Big Kev

Early this morning I downloaded and am using version 2092/4622 and still getting the problem of sequences being classed as a virus so it would appear the problem has not gone away. John

Let me know when the nightmare is over and I can wake up!! Still watching from the sidelines at the occasionally CAPITALISED and pretty red coloured text ...... but now sadly with somewhat diminishing interest.....although for my two penneth it makes more sense, if you really want to 'unartistically' look at pretty numbers in the slide view' to have the transition between two 'slides' shown as an A/B number between those two slides that the transition relates too and the time shown above the slide the actual time on screen when it 'ain't doing nowt'! As the furry animals on the TV might say - 'simples'!!! BK The Grumpy chappie from AV News

Hi all, I have been sitting on the sidelines sadly watching the letters going red and the font increasing in size - and in my humble view the answer is simple - if he wishes to, then let Igor sort it all out or just don't promote the use of version 7. Yes, we who have been around pte for a long, long, long time know and can usually sort out ways of working with or around whatever new features are incorporated into the program. Beta testers are often useful and can flag up potential user problems... but that is all they can do. It is then up to the person designing the program to decide just how he wants the user interface and program to behave. I personally don't use or even look at the slide timings, preferring to give them all a set time....and then using the timeline and the music track to place the images and the dissolves/effects where and for how long I want. However, with respect, there has to be something wrong when the long time experts are becoming confused. So for what is a relatively unimportant problem, maybe it is time for Igor to think about stepping back to the working practices and user interface that were in place in earlier less confusing versions...and then work out how best to proceed. When we go around to clubs demonstrating pte and just how easy it is to use as I shall be doing on Thursday - the last thing I want at the back of my mind is the doubt that maybe now it isn't!!! John The older, 'less tolerant' and grumpy Editor of AV News

Thanks for the information Peter. Pictures and the citation for the award of the Dobson-Henry Medal to Igor are now on the avnews website www.avnews.org.uk

Hi Igor and all, I have noticed a problem in the beta versions of 6.5. I have a project called 'Resize'and when this is opened in PTE 6 everything is fine (picture 1) If I open it in 6.5 the images in the folder are seen rotated 90 degrees clockwise (picture 2) If I click on an image the picture in the window is also rotated (picture 3) and if I try to make the window fill the screen - the picture in the viewing window goes into lines(picture 4) and the almost immediately my rather ageing computer goes to the blue screen of death! Any ideas??? John

How about one that had been dropped onto a marble floor by it's careful owner!!!!!

Hi all, I have been reading your comments with interest - I don't seem to get the time to come onto the forum quite as often as I used too!!!! Re the Zoom H2 - I cannot comment on this machine as I took Peter's original advice published in AV News and purchased the H4. Yes it does have it's downsides - the small display being the main one - but I find that it is easy to use and set up. It works in most situations and is reasonably tollerant of different sound levels. I was using mine last Saturday recording the choir that I am in at the Menin Gate in Ypers, Belgium and, after just putting back into it's carrying bag, I managed to drop it on to the marble pavement!!! It survived without a scratch and apart from jolting out the memory card - it appears to have suffered no ill effects. So it would seem from this unexpected test that it is actually quite robust!!!!! The newer H4 has one big advantage - a bigger display! Forget all the other perks - it being able to record four tracks at once and having a speaker built in etc. These are not really that usefull - you just need a machine that you can set up easily and use with the built in microphones. I hate the sound of my own voice but when I make a recording whilst listening to myself on headphones, it really does make you start to speak 'proper'! Right now onto Davy's comments on Audacity - "I'm not knocking Audacity.It ticks a lot of boxes and biggest one is that it's free.It's a good learning tool,but having said that, it is a bit limited." Limited!!!! - it does as much if not more than Audition, it is far simpler to use, has hundreds of excellent help pages and will allow you to have tracks made with different sample rates running side by side. Just try putting a 8000hz sample rate sound effect track into Audition as the first track in a 'Session' - then try adding your superb music track or voice over done at 44,100hz in afterwards - it will not let you unless you allow them all to be downsampled to 8,000hz also. In audacity you can play tracks made with different sample rates side by side without any problems and then select your export rate for the mixdown afterwards. There is currently a new version of Audacity nearing completion to be known as version 1.4 - have a look at that -it has lots of new features and uses a new Lame mp3 encoder. John (alias Big Kev)

Looks like Colin must have now sorted his problem out....hope everyones suggestions helped. John

Hi Colin, I have seen Jill's reply and she is right in that if you are using the new beta version of Audacity then this is the most likely cause. The one thing that Audacity is very good at is that (unlike some of the other sound editing programs) it will allow you to play various tracks at various sample rates together without any problems. To resolve the problem, seeing that your track is only three minutes long might I suggest you start a new project...import the track in again....check that the timeline shows that it is three minutes or whatever long ...select the last bit that you want to remove...hit delete....and then select the last few seconds and use 'fade-out' That is most likely the quickest and easiest way of sorting this out...might be different if it was a very large multi-track...one that you had spent numerous hours doing !!!! Good Luck. John (alias BK!!!) For all the latest news and information visit the AV News website

Hi Yachtsman1, Having trouble editing in Audacity? It really is simple if you take your time....however if you are struggling than we are doing an afternoon talk partly on Audacity at the Media Museum, Bradford in November - I see you live in North Yorkshire - why not come along?

Hi Barry - that is the problem - the PAGB and the camera clubs do not have a recognised program.....the PAGB I am led to believe are are apparantly going to use Adobe Bridge. I am not asking for a database, league tables or any other sort of clever bit of kit....just an extra button or key stroke that can be pressed preferrably whilst projecting in the 'preview' mode that will attach a marker to that particular image. Then afterwards a way of calling up all the ones that have the marker - ie the best images. These extra bits would not of course need to be used in normal picture shows......as some of the items are not used now - such as 'comments' and the 'printer settings'...... The addition of this extra function might just generate a great many more registrations worldwide.

Thanks Keith - that was our second choice for running the competitions......

Hi Brian The file number for the image has the unique code - club code/section/entrynumber The entry is made on an excel spreadsheet and then accessed by a database.

Hi All - Sorry for the delay in replying....I didn't think everyone would be on the ball so quickly!!! Firstly, many thanks for all your suggestions which I will now read carefully and get some ideas from. Yes I know there are other forms of software around....but they have tended to fall into one of two categories - either they are very good at projecting the image or are of the album type - good at keeping track of the images. We have recently experimented using Adobe Bridge for a competition as it allowed the images to be 'starred' and then filtered.....all well and good but the 'slide show' part of the program was not quite so good...and surely that is the most important part. PTE is very good at projection! I am heavily involved with the AV side and provided the projector is set up correctly, the sequences shown from a great many authors, all seem to project very well. It is extremely unusual for a judge to comment adversly on a sequence because the images didn't look right. My reason for the posting was to in effect to ask Igor if it was possible for a marker facility to be added to the program and then for those marked to be called back up as described. My thought was that with so many clubs around the world all holding single image competitions - it was maybe a way of increasing his sales and the registrations of pte and making the job of the poor competition secretary easier.?????

Is it possible for PTE to be improved for use for single image competitions? I have used it for competitions successfully before by putting all the images into a folder....randomised them by dragging them in to the slide list at the bottom, arranging the project so that the right click makes the image go to the next and the left to the previous image and then projecting using 'preview'. The problem arises when the judge requires certain images holding back for viewing later - I have made a note of the file numbers of those, then at the end of the round removed all the slides from the list and then in the lightbox...double clicked on the images the judge wanted to see again and they have gone back into the slide list. This is ok when there are as small number of images and a small number of clubs. When there are more - say 1500.....finding all the images to put back in can take some time. The only thought I have had is to use two computers - one to drive the projector in preview mode....the other to have the the slide list show on......as each image comes up...all the lower marked images are deleted from the pictures on the slide list running order.....and when a high scoring image come along...the image is kept on the running order so that at the end of the run through only the highest scored ones remain for reviewing. If the marks are important then they can be typed into the 'comment window' Then the whole lot of images could be saved as a back up zip...and then transferred to the projection machine to be shown. This is all a bit messy - any other ideas??? Maybe a button can be provided in the preview mode.that when pressed will attach a marker to that image? Then all the ones with the marker can be shown and the others hidden...is that possibe???

Is it possible for PTE to be improved for use for single image competitions? I have used it for competitions successfully before by putting all the images into a folder....randomised them by dragging them in to the slide list at the bottom, arranging the project so that the right click makes the image go to the next and the left to the previous image and then projecting using 'preview'. The problem arises when the judge requires certain images holding back for viewing later - I have made a note of the file numbers of those, then at the end of the round removed all the slides from the list and then in the lightbox...double clicked on the images the judge wanted to see again and they have gone back into the slide list. This is ok when there are as small number of images and a small number of clubs. When there are more - say 1500.....finding all the images to put back in can take some time. The only thought I have had is to use two computers - one to drive the projector in preview mode....the other to have the the slide list show on......as each image comes up...all the lower marked images are deleted from the pictures on the slide list running order.....and when a high scoring image come along...the image is kept on the running order so that at the end of the run through only the highest scored ones remain for reviewing. If the marks are important then they can be typed into the 'comment window' Then the whole lot of images could be saved as a back up zip...and then transferred to the projection machine to be shown. This is all a bit messy - any other ideas??? Maybe a button can be provided in the preview mode.that when pressed will attach a marker to that image? Then all the ones with the marker can be shown and the others hidden...is that possibe???

Thanks for the reply Stu. Just to clarify the problem I am experiencing I did a little test- Firstly I made a new project using 4.48 and saved it as 'Test' I then exited the program and then went back in to 4.48 and was able to open the project without any problems....so far so good. Whilst the project was open I then used 'save as' and saved the project as 'Test2' and went to exit the program again. Before allowing me to do so, it asked if I wanted to save the original 'Test' project...and as most people would do when asked I said 'yes' and then exited the program. However when I went back into v4.48 Test2 would open but I was unable to open the 'Test' project as it had now been saved as a V5 project and 'wasn't supported'!! I could open it in V5 but then found that the 'Preview' didn't work correctly - some of the pictures didn't appear and the transitions didn't work correctly. However they seemed to be ok when viewed in the timeline window. If I am not careful then all my original 4.48 projects could become unusable if they are changed just by the act of saving on my exiting 4.48. Any ideas Stu.....or Igor?

I have do doubt that someone else will have experienced this problem but 'I have not as yet found it on the forum I have a 'project' that was created in version 4.48 and as I still have 4.48 on the computer I can open it to alter or update. However to ensure that the original remained intact I saved it with a different file name. When I had finished I made a new exe file and this it ok however when I saved the project it appears to automatically save it as a version 5 file which then cannot be opened again in 4.48. Also and more worryingly when in V5 the preview sticks on transitions although it appears ok using the timeline and the transitions are not smooth.... What am I doing wrong? Your help please

The laptop has a nvidia G Force FX 5600 but this line has occurred on my main computer also and that uses a different card. I only use one display. As my two sequences should show the line does not appear when using v4.48 only when using version 5. Hope that helps. John

Hi Igor, Is that the line that I contacted you about which flickers when the transitions take place? John

Hi Igor, (I hope it was me you were replying too regarding the line at the top of the picture.} I have investigated further and sent the exe to another machine and here the line does not show. I then went back to my laptop which is working with a resolution of 1400 x 1050 and changed the resolution and the line goes. However, with the same resolution before using the laptop and v4.48, the line wasn't there - hence I thought there was a problem. Sorry to trouble you and thanks for your help. John

Hi Igor, Thanks for the reply. It is difficult to see the line on a screen shot but it only appears at the top of the screen and is only visible when the images do not fill the picture area. The images that come from my camera without resizing are 3008 x 2000 and the blue line appears in the black area about 1mm down from the top of the screen. The line is there all the time and flickers when any transition takes place. I tried using the same pictures in v4.48 and the line is not there. It does not show up on your Pte show as the images fill the screen. Does any of that make sense? John

Hi Igor, I may have missed it but has anyone reported about a thin blue line which appears at the top of the screen and vibrates when a transition is taking place? John (Big Kev)

I don't know if there was a problem but I have downloaded it again today and it installed ok......... thanks to whoever sorted it out ....... what service!!!!

Help! I installed version 5 beta 3 without any problems. I attempted to download and install beta 4 but when I do I receive the following message: C/PROGFILES/PICTOEXE5/PTE.chm error opening file for writing. Click abort to stop installation, Retry to try again and ignore to skip file. I used abort and hence my plea for help. What have I done wrong?