giljones

I now have about 30 slide shows some scanned from original slides and some made from digital images. I regularly give shows in the area to a variety of groups and need to access the shows easily. At the moment all the programmes are in one file I call my av shows (I also have a back up cd for reference purposes) I find this method easy to handle but realise that the size of the AV file is growing quite large. What are the experiences of members with this. I want to avoid the use of a CD for shows as it is quite fiddly with my laptop, and as I have reached an age where such things are important I am wondering the best way forward. Gilbert

I have finally cracked it. Your last message set me thiking prompting me to search back over problems stored in the archive files.It was no surprise to discover that a number of people had similar problems to mine with the same degree of frustration. You will probably laugh when I tell you what I was doing wrong. Firstly I was tring to move the points on the timeline by pulling on the horizontal box on the line itself rather than the box that is hanging down, Secondly I had not set my programme correctly to start with and lastly I was not saving the programme frequently enough so that adjustments made were not always saved properly. Most of this revealed itself in a query raised by Isabel95 in December 2003 answered by Jim in Ottawa. This was exactly the sort of info I was looking for. I know that it is all contained in various training programmes etc but it needed to be set out in this form before the penny dropped. I am tempted to say "don't sell the contents of the box until you show the customer how to open it" those who have been using this excellent programme for some time are very familiar with it and almost automatically expect us lesser mortals to understand what they are tyring to say. I am now in my mid 70's and sometines it takes a fairly simple approach to enable me to understand what is no doubt obvious to others. Many thanks for all your help, I appreciate your generous offer of assistance.Gilbert PS I have been making AV's for 25 years using two Leica projectors and fade and dissolve systems. Going digital is very different as I'm sure you are aware.

Thanks for your comments, forgive my ignorance but I am just a little confused, if I ignore the Project Options facility what settings do I have to make to the main page - if any so that I can go directly to the timeline and try to make changes there,. As I previously wrote if I make changes to the customize slide function, nothing happens to the timeline and when I recheck it the settings I made have disappeared in favour of what I imagine to be defaault settings. I feel that there is something that I am missing but I am not sure how to go about establishing what it is. I have a copy of your tutorial, but this is not helping me much at this stage. If all else fails I will endevaour to send you a copy of my programme. Gilbert

Thank tou for your help, you have managed to highlight my problem without quite giving me the answer. 1. How do I set the project option opening page. Synchronise programme or timed slide changes what are the settings of thervarious boxes.? 2.I have tried customize slides, asked the programme to provide a different slide time for the three slides in question but each time the setting goes back to default as soon as I close the option. I have tried highlighting the time line and moving the little greyed blocks but nothing happens. HELP Gilbert

Sorry to interrupt the enthusiastic comments about PTE5 but I have a problem with PTE4. I am trying to add three longer than normal slide intervals to allow the audience to reAd what is on the screen. To date I have had no luck in doing this despite various instructivE discs etc which I have. My first problem is that when I set a customised slide up with longer time on the screen, as soon as I press ok and go back to the main screen the settings all disappear and revert to where they were before I set them . As far as I can tell I am doing things correctly, pressing OK etc. I cannot get the slide positions to move on the timeline at all. The main program is set in non synchronised mode if that helps. Can someone talk me through this and see if I can find out what I am doing wrong. Not much hair before I started this....... who knows. Gilbert

I have now successfully created a number of slide shows which run ok. In the interests of good mamngement and in case of future needs I decided to save to a CD copies of all my original PTE files before I created slide shows from them. Having done this I now find that none of them will read back into PTE, the computer tells me that it cannot find the files and try as I might I cannot retrieve them. What have I done wrong and is there any way of reversing the situatuion so that I can have a copy of the un created files?. Gilbert

I am researching which laptop to buy to use to present pte programmes. I note that nearly all the ones on sale only offer dvd as a possibility for playing back programmes. If this is so does it mean that I have to record all pte programmes to dvd and how do I convert existing one on cd to dvd/ Gilbert

Thanks for your info, this promped me to check everything I had done again and there it was, despite me editing away initially I found a dead end on the sound file, have now re edited it and it seems to be ok. Many thanks for your help. Sometimes we can't see the wood for the trees. Gilbert

I am already using Audacity, have edited all the spare ends of the three piece programme that I have edited into one piece. Gilbert

I would be interested to know how PTE calculates the playing time for mp3 files loaded into a program,my experience to date (not a lot) indicates a discrepancy between what is supposed to be available and what actually happens. A typical example I have at the moment is as follows. Indicated time 12m 41s actual playing time 12m 12s. Can anyone explain what is happening. Gilbert

Thank you very much for your information. You have confirmed my worst suspicions. I have since downloaded a copy of Audiograbber as suggested elsewhere and am now comoing to grips with it. Thanks again for your comments. Gilbert Thanks for your comments. I have now downloaded a copy of Audiograbber as you suggest ans am now finding out how to use it. Any comments you can offer here would be most welcome. I assume I cannot use the Lame encoder I downloaded for Audacity as it will probably be in the wrong place. Gilbert

I have already thanked Igor by email for his prompt attention to this matter and the conclusions he has come to. It would appear that where a sound file does not play in PTE it is not correctly encoded as an MP3 file by the device that provided it. All my files that gave problems were made via windows Media Player ver 10 which says it is creating an MP3 file if you direct it to do so. Clearly as far as I was concerned this was not happening. The other interesting thing that has become apparent was that all the tracks I used were taken from one CD. In the midst of all the problems I acquired a copy of Audacity and its associated MP3 encoding file and had got this operational by the time Igor had advised of problems. Firstly I tried loading into Audacity files taken from my original source, without exception Audacity would not let me load any of them, I then took tracks from another disc using Windows Media Player and offered these to Audacuty and they went in without problems. I subsequently edited these and then tried to load them into PTE and I had on problems ,and the sequences played OK. Is it possible that some cd's prevent the possibility of track ripping or have I just been unlucky?

I have done as you have asked - results Pte Prev Synced Would not run showed erorte Music Synced Ran ok Ptemusic 1 ran ok Pte prev1 Would not run ahowed an error box PTE music Synced Ran ok Hope this helps. Gilbert

Have downloaded the utility and placed it on my desktop so that I could find it easily. When I moused the icon a box appeared saying Get l;ength and play and another button marked play. When either were pressed it brought up a windon displaying my C drive from this I found the desktop and tried to rtun the file but nothing happened, Gilbert

My PC is running Windows XP with all latest downloads. Not sure what the soundcard is - sorry. I am using ver 4,45 of PTE Tried your sample Per Aspera that works ok. Tried your sample MP3 file after a few seconds it failed and an error box came up from Mozilla asking for info about it. (I use Mozilla nad Thunderbird.) Not yet tried ver 4.45. You are quite right in you assumption that when I ask for music length all I get is zeros even thaough the music file is loaded. The music just will not play. Gilbert

I propose to publish my latest experiences having previously contributed these to other questions raised by members.I purchased PTE in late January and initially made three short sequences complete with music which I produced on Windows Media Player as MP3 files. One of these sequences was then made into a complete unit and placed on a new CD for future reference. Initially when I replayed that cd it worked, Whilst working on the other sequences I noiced problems with the sound files. All I got when I tried to add sound via project options was a message telling me that the programme could not find the sound files. At this point I tried the completed cd and it refused to play producing the same message that the sound files could not be found.I also noted that all the title pages previously produced in Photo Shop Essentials had lost their coloured backgrounds and the titles apeared as small letters on the slide, nothing I have since been able to do has since reversed this situation. In desperation I uninstalled the PTE programme and loaded it again from their site, this produced exactly the same results, no sound - similar messages and unable to create complete sequences with sound files added. I now do not know what to do, I have writtednto the producers of the programme as this currect version appears to be unstable or has a virus got at it? I note a number of members seem to have similar problems all around the same time. Has anyone yet found a way round the problem? Gilbert PS I have tried all the suggestions put forward by members but nothing makes any difference.

I am using mP5 files created by Windows Media Player which have worked for my other shows. Have since completley removed the programme and re loaded it but the results are exactly the same. I forgot to mention that when I press the preview button I get a message telling me that the programme canot find the music file I have loaded. I have checked the validity of the music files and they all run ok. Help Gilbert

Thanks for you generous help.I've finally cracked the problem of no sound, I hate to admit this but I had a connection problem with the speakers , only found this when I started trying all the suggestions that I received. So thanks for your help. I now have a copy of Audacity but I cna't seem to be able to import audo produced by Windows Media Player, I ahve tried the various formats offered by Windows but none seem acceptable, any thoughts about this. Gilbert

Yes it is my desktop machine with a 3 socket set on the rear, one of which is labelled speakers the other two are red which I assume is Mic in and lastly Blue which I assume is Line in from tape etc. I have the correct stereo mini jack and stero jack to two phone output lead but when I connect it to my amplifier nothing happens,I have checked the integrity of the conection and leads and all seems to be ok. I have tried feeding the output into various inputs on my amplifier but everything is dead and yet I know the amp is ok as I use it for my analogue shows. Gilbert

1. This will sound basic to those who know, in analogue I knew the answers in PTE I struggle. How do I join one or mooe pieces of music to form a comp[lete track, how do I select only a portion of a piece of music to join with another so that it all ends up ok. 2. How do I feed the output from my computer into an amplifier to get a greater volume of sound. I've tried feeding the socket output labelled speaker into my amplifier but notheing happens, what am I doing wrong. Thanks to everyone who helped me get going a few weeks back, I just hope you can you can sort me out now. Gilbert Jones

Is it worth trying to convert an existing 35mm slide show to PTE? if so how would I go about it. When making digital sequences, what is the best way of producing titles. I have been using power point to make them to date and then photogtraph them onto 35mm slides, can I still use pp ? if so how do I convert the resulting file to a suitable format for PTE. These may sound simple questions but to someone who is new to digital they are quite important to resolve. Gilbert

Thanks for all your helpful comments. Gilbert Thanks for your very helpful comments Gilbert Thanks for all your helpful comments. Gilbert