davegee

Have you got "Synchronise Music and Slides" in Project Options> Main TICKED? Do the Music Duration and End of Last Slide Markers line up at the end of the Timeline? Is your music file an MP3? How are you placing the slide on the "certain beat"? Are you using a transition or "Quick - No Transition"? DG

Harold, Re: Your "possible" bug. Consider this: When you drag a video into the Slide or Timeline view (I'm assuming "Keep Full Slide Duration" is ticked?) the slide duration is automatically set to the length of the video and an overlap with the previous and next slide is automatically set up. If you make any changes to the video with the "trimming" utility the changes made will make the Slide Duration no longer equal to the Video Duration. You now have to manually transfer the "new" Video Duration time to the Slide Duration to restore the correct relationship between your video and its previous and next slides. Altering the OFFSET further complicates the issue. I would suggest that a possible use for the "offset" would be when you have two videos in the same slide when the full slide duration time would equal the sum of the two individual slides. The second video would be offset to the first and an overlap between videos (by means of keyframes) would occur within a slide as opposed to the beginning and end. I asked Igor to consider a button to set the Video Duration equal to the Slide Duration (after adjustment) but I fear that it got lost in the furore over "Keep Full Slide Duration". DG

Colin, You'll have to explain more? Are you saying that the lower the refresh rate the more likely the monitor is to be able to cope with the conversion? I can't see where the 16 - 8 bit conversion comes into it? DG Wiki to the rescue: Display technologies Response time is the amount of time a pixel in an LCD monitor takes to go from one value to another and back again. It is measured in milliseconds (ms). Lower numbers mean faster transitions and therefore fewer visible image artifacts. Older monitors with long response times would create a smear or blur pattern around moving objects, making them unacceptable for moving video. Long response times can be annoying to a viewer depending on the type of data being displayed and how rapidly the image is changing or moving. Many current(which?) LCD monitor models have improved to the point that this is only seen with extreme contrasts. For an LCD display, typical response times are 8 to 16 ms for black-white-black, or 2 to 6ms for grey-to-grey. The response time was traditionally recorded at the full black > white transition, which became the ISO standard for this specification on LCDs. Grey transitions are far more common in practice but in terms of pixel latency, they remained significantly behind the ISO transition. In recent years there have been a wide range of Response Time Compensation (RTC) / overdrive technologies[2] introduced which have allowed panel manufacturers to significantly reduce grey transitions. Response times are now commonly quoted in "GTG" (alternately but less commonly "G2G," both meaning "grey-to-grey"[3]) or "GLRT" (meaning "Gray Level Response Time"[4]). There are various names used for RTC technologies, and these vary from one manufacturer to another. Terms such as ClearMotiv (Viewsonic), AMA (BenQ), MagicSpeed (Samsung) and ODC (LG/Philips) are widely used to identify RTC enabled displays. With a CRT the response times are much faster, and CRTs do not have the same problems with smearing or ghosting. The same is true for plasma displays. However, older CRTs and plasma displays can have problems with flicker at any refresh rate, and even newer ones can at refresh rates less than about 80Hz. LCD screens with a slow response time are often unsuitable to play fast paced computer games. A worst-case response time of <16ms is sufficient for video gaming, and the difference between response times once below 10ms begin to become hard to perceive due to limitations of the human eye. [5] [6] The pixel response time is often confused with the LCD input lag which adds another form of latency to pictures displayed by LCD screens. An LCD screen with high response time and significant input lag will not give satisfactory results when playing fast paced computer games or performing fast high accuracy operations on the screen (e.g. CAD). Manufacturers only state the response time of their displays and do not inform customers of the input lag value. To address input lag, some modern televisions will offer some sort of "gaming mode" where the TV passes the signal through with minimal processing to minimize any potential image lag.

Mike, It's the height of your Slide View that's causing the problem. Adjust it and you'll solve the problem. DG

Thanks Lin, Your catching Ken's penchant for linking! Anyway, the reason I asked was that I have tried to see what Barry and Peter are seeing and have failed. My monitor appears to be nothing special - an Iiyama B2403WS with a 2ms Response Time. I didn't particularly choose it for any other reason than that I have used a few Iiyamas and they have always been totally reliable and are colour correct straight out of the box. I would certainly get another one but I need to know, if and when I decide to get a new one, what I should be looking for (in another Iiyama). DG

Igor, IPS? DG

Mine is OK. Check VIEW > Timeline Options > Colour Of Waveform. Make sure that it is not WHITE? DG

Very professional - as expected. I liked the inclusion of the fire - presumably video?....or animation? DG

When you go to Publish> DVD Video Disc is your PTE file on the bottom horizontal bar? i.e. "1. Myshow.pte" Give us a step by step account? DG

Graham, A little more info required. Could I suggest that you e-mail Ronniebootwest and ask him to send one of his "How-To's" on burning a DVD / using PTE VideoBuilder? Or go here: http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/ If that doesn't do the trick please get back to us? DG

In Slide view or the Timeline View highlight all of the slides which are effected. Click on Customise Slide and set slide duration (in Main Tab) to 6 seconds and in the EFFECT Tab click on "Use Own Transition Effect" and change the Effect Duration to 2 seconds. This should cure your problem. If you have "Keep Full Slide Duration" ticked and you are NOT inserting Video - UNTICK it - you don't need it. You can now adjust your slide durations and transition times as you require them making sure that you don't cause an overlap situation. DG

Open PTE Click on Help>About In V6.5 the CONTROL Tab was labelled ADVANCED. Can you post a screen shot of the TIMELINE showing the slides that you can highlight but not see in Preview. Your transition times are probably longer than the overall slide duration. DG

Ken, What we need now is someone on a MAC with pseudo Windows to try the same thing? DG

Further thoughts, I frequently exchange data with a friend who has a MAC. When trying to copy from his DVD to my PC Hard Drive I get a lot of "Cannot Read Source" or "The Filename, Directory Name, or Volume Label Syntax is incorrect" similar messages. This usually means that the file names on the DVD have characters in them which PCs don't like and once they are on the DVD they cannot be changed. My XP machine actually reads the original characters (" is one which causes a problem) but won't allow me to do anything with it. My Vista machine however, substitutes an "underscore" for the (") and allows full copying moving etc. My Vista machine will allow copying of a file with a semi-colon ( in the name but will not allow me to write that file to another disc. If I make an identically named folder on my HD I can sometimes drag the CONTENTS of the folder (which may have no obvious errors in the file name) from the DVD to the new folder on my HD. This indicates to me that there is a hidden problem with the folder's properties which involves "forbidden characters". Perhaps this is what you are experiencing in one form or another? DG

Seabird - tell us which version you have installed? The latest version is V7.0.1 DG

Hi Joy, See post #9 above. There is a utility in CREATOR (and TOAST?) which, when you double click on an ISO file, opens up a module to "Burn ISO to DVD". I have never burned directly to DVD from PTE since VERY early days (when Peter's "joke" would have possibly been a serious comment). http://www.roxio.co....CFUsZ4QodlgI80g I don't know if you would be able to create an ISO in one platform (PC) and burn it in another platform (MAC) so the choice of CREATOR or TOAST is a crucial one. DG P.S. I don't have W7 so I can't answer but someone else might be able to answer that - and also whether any built-in burner in W7 is capable of burning an ISO file. One way to prove it would be to double click on an ISO file?

Peter, I don't want to put too much emphasis on this because people get upset about it, but: If you were to create your menus as you describe and copy and paste them so that there are sufficient of them (four in this case), then using "Keep Full Slide Duration" all that is needed is to drop a video in between each of the menus and the timing aspect is automatically taken care of. Furthermore, each video and menu will automatically fade into each other and the transition (fade) time is adjustable to suit the video. Choosing any slide from any menu slide is possible. Stopping the video before it is finished is (I THINK) only possible with the alternative method?? Pressing ESC would close the show, however, pressing the right arrow would probably advance the show to the next Menu Slide. DG

my standard test is to burn the iso instead of the disc. if this is successful then it is the burn which is faulty. i always do this and i then use creator to burn the disc. dg

Peter, I still don't read the OP that way - but now he has two possibilities. DG

I like the humour! But if TOAST is as good on MAC as CREATOR is on PC then I thoroughly recommend it. DG

The equivalent of ROXIO CREATOR for MAC used to be called TOAST. DG P.S. Still is.

Create your Menu EXE with Buttons. In O&A Common set Action on Mouse Click for each Button to "Run Slideshow with return". In Project Options untick "Use Hardware Acceleration". Insert each video into a seperate PTE EXE show Consider putting a short Blank slide before and after the video - same Background as Menu. If I have got anything wrong Peter will be along and hopefully correct me. DG P.S. It works fine - thanks for the question!!

I think he is still writing - stand by for a long one. DG

LRRH, If you are using a Nikon camera and shooting RAW then nx2 (or nx3 ) is essential software (opinion). Otherwise you do not need it and any editor will do. DG Edited to supplement Ken's previous post.

Someone might be able to download it - I can't. Follow Peter's suggestion above. Open LEVELS and drag the black slider (Left) in until it touches the graph/curve. Drag the white slider (right) in until it touches the graph/curve. It should then look a lot better. You could do this easily in Igor's (FREE) PIXBUILDER - download from main page. Once you have that someone can give you simple instructions. DG