Andre

Hi John,In the old days this was called "level matching" - for sound editors working in film it was something of an art, to make sure all the dialogue tracks sounded consistent from scene to scene. It's easier to do these days but it still requires attentive listening and quite a bit of practice. [You're using Cool Edit 2000? I found an old copy around here ...] A great way to learn about this is to make a test compilation. Lets say you have a variety of material you've ripped from CD onto your your HD. Use say 30 secs from 5 or more different tracks (and I mean "different"). Make a note of each track, the order etc. Trim the edges of each clip with a small fade (so the cuts are smooth) and compile the lot and save it as one file, e.g "CD_LevelTest_Compile_01". Play it back, as is. You'll probably hear wild changes in "perceived volume" even though some of the tracks might * appear * to show the same rise and fall on the meters. Interesting, eh? (Btw, use View > Vertical Scale Format > Decibels.) See if you can adjust the levels this time so that the "perceived volume" seems more consistent. Select the area you want to edit (mouse + drag). Adjust the amplitude using Transform > Amplitude > Envelope. A pop-up dialog will appear with graph and a bar whihc you just adjust with your mouse. There are a number of pre-sets you can use as well, to get you started. Switch on "spline curve". Work your way through the compile like this. Save your edit as "CD_LevelTest_Compile_02" Then listen back to your edits 1) loud 2 ) medium 3) very soft. It will be obvious what needs to come down / up. Then compare the two Compiles. Sometimes a + /- 2 dB change can make a big difference! In this balancing act, you use your ears to make the distinctions and the meters only as a reference. Also: when you listen back to your edits (say, though a good pair of headphones) look away from the screen or close your eyes - you'll hear it all so much better. Hope that helps. Andre

Ligia - Well, from my experience creating large PTE *.exe files can be convenient but can get you into trouble. I was bragging a little about "huge" - a 900 MB full screen show running off a very fast machine. The same show would be just too much for a smaller machine. You'd get flickering, dropouts etc. Maybe others here have gone to the 2 gig limit using an optimal machine. I think it's sensible to err on the side of caution - especially if you presenting off a laptop > projector. It's a bit of maths and a bit of planning - here's an example: Note: 1 MB = 1024 kb AUDIO One minute of 16bit / 44.1 kHz audio = 10.3 MB 45 mins x 10.3 MB = 474 MB of audio approx VISION A 45 min project with 2 sec transitions (average) = 30 transitions / min x 45 mins (duration) = 1350 images 1350 x 768 MB per image (average) = 1 gig approx AUDIO + VISION 474 MB + 1 gig = 1.5 gig approx In this scenario I could break the project up into 5 parts @ approx 300 MB each. Then I'd test out a 300 MB project on 2 different computers - one that screams, another that just plods along. If you don't want to sacrifice image quality but need to compact the audio files a little, then you could use 320 kbps setting when you encode your MP3s. This has a higher quality. Andre

Hi Ligia, OK, Copy Protection. Google "SONY DRM" SONY rootkit". Be aware. These CDs are OK on your player but not so good on your computer (understatement). EMI and SONY have made quite a few CDs using CP (aka DRM Software). The notice usually appears in tiny, tiny wrting. Even Catbert would do things differently! Fades. Make sure Audacity is in Stop (not Pause). Hit the "Z" key a couple times to make sure. - Select say 3 seconds in from the start of the music. - Go to the main menu bar, click on Effects and choose Fade In. - You'll see the waveform ramp up from silence to full volume, over the selected area. Now Fade Out should be pretty easy to work out ... (hint: same menu) Experiment with the Envelope function and see if you can work out how it might be different from Fade In / Fade Out. The advantage of mp3 is a reduced file size (but a somewhat reduced audio quality). Think of converting *.tiff to *.jpg. Similar deal. It could be handy for keeping the overall PTE project file size reasonable. Easier to distribute via the internet, for one. But I've made huge projects in PTE with uncompressed audio - no problem. Andre PS: Isn't life without Autorun just bliss?

Great news Ligia!Looks like you have the original CDs. Why not rip the music CDs straight into your "PTE_AudioEdit" folder (or whatever ... )? Then you can edit everything in Audacity to your heart's content. If you need a CD ripper then you could use this: CDex. Grab the *.zip version. No install required - just unzip and run from the folder. Check your CDs if they have any kind of copy protection (CP) software - it will be on a small label on the back. If so, then there * could * be way of dealing with that if I can * remember * how to do it ...(we'll get to that later ...). For your own sanity don't try and play these CP CDs on your computer. Some of them auto-install software that will crash your system. Tip: turn off "Autorun" on your CD drive - use TweakUI (you'll see the Autorun menu). It will save you the hassle of Windows scanning your CD / removable drives, firing up unwanted software and possibly installing all sorts of "merde". For any reason, you can easily turn Autorun on again later. If the CD looks OK, fire up CDex and plonk the CD in the tray. Browse to your CD Drive just rip the music from CD as *.wav, into new folder. All audio files ripped from the CD will be 16 bit / 44.1 kHz - same as your default settings in Audacity (Ctrl+P and have a look). Just so you remember. NB: Now that you have got a handle on "Music Convertor", later on you can - if you want to - convert those .wav files to another format, like mp3. Power on! Andre

OK Ligia, lets get you on the road. We'll get to your sound card after this. We're basically going to convert your wma files to wav, so they can be editied. Later on, once you have chopped, sliced and diced your audio (with fades, of course) you can convert the wavs - if you need too - back to mp3 or whatever ... but that's later. 1) Create a new folder called "PTE_AudioEdit" somewhere where you can see it on your HD. You'll will see why in a minute. 2) Copy all the audio you want to use into the "PTE_AudioEdit" folder 3) Download this freeware: dBpowerAMP Music Converter (dMC) http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm 4) Run and install dMC. If for some reason a shortcut is not created on your desktop you can find the program @ C:\Program Files\Illustrate\dBpowerAMP. The program / shortcut you need to click on is called "Music Convertor". 5) Open "MusicConverter". A dialog box will appear. Browse to the "PTE_AudioEdit" folder and select the .wma files you want to convert. We're going to convert these .wma files (which are compressed) to .wav (uncompressed) so they can edited in Audacity. Select the following: Converting to (n) File > wav 16 bit (CD) | 44.100 kHz | 2 'Stereo" CD Output to: Same Folder as Original 6) There. Now have wav versions of your audio. Open Audacity. Ctrl+O and bring the file in. Hit play! 7) In Audacity Ctrl+P gets you into preferences. Have a look at what appears on the "Audio i/o" tab for Playback / Recording. The name of your sound card will appear there. Sometimes its just the default Microsoft thingy. Lets see what happens. Good luck! Andre

Hi Ligia,FWIW, I'd recommend starting with Audacity. It all seems a bit geeky at the beginning but once you are up and running you'll find it's a lot of fun. It's free, its stable, its about 200 times smaller than Audition (which weighs in at 470 MB!) and its Open Source - all good. The first two things you need to be aware of: - the actual format of the audio files you want to use - the sound card on your computer Once you are clear about these two things, then the Manual will start to make sense. Otherwise, just keep posting those questions ... Andre

Oops .. the search engine just won't work for me (using Mozilla) I realize that PTE doesn't have a split screen function in same way that iView does (scroll down to see screen cap showing in-screen display options), but I have a hunch that someone here has cooked up a way of doing this ... just point me to the thread(s). Thanks, Andre

I love the pan and zoom! I made a test project using the beta, but the exported poject wouldn't play back. OK, I understand that the beta is not optimized for "antique" machines, but if I could play both of the test projects back with only minor jitter on upward / downward tilts, then that's curious ... Matrox G550 / ASUS P4PE 2.0 GHz / 1024 RAM Btw, the alpha blending must be set fairly high - is it something like 96 fps or upwards? Suggestions for the Objects & Animation editing console: you can use the the L & R arrow keys to jump between keypoints and Space bar to play a transition sequence .. how about ... Insert = new keypoint Space bar = play & pause Home = return to start End = end of sequence And assign various sub-menus to F keys ... Just a thought ... Anyway, looks great so far ... very easy to use, too. Andre

Thanks for the welcome. OK, I guess I'm curious about different methods of triggering individual images within a sequence. This means in any order at any time.The question is: how could you tag each image? Would MIDI be possible? Could it be done with a QWERTY keyboard? I'm going to call this capability "Live Play Mode". Let's start with MIDI. Obviously you'd build a sequence of images without sound and simply use MIDI to trigger the image event as well as the sound event. (i.e. the same MIDI info goes to a software sound module / synth / sampler etc, so you use MIDI to play both the PTE sequence and whatever sound modules you choose.). As I said, this means you could play the images live, using a MIDI controller. You’d have a lot a fexibility in how you could present the one sequence of images. That's one creative possibility. I've thought about it - it could be quite a lot of work for Igor to implement. Unless of course Igor is already familar with MIDI and can see a way of introducing a MIDI event timeline that would sit under the exisiting timeline. Or better, he might find a third party software module that he could use to translate PTE events into MIDI and vice versa. So from his perspective I'd imagine it's a matter of priorities as well as enthusiasm from PTE users. That said, a simpler option is that "Live Play Mode" could be handled on a QWERTY keyboard using the exisitng keys and a well chosen modifier (a bit more than the 40 approx events I suggested earlier). These keys I’ll call “Hot Keys”. Here is an example to illustrate. Lets say you've made a presentation about heritage architecture in Freedonia, using whatver effects - pan / zoom / overlays etc. During question time someone asks to see such and such image again. Because you've tagged each transition sequence within the presentation, you can simply hit a Hot Key and recall that image with or without the transition sequence. (i.e use Page Break to pause it, use the same key to replay it, perhaps this time with pan and zoom or whatever transition effects you have pre-programmed etc). So this might be easier. All the flags used on the PTE timeline (to trigger image advance) could be programmed as Hot Key events. All up, you can access any image on the timeline directly, performing everything from a keyboard, without the need to go to a on-screen menu. I hope this makes some sort of sense! Andre

Hi, Apologies in advance if this has been asked 50 times before - the search engine only returned error messages ... I was curious to know if there were plans to facilitate MIDI event triggers? Live inter-active example: an entire presentation could be mapped to MIDI, where individual MIDI notes could fire off different sequences of images. This would allow you to "perform" any image in any order, straight off a MIDI controller. [A variation of this live trigger mode could be mapped to a regular QWERTY keyboard, I guess. But you'd be limited to approx 40 events.] Another example would be be simply synching a MIDI track to the presentation and letting it run. Then it would be case of assigning just one note to trigger each slide advance. As I said, please point me to any previous threads if this has been hammered out before. Thanks! Andre

Hello! I've actually been using PTE for a few months now, and I've finally got around to posting. I'm using PTE for photography installations in art galleries as well as developing presentation packages for fashion & design. I wanted to say "Thank You!" for such a great program! I looked at a wide range of presentation software packages it was just amazing how nearly all of them were so thoughtlessly designed - clearly cashing in on the "digital imaging revolution". PTE has got a nice balance of simplicity and sophistication and its obviously been well coded too. Here is an example: PTE must be about the only program of its kind (that I've seen) where you can not only make a stand-alone exe. but also use the "Pause" key and the arrow keys to navigate through the presentation. I vaguely remember seeing this feature in just one other program quite a while ago... This is an obvious requirement to me - to be able to control a "live" presentation direct from the keyboard. Another is time in milliseconds. Again, its amazing how many programs don't have this basic feature. Anyway, these are just a couple of examples of how PTE has got all the essentials you need - as well as some other highlights, like the way you can so quickly edit cue points on the timeline for synchronized presentations etc. Thanks! Or should it be "Spaseba!" Andre PS: I've already thought of a few requests... I'll post them on the other thread. Amongst other things it would be excellent if you would save your presentation as a flash object - great for MAC users too!