leonard

You might like to study the Soundforge/Audacity tutorials at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorials.html leonard

For the attention of the Forum Administrator To whom it may concern Dear Sir/Madam, Given my recent decision to cease using your products (specifically PicturesToExe versions 4 and 5) and not to participate in Forum matters, I would be obliged if you would delete my personal details from your records with immediate effect. Please acknowledge by email. Thank you for your assistance in this matter. Regards leonard

Hi Maureen, Thanks, you have well and truly put me in my place. In my 'clumsy' way I was trying to help believe it or not. I apologise to those of you that I may have offended or wasted their valuable time. Personally, I will now withdraw from your Forum and from using P2E. Thanks for offering me printed copies, but I think in the circumstances I wont be making use of them. regards leonard

Gentlemen - Thanks to those of you who found the time to respond. It is always interesting to note how quickly you rally round the flag to defend the ‘status quo’. I would like to make several points so that you may all appreciate why I am so concerned, and also to clarify the situation as far as I'm concerned personally. 1. I agree wholeheartedly that with the help of many dedicated and highly experienced user’s the newbie/beginner can rest assured that help is at hand (practically instantaneously) to answer P2E queries from the very basic to the most complex. 2. You may be surprised to learn that personally, I have no problem with P2E, but then I consider myself to be computer hardware/software savvy with over 20 years experience. 3. For the last few months I have endeavoured to put myself in the position of the newbie and try to represent their interests. On most occasions I have been deliberately provocative in an attempt to identify what I firmly believe is a major weakness in this product, namely documentation support. And for that reason I make no apology for my persistence in this matter. By documentation I mean pdf files not hard copy. 4. For the life of me I do not understand how you can still continue to deny that for the absolute beginner this is the logical place to start. Nor can I see the sense or logic in perpetuating a situation in which many of you find it acceptable not to insist on this kind of information from the outset. The fact that this has been allowed to exist for over 5 years I find quite incredible. 5. Forum’s are established for a number of reasons, in the main to help and support the membership and by and large this Forum must rate amongst the best. But I believe it should not have to ‘bend over backwards’ to overcome this shortfall on the part of the Company. 6. As I see the situation currently the membership will need to provide even the most basic of tuition and education support to newbies for many years to come. A task that I suspect many of you look forward to and thoroughly enjoy. May I make a suggestion. Would it not help beginners like Sharon if the Forum included a Heading named, say, Getting Started? This could include a number of links to sites on which may be found relevant material to assist the beginner. Food for thought. It might make life a little less stressful for some members. Finally, it has been suggested that to include this information would make the product more expensive. Personally, I would prefer to pay a reasonable price for a product that included a software/documentation bundle. Furthermore, on the question of cost, I think Version 5 should not be free. leonard

Hi Sharon, As a fellow novice I know how you must be feeling right now. You are surrounded by experts in P2E who know this software inside out having accumulated many years experience on version 4 and now version 5 beta. In fact, although they are extremely helpful and will try and point you in the right direction on every occasion, they have no appreciation of the difficulties faced by the absolute beginner. No doubt, like me, you will expect to be able to obtain a 'user guide' or 'manual' that you can read and re-read to absorb the basic principles before venturing into the unknown. This is common practice I believe in the software business. Not so in P2E. There never has been one and as far as I can tell there never will be. The 'experts' do not consider this a shortfall or indeed a hindrance, after all what benefit would such documentation be to them! So you will be faced with replies that contain endless links to many websites to witness masterpieces produced by these experts, and you will be expected to learn and master the intricacies of this new software from their efforts. I don’t doubt you will pick up the basis techniques by trial and error. Here are some tips from my recent experiences: 1. Expect the learning curve to be steep. Steer clear of version 5 until you've mastered version 4. 2. Be prepared to have to search endlessly over the wide range of subjects on this Forum (accumulated over at least 5 years) to find the answers to your many Q's. 3. Avoid, at all costs, posing Q's in the wrong area as you stand the risk of not getting a direct response. 4. Access the Forum several hours per day to ensure that you don’t miss a vital tip. 5. Avoid asking difficult and searching Q's as this may delay the development and completion of version 5 beta. 6. Be prepared for criticism from some of the membership if you persist in asking awkward Q's 7. Or alternatively, visit the Barry Beckham website and purchase the excellent Tutorials on this subject. You will learn more in a few hours viewing than you will from several weeks searching for answers on this Forum. I don’t doubt that eventually P2E version 5 will be a 'must have' piece of software for those photographers wanting to produce amateur slideshows. It is a great pity that the same high level of knowledge and expertise wont be applied to producing the associated documentation. I wish you Good Luck in your new venture. leonard

Just so there is no misunderstanding here - this is not a crusade by me to satisfy my requirements. I am trying to represent the views of all newbies who is mystified by the way you do business and hope that my comments might prompt you all to think widely and creatively in the hope of making you see the need for improvements. A fresh mind can sometimes do good by rocking the boat and I have done that deliberately over the past week or so. As I said in another post in this forum, if you are all satisfied with your modus operandi then so be it. I do have better things to do with my time. leonard

Why is it that you all take these ideas of mine as a request for info specifically for my SOLE benefit. If you all satisfied with being kept in the dark and only accept things as and when they arise, then so be it. It seems a peculiar attitude to take. I am quite content to let you all carry on as before, and enjoy me retirement. leonard

Hi, Another example of a General Topic needing a slot of its own! As far as I can see this is 'buried' in the topic "What's missing from V5" where Igor has kindly given us an insight into the remaining stages of development. This is a topic which surely is foremost in people's minds. It definitely needs to be made more prominent - pinned to the top of the Forum, and Igor requested to update it regularly. Do I hear you say he is too busy doing more important things, so lets not bother him with this unimportant task! Talking about milestones, what is the plan (if it exists) for preparing user documentation. All sorts of suggestions have been put forward for the interim, but as usual, if the subject is contentious ignore it, it will probably go away. No way! leonard

This is not the only feature/area of the PTE Forums which is in need of an overhaul. The present method of expecting 'newbies' to search back through the endless stream of topics in search of an issue requiring an immediate answer (as they see it) is timewasting, frustrating, often fruitless and frankly downright archaic. Newbies are faced with a system which is set in concrete and where the authors, whoever they are, just don't want to know. The present system is set up specifically to deal with individual technical issues without much thought being given to the big picture. Anyone who has experienced the good and poor websites knows what I mean. Perhaps someone can point me to the place where I can read the Forums Terms of Reference so that I may see whether or not it is achieving its aims and objectives. As with so many of these 'General' topics there is no place to put them so that we may ALL contribute to the wellbeing of the Site, and even perhaps, give Igor and his team a much needed hand in its administration, maintenance and support. Once more a general topic is submerged in a specific technical enquiry which in itself needed a 'home of its own'. This point is so true of many posts, so how can you expect the newbie to find what he is looking for. I expect to get a high level of negativity if my experience with the Documentation subject is anything to go by, but I live in hope. Please feel free to be critical, but please let it be constructive. leonard

If I had been in your shoes I would have replied asking the offender to transfer his subject to the correct area. Perhaps you should remind members that to help you in future they should ensure they raise their issue in the correct Forum, otherwise you might not be able to help them. Do we need a General Forum for non-technical issues? leonard

Hi Ken, I wish you had you this response in answer to my "How to produce high quality video CD/DVDs?" post, it might have saved some duplication! leonard Ken, Please amend "I wish you had you this response" to read "I wish you had entered this response " leonard

Hi Everybody, In the PicturesToExe Forum I raised the topic "How to produce high quality video CD/DVDs?" and received a very limited but useful response. It occurred to me that a fresh start in this area might interest a new audience that could supply some more answers to enable me to solve my problem. For ease of reference I quote from my original topic: "I find PTE4 and PTE5 are both excellent for producing slideshows for viewing on a PC (not up to Barry Beckham's standard of course) but adequate in terms of sharpness, colour rendition and layout etc to please the discerning viewer. Unfortunately, in my case, the same can't be said for the same slideshows that are output as avi's and then burnt to CD/DVDs and displayed on a domestic TV. The output loses it's crispness and there is a fall off in colour reproduction. I have tried several different 'output' routes using a variety of software (up to and including Adobe Encore DVD v2) without any real success. So my questions are these: 1. Is it possible to get the same high quality that is obtainable on a PC CRT when played back on a domestic DVD player and viewed on a TV. If YES what is the secret? 2. Does it depend on the codec selected in PTE? If YES, which one? 3. If NO, does it depend on the authoring software? If YES, which one? 4. Is the choice of DVD player important, If YES, which one? 5. If NO, is the choice of TV type important, ie CRT, CRT high definition, or LD/plasma? 6. Does the image type, size, cropping, resolution etc have a bearing on the result? 6. Are there any other factors that may contribute to this 'problem'? I should add I use the PAL TV standard." Perhaps to start the ball rolling let me raise the question "Why not Both"? On the face of it given that PTE has the capability of outputting an avi which can be imported into say Adobe Premier Elements 2 to create the rest of the video, it would seem very straightforward. In fact the mechanism is quite easy. On the face of it one can have both. So what is the problem? The problem is that this video show when viewed on a standard TV leaves a lot to be desired. Gone are the finely focussed crisp images now replaced by slightly soft ones which I find unacceptable, as if they were out of focus. They might be OK for family and friends, but I certainly wouldn't part with hard earned cash. I've asked several slideshow producers (not commercial) who all claim that they are satisfied with the results. (see LumenLux's reply in the other Forum). Lin Evans (see his reply in the other Forum) gave a response which I thought was well reasoned and on the face of it seemed to satisfy my quest, but given only 2 replies to my enquiry this can hardly be called a convincing argument. What I can say is that when the video is played back in WinDVD7 (or 8) on a PC the playback is fine, so the problem seems to lie with authoring program/TV. On this 'evidence' you can't have both. What do other members think? Have you had problems similar to mine, and how did you solve them? It may be, of course, that the TV method can't possibly match the PC. I would certainly like to know the aswer to that question. leonard Having just posted this on the Forum I see Ken Cox has added a post on a similar subject. Maybe I shall find an answer on the links he provides. leonard

Hi Maureen, At last a friendly voice. You should have received my email by now - I look forward to corresponding with you. leonard

As this topic of mine has been 'hi-jacked' I will raise this subject again in the 'How to Create a Video Forum' under the heading 'Displaying Slideshows - on a PC or TV?'. The initial response was less than I was hoping for, so I will open the discussion by asking the Question - Why not both?

I was hoping we could keep this discussion on a serious professional level - how wrong can you get. leonard

Hi Al, No, I've not been following progress or tried to learn as it proceeds, I've neither the inclination, time nor the expertise - some of us do have other tasks and interests to keep us busy. I've recently come on the scene because I thought, probably wrongly, that having reached beta 8 the development would be largely complete and by now perhaps, just perhaps, there would be some spare capacity on both sides to do this important work. Clearly, you as one of the major players in this scenario, strongly disagree. Perhaps you expect there to be several more beta versions. And yet it's not all that long ago when Igor publicly announced that the FINAL version would become available last September. I'm absolutely sure that those of you who have played a major part in this beta process have contributed significantly in this important phase. I'm equally sure that the end product will be much better because of that. Enough is enough. My head aches from banging it against a brick wall. I've now decided to withdraw from this debate. After all, time spent reading and commenting on my unreasonably ideas must be taking up everyone's valuable time that could be better utilised elsewhere. Perhaps when the dust has finally settled, say early summer 2007, I will return to see whether any progress has been and if not go round the buoy again. Finally, I have little doubt that unless someone grasps this nettle, the Help file will no better than that currently supplied with v4, and that is now at v4.48! And this product deserves a better fate. leonard Hi RonH, Thanks for you encouragement. I wish I'd read it before penning my LAST message. leonard

Hi wideangle, Thanks, the discussion needed a fresh perspective and you've provided it. Surely there can be no argument against this proposal - it hits the nail on the head, should be fairly simple, straightforward and easy to implement. It can be added to progressively as the design proceeds to completion. Would Igor object to 'one of our experts' providing the draft material for his vetting and then for a member of his team to incorporate it into the Help element? How about Advanced Member putting this idea forward to Igor ASAP? leonard

Hi Everybody, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your time and interest in my rather dry subject. I get the message(s) loud and very clear - be prepared for plenty of DIY and have lots of patience. Don't be surprised if one needs to refer to the Forum on umpteen occasions, but expect to be treated with courtesy and sympathy. The Forum is capable of answering all your questions and is used extensively and regularly by dedicated hobbyists who know the subject inside out. Documentation on a wide range of issues is available, generally speaking, although some detective work is necessary to trace there whereabouts especially if you are a newcomer. I wish you all well in your endeavours, and have a Happy Xmas and Prosperous New Year. regards leonard

Hi dagrace, Thanks for your input. I'll start by saying that we all have our own way of learning and doing things. Personally, I think life is too short to spend endless hours fumbling in the dark hoping against hope that I can find the light switch. I am interested in your statements: 1. "And, again, for my style of learning, I've found that just watching it isn't enough. I have to go DO it. So having a manual wouldn't help me that much.", followed by: 2. "I have found the tutorials and pdf manuals invaluable." Incidentally, I assume these were prepared by the 'membership', which begs the question - have they received Igor's approval. For all I know there may be umpteen 'manuals' out there which contradict one another to some degree. My point exactly - manuals are invaluable. Personally I find that tutorials are only 'nice to have', and usually they are badly prepared, and very amateurish. It takes real skill and not a little experience to put together an interesting and informative video tutorial. In addition they have to be displayed on a screen which is not exactly ideal for concentration. Whereas a hard copy can act as a bible, is portable and can even be read in bed if one is so inclined. In my experience, the user guide/manual author and software designer have to ensure that the end user fully understands what the product does, how it does it and how the user may put it to use. That task is not easy I am the first to agree, and good authors are difficult to find. Most designers haven't the writing skills, and management consider it a waste of time and money. And it can be an expensive business, but can pay dividends in the long run. I fully agree with you that practice makes perfect, and only by doing things will the processes become second nature. But I stand by my earlier comments that an approved manual is vital. At the very least it will ensure that everyone sings from the same hymn sheet. It also helps to ensure that control procedures are followed and more importantly properly documented. I'm sure you are right when you say "This is one of the most helpful, friendly forums I've ever been a part of. Answers come in minutes or hours, not days." It is a good job that so many enthusiatic and dedicated followers have the time to spare for their hobby. I hope for everyone's sake this effort is forthcoming over the next few years as v5 gains full commercial release in 200? leonard

Hi All, It is pretty obvious to me from these recent replies that the long serving membership have learnt a lot from their own endeavours and the helpful suggestions of others. Most of you have been 'at it' for a number of years and have grown up with the product, no doubt since its inception. I also don't doubt that the 'club' is used to this way of working because it is their HOBBY, and that the combination of club and Igor and his team is self serving and prefer to work this way. So be it. Now, try to put yourself in the position of the newcomer. He buys this software, because of a recommendation and finds it hard to understand some of the concepts and manner of working. There is no documentation as such and spends a lot of time and effort fumbling around in the hope of getting it to work. He is used to getting a manual/user guide and from experience he knows that the combination of software and hard copy is sufficient for him to make reasonable progress. Only occasionally does he have to refer to a forum to solve some obscure issue. Not so PTE (or is it P2E). In order to get to grips he (or she) must now search through umpteen threads on a Forum in the hope that someone else has asked the Q and got an answer, or worked it out for themselves. I agree the cost of this program is fabulous value for money. But how much time and effort (not costed) must be spent in trying to make progress. Personally, I would rather spend money on a well documented and proven program than spend my time (many hours a day) reading forum threads/topics in order to keep up to make progress. I will persevere and no doubt after a lot of wasted effort, time and money I will make some progress. But from my own personal experience it is not the right way to do things. I thank those of you who have found the time and interest to try to put me on the right path. I have now collected enough ideas/links to keep me going for some time. I still don't know whether Igor (or any other author) is going to produce a manual. And don't tell me it's not necessary. leonard

Hi Tom, Thanks for the info, it look as though there is light at the end of the tunnel. It does beg the question - how long will it be before the software/hardware becomes available, and at a reasonable/affordable price. This supports the notion that today's technology is just not good enough for the discerning viewer. leonard

Hi Lin, Thanks for your in depth response to my questions. In a word, given the present technological status in the industry, it is your opinion that PC slideshow AVIs burnt to CD/DVDs will not produce the same quality image as seen on a PC monitor when displayed on a TV screen. So it is all a matter of compromise and in the end is down to what the viewer considers acceptable in terms of image sharpness and colour reproduction. And as we know it's all in the eye of the beholder. All very subjective and personally I find it most unsatisfactory. Thanks for your time. I hope other members will add their views and keep the debate alive. leonard

Hi LumenLux, Thanks for your input. I've written to Barry Beckham to ask if he sells a slideshow video DVD that I can play back on my set up (PAL). I'll let you know how I get on. In the meantime, could you please comment on the following list of items that you use when producing your slideshow Video DVDs: 1. What software program do you use when authoring your PTE avi? 2. What DVD media do you use? 3. Do you use a standard domestic DVD player? 4. What type of domestic TV do you use, standard CRT TV, HD CRT TV, or LCD/Plasma? 5. How does your TV display compare to that seen on your PC monitor in terms of image sharpness and colour reproduction? 6. What type of PC monitor do you use, CRT or TFT? Please add any further comments you consider relevant. Thanks for your interest in this subject. leonard

Hi Thedom, Thanks for your input - this will keep busy for quite some time! leonard

I've had a quick look at your tutorial and note this is for PTE v4. I think that tutorials do play a useful part in understanding any subject, but I much prefer a manual supplemented if necessary with a tutorial. To return to my original question, is there a ma nual in the pipeline, a question that really needs Igor to answer. leonard