davegee

Aspects of ratio of a slide - 16:9 Size of slide - 1920x1080 Should I choose "Fixed size of slide" or not - Ticked You will then get the black lines each side. It will possibly look even better if you re-size to something like 1000 high to get a black line all around. Better still resize to 1920 wide and re-compose for best look in PTE Objects and Animation. You can very often afford to lose a little from top and bottom - try it. DaveG

Ken, I'm not sure if that means that you are in favour of using the high resolutions or against it? Using the native resolution of YOUR OWN monitor seems to me to be the only answer. DaveG

Barry, I'm not sure that I totally agree with what you are saying but I certainly understand where you are "coming from". This was discussed at great length when we lost “Original Mode”. I have been advocating for years that it would be good practice on the part of the author to indicate at the beginning of a show the OPTIMUM resolution for viewing. This can be done utilising the start up screen. If it is overwhelmingly important that upsizing does not occur then Window Mode is still available in addition to Xaver’s suggestion. The programme has been made increasingly complex over the last couple of years, partly due to the demands made on Igor by individuals for features that, in some cases it would seem, would only apply to those individuals. But rather than change too much I would like to see better documentation created from a USER’s point of view. Rather than just explaining what each feature does it needs to demonstrate how a feature can be used. For instance, “If you want to maintain the same image size on screen on a variety of different resolution monitors this is what you do…….” The answer for me is to create shows at 1920x1080 (or 1920x1200) so that the show will be downsized on more occasions than it is likely to be upsized (I realise that there are higher resolution monitors out there). This makes the Project File Size high but it has not created big problems yet. There seems to be a reluctance on the part of MANY photographers to move up from 1024x768 and a lot of these photographers already have LCD monitors which have an even higher native resolution. I keep hearing that on anything other than 1024x768 "the icons are too small"! DaveG

Doesn't it still end up as PAL (768x576 - the output resolution of the DVD Player) on your TV regardless of TV resolution? DaveG

I see what you mean Ken, but it is a messy workaround which would not be necessary if the music could be started at a specific slide/point on the timeline. DaveG

Ken and Dick, Good suggestions. However in order to do this you first have to turn off "Synchronize Music and Slides" in Project Options and also this defeats the OPs purpose because then you can't then see the waveform in the timeline in order to synch slides to specific beats or portions of the music. The ability to start music in the normal manner (via the Project Options / Music Tab) synched to a specific slide would definitely be an asset IMHO. The other alternative would be the ability to be able to "slide" the music along the timeline which has been suggested elsewhere. DaveG

Hi Brian, There's a little confusion here I think. We were talking (at least I was) about using the first slide of a show as a Start Up slide with a long indeterminate duration for use where a preamble is required. After the preamble advancing the slide would go to the rest of the show which would be synchronized to a piece of music (from slide 2 to the end). However this is not possible because PTE in its present form does not allow for starting music at slide 2 or whatever. What you have indicated (in a previous version of PTE?) is quite a good idea and uses current facilities but that was not we were talking about. My problem came about because of PTE's start screen is unable to fill the screen and shows the desktop behind. At least I think so - it was a little while ago that this came up. DaveG

Brian, Sounds interesting. Could you elaborate a little on what you mean by "Start Screen" / "Screen-Start". Is this part of the main show or something like a MENU slide? DaveG

But, looking at it from a different perspective, Igor suggested to me recently that using the first slide as a "Start Up" slide would be a way of overcoming current problems with the Start Up feature. If the Start Up slide (first slide) needs to be onscreen for an indeterminate amount of time whilst a little preamble takes place, then the facility to start the music on the second slide would be of great value. You can't insert an indeterminate amount of silence at the beginning of a piece of music in Audacity (or Audition)! DaveG

We are not talking about REGION SPECIFIC. PTE DVDs are already REGION FREE. Here's another example of a relatively inexpensive (BUT GOOD QUALITY) DVD player which has dual compatibility: http://www.dvdcity.com/codefree/jvc-xvn650.php DaveG

P.S. I visited the Sony USA site chose a DVD player at random - dvpnw50 and downloaded the manual. Page 28 explains how to set up for playing PAL DVDs. DaveG

Limey, The default play mode over here is PAL, but if you give it a REGION FREE NTSC DVD it will play OK. Although US players are sold as NTSC they also play PAL. As I said I have several contacts to whom I send PAL DVDs (REGION FREE) and get no probs. Same goes for any REGION FREE DVDs that are send to me from US (or indeed anywhere). Your user manual will probably tell you this. If you have never tried playing a region free pal dvd then you wouldn't necessarily know. DaveG

Just some additional info: On a MODERN DVD player it should not make a difference. Standard DVD players are now PAL/NTSC compatible. At least that's been the the case over here in the UK for a few years and I send PAL DVDs to the USA and recieve NTSC DVDs from the USA all the time - no problem. In the case of commercially made DVDs they are REGION SPECIFIC which will cause a problem on any DVD player. PTE is not Region Specific. Also, both PAL and NTSC DVDs will play on any computer in any country. DaveG

Eric, That's not exactly good advice! It is, after all, a BETA version and not a full working working version in any sense. Barry has been waiting (IM)patiently for the dual monitor facility for a while now (and it is nice to hear that he has invested in 5.6). DaveG

In the Tutorials section: PTE USER GUIDE UPDATED. DaveG

Tom, A couple of things occur to me. First, make sure that all objects are discreet objects and that you haven't (accidentally) inserted some as "child" to a "parent". They should all be discreet objects. Secondly, if you have more than two Keyframes you need to go to Animations and under each heading (Pan, Zoom etc) click on the button which might say "Linear" and choose "Setting Up". You then need to change "Separate Here" to "Glue Here". I believe that the Evans Boys covered this in their tutorial - have you read it thoroughly? DaveG

Alternatively, you could start a new slide with your main image zoom setting at its 25% value (no transition effect) and then float in the 2nd pair of PNG files? Treat it as two different slides instead of complicating one slide until you are happy with this sort of approach. DaveG

Ken has it and the details of when etc. Here's the readme details: Changes in version 5.6.4 * Fixed bug with height of items in playlist of Music tab of Project option if you use high DPI screen mode. * Fixed several minor bugs. Dave G

Lin, There was a discussion about this recently and it is difficult to find because the search engine won't accept 5.6.4 (not enough info). Basically, Igor posted it for a short while and then removed it. I downloaded it while it was available and have it installed as my current working version. I have never seen the error that Ron has posted and if it is something to do with 5.6.4 it is not a common fault. In the discussion I offered 5.6.4 to anyone who wanted it. DaveG

Just checked wnsoft site & I think only 5.6 is for sale? True, but that doesn't stop someone who didn't know different from downloading the Beta version with its bugs as a trial. It's the only version available on the forum page. DaveG

Peter, Firstly, I wonder if IGOR could be persuaded to include information on obtaining and loading basic and VideoBuilder keys in all downloads as "readme"'s? That could be the answer to this continually arising "problem". He already puts "what's new" in the package. Secondly, I wonder how many "new users" would download, for instance 5.7.3 not realising which, by its very nature, contains bugs wheras they SHOULD be downloading 5.6, the last full working version? DaveG

"We shouldn't start important projects with v5.7 beta#n but only test the new features". Exactly. DaveG

I have a (very) vague memory of this approach being used to "reset" codes on car radios a long time ago. DaveG

I have also noticed that animations created in 5.6 do not always translate into 5.7.3. Objects become displaced and it seems that it might be necessary to start again. DaveG

I agree, once again. Image editing software is for editing images. Audio editing software is for editing Audio. PTE is for combining edited images and edited audio. DaveG