LigiaD

Update: The show was a success. Got invited to present it at several other venues all over the US and Canada. PTE wise, I had to compress all the image files to half or one third of the original jpgs. After that, the show would run perfectly well only if I let it run once on the laptop. That is, every time I started the laptop. It consists of 11 exe files for a total of 237 MB and exactly 45 minutes altogether. In any event, I would have never been able to put this show together without the enormous help that I received in this forum. God bless you! Hope to have the opportunity to meet you personally. Thanks again, ---------------- Ligia

Creating the show is the easy part. If you still have any problems, please send me a PM and I will be glad to give you a ring and guide you throughout. The least I can do after all the help I have received here. PS: That is provided that we are talking about PTE 4.48. I am not into version 5 yet.

Hello Al, Ralph, Ken, Ronnie and "thedom" who also tried to help me, Yes, it is a huge relief to see that the show is now running well without the "offending" flashing in between the exe files. Ralph, you did a great job! I very much appreciate all the time you invested in creating the sample exe files for me; they are so clear that I could not go wrong, simply fantastic! You even found the time to help immediately after having to go out of town!!!!! I was very much aware of that. Nevertheless, I cannot underestimate all the help that I have received from each and every one of you. Just the sole fact of showing concern and providing the links has helped me a lot in seeing things clearer. And Al, you have always been extremely generous with your time and help as well. I owe a lot of my PTE learning experience to you. I cannot leave Andre behind; wonder where he is. He has also provided great and explicit, step-by-step information. Working with Audacity has been like a piece of cake after following his instructions. Ronnie, I would gladly post the show later on. I do not know how to do that yet and still have quite a task to complete. I have to recreate the whole show and give it the final touches. Also, have to check all the images again; realize that some did not go through the resizing step. Considering how much of a neophyte I am in the PTE field, it will be one more week before I have it all ready. Just recreating the three exe files took me several hours last night; it is a miracle that the previous show was working at all. After that, it is off to the out-of-town conference. It would a lot easier and faster if I visit South Wales! Will give an update after the presentation. In the mean time, best wishes and all my gratitude. --------------------------- Ligia

Good news !!!!!!!!!! I converted all the music to MP3, then created three new projects and 3 new exe files, eliminating the spaces in their tiles. Basically, they are the same as the first 3 exe files from before, but I have yet to organize the sequence of the slides. All the paths are gone as well. They are working fine from the laptop hard drive !!!!!!!!! Next, I will make copies of the previous projects and fix those. Going to get some sleep first. What a relief! I am very thankfull.

Ralph, I did as instructed. LigiaD_Menu_3 is running perfectly well from the laptop hard drive. I also tested it directly from the CD and it flashed back to desktop again. What you are saying about the DVD burner or CD-Rom drive not being fast enough to catch up with the presentation makes much sense; thanks to your explanation, I now understand the flashing to desktop clearly. My exe files still have to be corrected though, because they do not work smoothly from the hard drive either. I will work on at least the first five segments tonight and will post the results afterwards. By the way, I was about to call Dell this morning to cancel the return of the laptop when I found out that the Function Key is not working at all. They immediately offered an exchange and we settled for it; I should receive it in 4 or 5 days. In regard to creating 1 image show as a menu, I have not gotten there yet! I would be the most happy with just seeing the show running smoothly. I am guessing that I could always cover the projector lens until the Introduction starts. Many thanks! I enjoyed seeing your images as well.

Ralph, My hopes in solving the problem are rising as we speak. A few discrepancies in the construction of my show come to mind immediately. Here are the responses to your questions: 1 – Yes, I am using JPGs; 72 dpi. 2 – Only a few horizontals are more than 700 KB. Verticals are between 220 and 450 KB. I think that I could not afford to compress them further, as in “save for the web”, because the screen where they are going to be shown is pretty large. 3 – Yes, I have been using a path. Al had warned me as well; I just did not know how to get rid of it. Will do it next. 4 – PTE 4.48 5 – Those that I had to edit in Audacity are MP3, BUT! I also used some wma; will change those. 6 – There were no programs running in the background. The 1_Menu Show test was done directly from the CD, though. I did not want to infringe your copyright, so I scratched the CD and threw it away. Will copy it on a CD again and perform another test directly from the laptop hard drive; it might also run smoothly this way. This sounds quite important. I do have spaces in the file names. By the way, your graphic examples are excellent. Thanks again and again !!!!!!!!!!!!

Al, Thanks for the good wishes; need lots of luck to solve this issue soon! I have tried my show both ways: directly from the CD or hard drive. It does not work properly directly from the hard drive either. By the way, the processor is a dual core T2500 (2MB cache); 2.0GHz; 1.99 GB of RAM. Ralph, Very nice from you to create this test specially for me, thanks! I followed your instruction, while crossing my fingers that it would work smoothly this time. Your show is working fine directly from the laptop hard drive. In regard to the pop and the problem with my show, there are no indications whatsoever. It is only that the desktop shows up in between the exe files; like it is taking extra time to open the next exe file and it has to go back to the desktop. It does it very fast, but this would not look good during a serious presentation; instead, it gives it a sloppy look. Plus it would be quite distracting for the viewers. Wouldn't you agree?

Al, Ken, Thanks for the links. You are right, the 945 contains the 950 Intel; it is the best video card that the Inspiron notebooks offer. I was on the phone with Dell for about three hours this morning. We disabled all the programs in the BG (I also went ahead and uninstalled the program that was popping up), then tested the exe files again; the showing of the desktop (and window with all the exe files) in between is still happening. At one point, the music was all messed up as well; the problem with the music has happened only once though. Ronnie, The show does not look bad at all. I stayed within the guidelines given; most of the segments are less than five minutes long. I have the feeling that you would like it and would enjoy the music as well; would be glad to show it to you if I could. Ralph, Very good show, thanks! I went ahead and did a test, hope you do not mind: I placed four of your exe files in a folder and burn into a CD (PC); then tested them on the laptop. The exact same thing is happening: the desktop and window with the exe files is showing in between them. It runs smoothly on my PC. Resuming: I am puzzled. As Al said, I should not have any problems with this video card. Dell offered me a refund or an exchange. Considering that they cannot offer a better video card, I had to settle for a refund. However, this is not the best solution for me at this point; do not have much time to seek for and test another suitable laptop. Almost tempted to call Dell again and ask them for an exchange instead; perhaps there is only something wrong with this particular video card that I received.

Latest: I went ahead and tested the same DVD with the 14 exe files on the regular PC where it was created, instead of the laptop; it is working perfectly well. This leads me to think that I am having problems with the laptop video card. This is good and bad. Good because I now know that I had followed the instruction well and chosen the correct settings for the exe files. Bad because I ordered this laptop only because I needed it for the PTE presentations; I already had two other laptops that I could not use for the PTE slide shows. I had also checked before I ordered it that the video card would be good enough for this purpose. Well, I was supposed to receive the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950. On checking the laptop just now, this is what I found for Display: "Plug and Play Monitor on Mobile Intel ® 945 GM Express Chipset Family". It looks like there is a discrepancy here. I am heartbroken. There might not be too much time for me to straighten all this out with Dell before the presentation. The only other theory that comes to mind for the exe files not working on the laptop is that there are several programs that came with the laptop sending pop ups at times. These programs might be interfering while running constantly behind. I am not sure about this theory. Will talking to Dell today. Talking to the Dell customer service or support is usually a nightmare. Cross my fingers that it would not be that bad this time. Al, thanks very much for your time; you have helped me a lot. The idea of testing the DVD/exe files on another computer actually came after I read that you could not find any thing wrong with the settings of the exe files. Up to that point, I kept thinking that it was just my mistake. Best regards, --------------------------Ligia

Will get into PTE5 in three months, not yet, not a chance! Al, You are exactly right, it gets complicated; I am quite confused. I created 14 separated exe files; had no idea that there are several ways to activate them. I just used the "Run application after last slide." I then saved them on a DVD and played them on the laptop. And I would not like to go back to the Introduction. I would like the 14 exe files to play one after the other until the end. I placed black frames in between the exe files so that there is time to fade the music and there is a little transition in between the exe files. Actually, the slide show run perfectly well on the laptop once ot twice from beginning to end (have been testing it while I work on the regular PC). But then, it goes back in between the exe files to showing the exe folder where I have all the exe files. As I mentioned it, just for a fraction of a second, but the show would not look professional if this happens again during a serious presentation. These inconsistencies are worrying me quite a bit; obviously, I am doing something wrong. Will send you the Project Options' attachment right away. Thanks!

First of all, I would like to thank the wonderful forum contributors who have helped me immensely in preparing my first slide show with music. When I started, I have never seen a music editor in my whole life. Amazingly and luckily, the show is coming along beautifully. Of course, thanks to the help that I have received here. I am in awe and thank you all the time; would have never been able to do it this fast and/or good without your great help. Fourteen segments, all perfectly synchronized. I was able to stitch some music and join segments using black transition frames to make it 14 instead of 16. I went ahead and tested the show in the laptop that I will be using. At first, there was a slight jump between the segments. For a fraction of a second, the folder with the exe files would be shown on the screen in between the segments. Oddly, after playing it two or three more times, this condition disappeared and the show continued smooothly from one segment to the next. My first questions is: I have the box, "Close show after last slide" checked. Is that the correct way to do it between all segments or just for the last one? I am afraid that the folder with the exe files would show again in between the segments and I am trying to find the reason why this is happening. The other question refers to customizing the slides. I have synchronized the slides to the music, but when I wanted to have one particular slide to play for a shorter or longer time, this feature does not seem to work. Does it mean that when I use the music synchronization I would not be able to change the time duration for one particualr slide? This part is not that important, just wonder. The show is playing pretty well the way it is. Again, A BIG THANKS!

Wow! Sectacular show. Beautiful photography and love the music as well. What am I doing here? Now, I can hardly wait to go to Versailles! Thanks for the treat!

Actually, the translation is reasonably good, but not totally trustable. Basically, the main question is: How could PTE be seen in first plane on the screen instead of "FormulaGraphics"? The presentation is being created with FormulaGraphics, Neobook style, Multimedia Builder. The problem is that when PTE is linked to this program, the PTE presentation is staying behind FormulaGraphics and it just cannot be seen. I do not know the answer, but just hope that someone else comes to the rescue.

Thank you all. Great info, as usual! Best, ------------------- Ligia

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