Tim Z

Thanks Jeff Is that a known issue with PTE? I would have thought that you could have the transition right up to the next slide and it would work fine. Why is it that this happens? So I guess I need to go back and make sure all the transitions are more than 300ms before the next slide. t

I have distributed a few of my PTE shows to various people for viewing and comments. The majority of them have no trouble playing and viewing the shows, but a few do have trouble. On some computers, they have what they describe as a looping problem. In other words, the show will loop on a particular image and either not continue the show, or will loop for a short while and then continue. I have experienced this same looping issue on my wife's pc with .exe files that play perfectly on my pc. It appears to be something to do with the length of the transition effect in relation to the view time for the image. When I check the timeline it all appears okay, but in some cases if I reduce the transition time, then the loop problem disappears (at least on my wife's pc it does). Does anyone have an idea what causes this and hoiw it can be avoided? I was considering marketing a variety of PTE shows on CD, but if there are random playback compatability problems, then that pretty well scares me out of that idea. Thanks Tim

Thanks Al, but that is simply not possible, as this soundcard is the best there is for running a professional recording studio, which is what I do. My recording studio needs FAR outweigh any needs for PTE. While I like PTE, it would go in an instant before my soundard will. My soundcard makes me money, PTE doesn't. I did a bit more work on it last night and updated the drivers for my soundcard to the latest version. Made no difference. I have a dual boot system here, with one boot being for general pc use and the other (very lean) boot only used for my recording needs. When I go into the recording boot, the PTE.exe files work perfectly. This is with the exact same soundcard and all the same hardware. So this suggests to me that there is a new incompatability problem with something in the general boot and either PTE or my soundcard. However the soundcard works perfectly in this boot for ALL other uses except PTE. It has to be either SP2, Photoshop CS2 or the RAW file reader for CS2, as those are all I have changed from when it used to work fine. Anyway, I'll be working with Igor to resolve the issue. Thanks for the suggestions. t

Some of you may remember that my particular RME soundcard was incompatable with PTE v4.41, and that Igor created v4.42 to fix that particular problem. Everything has worked fine with v4.42 now until recently. Now I get stutters and glitches in the sound during playback of shows. It happens with both PTE shows that I created previously, as well as with a brand new show just created today. It only appears to be a problem with my PC and perhaps my particular soundcard again, as I tested the show on my wife's PC and the sound was fine. The only things I can think of that have changed on my PC are that I had to add Windows XP SP2 as it is required to run Photoshop CS2 and the RAW file viewer. So far I am stumped as to what could be causing this problem. Has anyone here got any ideas as to what I could look into that could be casuing this? Much appreciated Tim Z

I use FTP Commander at: http://www.internet-soft.com/ftpcomm.htm I have been using it for years and it works really well and is super easy to understand. And the best part is it is FREE t

As an update, YES moving the .pte file to the jpeg folder works just fine. So Ron there is a quick way to resolve this issue. I am going to redo how I store the shows and files now so that this will not happen again. Thanks JRR for suggesting that. This will save me a lot of time. Cheers t

Thanks for all the help and advice. I do have all the associated jpegs for the .pte file each in its own folder, but I did not have the actual .pte file in that folder. I suspect that is the key. Will it work if I move the .pte file to that folder now and then open the show? It was cumbersome, but I was able to redirect the images by clicking on the image and then clicking on the little file open symbol to the right of the file name and selecting the new path. However, I did have to do this for each and every image. I'll try moving the .pte file and see if that works. I works with lots of other programs (mostly music/recording) that automatically ask you to reassign the file path, and then resets the path for all files. It would be nice, and should be a simple thing to add something like this to PTE. Cheers Tim

Sorry, the title shoud read .pte file, but there is no way in this forum to edit the title. I was running out of space in the partition where I kept all of my jpeg files. So I recently moved the whole image folder to a new drive. Now when I open up a .pte file of previous shows I created, it comes up with an error window saying "pictures not found" and lists all of the images. Is there any way that I can redirect PTE to load the images from the new drive? Surely I don't have to rebuild the whole show by adding all the images again. Most programs would just ask you where to look for the files, and then load from there. Any help with resolving this would be greatly appreciated. Cheers Tim

That is similar to what happened with my system when I used v4.41. There was a conflict with my particular soundcard and also when I loaded MP3s. Have you tried v4.42? This fixed it for me. If 4.42 doesn't solve your problem, then I would email Igor with your soundcard details and see what he has to offer. He was great at resolving the problem for me. Cheers t

Like I said, I was not really sure what the cause was; so from your responses it appears not to be the sample rate. It may simply be that I have a system with three racks of really high end converters (24 channels) which are all clocked to a master clock (Lucid GenX6). My D/A converters (Benchmark DAC-1) can playback any sample rate, but my master clock does not go lower than 44.1 khz. It may be related to that. The reason I burned the MP3's to CD was that I was having no success with importing them to Samplitude where I could have changed the sample rate. Everytime I imported them, a section of the end of each song was missing. The only way I could get them into Samplitude was to get them on another storage source at 44.1 khz. Burning to CD was the easiest/quickest option. For this show (mostly pictures from the 20s, 30s & 40s) sound quality was not an issue. I wanted the music to sound "low-fi"; i.e. like it was from that era with all the cracks and pops from 78 RPM records. All I know for sure is that the preview and .exe files were all totally out of sync to what was displayed in the timeline, until I resampled the songs as one longer MP3. Just chalk it up to another PTE mystery. Al, I was not playing back via CD player. The show has nothing out of the normal with the transition lengths, etc. Basically just like any other show I have created. t

Boy that was a fast upgrade Well there ya go; it is already in there. I hadn't even used the play button before, but wish I had. Thanks for that Al

One feature I would like to see added to PTE is when in the Timeline the option to preview the show while staying in the Timeline and watching the cursor move along the Waveform. This would make it really easy to hear and see exactly where you want to place an image. With the preview there could be two choices; one to view the full sized show, and another to view the small window and a cursor along the waveform. t

I managed to fix the problem, but I'm still not positive what the cause was. It appears to have been something to do with the sample rate of the MP3's I used. I downloaded some free MP3's of music from the 1930's that had been recorded from 78 records, including the crackles and pops (which I wanted). The MP3's were done at 22 khz and may have been fooling PTE with its sync. I had to burn the MP3's to CD (i.e. 16/44.1 wave files) and then load them into Samplitude and create a new MP3 at 44.1 khz. Once I loaded the new MP3 in everything works as it should. Does PTE have problems with slower sample rates? t

I am trying to create a show for my mother-in-law's birthday tomorrow. I have the music (two MP3s) and all the images synced up. When I view the show with the little "toaster" preview or the preview in the timeline, everything syncs up nicely and works properly. However, when I use the Preview in the lower left of the the main window, or when I create a .exe file, the show does not sync up correctly with the music. It is a few seconds later than what the timeline illustrates it should be. What could possibly be causing this? There doesn't seem to be any way for me to sync the slides with the music now as the timeline preview does not play the same as the created .exe file. Could it be because I have two separate MP3's loaded? Could it be another issue with my particular soundcard? I'm stumped t

Ken, I have never heard of Nero Vision Express until you mentioned it here. So naturally I do not have it to try. SoCan I assume what you are saying is that the regular Nero Burning ROM does not work?? Regardless of whose photos I use for a PTE show, there is a significant drop in image quality from PC screen to TV. From what I gather this is currently to be expected. I'll have to look into how to utilize the HD features of my TV with the shows; although I thought it might happen automatically. However, I am not into purchasing more software for this as it is just a convenience/fun thing for me right now. It would be nice to be able to have a group of guests around the TV to view the shows, but not at the expense of such a drop in image quality. t

Thanks Ken I didn't think I had a "Lite" version of Nero. I have Nero Ultra Edition version 6.6.0.1. Regardless, after viewing through the links you sent me, it appears not worth the trouble if the image quality still suffers for TV. Until I can find a way to utilize the HDTV resolution of my TV, I will stick with .exe PC shows. Cheers t

I created some AVI files today and burned them to CD in Nero. The burning to CD process was easy to do and worked well. The show plays fine on my DVD player/writer, but the image quality is very poor compared to viewing on PC monitor. So I thought perhaps it would be better if they were burned to DVD, but when I select DVD to burn Nero says the AVI file format I created in PTE is not recognized. Does this mean that DVD movies cannot be created with Nero? Has anyone successfully created DVD's with Nero? I don't really want to have to pay extra for ULEAD just to make DVD's. On another note, besides the noticable drop in image quality, I also noticed that the images when viewed on TV screen were cropping off the sides. Is this normal when viewed on TV? I have a new 50" Sony Wega Hi Def flat screen TV.

Roger, the link works fine for me, and is MUCH faster than previously. However, it did not give me an option to "Save" or "Open' the file. Instead, it just opened up into Adobe Acrobat; which is okay as you can then save the pdf file. It was likely 100 times faster this time. t

I've been using a two monitor set-up for a few years now (hardware-video card). I agree with Bethan, dual monitor functionality would be a cool feature to add to PTE. t

Thanks for the responses. I did think of the blank slide at the beginning, but I see no reason why the program should be forcing the first slide to start at 0. It would be a nice change to allow the first slide to be positioned anywhere you choose. For now, I made a blank black slide t

Here's a slide show from various kayak trips I have been on over the years off the west coast of Vancouver Island. The show is just over 7 minutes and about 19 megs to download. Still pretty new with PTE, just wondering if this is getting better? KAYAK TRIPS Cheers t

Is there any way to set it so the first slide starts later than zero; i.e. when the music starts? In the Timeline I can drag the first slide later, but as soon as I let go it instantly goes back to the zero mark. I would like to have the option to start the first slide anywhere I choose after the music/sound starts. Thanks t

Hi Ken . . . . the answer is no! I cannot view any exe's made prior to v4.42. t

Thanks, I finally found the toast I also found that it actually does work to drag and drop a slide from one screen to another. It is very finnicky where you hold the slide to move it to the next screen, but once you find the right position, it does work. So that makes that job a bit easier. I also found how to set the time spacing between groups of images in the timeline. After selecting the group of images with shift/click, it is under Timed Points/Set Time of Points (ctrl+t) and the time spacing can be set in milliseconds. I'm surprised no one here knew this one? For audio recording, wave editing, etc. I use a program called Samplitude. I (and many others) like it better than Pro Tools. Overkill for this application, but still nice to have available. Would be nice though if you could do simple fades and location of fades within PTE. My audio programs are all in another boot on my pc, so I have to shut down PTE and reboot to do any audio editing. t

Hi Roger When I try to download the pdf file, I can only get about 2.5 kbs download speed. I have a fast cable connection that usually downloads between 100 to 300 kbs. Is there something about the site it is stored at that makes the download so slow? I cannot view the PTE101_ver2.exe on my system, so I thought this pdf file would be a good resource. Any chance you could email it to me? tzurowski@shaw.ca