Peter S

Hi Al, Can you please tell me how many files are actually needed for a single video and what they are? I get confused with avi files, mpeg files, vob files. I guess it's not essential to know this but I feel it would help. Thanks Peter

Ken, Thanks for the reply. I'm getting there! Are the additional folders and files (bottom box on your screen print) simply your original pictures that you browsed for and then added to the DVD? Peter

Ken, I have tried to follow your procedure but cannot see how you can drag the avi into the bottom box. I am probably being a bit dense but is this a renamed version of the avi you have filed somewhere? I tried this and could not drag such a file into the "bottom box". Or is this a different box in 8u? Is it the include additional folders and files box that you refered to? I could only make a similar process work by keeping PTE running and the created avi live. Peter

Igor, If it is of any further help I can tell you I created an AVI from the show and burned this successfully using Nero. I had to keep PTE and the AVI file open to do this but the result was OK. As an alternative I tried renaming the avi and making a copy but when I tried to burn this having closed PTE the pictures had vanished.

I have been unable to burn a DVD with the latest Bet (8u). This is the first time I have tried burning with any Beta 5 version but I had some success with 4.8. I received the following screen message after the files appeared to have been created OK. Operation failed Command WRITE(10) Status check condition Sense Key COMMAND SEQUENCE ERROR. I have tried burning 3 times with the same result. I simplified the show after the first failure removing all but one motion effect. I used a DVD - RW disc and a Sony DVD RW DW-Q30A. To check the functioning of the DVD writer, between my two attempts, I put the same slides into PSG and this burned a DVD without any problems. I used the same DVD having erased it with Nero to be safe. This is a quite small experimental show with only 15 slides. Any help would be most appreciated. Thanks Peter

Is anyone aware of unusual behviour with this pinned topic? When I try to read it on my PC I can only see the first topics dated back in 2002. I can read the latest posts but only if I turn my firtewall off completely - not something I like to do. I have tried altering every setting in the firewall with no success. I am using Computer Associates Internet Security Suite 2007. I can read all the latest entries for the topics below the pinned area. I would appreciate any help that anyone can offer. Thanks Peter I am sorry if I am causing confusion but I got to this place by clicking on the Beta 5 8r pinned topic! I don't understand what is happening or why. Peter

A very Happy Christmas and a prosperous and creative New Year to Igor his team and all those who have helped to make this one of the most effective forums around. Peter

Igor, I quite understand and as I said a few posts back I do not think this is worthy of your time. I have so far not been able to replicate the problem on an EXE version so it is not a significant concern. I think I will insist on a separate sound card on any future PCs though. Thanks for your responses. The End! Peter

Igor, I just could not help myself. I had to run more tests. The same thing happens in both 4.48 and 5.g. If I reboot my PC open either version and run the preview the music skips in several places. If I run it a second time the skips have vanished. I also tried rebooting running v5 (which did skip) and then running 4.48. To my surprise 4.48 did not skip. I rebooted started 4.48 and the skips wre back again. Peter

Igor, I have just run a short test using full screen preview from the main screen and I got an almost exact repeat. A couple of skips in the music when played for the first time which vanished for repeat plays. This has now happened at least 5 or 6 times. I do not have a separate sound card but here is a summary of what I do have in case it helps: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ processor, NVIDIA nForce4 939 pin motherboard with dual channel DDR, 1GB ultra fast DDR RAM. The sound is nVidia 7.1 channel surround sound (on-board). I cannot recall having the same problem with v4 but I did quite a lot of playing around with other slide show products over a period of several months. It took me a long time to realise how good a product PTE is compared with its competitors. I will set up a test using the same slides and music in 4.48 and 5.8g and see what happens. It may however be a few days before I get back to you on the results. Peter

Igor, This problem is a bit like when your car will not start but always does when the mechanic tries! I opened PTE v5 beta 8g ran a full screen preview and the music "stuttered" in several places. I ran it about six more times absolutely perfect, no trace of stutter. I removed the music file tried another one perfect again. I removed this one and re-inserted the first track absolutely perfect. This is similar to my previous experience but does not seem to be reproducable on any consistent basis. I did not have any other programs running at the time although I was connected to the internet. It is probably not worth spending your time on as it seems to resolve itself. Peter

Lin, I found that this feature works fine as far as the Preview is concerned. I have not however tried creating an EXE file to test it. Is that where you have found the problem? Peter

Igor, I was not using the equaliser as I did not even know it existed! I have now found it but not adjusted it. I think I misunderstood the purpose of your trial. The trial sound ran perfectly well on my system Realtek AC97. I somehow added my own sound track such that when I was in Timeline view and hit Play my music played but rather poorly. When I hit Preview in the main screen your sound played perfectly. Previously I found that a single mp3 file would play inconsistently. Sometimes it would "skip" as earlier posts reported and other times it would play OK. I hope I have not confused things further. Peter

Igor, I have also tested the new music player and it is certainly an improvement. There is however still a fairly significant difference when I listen to the same music played on different players on my system. I use Adobe Audition for sound editing (yes I appreciate this is an expensive bit of kit) and Windows Media Player. These both still produce a better sound with exactly the same mp3 file. Peter

Hi Leonard, I see you have now made the link with Barry Beckham. I would recomend his CD/DVD tutorials as an excellent way of learning PTE together with lots of other useful tips on improving the preentation of audio vusual material. They may not replace manuals but they are a much more enjoyable way of learning as far as I am concerned. I also found Jeff Evans PDF tutorial PTEv5 guide an excellent starting point for v5. It is on Thedoms site. One of the problems I find is that there are so many people willing to help and producing excellent tutorials it is hard to decide which ones to start with! There are many other contributors worthy of mention but I these are good strating points. Peter

Dom, Thanks very much for the tuorial I found it excellent and easy to follow. I have been trying to understand how some of the effects are created and have been looking through the pte file you provided. When the page starts to turn it appears as if it is being compressed in width but not in height. If I move any of the handles on an image, the image simply zooms out. One directional movement is not possible, is it? What is the secret please? Peter

I have just returned to the forum after a long absence and have been getting, or at least trying to get, to grips with Beta 5. Thanks to JPD, BJC, Thedom and Lin for some excellent tutorials. I have managed to create a cube, size it and move it. I also followed the tutorial and created a three sided cube in Photoshop CS2. How these effects are created in PTE in the first place is however a complete mystery to me. I can use Excel spread sheets but do not understand how they are being used to help create the results in PTE. Can anyone please provide a simple overview of this process? It might be better if I concentrate on my photography and Photoshop and wait and use the templates so kindly provided by the cognoscenti but my curiosity has got the better of me. Thanks for showing us what can be achieved. I am sure there is more to come. A small primer for the uninitiated would be most appreciated. Peter

I have been unable to access your file getting the same message that Lin reported and being asked for a password. I have not however accessesed it before. Peter

Hi Ralph, and Jeff if you are looking in, Thanks again for some useful info. I have been experimenting and found another snag. I used Jeffs figures produced pictures 768 x 576 in Photoshop. Forgot to change the apr.ini but created video with 768 x 576 and burned using Nero 16:9. I produced some rather small pictures on screen. Second effort closed PTE, reset apr.ini to 768 x 576 and tried whole process again. This time the pictures were much larger but not full screen. Thiord effort changed apr.ini to 668 x 501 on the basis if a large figure in the ini gave a small picture a small figure should give a larger picture, right? Well no. It did not change it. I have produced good pictures bu have been quite unable to get them full screen and I have had around 10 tries with different sizes of pictures, ini and create video options. I have also tried Premiere Elements and Proshow Gold and they do produce full screen videos when burned to DVD. So I am puzzled. Jeff if you are thinking about correcting the distortion you have mentioned the following from the Photoshop CS2 help file may be interesting. When using a computer to create a document for video, keep in mind that an image on a computer monitor is made up of pixels that are essentially square. Video monitors display analog images, which do not not involve pixel shape. Nonsquare pixels are most commonly used by encoding devices for video. When importing an image created by a square-pixel graphics program into a video-editing program like Adobe Premiere, the square pixels are scaled to the nonsquare pixels for video encoding. This scaling results in a distorted image. In addition to supporting square pixel images, Photoshop supports nonsquare pixel images, allowing you to create documents that are displayed properly on devices such as video monitors. Use the preset file sizes in the Preset menu of the New file dialog box to create images at a size and pixel aspect ratio that compensates for scaling when the images are incorporated into video. The presets also create a document with nonprinting guides that delineate the action-safe and title-safe areas of the image. Using the preset file sizes, you can produce images for specific video systems—NTSC, PAL, or HDTV. I have tried changing the aspect ratio from square to 1.42 and this produces perfect undistorted images on the widescreen TV - but I still can't get full screen. Peter

I have produced several trial slide shows in PTE, burned them to DVD and played them back on avery cheap DVD player attached to my TV using the procedure that Ralph described. This is in the link I provided. The picture quality has been fine. My original pictures were taken with either a Canon Powershot G2 or an EOS 300D. I have cropped them to various sizes. One recent trial used 1920 by 1080 px saved at 72 ppi and jpeg quality 6. Following Ralphs process I changed the PTE apr.ini file so that the AVIVideoRenderWidth =1920 and AVIVideoRenderHeight=1080. I then opened the cropped pictures in PTE added music and then hit the Video button. In the Making of AVI video file panel I entered 1920 width 1080 height and left FPS as 25. I do NOT tick the interlaced video box. My understanding is that you need to remove interlacing to get video frames to show correctly as stills so I cannot see the logic in ticking this box when you start with a still picture. Now Create AVI. The file has to be saved to a temporary location and is later deleted. Leave the file open DO NOT Finish. Open Nero Vision 4. Make DVD select DVD-Video. On the next screen go to More (at the bottom) Choose Video Options. Select PAL and on the DVD-Video tab set the 16:9 radio button. Choose Add Video Files and when the files have been added it shows Target Video Options 720 x 576 at 16:9. You cannot change this and it is presumably a result of the earlier selection of PAL and 16:9. Follow the screens as described by Ralph finally burning to DVD and you should have a perfectly acceptable picture on your TV. I have used ProShow Gold with its own DVD burning and that has also produced good quality flicker free pictures on my PAL TV. I have also used Premiere Elements. I got rather bad flicker with this where there were horizontal white lines such as round the edge of a picture frame. I found through Chuck Engels and the Adobe Forum that this could be removed by right clicking on a frame in the timeline, selecting Field Options and then Flicker Removal. I then just used the included DVD burning process which gave a perfectly acceptable result. The TV quality will never match the PC screen in fine detail but I don't imagine that is waht you are looking for. Ihope this helps. Do have another look at Ralph (Hawks) much more structured explanation and try Nero if it is available to you. Good luck Peter

Try looking at the thread under the following link. http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....=20entry26594 Peter

Hi Ralph, Thanks for your explanation. It has been a great help. I have run a few trials and my pictures do look good on my TV when I follow your method. As with most TVs I guess I can set it to various picture modes. The following results are with the TV set to Wide. I suspected that there would be some distortion so I drew some circles and squares in Photoshop and included them mixed in with some photos at 1920 by 1080. On screen I saw elipses and rectangles. I then set up a blank file in CS2 with the same 1920 by 1080 dimensions at 72 ppi but with a pixel aspect ratio of 1.42 which is recommended for PAL widescreen. This made my circles round again and my rectangles square. In both cases there was some black banding visible top and bottom of the pictures and some slight loss on the edges. I put a 20px blue border round the outer edge of some test slides and then a second rectangle 100px and a third 200px inside the border. This indicated that I lost about 100px from the edges. I have Nero Premium 7 with Vision 4. I had kept my version of PTE nearly upto date, it was 4.45 and is now 4.46. I had however not used it for some time as I have been experimenting with Premiere Elements and ProShow Gold. I don't reme,ber having this problem before but if I add a music track and then add more slides they don't appear in the timeline and I cant't get them to show there. They do however look fine in a preview, complete with their transitions. They also burn to DVD OK. I am missing something obvious? I just wish I understood why what happens happens! I burned all my trials to DVD-RW on the same disc. Peter

I am most interested in this thread having received a reply some months ago from wnsoft saying Nero could not be used to make DVDs from PTE! It seems to work for some. I stopped using PTE and started with ProShow Gold following a review in Digital Photo that rated this as better than any other programme as far as flicker elimination is concerned. I do however think that PTE has the cleanest interface and I really like the full screen preview. All the discussion on aspect ratios seems to have been about the screen dimensions but what about the pixel aspect ratio? Photoshop CS2 allows you to change the pixel aspect ratio and therefore prevent distortion when viewing pictures in widescreen. It also provides guides to help you to see what will be visible on screen in the final DVD when viewed as a widescreen show. Has anyone experimented with this.