alrobin

Maureen, You have done an admirable job of trying to help this "novice" out, but it is obvious he is not interested in either becoming more proficient in PTE, or helping others on the forum. When you made your initial offer, I was quite interested to see whether he would take you up on it, or whether he was just a "troll" and primarily interested in causing unrest. When push came to shove, it appears he decided to back off. At least this one has had the "grace" to withdraw before stirring up any more controversy.

No, I was thinking of a newly-engaged old couple (they fall in love too sometimes) - it would add a counter-point to the show, and a little touch of warm humour at the end. No?

Igor, I vote for #1 also. 1024x768 should be good for the maximum number of instances. However, the objects can always be re-sized and re-positioned by the user if this is not the case. What about "windowed mode" - will objects still retain their relative sizes and positions for all screen resolutions in this mode?

Lin, I find I need a boot these days to get me going again, too.

Cal, Did they actually get cut off? Or resized so that there were black bars ("letter-boxing") at the top and bottom? If you are viewing an a TV set, you can expect some cutoff - if viewing on the pc monitor, they should just appear resized with black bars where the image won't quite fit the monitor (without distorting the image). It would be great if you could include a photo of the screen showing the results.

Cindy, Beautiful portrait photos as usual! You have a real knack for natural-looking poses! Makes me wish I were that young again! As I was watching the show, it suddenly occurred to me that you are missing one pose, which could serve as the ending - a couple of 90-yr-olds going down the road into the sunset holding hands. But I do love your work! p.s. no popups or viruses here, either.

Not true! We were all "absolute beginners" at one time! Something not quite right with this logic! I wonder how the "experts" learned the system. As has been pointed out many times, the new software, v.5, is still in its "beta" development stage, and so cannot be expected to contain any help or documentation files. However, we are so fortunate in having a developer who is willing to release the program to us at this stage so that the more-experienced aficionados of the program can "have a go at it", and help in the production of a superior, working product. And we are also fortunate in having so many experienced members willing to devote time in bringing the newcomers like yourself up to speed, even though this level of assistance is not normally available at this stage of development in a software product. There is no need to be insulting! - the Forum is full of examples of assistance to the most inexperienced of newcomers, and many of the more-experienced members have devoted many hours in producing helpful tutorials and documentation on how they have produced various effects with the new v.5 betas.

Yes, JP uses that in his Photo Album demo, but it takes two sets of rotating rectangles or squares, each one rotating in opposite directions. I can't describe it very well here - you will have to download the demo and study it to see how it is done.

John, I can think of one use for this: If you remove the image from the slide list, then the image that will show on the slide list is the one which takes over the "main slide" role. However, it is handy to retain a definitive slide as the main image in order to help remember what that slide is all about. This is one way to do this (and I think Igor has already used this method in one of his demos). There have been several grids designed which can be temporarily imported into O&A to help line up objects, etc. (a search of the Forum should lead you to past discussion on these - a couple of transparent grids are located on my own website at: http://www.alrobinson.com/shows.htm .) Your suggestions for more options on the O&A menu are well taken - any aids which would help in lining things up would be valuable. However, taking notes is essential in setting up a complex action. JP and I, and possibly others, use spreadsheets in setting up PTE productions. These can be invaluable, as they also allow for complex calculations on where different objects, etc., should be placed.

I, too have Pinnacle Studio 10 Plus (v 10.7), and have not been able to burn a PTE-produced avi, either. I could with Studio 8, but only one show at a time. Had to create separate "free-standing" custom avi's and then import them to Studio 8. Pinnacle "Studio" (now Avid "Studio") has a history of being very "finnicky" when it comes to interfacing with PTE.

Lin, That's great news - hope you get a positive bill of health from the doctor!

Lin, what do you call that season out west when the snow stops, and the ice starts melting? (just kidding! ) Great wildlife shots, and very convincing snow! Welcome back!

Cal, Welcome to the Forum! This may seem like a dumb question but are you using wide-screen images? What resolution? What aspect ratio have you selected in PTE Project Options / Screen? Have you checked 16:9 in Video Builder, and if so, does the menu screen look OK in the DVD? Apparently, the video file size is independent of the size of the images and I'm not sure if quality has any impact or not. You might want to do an experiment to find out. You could try just saving the video files to the HD, and check the size of the folders and images.

Are you using PTE v.5 or 4.48?

John, You have hit on something I hadn't realized before - if you delete the main image in O&A, the image does indeed persist on the slide list, and there is now no main image identified in O&A. It's counter-intuitive, and doesn't really adversely affect anything, and perhaps this little gem can be useful someday in creating a work-around for a special effect of some kind!! Keep it in your bag of tricks! As Ragnar and Dom have replied, this is correct. I agree with Dom that it would be very nice, as in PS, to be able to click on a little "eye" and make the object transparent in O&A, but not in the actual show.

Max, JP used a similar technique in his photo album template. Lin also used this technique to rotate a coin or medallion not long after the first v.5 beta was released. You simulate it by squeezing the image horizontally by holding down the shift key while dragging the selection markers on the side or sides of the image toward each other. This retains the image height, while reducing its width until it is just a line. Then you reverse the process with another image so that it looks like one flips over to the other. Or, if you want a more accurate setting, you can de-select the little box between the two numbers in O&A / Animation / Zoom, and then type in a different number in the first "Zoom" text-box.

Mike, I suspect this is using one of the standard transition effects available in version 4, called "Curling of Page / Rolling up from right". JP, Very classy! I like the selection of the background, and the frame around the photos.

I guess you could look at it that way, although the ability to choose slides from a file list was always available, too, but not from thumbnails or a light-table as is now possible. This feature is available now for pulling together the slide list. The light table can be used to move slides around, and view each in context with others around it. slides can also be dragged and dropped into the slide list from the light table. However, each slide added is treated as a fresh slide, with no existing functions added, except for the ones automatically applied through "Project Options". In my experience, once the slide list has been initially set up in this manner, replacing a slide is usually done with the knowledge of which particular one is required. However, even here, with the features available in Windows XP, it is possible now to actually view the potential selections in thumbnail form in choosing a slide to replace one already set up and customized on the slide list.

Are you referring to the screen tab in project options? The way you did it is better for a demo, as one can readily tell which slides the different flower photos are associated with. If "Fond" were the main image, they would all look the same in the slide list.

I agree that the precise image size or aspect ratio doesn't seem to matter - the codecs seem to be able to accommodate most image sizes and ratios and adapt them to the output required. I don't have much experience with different codecs myself; like Ken, I find the ones which are the default in PTE work pretty well. I find the one in Video Builder to be excellent too. But I've heard that the ones used in the movie industry cost many thousands of dollars. Of course most of them involve a combination of custom-designed hardware and software. Working with images and adapting them for viewing through dvd players and on tv sets is a real science involving resizing, complex compression algorithms, different size pixels, creating and stuffing additional in-between images to make a smooth effect, and adapting the result for playback on a multitude of different players and tv sets involving many different design standards and technologies. It's a real wonder that the process works as well as it does!

Or you could simply replace the image "Fond" with any one of your choosing in the folder used for the images for the show, keep the name "Fond", and it will automatically be replaced throughout the project, whether it is the "main image" or one of the "objects".

John, Welcome to the Forum! Dom has given you a good explanation for replacing an image in O&A. You can also do the same in the main window of PTE (even in version 4.48). When you click on an image in the slide list, the pathname for that image shows up on the line entitled "Show image". If you click on the "browse" button to the right of this, you can browse to the image you want, and simply select it, and it will replace the one already there.

Jean, The file size in PTE doesn't seem to matter as long as it is larger than the size used in the DVD rendering process, as the latter resizes the images anyway, in order to produce the video file. Typically this size is 720x480 in the N. American NTSC system. For PAL it's 720x576. It could be different for different codecs, depending on the intended use. Here are some articles which will give you a feel for some of the issues involved, even if, like me, you don't completely understand them: http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3...371.TLiXgtBIWZm@ http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75079 http://www.creativecow.net/articles/gerard.../pixel_madness/ http://dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html As you can see, a lot of things are happening in the "codecs" used to render and burn DVD's, so it is difficult, without extensive experimenting, to really know what sizes are best to use. Different codecs can give different results, too. Ralph the "Hawk" seems to prefer large image sizes (e.g. 1920x1080 for wide-screen DVD's), but I, personally, am not convinced that this really makes any difference to the quality of the resulting video as so much depends on the original image quality, the quality of the method used for sharpening, how the images are resized, the quality of the codec, how the DVD will be viewed, etc., etc. The main concern is to use original images which approximately match the aspect ratio at which you are going to view them, and to set the appropriate ratio in PTE and in Video Builder before you burn the DVD. However, even wide-screen videos can be viewed on standard 4:3 TV sets, but you will have to accept some "letter-boxing. Also, if your images don't perfectly match the video aspect ratio chosen, they will be adjusted in the final video through "letter-boxing" (the use of dark borders on either the top and bottom, or sides, or both.) You can use a 4:3 ratio in VB, too, if you don't want a wide-screen menu. In my case, my widescreen images are 15:9 (to match my projector), so I use that ratio in PTE Proj. Options and VB, and accept a slight letter-boxed result in the resulting 16:9 video.

JP, Thanks for all your work in setting this up! Very clever, and very well done! I see now why the image moves slightly in relation to the frame - maybe Igor will design a "perspective" capability for us in PTE O&A, after the present design work is complete??? I agree with Dom; it would be possible to copy all of the sub-objects, paste them onto the background, and then delete the old ones, thus freeing up the existing background image, but this would be quite tedious to do for each of the slides, and then have everything line up properly afterward.

Igor, That's quite impressive!