walusa

Thanks Ken. I put two and two together given what both you and Xaver explained. Here is what worked: I dragged the PTE desktop icon into the same folder that contains the pictures. I then tested it to be sure it would still start the slideshow. I then dragged that folder and the audio folder into a separate folder. I went into the picture folder, started PTE using the icon stored there and saved it with a different name to the folder created to hold both picture and audio folders. Now I have a separate PTE icon that I can see outside the two folders containing all the files. I can now move the slideshow off the Desktop to a safe place. To clean things up, I went into the picture folder and deleted the PTE icon stored there since it is not needed and will insure that I will not be using two different icons to edit the slideshow in the future. Many thanks to you both for steering me in the right direction. Walusa Tampa, Florida

Thanks for your respose Xaver. Perhaps I am still missing something. This is what I have done: Made a new folder on Desktop. Drag folder containing picture files into it. Likewise the folder with the audio files. Finally, dragged the PTE shortcut icon into the folder. Thus, everything is in the same folder, which I assume means the same directory. If I now double click the PTE icon, I get the error message that the files can not be found. Thus, I cannot start the slideshow. If I drag everything back out to the desktop, everything works as before. It seems like once PTE sets up original paths to pictures and audio, they can't be easily changed. Am I missing something? Walusa Tampa, Florida

For convenience, on the Desktop I created a narrated slideshow using 50 pictures in one folder and 50 sound clips in another. All went well after the sound clips were merged and a EXE file was created. However, I would like to move the two folders and the PTE file to a separate folder off the Desktop. Unfortunately, PTE will not run after moving the folders. I get an error staing it cannot find the files. I need to keep the slideshow to edit it in the future. How can I move the folders off the Desktop without having to re-create the slideshow? Would greatly apprciate your help.

I have noticed that on wide screens, especially laptops, my slideshows are distorted. The pictures are wider and squatter than normal. Also, the object buttons I placed on a slide do not line up as they do on a standard screen. I use the standard resolution of 600x800 for all my slides which play well on the standard 4:3 aspect ratio screens. But I realize that the standards are changing and the world seems to be going to the 16:9 aspect ratio. Has anyone figured out how to create a 4:3 slideshow for playing back on the newer screens? What resolution settings should I use and what settings should the person viewing the slideshow use to minimize distortion?

"Important, please, before, choice the default parameters (PTE DVD) to peprare the file .avi. If you are sure that your file MP3 is OK, use only NeroVisionExpress to encode and burn right the DVD. Then, after, tell us if the problem is the same. Thanks." Michael: After returning from vacation, I did as you suggest above. I used the defaults in PTE to make an AVI and burned it to a DVD directly using DVD-Video and NeroVision Express SE in Nero 6.6, without using Image Recorder. The result was not changed. Sound on the background music was still distorted. The distortion sounded raspy in places and was especially noticeable on one of the songs. I then replaced the worst song with a clean MP3 copy. It sounded fine on PTE. I made a new AVI and burned another DVD directly after selecting DolbyDigital (AC-3) under Video Options in Nero, rather than LPCM. The sound quality seemed to be improved. Next, I burned the same AVI file to Image Recorder and made a DVD from that. The quality was about the same as the direct DVD. I now suspect that the sound quality has more to do with the quality of the MP3 than with PTE or Nero. Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with the whole audio field of MP3, LPCM or Dolby Digital AC-3, so I have no clear idea how one or the other should be applied or what kind of problems can be expected in a given situation. I suppose the various audio and video compressions involved will ultimately result in reduced quality of the finished DVD that I will have to live with. At some time in the future I will try using a different audio format such as .wav, although I do not look forward to more trial and error techniques, which take too long. Hopefully, as time goes on, a simple standard will emerge that will give a good result in most cases. Walusa

Michael, I will try what you suggest when I return in early December. Thanks for your help.

Thanks for your input. I have not burned directly to a DVD disc because the Nero Image Recorder is a virtual DVD on the hard drive. I will try making the DVD directly at the price of 2 hours. As for the codec, it is the MPEG-2 codec that Nero bundles with the retail package of Nero 6 Ultra. My original Nero was on an OEM disc that came with my DVD drive. The OEM version does not include the MPEG-2 license so it must be purchased separately. I was not able to burn a DVD without the MPEG-2 codec plug-in installed.

I use Nero 6 Vision Express with a downloaded MPEG-2 codec from the Nero website (at added cost of $25) to make a DVD using the AVI file created by PTE. I use MP3 format for music. I create the the DVD using Nero's Image Recorder, which makes a video image file with .NRG extention (in about 90 minutes for a 300 slide show). This approach allows me to make additional DVD copies as needed very quickly (in about 5 minutes) using Nero. The PTE slideshow plays great, as usual, on my PC. Music sounds great. I can play the NRG video image file using Windows Media Player 10 (even though it tells me the file is not recognized...Just hit Play anyway). It looks great and the music sounds great. However, when I play the DVD in a player connected to my TV or when I play it using my PC's DVD drive, the music sounds very tinny and scratchy, like an old 78 RPM recording. I have a modern Sony TV which plays MP3 recordings and movies with flawless sound quality. Now my question is: You say you selected LPCM and then switched to Dolby 2.0 when you burned your AVI file with Nero and improved sound quality. Can you elaborate on how you do this? My suspicion is that Nero fouls up the audio in the MPEG-2 multiplexing process some where. The picture quality is not Hi Def, but reasonably good in contrast to the sound, which is awful. If anyone else reading this has experienced poor MP3 sound quality on PTE slideshow DVDs created by Nero I would appreciate hearing from you also.

What is the purpose of the Sharpness Filter? The check box appears on the Making of AVI Video File dialog. Under what conditions should the box be checked?

Itdedorc: Your suggestion to use the "Show TV Safe Zone" worked great. I had to change the Offset from the default 5 setting to about 40 just to get the text above the bottom of the TV safe zone. Many thanks!

Itdedorc: Thanks for the suggestion, I will certainly try it. Incidentally, when I play the DVD using Windows Media Player, the comments appear but reduced in size. The only place they don't show up is when I run it on TV. I hope your suggestion solves this problem.

Tim, For what it's worth at this late date, I recently bought a DVD burner that came with an OEM version of Nero Suite which includes Nero Ultra 6 and a bunch of other programs for doing things most of us have software to do already. The only programs you will need to load to burn a DVD are the basic Ultra 6/Nero Express package AND Nero Vision Express. This will qualify your system to download the Nero DVD-Video Plug-in available for $25 from nero.com > Programs > Plug-ins. After payment is confirmed, what you get is an email containing a 20-number license key to release the software already installed in your Vision Express software. You open the Nero Product Center (an icon on the Start Smart screen) to get to the place to enter it. After these preliminaries, I was able to burn a DVD from a PTE AVI file without a problem and the quality as displayed on my 32" Sony WEGA TV was outstanding. However, titles were absent (the subject of another forum item). It is interesting to note that this week (8/2/05), Nero Ultra 6 retail version, which includes the DVD-Video plug-in, is selling in outlets for $39 after rebates. This is the less-hassle route to take if you need to get a copy.

I am using OEM version of Nero Ultra 6.6 with Vision Express and Nero DVD-Video Plug-in to burn DVDs. DVD-Rs are created very smoothly using the AVI file created by PTE. However, all of the custom comments (Titles) that appear at the bottom of each slide (my option) when the P2E show is run on a PC, have completely disappeared when the DVD version is shown on TV. I hate to think of having to write a title on every image. Is there any way to set up PTE to assure the comments/titles are included in the DVD? Added note: To check quality differences, before making a DVD I made an SVCD using AVI files made from the same slideshow. While the quality of the SVCD was reasonably good, the DVD version was much better. However, the SVCD version correctly displays all the comments/titles on the TV whereas, the DVD version does not. In setting up PTE for the AVI, I selected "SVCD disc" from the Video pop-up and for the DVD I selected "DVD-Video disc"

No specific suggestions for Visual objects but I like a variation of AlRobin's #2 item listed in his "while you are at it" suggestions: <#2: ability to input a slide number to advance or go back to, as part of the nav bar.> I would like to see a "last slide icon" or a "menu icon" in the nav bar that would take me to a slide I could set up as a menu of objects to jump to other slideshows. It would work like the Home icon except it would jump to the last slide in the show.

Many thanks! I set up the object button links in the prescribed manner (path included) then I made a CD of just the exe files and nothing else. I put them all in the root of the CD along with the autorun file and it played perfectly on a different PC. At least that part of my obligation to my computer-literate classmates is complete. I will now undertake (dad word at my age) the task of making a DVD or SVCD to play on a TV set for my computer-illiterate classmates. Given the complexity of such a task, I may not survive it. Anyway, thanks for your help and... as a famous WWII general once remarked, I shall return!

Thanks for the feedback. Are you able to run your shows on a different PC? I have a CD set up with the Welcome.exe and Introduction.exe and associated image and music files in the root with the two separate subfolders containing about 70 slides each with their associated .pte, .exe, and music files. That is what does not work on different PCs. Are you suggesting I should copy all these files to the root, eliminating subfolders? I have already tried saving just the exe files from the subfolders to the root and they will play OK on this PC if I browse to access the exe file for the Object button. They will not play if I just type the exe filename into the object action field. I have not created another CD using any options other than the original one and, frankly, I have made so many different iterations that I am reluctant to experiment. I would just like to know what I can do to assure that once I burn a CD, it will run correctly on other PCs. (PS, this is for my 55th high school class reunion. There are not too many classmates left who can psych out anything at this stage, including yours truly.)

I am making a 4-part show. Each part ends with a slide with object buttons to select other parts. All 4 parts are in one master folder with 2 parts contained in separate subfolders. The two parts not in a subfolder are the opening "Welcome.exe" slide and "Introduction.exe". The introduction ends with a selection slide (last slide stayes on screen) so that another part can be selected, including the two parts in subfolders "ClassA.exe" and "ClassB.exe". These also end with a selection slide which stays on screen until an action button is clicked. On the Objects slide, I use the action "Run application and exit" and then browse to the exe file desired for that button. This sets up a path to the exe file on THIS PC, but I do not know how that path is reconciled on a different PC. All buttons work perfectly on the PC I use to create the show. However, when I make a CD copy of the contents of the master folder and run the CD on a different PC (PTE NOT installed), the CD opens (Autoruns) to the Welcome slide and the Introduction show can be selected, but the ClassA.exe and ClassB.exe shows in the subfolders do not start. Instead the Introduction.pte file is displayed. It appears that the button just results in exiting rather than activating the desired exe file. I have tried various things (saving the ClassA.exe and ClassB.exe files to the Master and selecting just the exe file without browsing to pick up the path). Nothing seems to work logically. At this point I am at a loss to figure out how to set up the customize links to get the show selections to work from a CD copy on a different PC. I do not use "Run application or open file" because the this accumulates previous selections requiring multiple selections to exit. However, I am not certain what the "exit" does in "Run application and exit". Does it mean "Run the selected application and exit the old" or "Run the selected application and exit when finished" ? Anybody know for sure? I would appreciate any info on how best to set up a selectable 4-part show to assure that a CD copy will run on a different PC.