giljones

During the last weeks I have endeavoured to ascertain a specification for a Laptop computer which would allow the production and showing of animated shows. At long last I have such an animal which was made for me by PC Specialist of the UK . Its main feature is a GE force 8600GT +D-SUB+TV -OUT which seems to do all one would expect of it. In all respects I am delighted with it to date and having put several sequences through it I can say without an compunction that I have made a good buy. I will not specify any of the other contents but if anyone in the UK is interested I am happy to email a copy of the specification to them. Undoubtedly the info I gained from so many on the forum has made this all possible and I thank everyone who wrote me with help and advice. Gilbert

Is it possible to edit an exe file of a show once it is created? I have a couple where I should like to edit the slides and others where I should like to change the music. Not nessecarily both in the same program. Most of the shows will have been created in ver 4 but projected in ver 5. Gilbert

Thanks very much for your reply to my speal about laptop computers. Quite frankly its a job to know which way to go when one hears of some of the horror stories members can tell about laptops they have used. The problem is, it is almost impossible to try before you buy, because what we are looking for has to be made to order and there is no way you can refuse it once you have paid your money for it as I assume you have to if you order it to be made.I really don't know what to do as once ordered Im stuck with it and just suppose it did'nt work.Maybe Ivan can cast some light upon a confused situation. Incidentally dont get carried away with the description of me as Junior Member Ive been making av.s for some 20+years and am now 77. I do about 20 shows each year in this area to all sorts of groups and remarkable enough I get invited more than once or even twice to some groups. I'm not interested in competitive photography but I do get great pleasure from making sequences adding the music and then showing them to others. Every good wish and thanks again for you input. Gilbert Jones

Over the past weeks I have been interested to watch and read about the specifications for a laptop computer and the need for a good graphics card and non fan cooling systems. I must here point out that the next remarks only apply to the UK not anywhere else, just to avoid confusion. I have been searching for a new laptop when my existing one stopped when trying to play extended dissolves made on PTE5 and at the same time I observed that even when playing shows that had been created on Ver 4 and beyond things did not always go to plan with the projected result was sometimes not quite right. My search for a laptop has involved in me consulting the boffins amongst us as to what spec I should look for and one thing has become immediatley apparent, what we ideally would like is not readily available on the general market and to date I have only found two companies that would quote me anything like what I asked for. The local shops did not want to know, and even the one who has made my previous PC's declined, offering me a run of the mill item which was not suitable. I have eventually got two prices, after a lot of emails and phone calls, one of which is just twice the price of the other. Now I am faced with just what to buy, one this is sure no one can offer pipe cooling technology until sometime next year , so I am told. One company can only offer me a hard drive running at 5400rpm whilst the dearer one can offer7200rpm this same company also offers a NVIDIA Geforce 7950 GTX 512mb card whilst the cheaper one offers a GEFORCE8600GT card both items are fan cooled. If I buy the more expensive machine I shall have to buy a new bag to put it in as it is very much larger than my present machine. To say that I am confused now is putting it mildly. One thing that has occurred to me in all this is - does the laptop computer need to have a higher or similar specification to the PC on which the programme was produced. I took advice from our experts when I had it made and to date it has served me well. Anyone got any ideas as to what I do next.? Gilbert Jones

Thanks for your helpful advice re Alienware. I too am in the market for the RIGHT laptop to enable good projection of PTE5 slide shows. Asa matter of interest I find that even shows made in ver 4.48 do not always project faultlessly there is the odd blip in sound and very occasionally the picture this has only happened since I have used PTE5 as my main program. Now to my real reason for writing. Is it possible that you could be more specific as to the specification for the laptop that you have. Your description is delightfully vauge, it would be helpful to old souls like me if we could know this info it would help no end in helping to make a decision. Just in case you haven't guessed I am in the UK so I look at the Alienware web site having pressed the UK selection button so our prices are somewhat different as we have included 17.5% for VAT. Many thanks for your help. Gilbert

Thanks for your help. Could you please clarify what you are suggesting. Do you mean that I should import the newly created file in JPEG into Save for the Web and Devices which is what I find in my programme. If I do this I end up with a GIF file and more than double the size of file that I started with. Am I doing something wrong?Gilbert

On a recent visit to Holland I accidentally set my Nikon D70 to camera raw, this resulted in some rather large files. I have managed via Photoshop/CS3 to convert them to JPEG files but they seem larger than normal to me. Most seem in the area of 1MB or greater. Is this normal? can I do anything to reduce the size of the files? Most of them are of the gardens at Het Loo and I particularly want to make them into a sequence on PTE5. Any help in this would be much appreciated. Gilbert

Thanks for this, have got this far already, my problem is what do I do next or perhaps more importantly what Have I done wrong to get to a point where the centre section will not work. Gilbert

I have tried to email Ronnie boot west who wrote the original, but unfortunately hie email keeps bouncing back to me so I have no option but to see if anyone can offer help to resolve my problem. The difficulty I have is that in part 2 when the programme is placed on PTE I am having difficulty in getting the centre strip to move, no matter what I do it will not work. The L & RH ones perform beautifully but there I am stuck. I suspect that it may be to do with the fact that I am using the latest version of PTE and the tutorial was written at the beginning of the journey to where we are now. You may wonder why I am using the 3 way split programme now, it suits what I want to do admirably hence its use now. If any one can offer help I shall be most obliged. Gilbert

Thanks very much, you are absolutely right, problem solved. Gilbert

Over the months I have downloaded pdf file as they appeared oin the hope of understanding how ver 5 would work. I have only recently acquired Photoshop CS2 and thought that I would have a go at split image work as set out in Pictures to EXE Version 5 Beta ! tutorial only to discover that after so doing I need part 2 to enable me to put the completed project into PTE 5. Regrettably there is no name on the instruction sheet so I have no idea who wrote it. Is it possible to get part 2 or has the whole lot now been superseded by current events. I would dearly like to use what I have as it took quite a time to get to grips with it, Gilbert Jones

I seem to have hit a problem with this. I am trying to burn all my PTE 5 files to a dvd mainly to provide a back up in case of problems. I currently have around 2 Gib Bytes of files on a memory stick which is now full so I am proposing to put all these plus others I may produce in the future. I have a recently built computer with DVD rw tray in it but when I ask windows to do anything to it all it seems to be able to recognise is a CD. I have Nero installed as a stand alone programme and have to call it up to use it. Not sue what I am asking it to do, any help would be appreciated. The odd thing is that the files I have currently tried to save onto a dvd using the Windows option seem to be there but I cannot find out how I burn them (assuming I have to). Any help re these problems would be appreciated. By the way I find using PTE 5 terrific don't seem to have any of the reported problems, so I must be doing something right. Gilbert

Please add my name to your list. Gilbert Edward Jones. gilbert.jones@blueyonder.co.uk

I had this problem early on with PTE, some discs will not properly let you rip tracks from them. May I suggest you get a free download of a program called Audiograbber from Audiograbber.com-us.net, since using this I have not had any problems. The advice elsewhere re MP3 I would agree with. If you want to go further there is another program called Audacity which again is a free download. This is a sound editing program again since using it I have not had a problem.This can be obtained from http://audacity.sourceforge.net Please do read the instruction in both these programmes and you should not have a problem The lame encoder mentioned is obtainable also as directed. Finally do get the latest version of PTE this is a free download, just follow the instructions on the PTE website. Gilbert

I am currently investigating the purchase of a new computer. Can I transfer the existing program files or do I need to download them again. If so do I have to pay again or is there some method to avoid this. Gilbert

We are advised already that Windows Vista ( a replacement of XP) is about to hit the market. My question is will PTE 5 and above work on this new system.

When I came to run a current show in course of preparation in ver 4.48 it refused to run as it had already done earlier in the preparation process. Further investigation revealed that the slide list had been wiped clean and the sound already added had been deleted. When I tried to open the above program as you suggested yesterday, I noticed that all I could get was the ver v.4.8 trying to open, but a note appeared saying that PTE no longer supported earlier versions. I thought nothing of it at the time, just shut the programme down and decided that it would not open. Clearly it has had an effect on my existing ver 4.48 as I have now to re make the show that was almost ready to be created.

Have had help from Al Robinson re this problem. He has identified that I have a problem with my computer with particular reference to the lack of a good video card. Previous versions of ver 5 have worked ok until this last one. Could not open the show of flowers but could open the one which heads up the Beckham Digital ad for their new sound files. It rather looks as if I might have either to stay with ver 4 and my existing computer or else update my machine and get into the 21st century. I did point out to Al that it would be helpful to know what minimum specification computer is going to be required to enable ver 5 & more to be used without problems.

Will send you the info on the programme shortly. Just to clarify, the slideschange but I cannot get them to fade and dissolve or any of the effects available do not work, all previous editions have worked OK but this one - just foes not do as it should. . Be in touv ch soon.Gilbert

Just downloaded Beta 8 and have added slides to check it out. I cannot get the transition effects to work at all. The slides change without any transition at all despite trying various types of transition. Has tis function been disabled in this Beta edition?

My thanks to everyone who contributed to my recent enquiry re this. I have been away on holiday and this is the first opportunity I have had to exprexx my thanks. I founfdthe replies most helpful especially the prospect of a computer without a hard disc in it. I have for a long time thought that our present PC's were on the way out and here we have confirmation. The mind boggles at the prospect of a compact flash card capable of holding 100GB's or maybe even more. I suppose its only a matter of time, I suspect the technology already exists. Thanks again to everyone who helped.Gilbert