Mp3 "exe" file size (Mb):________ 165, 28; _________165, 28 image file sizes (kb): ______ -----min: 44; max: 207; avg: 115 ---------- image size (pixels): _________ -----------800 x 600 ------------------------ music file size (Mb): ________151, 13.7; __________(same) time to load from CD (sec): ___60, 10; __________ 3, 3 frequency of reading disk: every 10, 10 __________ 1, 5 seconds avg. processor usage (%): 20 to 65, 10 to 60; 10 to 50, 10 to 50 (goes up when a transition is occurring) max. processor usage (%): ___100, 100 ; _________100, 100 (mainly at the start of the show) RAM usage (Mb):____________NA, NA; _________ 33.8, 34.0 There were no glitches in any of the 4 scenarios. Playing from the CD was equally as good as from the HD. These results indicate to me the following: 1. With the new version 4.14, there should be no significant difference in performance between the use of mp3 or wave sound files. Both require similar pc resources. 2. Any glitches from CD operation are therefore likely the result of differing CD drives. (mine is a 24X unit, so is fast enough that there is no problem in viewing shows directly from CD's. 2X units are more likely to have a problem). 3. Previous tests have indicated that the music playback requires so little in the way of pc resources, that it is not really an issue. Much more important is the size of the images, the time between transitions (very important!), and the length of transitions. "Cuts" require very little processor time. So, Sam, I beg to differ with you on your statement "Wav files are too big". Maybe for certain CD players, but not in general. Peggy, be sure you are using the latest version of PTE - it can make quite a difference. And, Stu, my experience with PTE has shown that, in general, the time between transitions has more impact on the sound quality than the size of the images, themselves. Bear in mind that these results are based on only one pc, with one particular operating system, and with one particular set of slides and music. It would be interesting to hear about other peoples' findings, too.

Well, I have no idea where it came from but my PS 7 does handle icon files. Maybe I got an enhanced version the last time I upgraded!? So, to be sure, I loaded PS7 onto my laptop, and sure enough, no icon files!! A plugin for Photoshop is available HERE, apparently.

Hi, Alan, Thanks for the kind words! It's unfortunate that one cannot cover all topics important to AV creation in one tutorial without making it overly large, and therefore difficult to use. Maybe we need one devoted to sound and music aspects, alone. To answer your questions, you don't need to convert all files to the same type in order to mix down in Cool Edit. You can convert to mp3 at the end, after you done your editing, and after you have mixed down to one track. This way you can make adjustments to each track (e.g. voice over) independently, in the format in which they were created. It is best to do this in an uncompressed format, and then mix down and compress to an mp3, or other, file. Voice is very tricky, and very subjective. As you probably noticed, my voice is not as young as it used to be, either, and I had to make some modifications to it in Audition (Cool Edit) just to make it usable for the tutorial. Age really doesn't have a lot to do with it, however. You really have to try it out, speaking as distinctly and clearly as possible, into a good microphone, and then maybe get somebody to listen to it and give you their opinion. You can also adjust the frequency response to cut out any raspiness, and emphasize the treble or bass, etc. (See Oleg's excellent detailed instructions on sound editing elsewhere on the Forum). I get my wife to listen to my voice-overs, as I know I'll get an honest answer! Good luck!

Ron, Try something else first. Click on "File / Open" and see if you have an "ico" file option there. If so, then you must also have the "File / Save as" ico option. If not, then there must be something missing in your version of Photoshop. I'll list all the steps for creating once more, just in case you are missing something. Open the image (either tiff or jpeg), and resize it to 32 x 32. Choose "Image / Mode / Indexed colour", and make sure that "256 colours" is selected. Click OK. Now, Choose "File / Save as", and you should see the "Windows Icon (*.ico)" option at the bottom of the window, just below the "TIFF" option. By the way, you don't have to change the image to "Indexed Mode" and 252 colours in order to see the "save as Icon" option - just to make it compatible with PTE.