TonyFalla

I don't know if it is possible to do what I want to do in the current version of PTE but I have a situation where I have a fairly complex object with several parent / child levels, I have set this up at about 6 different keyframe times. What I would like to do is to copy all the parent / child elements plus all the associated animation parameters from one keyframe time and then paste at a different keyframe time. The only method I can see of doing this is to duplicate slide, but I wondered if there was any other facility I am not aware of. Anybody got any other suggestions? Regards Tony

Hi Eric I have just gone through this same process although my video builder licence had expired 18 months ago. After some research I found out that if you don't renew your video builder licence then while we have 7.0 you are OK your existing licence will work. However when a major update to PTE is made you have to make a decision then. If you upgrade then PTE will still work but none of the features of video builder will work until you renew your licence. If you use the features of video builder and you don't want to renew your licence then you can continue to use 7.0 but of course will not get the new features of the upgrade. Hope this helps Tony Falla

I think part of the confusion is because Igor is an honourable honest business man, a rare commodity these days. A lot of companies would have just said we are stopping PTE and are now bringing out a new product which would just be PTE with bells and whistles, you can upgrade to the new product for a discount price of x but after this you will have to pay for major upgrades. This is in effect what has happened but has become complicated by Igor's commitment to honouring the original free for life licence. Again many thanks for all the helpful info Tony Falla

Thanks for the replies, he of little brain is starting to understand what is going on. From your replies I now understand the situation to be PTE consists of two parts PTE and Video Builder, the licence for PTE for existing customers is for life, the licence for Video Builder has to be renewed every two years. Video Builder is the software associated with the "Create" function and is for everything except a PC Exe or Screen Saver. This is the bit that is still unclear. One person is saying that if your Video Builder licence has expired then you should use the Video Builder from your last version when the licence was valid. How do you do that? Do I have to replace Video Builder for 7.0.1 with that from a valid version or does the software look for it? Another is saying that you can only use the PTE and Video Builder in a specific pair, i.e. Version 7.0.1 Pte will only work with Version 7.0.1 Video Builder which is logical and what I would have expected. He then says that if you use a Deluxe feature with an expired licence then it will still work but in Trial Mode and produce a version with Trial Tags. I took a closer a look at the Mac version I produced yesterday expecting to see a watermark saying "Trial" or it to end after a dozen or so slides but no that didn't happen, it was only when the sequence was half way through I realised what was happening. Only the main slides are shown with a fad in / out, no O&A or other sophistication. So my conclusion is that nobeefstu is right, you can only used matched pairs of PTE and Video Builder and if I want to produce executable Mac sequences I need to upgrade my licence. If you want to retain your Deluxe features without renewing the licence then you must remain with your last valid version of PTE and Video Builder. My final comment is that the way this has been done is very confusing. In my opinion it would be simpler to understand if when you don't have a Deluxe licence either you cannot use the Deluxe features or it says you can produce a trial version which is watermarked or only works for a limited number of slides. The trial I produced yesterday for the Mac doesn't really tell me if my sequence would work on a Mac as I still don't know if the Mac version copes with complicated O&A. Many thanks to all those who replied and helped me to clear my befuddled brain Tony Falla

Hi Lin Thanks for that but the senility must be really bad today as I am still confused. What you seem to be saying to me is that when I load the latest version of PTE there is (possibly) a revised version of Video Builder with it. When I start up PTE and then try to use Video Builder the software says I haven't got a licence for this new version and offers for me to pay for a new version. If I decline this offer then my old version of video builder is used. It is this last bit I can't get my head round where is it getting my old version of Video Builder from? I currently have 3 versions of PTE on my PC 6.5.8, 7.0 and 7.0.1 all of which have been installed since my licence expired, all of which the Video Builders have dates corresponding to when they were released / installed. What I don't get is that unless there is some very clever programming how does the software distinguish between what your licence permits and doesn't permit. If it is using my old version of Video Builder where is it getting it from, as I could have had a problem and cleared my disk and lost my old version of Video Builder. The only way I can see it working is that Video Builder somehow contains all versions and when you come to use it it selects the one corresponding to your licence but this seems very cumbersome. I am not trying to be argumentative I am just trying to understand how it works and wondering what happens if people decide not to pay the licence does there come a point when for some reason their old Video Builder is no longer available for whatever reason? Tony Falla

I am even more confused now. I thought I would try to see if I could create an Exe file for Mac, it came up and said that my licence had expired but I could still use previous version. I had the option of Buy or OK, I clicked OK, expecting it to take me back into PTE. No it then allowed me to create a Mac App which I transferred to my Mac and it played. What is going on? If my licence has expired then it should stop me from doing things not covered not let me carry on regardless. Tony Falla

I have had PTE in various versions since 2004/5, but for personal reasons haven't used it much in the last 12 months, today for the first time I started to use Version 7.0 . Now I know I am going senile but I have been trying to understand the new licence agreement and all I am getting is a headache. Where can I find a list of what is considered standard and what is considered deluxe? I bought a Deluxe Licence a few years ago but this new version tells me it expired about 18 months. My understanding at that time was that the Deluxe version gave you additional output methods such as video, u-tube, iPad, etc none of which I have ever used. Looking at the WNSoft site I get the impression that some of the new features of 7.0 e.g. video clips, are only included in the Deluxe version. Am I correct? At the end of the day I want use PTE to produce a sequence that I will put out as an exe file for a PC or a Mac. Currently I don't see me using video clips but I may want to in the future. Do I need a Deluxe Licence for this? Tony Falla

I'll second that I always thought that the fade at the end gave a nice finish to the sequence and have never really like the abrupt closing we get with the later versions. Tony

Barry Desktop 1920 x 1200 Laptop 1920 x 1080 Tony Falla

Thanks for your honesty Igor at least Mac users now know where they stand and can make their own decisions on how they can produce AV's with or without PTE Tony Falla

I know that when Igor was over in the UK inSeptember last year he stated that the Mac version of PTE was a major undertaking but the last date mentioned for this was in March 2010 when it was stated that it was hoped that beta testing would start before the end of the year. As one of many people I know who are currently changing to Mac's it would be nice to know if there is a timetable for the Mac version. I can then plan how long I keep a Windows PC or plan for installing a windows partition on the Mac. It is not a case of "are we there yet as" suggested on this forum somewhere but looking at what I should or should not be buying in the next year or two Tony Falla

This is a problem that has existed with PTE for a long time which I reported about 18 mths - 2 years ago, I can't say exactly when as it appears as my posting history only contains the last few months. I can't remember the full details but I had the same file names for images in two sub-folders of the folder used to create the template. I only found out about it a year or so later when I tried to restore from the backed up template and lost some of my images. I have come across the problem Jose is reporting since when again I had put my images into sub-folders some of which had the same name, at least this time I found out about it before I backed up my project and was able to correct. I presumed that this had been put in as a safeguard to overcome the problem I had initially reported. As I say I can't remember the exact detail but I believe no problems were experienced when creating a PTE project it was only when I tried to create a template that the problem was reported. I have got over this now by creating all my images into just one folder with no sub-folders. Tony

Hi Nick I bought a replacement PC about 2 months ago with Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit and spent a lot of time in the first few weeks of ownership working on a PTE 6 project. Did not encounter any problems and it works a lot better than the Vista Ultimate 32 bit I have on my other PC. One of the advantages of 64 bit is that it will access more than 4GB of memory but you may find that some of your older software and hardware will not run on 64 bit. There are numerous articles on the subject on the web if you put into a search engine something like "Comparison Windows 7 64 bit 32 bit" Hope this helps Tony

Hi Ed I may have misinterpreted your problem but there is a file naming problem within PTE that has existed for several versions now. I have found that if you replace your original image with another using O&A then the original imnage's file name still appears in the slide list. An example has recently occurred with a sequence I am currently working on. I wanted two black slides to start the sequence so I created an image Black-Slide and used this as my first two slides. On the second of these I used O&A to show the titles of my sequence. I then decided that it would look better if the first two slides had a border so using Photoshop I created Black-Slide-3. In PTE I removed the first slide and then inserted Black-Slide-3. On the second slide I went into O&A inserted the image Black-Slide-3 moved it to the back and deleted the image Black-Slide. Now if I look at my slide list I have 1. Black-Slide-3 2. Black-Slide Although occassionally causing me confusion as I have an image listed which is no longer part of my sequence the sequence works as intended but then I do not very often use large zooms Tony

The circumstances under which you are getting mis-alignment need to be looked at. If it is your background image that is being mis-aligned make sure that you are using exactly the same image in both slides. For example if you want you background image to go from colour to B&W make sure that in you image manipulation software you used a copy of your background colour image to do the B&W conversion. If it is images in the O&A window that you are having problems with then again make sure you are using exactly the same image in both, also check that the Parent - Child relationship is the same in both O&A windows. If the above is true, the easiest way is to look at the Animation tab particularly the Pan, Zoom and Rotate parameters these should all be exactly the same otherwise you will have mis-alignment. Hope this helps Tony

Ken Thanks for that have downloaded and it works Tony

This may be a stupid question but what software do you use to play your mp4 demos. I only have Windows Media Player and Real Player on my PC, Windows Media Player tells me it cannot play your demo, Real Player says it is playing but does nothing. Tony

Sorry Jeff I have followed your instructions which were slightly different from my interpretation of the problem. When I first tried it out I only used one name for the audio file throughout my tests, whereas your instructions in Step 3 you first of all give the audio file a different name. I have now repeated the test following your instructions and again I do not get any problem, the waveform always reflects the last size of the audio file. I have even tried it with single and double channel waveforms, and all 3 auto-scroll variations. Tony

Jeff I don't see see this problem, like Peter I use Audacity as my audio editor. The same as Peter I have found that if you leave PTE open while you amend your audio file when you try to export your new file under the same name it tells you, firstly already exists do you want to overwrite and then it is already in use. It then exports it under the same name but with a suffix added. As this is a different name then obviously PTE does not recognise the new file. If I close PTE then modify my audio file, when I export as the same name it again tells me it already exists do you want to overwrite, if you agree the file is overwritten. When you reopen PTE the Project Options, Music Tab shows the increase / decrease in the time. Clicking on the waveform symbol a new waveform is shown of the correct time length. If I use the Project Options, Music Tab and remove the audio file, the waveform space remains but is blank. I have to OK the Project Options otherwise I get the in use problem when I go into Audacity. Leaving PTE open I then modify the audio file in Audacity. After create the new audio file with the same name when I return to PTE I add the new audio file and get the correct time length. When I OK Project Options then I get a waveform of the correct time length. This occurs both for increasing and decreasing the time length. Personally I always close PTE when I change an audio file and then it automatically picks up the new version when I reopen Tony

Thanks for your comments Frank, funnily enough I normally have my O&A screen set to full screen (Auto), everybody has there own preferences. I agree it is only a minor bug and I only discovered it because I was not not putting images into the masks. As I said in my first post I have been experimenting with masks trying to get it clear in my mind how a combination of masks worked using various numbers of mask containers. I found that if I put an image in a mask it wasn't always easy to see the effect an addition of other masks had, whereas just inserting the mask gave me a transparent shape of the mask and I could see what happened to this when I manipulated mask containers and masks. Tony

Igor My fault I was trying to upload a file of more than 2MB, and didn't properly understand how to upload until I got Xaver's message Mask_Anomaly_Feb20_2009_17_49_04.zip Tony

Igor I think I have uploaded the file this time Tony

Igor This is the PTE file containing the two examples Tony

I have been experimenting with masks and have found a bit of a funny. I created a 1024 x 768 black image and then superimposed a 256 x 256 white image in the top left corner and created a mask. I then moved the 256 x 256 image along 256 pixels and created a further mask repeating this I created 12 masks which would give me a 4 x 3 grid. I loaded a 1024 x 768 image and then added the first mask, i.e. one with a 256 x 256 square in top left corner and added another 1024 x 768 image to this. This worked fine I had my background image with a small part of the second image in the top left corner. I then added a second mask container with the 12th mask I had made, i.e. bottom right hand corner. This is where the anomaly occurred. Instead of getting a transparent square, the left side of the mask square was transparent but the right side of the square contained part of the image I had added to the first mask. I experimented further and found the same thing happened for the top right square mask, and the middle right square mask, but none of the other masks. I then created my self two further masks, again using 1024 x 768 black background but this time I covered the left hand side with a 512 X 768 white image and created one mask then repeated with the white image on the right hand side. I repeated my experiment, and this time when I loaded the right hand mask I had the same effect again instead of the mask being transparent there is about a 100 – 150 pixel strip of the image added to the first mask shown on the right hand side. This does not appear to affect the operation of the mask as if I do a Preview without adding an image to the second mask the partial image in the second mask does not show. It is just I find it disconcerting for part of the other image to appear in this way. Has anybody else experienced this or have an explanation? Tony

Hope this is the right place to post this. I thought I would pass on something I discovered when investigating the use of masks which had me frustrated for a quite while. I was trying to mask a secondary image, I had created myself 2 images 450 x 600 and a mask the same size, main image was 1024 x 768. I added one of the secondary images and then added the mask only to find that it only covered part of the secondary image, so I then had to zoom it to the size I wanted. The same when I added my second secondary image. I then discovered that on the properties tab for the mask container there is is a size which by default is set to 1024 x 768, setting this to 450 x 600 saved me having to zoom. I pass this on as I have never seen it mentioned anywhere before. Tony