Flying Scotsman

Hi Guys, Reference to some points about using music for public performances. In UK you need to be very careful with music etc. which has royalties, copyright etc. If you give a public performance you need a licence and whether the audience is paying or not, is neither here nor there. The question is, what is a `public` performance? I have given AV shows to railway and photographic societies for many years and although these are clubs with a membership (paying or not) it still constitutes a public performance as membership is usually open to members of the public. So I treat them as such and I can rest easy. A few years ago I was spot-checked to see if I had a licence at a railway club annual public exhibition where I was doing AVs - I did! The organisation in the UK which deals with licensing is The Institute of Amateur Cinephotographers (IAC): http://www.fvi.org.uk/. They have a licensing pack especially for AV and amateur cine & video makers which costs about £40.00 per annum (which is good value) and they are most helpful and will give you very good advice. They also have a well-produced, glossy, quarterly magazine which you get free! Another example: If a video is taken of a wedding in a church when the hymns, songs. etc. are recorded, permission needs to be sought from the church and if they do not have copyright clearance, that is a problem - which is why many churches have clearance from the relative church authority. The same could apply to someone who takes stills and records the music to make an AV sequence of the wedding. Anyway forwarned is forearmed. Having knowledge of the problem means you can easily manage it and have peace of mind - like I do.

Hi everyone. Thanks so far for all the tips and advice. Will give them a try and see what happens. Comment made about not the best way to start a show - I agree, but in this particular circumstance it`s what is required so I`ll have to live with it! I`ll keep you all posted. Flying Scotsman - (a most remarkable steam locomotive)!

Hi everyone, About to do my first show with synch music at a railway club exhibition (sad). I have just found a problem. I would like to be able to have a slide showing on the screen as people wander in to sit down and when all are seated, I would then like to start the music synched show. P2E does not seem to allow this to happen which means having the working window on the computer and having the projector either switched off or the lens cap on - not very professional. One solution seems to be to have a music file which is silent running the first slide for a time - but that means I have no control as to when the show itslef will start. Can anyone help? Situation needs to be resolved within the next few days. Flying Scotsman

Hi Alrobin, How are things in Ottawa? Thank you for your reply on the pixellation problem. I`ll try what you suggest, But when I view my slides I view them in their unaltered state downloaded from the camera as jpegs and fine resolution. As I mentioned, if I view the same slide withe Google`s Picasa and with Smoothshow - the problem simply isn`t there. So, it appears to be PXE problem. Others have suggested reducing the file size in Adobe which I have tried and this certainly gets rid of the problem, but picture quality and reolution deteriorates - which, quite frankly, I don`t want. Although I have mentioned the problem being pronounced when I project, it is there on my computer monitor. Simply, the impression I get is that PXE needs to be upgraded to enable it to cope with large picture files much better and I would guess that as more people buy better resolution projectors and cameras which produce such files the problem will become more apparent. Apart from this little problem, I think PXE is very good indeed as an audio-visual tool and I will stick with ir in the hope that ............ Very best wishes and thank you for taking the time to reply to me. FS

Hi Davegee, Thank you for your reply. I have tried, as previously suggested, reducing picure size in Adobe - it works as far as the pixellation is concerned, by the picture quality goes down. Although I have said that when projected the pixellation is very noticeable on my new XGA projector, it is also noticeable on my computer monitor. Picasa from Google and Smoothshow do not have this problem when I view/show the same slides at full picture file size. I have checked all the resolutions of my computer and projector and they are OK. Simply, as far as I can see, the PXE software needs to be uprated (or whatever). As I have explained before, I am a railway photographer and with railway lines, power lines etc. this is a problem. ANyway, thank you for taking the time to reply to me - it`s greatly appreciated. FS

Sorry to raise this point again, but I hope Igor is giving this some thought - problem is pixellation with large picture files (e.g. from my Nikon D70). I downloaded Picasa from Google today and the pixellation is virtually non-existent. Hopefully, if Picasa can solve the problem, you will be able to. The reason I`m bringing this up again, is that I have just taken delivery of an Optima DLP projector with XGA native resolution and the pixellation is even more obvious. I know that reducing the file size in Adobe reduces the problem, but picture quality is reduced slightly. Or perhaps you already have the solution? Keep up the good work - PXE is very good indeed!

From Flying Scotsman Suggestions for next version of pics. I am a new member but with over 25 years doing AV the "heritage way" and am very keen to go digital. 1. When in the timeline, can you fix it to show added titles in the view box. When I`m moving from one picture to the next but holding the title I have to remember which slide is which. 2. Clearly, Pics to EXE needs to be enabled to handle pictures in Jpeg 2.0 megabytes and larger. I do railway photography and railway tracks, overhead wiring is seriously pixellated and the onyl way I have been advised through the forum is to reduce the file size in Photoshop - but this reduces picture definition. SmoothShow is infinitely (yes, infinitely) better. My camera is a Nikon D70 and it produces picture files in excess of 3.0.meg. My computer is a SOny Vaio laptop Model PCG K315M with Pentium 4 processor and ATI Radeon graphics.

From Flying Scotsman - re pixellation - the saga continues........ With much experimentation and the clues from contributors to this forum, I am on to one cure of the pixellation problem, which was really quite serious. So here is what I`ve found and I hope this will be of help to other members who may encounter the same problem. As someone suggested, the picture file sizes created by the Nikon D70 are too large (2.5Mb+). I have tried reducing the resolution and hence the picture file size by using Photoshop and reducing from 2.5Mb+ to around 1.0Mb improves the pixellation and is now acceptable when projected, but it is still short of the standard of SmoothShow. Question is, does Picturestoexe have a hidden feature for doing what I had to do with Photoshop? THE BIG BUT: When experimenting, I tried loading the Nikon picture without the “Adobe treatment” in the “object editor” and when I did so, setting the resolution to 2048x1536, I got the full picture which was absolutely perfect!!! No pixellation whatsoever. This seems to be the real answer, but, when selecting OK, it causes only part of the picture to show when running the project. Then further experimentation revealed that if I when loaded a reduced file sized picture (done by Adobe – see above) into the object editor, more of the picture appeared on the show – but although the pixellation was solved, the picture was not as sharp – seems there`s no such thing as a free lunch after all! But, I`ll now try a 1 or 2 sharpen as someone has suggested. I noticed in the object editor that there is a percentage reading in the menu bar over which there seems to be no control – or is there? Meanwhile, thanks to everyone who has so far contributed. All very helpful.

From Flying Scotsman. Thanks for comments so far. I`m using Jpeg files at 2.0Mb minimum from my Nikon D70 and have tried adjusting the image size in "object editor" to all sizes and regardless of the size selected it doesn`t make any difference. Am I doing something wrong? Also, I notice I can only run my show using the "preview" button. Is this right or is there a "run show" button which, for the life of me, I can`t find. Regards to all who have offered ideas so far.

I am a new member, and when comparing `Pictures` to SmoothShow I noticed there was some pixellation in `Pictures` wheras with the same picture, there was none with SmoothShow. Is there a way of reducing pixellation or is Winsoft working on it? I do a lot of railway pictures and the pixellation is noticeable with thin features such as power lines. Camera is Nikon D70 used on Fine and Large settings. Becsue of this I would have gone for SmoothShow, but it is not so user-friendly, and the dissolves are erratic to say the least. So `Pictures` won. Any comments anyone?