JRR

Ray: Nicely done. (BTW, I am on a cable connection and it downloaded in 90 seconds) Ran very smoothly on my not too new PC.

Allan: (My reply - typed while they were posting theirs !! - is in-line with Ed's and Dave's, but has a few other thoughts) This topic has come up in the past under various guises. It always generates various answers. You don't really want to re-do your various shows for specific resolutions of someone else's equipment. You only want to do them once. I would opt for a image size that is on the larger size (see below). If the shows are run on projectors or monitors with smaller resolution, the shows will still run fine. If you happen upon a projector with a larger resolution, you will still be OK. You have the option when setting up your show of fixing the "screen" size (PROJECT OPTIONS>SCREEN>FIXED SIZE OF SLIDE) you can leave that off and your images will be enlarged to the projector's max, or you can fix it to the actual image size in which case there will be a black area left around your image. (or move the projector farther to the screen and throw the black margin off the screen ) Personally, I get overly concerned (some would say needlessly paranoid )about not having control of my image projected quality if I allow it to go larger so I fix the size. But having said that I have some older shows that I have re-compiled and allow them to be enlarged on the fly. They work fine. Currently, I make my image resolution so as to generate an exe file that will be less than 100mb for a 6-10 minute show (less then 100mb makes it easy to transfer around, allows for excellent files of both image quality and sound. But there is nothing magical about that 100mb.) I choose to use 1280x960 as that is the size of my monitor and allows me to meet the 100mb file size. I have over the years moved from 800x600, to 1024x768 and now 1280x960. (Obviously unlike others I am not looking at HD and going 1920x1080) The 1280x960 is a larger resolution than my projector (1024x768), smaller than our photo club's projector (1400x1050). (My main audiences see the shows via my projector and not at my photo club) Of course the resolution is only a partial factor of the file size for an image, the quality or compression factor plays a large part. There have been several threads on this issue as well with the feelings running from quality 5 to 8. Me ? I tend to ignore the quality and just aim at 500kb file size. Is that rational? Maybe not, but that is what I have developed as my work flow. I could change it and likely argue for different numbers. xxxxxxx By the way, 1280x960 is not the standard ratio of my images from the camera, I have to crop all mine. Which can be a large pain, but I still do it for various reasons.

Andrew: I just noticed something else strange with your file. The screen print attached says the file is 1920x1080 and yet only 58kb ?!?!?!?! What file size does the file show in EXPLORE ? Surely it is bigger than 58kb unless it is one solid colour I just did a test in PhotoShop and a one colour image (plain white or black) at quality 6 is 58kb.

Andrew: Post the zip back up file for it. I tried it with one 474kb slide and I am showing 834kb for the exe. The compiled exe file was 914kb Are you sure there is no music attached anywhere?

Nix: You ask about PDF's of Lin's tutorials, I know you are used to getting Ed's and Mine at the Photo Club, but I find Lin's "movies" quite helpful and better that our PDFs. They run in Windows Media Player, I watch them all the way through then I open PTE and re-run Lin's show, pausing it while I go to PTE and try to replicate what he just showed. I go back and forth between the two while working through his demo. You can always drag the control point on the avi back a little to watch something again if you are having trouble understanding something.

You don't have to attach the sound to the first slide to get it to work. It will work that way yes, but it is more normal to do it the way you did before, through PROJECT OPTIONS>MUSIC You can go with "Hey its working, so lets not fix what is not broken" or maybe sometime with a new project, try it through PROJECT OPTIONS again

Nettleton: I have had PTE do some strange things to me at times. Particulary when I have been using it in conjunction with PhotoShop, but not always with PhotoShop. Sometimes the computer just seems to get "tired" and interferes with things I have been fortunate that a fresh re-boot of the computer solves the problem. I shut down, and turn off the switch on the back of my computer box. After about 30 seconds, I flip on the switch, fire up the computer and PTE and I am off to the races as though nothing was ever wrong with it. I hope it is something that simple for you, but as Peter said it might some other changes......

Tom and Ken: Thanks. Guess both these shows were done in ver 4.48. I use that transition type so rarely I never hit the issue until I did the re-compiles. Ken: Guess I should have found it in your notes I was out of the country and not watching the PTE forum for most of 2007 when Igor posted his note (That is my excuse and I am sticking to it !!! :D )

I recently re-compiled all my shows to ver 6. Two shows had one or two transitions each that used the MOSAIC effect. The MOSAIC transitions were very effective in the shows compiled in the earlier versions, but very ineffective in the ver 6 compilation. Anyone else notice this ?

I am not a techie in any of this, but just a question. Win 7 64 bit allows for 32 bit software and drivers, (there two separate PROGRAM FILES folders one for 32bit and one for 64bit) so even if you do get the 64 bit version is there an issue running 32 bit software etc I might easily be missing something here

Ken (APLman) If you customize some as (the other) Ken says, that will leave random on the non-customized ones, but I think you will find that that it won't be same transition each time they run. They are randomized each time. (Unless someone corrects me..... ) So I am not sure that is what you want

Eric S-video was certainly a much poorer quality image when we tried it working on other issues last spring

I plead guilty to being the person who used the word "automate" in an earlier posting to this thread. I didn't intend it to mean a mandatory automate, just an optional one as Peter is saying. One always needs to retain control. (I am in the middle of working on a 22 minute show with 93 sound bites and just getting tired working on the editing of the sound . 95% of our shows are under 10 minutes) I also mentioned that I never in a moment dreamt, or expected, to have such a feature.

Eric: I believe it was me (in another posting here) that mentioned connecting two computers to one projector. I don't have our club projector in front on me, but our Canon Realis projector has two inputs, both DVI I believe, and we have buttons on top to allow a choice which as to source to access. A PC was connected by a VGA/DVI cable and a MAC connected by whatever their output connection was to the second DVI (VGA ?) input on the Projector. But they could have set up two PCs. Essentially it looks somewhat like your set-up, so I suspect you just need to go through the manual a little bit more, do some silent swearing, and you'll get it working.

BINGO !!!!! I ran an .avi file from a menu created in ver 6. If the D3D is ticked on, the avi runs behind the screen, if the D3D is ticked off, then it runs in front of the menu screen. Eric: To remedy the situation for now, see what happens with the launch of the other shows if you have D3D turned off. You might get a momentary flicker as the show starts (which Peter will certainly see :) ) but few others might. Or set them up using ver 4.49. again you might get a (even less) momentary flicker. Or run the show from a desktop shortcut, after you have shown the others that launch OK.

I don't have the knowledge that nobeefstu or Conflow have, but I thought I would chip in a couple of thoughts I have one show that I run off a menu that requires WMP to run. It is a .avi file not a wmv. The file type should not matter at all, but I have not had any issues with it when using a ver 4.48 menu. I will try it with ver 6 and see what happens. A second related issue re the issue of WMP opening behind the menu screen, reminds me of your tests Peter a few weeks ago. In some combinations you had shows running behind the screen, is this perhaps the issue here. While your tests were with exe files, maybe the wmv is reacting differently. The troublesome issue might be the HARDWARE ACCELERATION factor (or lack thereof in the wmv file). In an earlier thread Ed Overstreet and I brought up an issue we had at our club with (all exe) shows opening behind the menu screen, After discussion in the thread the issue was narrowed down to the D3D not being activated for the menu show. Maybe Ed will come along and refresh my memory if I have mis-spoken here.

Eric: Stu is right with his posting above, but just FYI what I was talking about was using the FILE > CREATE BACK-UP IN ZIP See pic below

Eric: I understand your concern, but zipping for back up does not copy the exe files. (Or at least doesn't for me) Do it for yourself, check what is in the zip file.

Xaver Depending on how it might actually would work, I think APLman's suggestion is a good one. However never for a moment am I dreaming that Igor will offer anything like that. Like you, multi-tracks with elementary editing was all I am hoping for. 95% of my shows use voice over so any EFFECTIVE automation of lowering the background would be welcome. Right now I am in the middle of a 22 minute show with 93 sound clips and it would be nice to say: "PTE do your thing". But as I say, I would only use it if it were truly effective.

Eric: Can't tell much from a screen shot, how about the zipped pte file ? I launch to WMP frequently using a menu show.

Johann: No need to worry about the path, PTE will look after it for you. If you want to open a pdf (or any file) from PTE, create an OBJECT with the ACTION ON MOUSE CLICK on the COMMON tab set to "Open application or file". The using the drop down box below that point to the pdf file. Include the pdf file in your folder that the other person will copy to their computer. I assume the tutorial is a manual show

Paul: I haven't tried it with ver 4.49 yet, (oldest version I have available), but in current version, when you put music on main show via PROJECT OPTIONS>MUSIC, that music stops when you go to one of the shows accessed via the menu page. It starts up again where you left off at when the show ends and returns to the menu page. Does this not work with 4.43? I can try it with 4.49 tomorrow if not

Andrew: There are a few variations that I know PTE'ers use, but if it is a single slide menu show, or if it is the last slide in a show, I use PROJECT OPTIONS > MAIN >when show ends keep last slide on the screen. Hope that fits your situation

Thx Peter Well that negates any findings that I had with regard to TASK BAR being "OFF", I will note that in my posting above. As Ken says, Igor has noted the issue and will I am sure resolve it in time. I am not surprised that you are menu'ed out !!!

Peter: I ran your sequences on the laptop with Windows 7. The results were mixed. Overall the Task Bar was in view more often. (By TASK BAR "off" I interpreted that as meaning turning off the LOCK TASK BAR when right clicking on the task bar) I also found that sometimes, very briefly, the hourglass showed before the sequence started. It was there for maybe half a second. I did not track that. There were a number of times that I got different results on the first run vs the second or third. I have attached my results with my different findings in red. I used your your VISTA test run pages as the "norm". EDIT PS: See Peter's posting #13 below. The results in the attached spreadsheet are not valid for TASK BAR = "OFF" as I did not turn it OFF correctly jrr_Test Results.zip