PeteC

Hi Brian, I'm retired now but have 40 years experience in broadcast TV. Any videotape recorder, DV, VHS, whatever, needs to see a standard PAL video signal to record. You don't need any software to do this. It's just a matter of feeding your graphics card TV output to the VTR. Many computer graphics cards have either a composite video (RCA socket) output, or an S-Video (5 pin mini DIN) socket for output of your computer display to a TV monitor. All you need to do is feed preferably the S-Video (better quality) out of your graphics card to the VTR S-Video input. Plus a separate RCA cable for the sound, if needed. If you can't do the S-Video, use composite video instead, but you will probably not like the loss of quality. Then ensure your PicToExe presentation plays full screen, so that you don't get any extraneous desktop showing and record to the VTR. I haven't tried this, so this is "in theory". Pete

Hi Igor, Not sure if this is a new suggestion, but my strong wish is to have the slide number separate from the Comments. At the moment, if you include the slide number in the comments field, compose all your comments, then move even one slide, all the comments are lost! This is bad news. If possible, I'd like the slide number to be in the form of "Image /n of /N images" or similar, where /N is the total number of images. Compupic ProShow does this and it's very good. Thanks for the program. I went away to ProShow Gold for a while, but now that you've provided the thumbnails views, I'm back. Peter

Thanks, ccmanz. The simple answer to this is for the slide numbering to be a separate text field. How about it, Igor? And please let us put "Slide number /x of /X slides" as in ProShow. Pete

Am I misunderstanding something about PicToExe? If you have made a show and added captions to your slides, changing the order of even one slide in the list loses ALL the captions, right? It's happened to me. Have I missed something? Pete PS forgot to mention: slide numbering is turned on, because I need it to be. The caption contains the slide number, of course - is this the problem? Is anyone else aware of this?

Some months ago I purchased ProShow v1.32 because I felt they had finally provided the quality (resolution) of output that P2E gives, and I felt the timeline approach was what I wanted. I have to say, having used it for some time, I was very impressed. The ease of adding and positioning captions, positioning images on the background, setting timings and transitions and other things were all excellent. BUT, the flaw is that you have no control of progress (fwd, pause, back, go to next immediately, go to a specific slide number etc.) in the final output You could do it in Preview in v1.32, but the timing is fixed in the .exe output. I was about to write to them asking if it could be added in the next version when the next version, 2.0, was released just last week. I eagerly downloaded and installed, but I was sorely disappointed. There are bugs and stability issues to the extent that I've had to uninstall it and go back to v1.32 But it raises the issue of the relative merits of ProShow vs P2E. I must say, I made more progress in actually getting my shows the way I wanted them in double quick time than I ever did in P2E. The big problem I have in P2E is only having one view window. All my slides are numbered, so the file list means almost nothing when trying to put them in order. I really, really like having the time line thumbnail view along the bottom. It's so much easier to visualise the flow of the show, something I can't do in P2E. The ease of positioning and previewing your captioning is another thing I like about ProShow, along with the graphic display of the transitions. The slide numbering (Image \p of \P), the fine control over every aspect of image size, placement, brightness/contrast, etc etc. This is a very clever program. BUT it doesn't matter a jot if it crashes or locks up or trashes your slide quality. So what I'm saying is, P2E is good and simple to use, and the non-linear (button Go To Slide Number...) is THE killer feature for me, but gee, I'd like to see the things I've mentioned about ProShow added. Pete

Thanks, Igor. As you can see, several others are seeing it too and all say the same: it's there, but it's very hard to reproduce on demand. It's not a huge problem, but it would be good to see it fixed. Regards, Pete

Sorry, I should have mentioned - I'm using XP Pro SP1, but it occurred prior to SP1. It must have also been occurring in Win2000, since I was using that early last year. I've also changed my hardware recently, with no change to the fault. A couple of respondents also see the problem, so it must be real. It's not a huge problem, more annoying than anything, but it sure is hard to work out what the exact sequence is that causes it. I've just downloaded v4.14, so I'll give that a try and report back. Cheers, Pete

I think there's a bug in this program which is very hard to pin down, but it's been there for as long as I have been using it (2-3 years). It has occurred for me in all versions. I'm currently using v4.12. It is very intermittent unfortunately, which is why I haven't reported it until now. After a time previewing images in the Slide List window, you can no longer make selected images in the File List window to the left appear in the image preview area. In other words, the preview area does not change to show images from the File List. Clicking on the file name highlights the file name, but the image in the Preview area does not change to show the selected file. Clicking on the image in the preview area shows it against a black background, as if it was selected from the file list, but the image displayed is the one highlighted in the Slide List, not the File List. If the image in the Slide List is highlighted, then the image plus its background is correctly displayed. The only answer to this is to shut the program down and restart it. I wish I could say what causes this, but I have never been able to pinpoint it. It can happen very soon after starting the program, or, as now, after 30 mins or more. Anyone else seeing this? Pete

Hmmm, thanks guys. Glad to know I'm not imagining it. Oh well, I have plenty more work to do before I need that menu slide, so I'm not in a rush. Cheers, Pete

I've sent this as an email to Support but I'm interested to see if anyone else can reproduce it. I think I've found a major bug in version 4.1. Conditions: Windows XP Pro with SP1. AMD Athlon 2200+, 512MB DDR RAM. Leadtek A180 AGP graphics card. Monitor in 1280x1024x32bit mode. All slides are jpg, 1024x768x24bit. I am making a menu slide by placing transparent buttons as objects onto the base slide, then setting their actions as Go to slide number... 1. Start a new project. Using any image as slide number 1 for a background, go into Object Editor. 2. Make a Button. Accept the default width and height, and set its properties to 'no button text' (just erase the word Button), Background Transparent. Position it anywhere over the background. (It's going to be a clickable hot-spot to jump to a slide further down the list.) 3. Click Copy, then Paste, and position the copy away from the first button. Up to four copies are OK, but do this five times and then click OK to exit the Object Editor. An error message appears - "Access violation at address 00403864 in module 'apr.exe'. Read of address 00000017". The address numbers vary depending on which object on the screen is clicked. If the OK button is clicked, the addresses will be all zeros, for example. There is no way out of this except by using Task manager to end the program. This is absolutely reproduceable for me. I have reverted to using v4.01 and do not get this problem with that version. I have noticed that in v4.1, I can finely position the buttons using the arrow keys, whereas in v4.01, I can't. Maybe it's to do with this new positioning feature. Can anyone else reproduce this? Regards, Peter Croft

Thanks, guys. I followed think(box)'s suggestion and used boxig's PTEpics. It worked and I now have my list. Thanks again. But this has to be a suggestion for a future version doesn't it? Add a "Print slide list" menu item. Cheers, Pete

There's another way to get real fades - include a "black" slide, ie a full frame of black, and fade into it and out of it to the next slide. That way your in and out fade durations are independent and you can control how long the screen stays black as well. You can reuse the black slide as often as you like. Or make blank frames of any colour, or any pattern, for even more effects. Pete

Thanks Jim, but that's not the answer, because the slide list in PicToExe is not a directory in the Windows sense. (I already use Tree Size pro for the same function). To manipulate the list, you need to be able to select all the slides in the list, but you can't. Pete

Hi everyone. I've been out of the scene for some months and have just downloaded v4.1 of this terrific program. I'm very happy with it but I need to ask a question. Sorry if I've overlooked the obvious: I'm building a show with about 300 slides and one of the hardest things is visualising the "form" of the whole show. I've divided it up into eight chapters with a menu slide, but I thought I'd print out the list of slides I've incorporated already (out of about 1000 available) and use Thumbs Plus to do a gallery, but I can't see how to print the list. Can anyone suggest how to print a list of the used slides? Cheers, Pete

Thanks guys. I was afraid of this. In fact all my slides are coming from folders with short paths, ie E:\Images\Japan\R01\JPGs. I just don't know how that image from the My Pictures folder got there. Seems to be one of those Windows glitches. Oh well... sigh! Thanks again. By the way, the more I use this program, the more I appreciate it. A friend and I have been surveying all the slide show programs recently looking for "the one". I haven't found another show that offers all the little features that make P2E so good. For example, the automatic display of slide number and file name in the comment line - just what I needed and there it is. But the most significant feature, for my use, is the ability to set up buttons or hot-spots to jump to a slide number. I divide my shows up into sections this way with a menu slide at the beginning. This is the outstanding feature that no other low price program offers. I also own Macromedia Director v6 and have finally figured out how to use it (enough to make a slide show, anyway). I've been using both Director and P2E to build versions of the same show, and I'm beginning to think that P2E will produce the better result. Not bad for a $25 program. However, Photodex ProShow Gold is shaping up to be strong competition. Still a bit buggy and it doesn't offer the hyperjumping, but it's not bad. Cheers, Pete