JRR

Barry: As Peter says, excellent questions and ones we deal with frequently in our Photo Club. We have a few "papers" on those subjects on our website at here See picture below for recommended "papers" But to answer your questions directly: What size slide show should I make? For a first timer, I would recommend a 3 minute show (30 images approx) for their first show. In other words about the length of one piece of music. Our own shows (after having produced well over 200) tend to be 5-6 minutes. Why A first timer needs practice and will be on a learning curve. If they want people to watch, with interest, their first few shows, those shows should be kept short until they can improve their techniques. For our shows, the guidelines are "Keep it short and simple" (KISS) and "Leave them wanting more" (don't bore them with EVERY shot you took on a subject) We try to determine the target audience for our shows, that will give guidance as to what length of show, and then we try to find a "hook" that will keep them interested. Suspense, special effects (not panning and zooming) For example we have two 25 minute shows, one with music alone, and one with narration and music. Both shows are nature oriented, we will only dare show AVs that length to a nature-oriented audience. They will enjoy the show for its entire length and want more. Show the AVs to a general audience and you'll have them sleeping in the aisles after 5-10 minutes. For shows targeted at a senior citizen group home, we usually will run up to 15 minutes, but will have narration along with music to help maintain their interest. For general audiences we keep the shows to 5-10 minutes depending on the strength of the topic and images, but again most of our shows have narration and music. There is one show that I have featuring a heron and a hippopotamus. The interaction in real life took place over 10 minutes, but the slide show is 42 seconds as people only want to watch so many pictures of a heron landing on the back of the hippo and the resultant reactions. I had to cut the show back from its first version that was 2 minutes long, because it was boring. do you like to fill your screen with the slide show, irrespective of the resolution of that screen I make our shows 1280x960 currently (up from 800x600 and 1024x768 over the years) and I click the appropriate options to not allow PTE in scale up the images on larger resolution screens/projectors. Why the size ? It fits nicely on my monitor, is handled well on our 1024x768 projector. Yes it leaves a black border when projected on another projector we use at 1400x1050, but that does not bother me. I do not allow scaling up as I want to ensure the quality of an image is not compromised if upscaled too much. The 1280x960 size also works well as I crop every image used in a show so as to try to obtain effective transitions. Sorry for lengthy answer, hope that is what you were after (added after original posting: I see now that I misinterpreted the "size" question as well - hope I still answered the questions)

Philip: Unless you are doing pans and zooms, version 4.49 is the way to go for assurance that the result will work on 99% or computers (always the chance someone will try it on a commodore 64 ) 5.56 has a nicer interface than 4.49 no question, and with the 3D graphics turned off it will behave almost like 4.49 I believe in terms of working with most computers. But don't try pans and zooms with the 3D turned off and I am not sure about the new transitions.

The video I saw was in his Mon Maitre AV. Quite a marvelous show ! I believe there is a link to it somewhere within the PTE forums, but I can't find it now

Nice show Paul and Roz Very nicely photographed in beautiful light. Glad you are enjoying our Canada Geese. We can send you some more if you want (and more of our snow too ) The Bluebells remind me of my many trips across the pond too many years ago. I really liked the in-camera pan of the trees and bluebells.

Interesting show Mark. One suggestion I would make is that you "hide the mouse cursor", yours is set the default, "hide after 3 seconds". If someone bumps the table the computer is on, or absentmindedly pays with their mouse during the show, the cursor appears on screen and is quite distracting. Hope you do well with it

Lin: We will all be thinking of you and your wife and wishing and praying for a successful recovery.

Ken: I can't find 4.49 either anymore, but I am sending you a private e-mail with the zip attached. Ivor send me a message via the forum with your e-mail in it and I will send it to you as well. 4.49 should be left on the wnsoft website as more people than many think still use it !

Thanks Peter There is this thread too that sort applies http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9413 But I don't think either one applies directly Maybe someone else will trip over this, or it might just be that I am one of the few that uses this workflow......

Peter: By the ADD SOUND icon

Just noticed, it doesn't seem to happen if it is a sound bite file that has not been altered since the last SAVE AS. My workflow is that I attach the sound bite to all slides that are to have narration, and then as I run PTE, I add, or delete, silence at the start of a sound bite as required to have the voice over (or sound effect) start at the proper moment. The silence is added/deleted in my sound editor and the file saved. It is in the same folder as the PTE show files and PTE automatically picks up the updated file. It seems the mini-player is having issues only with any updated files, not any files that I do not update. And going the PROJECT OPTIONS and SAVE AS route solves it UPDATE: Just discovered that I don't have to go the extra SAVE AS step. But I do have to re-set the PROJECT OPTIONS>MUSIC> don't interrupt... setting

Ivor: Just download a copy of PTE from the wnsoft website, and install it as before (only hopefully this time all will work OK for you) You only go through the registration when buying it.

I haven't seen anyone else mention this so maybe it is an oddity at my end only. I am having problems having attached sound bites play to the end when attached to an individual slide. PROJECT OPTIONS > MUSIC is set to "don't interrupt sound comment when next slide appears" The sound bites are all less than the on-screen time for the slide often by a second or more. The sound bite starts but then stops mid-sentence. I can solve it by opening PROJECT OPTIONS and resetting the above option, then SAVE AS the show. The the sound bite plays to end. Then I have to repeat that for the next sound bite.... Only an issue in the mini-player, not when running in PREVIEW. The sound bites are WAV format (once the show is done they get mixed into the background sound file) By the way - sure is nice to be able to hear them in the min-player as I used to be a hassle in ver 4 (remember way back then ?) when they would only play in Preview.

I agree Peter ! Hopefully we will see it one day

Igor: Are you hinting here that we should be recreating our old PTE shows in the latest version of windows ? If not we risk losing our shows ? I realize that going forward we risk losing the possibility of accessing many old files as computers change - data CDs might not be readable, (remember floppes ? ) file types no longer readable, etc etc, but I was hoping .exe file would be readable for a good period of time Thanks

I think there is something associated with what side of the bed one gets up on...... I opened PhotoShop (CS3) this morning (I had closed it down last night) tried the EDIT > PURGE > (I chose CLIPBOARD) and have made 6 layers in PhotoShop, three using GADWIN and three using PRINT SCREEN of an O&A screen. Last night I couldn't do more than one....... So maybe the EDIT>PURGE worked, but I would have thought I would have to use it each time... Computers......Love 'em (but usually it is the human operator)

Strange Ed Whether I use SHIFT PRINT SCREEN of just PRINT SCREEN I can not capture the O&A window (XP SP2) even if it is open in a partial screen (i.e. less than full screen mode) Gadwin worked for the first time capturing the O&A window - that was how I made the jpg I posted above. Now it won't do it ARRRGH !!!! Glad the other way of having GADWIN write the file to a designated folder works !!

I used to use PRINT SCREEN a lot, but then I had to have PhotoSHop open to copy it to and save the file as a jpg before putting it in a document Now I tend to use Gadwin systems PRINT SCREEN software here and unless I want to draw circles etc around aspect of the image, I can paste it right into the document If I want to do circles etc, I paste the saved "image" into Photoshop and do the regular work there. Using this software, I can select only the part of the screen I want to copy I just tried it in the O&A screen and it worked fine, see below. In this case I brought it into PhotoShop and made it a jpg

Thanks Peter and Xaver I though it had to do with Power Saver and maybe screen saver as a running PTE AV show does not "register" as the computer doing anything and unless I set the laptop to Presentation, or set my power saving settings to a longer time, the screen goes blank, but the show continues. Not that I would expect to ALT-TAB while a show is running, I'll turn that function on in the future

Hawk: Thanks for the tip re the file names. I embarrassingly posted that request as somehting for a new version (to bring it back) and someone very nicely pointed at the same settings you did to give me what I wanted. I hung my head in shame....

Oops !!! Yes that is what I meant. Missed it !! I'll go hide my head in shame Thank you

I realize it is a question of what one is used to, but in ver 5 the file pane does not provide for a listing of the file names. There are certainly advantages in having the thumbnail view, and I use it. But once the files are selected I find the thumbnail view very distracting, especially with the problem re Auto Scroll 2 (see Auto scroll 2 oddity It would be nice if ver 5 had the option that was available in ver 4 and before. See screen shot below I suspect there would not be a high demand for this, but if it is an easy fix, maybe it could be put back in as an option thanks

Ralph: Thanks Yes that does solve it, although I guess I would call it a "workaround" as I prefer working with a larger mini-player. (yes compared to ver 4 the mini player reduced the way you have is much better, but "give me an inch and I want a mile" Again it is a matter of getting used to something. If there is no fix on this from Igor then I have to decide amongst: - Auto Scroll 1 - much reduced mini player screen with Auto scroll 2 - reduce the acceleration settings under PROPERITIES > SETTINGS> ADVANCED Below is the screen I like to work with (sure would be nice to have the "old" option of having the file names only in the file window pane !

Peter: Yes it would be nice to have all those options you suggest. (Adobe Premiere, another video based program, has somewhat similar features) Like John I do a lot of shows with voice sound bites, sound effects and multi music tracks. I have learned to work around the absence of the options you have suggested, by putting the sound bites/effects attached to individual slides and running the mixed music tracks through the Music TAB. I then add/remove silence from the sound bites to get them placed where I want with each applicable slide. When I have everything synched, I multi track the sound bites/effects with the music track using the time from the PTE timeline where the applicable slide starts. Finally I then reduce the music track behind the sound bites It is a lot of to'ing and fro'ing between PTE and the sound editor..... Your suggestion would help

From what little playing I have done in 5.6, I will gladly second what Peter and Ed are saying

Anthony: In reality there is no real benefit of Scroll 1 vs Scroll 2, except Scroll 2 was on offer from a long time ago and I got used to it and I like it. If it had never been offered I would never be the wiser. (Of course the same would apply to all the users who like Scroll 1, if it had not been on offer, they would be used to using scroll 2. ) It is all what you get used to, but yes you can teach an old dog (me) new tricks and I can learn to live with Scroll 1 only, but not until I have a kick at the cat at keeping scroll 2. (Too many animals in here ) Hawk mentioned : It does for first 4 slides before hesitation starts ? I find the hesitation started halfway down the timeline. ie, if the timeline showed 62 seconds of width, the blue triangle flowed smoothly until it reach the 31 second mark and then the hesitation started, and when it got 31 seconds from the end, it smoothed out again. If I zoomed in the timeline and reduced the 62 seconds to something like 40, then it started to hesitate at 20 seconds. Ken: Refresh rate is 60, that is all I have on offer.