Truelight

This works great under XP and is a nifty little tool! Just be sure to follow the install instructions carefully and you'll be good to go. Since it produces .mid files, it's another way to keep your .exe files small. Can I assume that the PTE internal player will take care of playing the .mid files in case the end user may not have another player installed? Thanks for the tip!

Aren't ya glad we don't have to go through this when naming documents in Word? I'm not sure whether sometimes the intent becomes muddled when we see a program make the transtion from Russian to English (and I can't even begin to imagine the change to the dozen or so other languages PTE supports!), but sometimes what should be simple isn't. Is there some reason why Save and Save As should not operate the same as they do with other programs? Both the .pte file and the .exe file should be the same so far as I'm concerned and I should simply be able to name them whatever I like. If there is a reason to do it some other way, perhaps the WnSoft folks might explain it. Which brings up another issue... I see many suggestions made for program improvements, but rarely do I see Igor or any other WnSoft staff (are there any others?) get in the forum and and speak to these issues. I appreciate this forum and the opportunity it offers users to share ideas, but how much better might it be if a WnSoft representative actively participated!

Oh...but it can! As the previous post pointed out, other programs are beginning incorporate sound and image editing features. Now I would not suggest you are going to be able to have a program like PTE replace stand-alone imaging or sound programs like Photoshop or Audacity, but the ability to do some final "tweaking" would be nice. If we keep bringing up the names of other programs here it's because we see them beginning to pull away from PTE in the "features race." Loyalty to a product only goes so far when the competition begins offering more and better stuff. When I'm at a horse race and the horse I'm betting on begins to fall behind, I cheer him on! PTE I hate to say is beginning to fall behind. Our recommendations for program improvements are just that -- cheers of encouragement for Wnsoft to pay attention to what's being developed by others so as not to lose this race.

Don'tcha just love computer error messages? Written in a language only a computer scientist can understand, I sometimes wonder why they bother displaying them at all. That having been said... and this is only a guess... since PTE shows are .exe files and since .exe files can sometimes contain viruses, it would not surprise me if the computers in a university computer lab have been configured so as NOT to allow people to run .exe files. Is the computer lab the only place where you've encountered this? I would suggest you speak with whoever runs the lab and perhaps they might be able to give you some insight. Good luck.

Here's another one that may be possible... Support for transparent .PNG images. The new transparent .GIF addition allowing these as objects is nice, but .PNG would go one better, as .GIF images are only 256-color while .PNG images can be full 24-bit color.

Here's another request... simple I would think... Right now you can click to have PTE display the length of the music track. (Show music duration) How about the time each slide will be displayed for when Sync to Music Duration is selected? (Slide Duration) Obviously the program must calculate this in order for it to work - (Music Duration divided by Number of slides = Slide Duration) yes? Why not let us see this number somewhere? You could even have Sec and Milliseconds display now at the bottom of the Main Tab display it once the music was selected and the Synchronize Slideshow box was checked.

Harry... You write.... So you obviously are finding that a show which will play in a DVD player is what your customers want. Now, I concur that when the utmost in quality is what is desired, a PTE show played from a PC cannot currently be beat. But... - The newer programs can create BOTH a VCD -and- an .EXE show and place them on the SAME CD! Why make your program twice on two different programs? - A DVD player that will play VCD shows can be had for under $60. A computer with the horsepower to play a serious PTE show?? You tell me which is more affordable. - Once a show is made into a VCD, the music sync will be -constant- regardless of what player is is played on. PTE?? We're still wrestling with it's variance of performance on various computers. So... You tell me where the future lies. I too would like to remain loyal to PTE and for shows I produce for personal viewing or perhaps that I will personally show on my own equipment.. yes... it's the best choice. The other night I did a show for an audience of 300 and used PTE because I was presenting it from the hard drive of a PC I'd tested it on... it was the best choice for the job. But otherwise? Well... I think your clients are telling you what they want.

OK... This discussion has been relocated to Bart & Cindy's Portal Click here to visit http://www.barcin.net/ It'll take me a bit to get used to their different forum setup, but I sincerely appreciate the offer to use their site. The post is in the New Software forum os the board. Hope to see you there! I will also try to post my findings in the Dpreview.com - PCTools Forum Thanks....

Please accept my apologies if I have offended anyone by this posting. My intent was to: - Make those who enjoy good slideshow software aware of a good offering. - "Raise the bar" for WnSoft. Yes, I have said and will repeat, PTE is still the BEST software out there for making slideshows for the PC. BUT... That's ALL it does. I remain frustrated that it cannot make VCD shows for playing on DVD players as do others from what I read here. If Igor plans to do that in the future, I would be nice if he would say so. If PTE is to remain a program that only makes PC-based shows, so be it, but it would be nice if WnSoft might let us know their future plans. I'm also fairly certain that other developers probably lurk among us and visit this forum for ideas. They are paying attention to what we say and the program I referenced is strong indication of that. In fact, one has to wonder if WnSoft is paying as MUCH attention. Igor drops in on occasion, but has never indicated if we might expect a VCD component in the future. I do feel funny about speaking about "Brand X" on the Wnsoft forum and will not do so again. Any further information from me that is not about PTE will be posted on the Dpreview.com - PC Tools Forum or perhaps on the new forum (which uses that same Invision software as this forum does) now hosted by Harry Fitzner, a PTE "regular". I have e-mailed him about possibly hosting such a discussion. Again... my apologies if I've practiced "bad form." I only wish WnSoft might see that the future of digital slideshow programs seems to be moving to CD (VCD) and DVD. Thanks...

"Fitz" I am flattered that you found my thoughts useful and chose to implement them. Of course I also noted your "tagline" and so I refer you to my website, brother. True Light Words & Pictures website Someday I gotta get busy and make a -real- website instead of this one hosted on Tripod. That way I could also post Xatshow webshows! God bless... <)))>< Rick

I've been given the privilege of testing a beta version of another slideshow making program. I cannot divulge the details yet, but suffice it to say this program seems to combine the very best of what I've seen so far: (beats my two favorites to date - PTE and Xatshow) - Makes VCD-based shows - Has customizable manual sync very much like that used by PTE (or fit-to-length option) - Allows for multiple slide transition types - Includes --very-- full-featured audio (with waveform!) and picture editing tools - Allows use of text on slides with full font capabilties - Excellent preview capabilities - Creates visual DVD-like menus and allows multiple shows on one CD-R I've only been able to do a quick test of this product and the manufacturer has asked that for the moment publicity be kept minimal, but I assure you, this program will knock your socks off! If Igor will contact me, I'll be happy to share with him who this is -- he really DOES need to see what's coming. As for the rest of you, a better place to discuss this is the DPreview.com PC Tools forum. See ya there!

I know a Xatshow creation when I see one! Nice work. Just my "two-bits" here... Though Xatshow can produce some fancy transition effects, my favorite remains the classic dissolve (some call it a fade.) The flips, spins, and 3-D stuff is cool, but remind me of the old "Batman" show. I'd think especially if you were making a life tribute for use at a funeral that "class" is what you'd like to communicate. Call me old-fashioned, but I think dissolve transitions do this best. Best of luck with your endeavor!

When making shows for distribution to the "general public", no one really cares what software you used to create it, much the same as no one care what brushes were used to make a painting. What they do care about is: - Ease of use -- Yes, you can make an autoloading CD with PTE, but when issues of screen resolution, processor performance, installation of MP3 players, etc. come up, is the unknowledgable user gonna be able to figure these out? - Quality of the image - Yes, sometimes we photographers can get down to splitting hairs, but what I'm talking about are obvious things like rough and jerky dissolves, flickering images, sound that breaks up. Even a rookie view can spot these problems - Can I view it with common and inexpensive equipment? - The VHS format became widely accepted because it was cheap, easy to use, and widely available. (Though there are still many people who struggle to operate a VCR!). The DVD format is fastly becoming the 21st-century VCR. PTE still makes probably the best show available on the PC platform (unless we go to Macromedia or the high-end tools) with the greatest flexibility for author-control of sync and other options. It remains my choice when I'm making a show I will run on my own equipment. But.... Given sync issues, platform inconsistencies, resolution differences, etc., I try to make sure the people I develop shows for with it are not computer novices. The VCD/DVD programs out there vary widely in their quality, features, etc and while an increasing number of DVD players will play a VCD, not all will. When I can mail a disk to my grandmother and she has no trouble viewing the show, I will know the technology has arrived. We're not there just yet. For a quick update, I tested the new Ulead DVD Pictureshow v2 last night. I've not had much time to play with the software, but would say that for a program that makes .mpg movies from your stills (so that it can do transitions), it has the smoothest transition effects of it's genre, without sacrificing too much quality. However... if image quality is still your biggest objective, PTE on a computer is top choice. For best image quality in a VCD show (w/o transitions), Xatshow remains my pick. I'll post a full review of the new Ulead product after I've tested it more. I sure wish Beechbrook or someone might entertain hosting -all- slideshow types, regardless of the authoring software! We could all learn a lot more. Talk is cheap -- pictures tell the story!

I've been experimenting with a wide variety of VCD-DVD programs and have found that they fall into two basic categories: - Those that create an .mpg "movie" from your stills, (and thus allow transitions) - Those that are true "slideshow" programs in that they do not create an .mpg but do not allow transitions. Now...since transitions would seem to be a big deal to some, it would seem that the former option would be best. HOWEVER... my experiments would tend to show that anytime you take stills and make "frames" of a movie from them, you will lose quality. The programs that use this approach sacrifice quality for effects...an obvious trade-off. Many of the VCD-DVD programs seem to have gone this route though.. ProShow Gold, Ulead DVD Pictureshow, Pictures-to-TV, etc. Perhaps if effects are -that- important to you, these will be a good choice. Other programs, Xatshow is the best example, do not create an .mpg movie (made up of frames which have to be "rendered" - Isn't that what they do to fat and meat scraps??!) The shows made with these programs are "cuts-only", but the image quality in my opinion is far better. I'm testing the new Ulead DVD Pictureshow Version 2 tonight and would hope perhaps they've found a way to attain both quality AND effects... but I'm not holding my breath. You can get a great education on all things VCD here -- VCDHELP I've been an advocate for a PTE (not PET!) VCD component, but if it were to output .mpg files I'd say don't bother. Conversely, if it had the power of PTE and the versatility and quality of Xatshow.... it would be multimedia heaven.

Ken... I'm not suggesting we have Igor (or whoever does the work on the forum?) make this retroactive and try to sort the old messages into categories. I'd be happy if they just set up the system with a few major categories and then allowed them to fill from this point on. New categories would become evident as time went on. It appears to me that no one really monitors the forum. I'm pleased they built it and I'm on here a lot, but as it stands now, it's hard to see what's old, what's new, and to sift through what I may wish to follow and what I don't. The forums on Dpreview get 10-100 times the traffic we do here and they are nicely organized.

Perhaps if Igor and the WnSoft crew knew how we felt we might convince him to make organizing the forum a priority?? I thought I'd try the polling feature of this forum to see how it works and to also see if you concur that the forum really -does- need more organization if it's to be useful.

Thought I'd make this one rise to the top again having seen -no- action to make it happen. I can only assume: - Wnsoft is too busy with other things to make this happen or-- - Wnsoft disagrees that this is a need or -- - The Wnsoft team doesn't read the forum Which is it??

In answer to your other question - "Is it possile to have a CD that will play in both PCs and DVD players?" - Yes. Xatshow will create a CD (using a CD-R disc), which will contain both an .exe file (for playing in a PC) and a VCD show (which will play in many stand-alone DVD players). The show will play in whichever machine you insert it. As others have said, PTE give much greater control of program creation and the music sync capabilities are unmatched, but in my book Xatshow offers much greater versatility. I keep both programs on my computer and use whichever best fits my needs for a given project. I will say again (having said this more than a few times already)...Igor and the gang really do need to add a VCD-show capability to PTE. I'm not asking for the ability to insert video clips, animated gifs, or to create an .mpg file as output. I just figure if the folks at Xatshow can do it, the brains at WnSoft should be able to as well.

Here ya go... here's the example that was posted earlier... ftp://209.162.200.253/uploads/jake.exe

Directly into PTE? No....but.... If you've seen some of the work people have done my extracting single frames and then using PTE to re-animate them, then yes. There was a short demo noted in the forums (can't find it just now) where a guy had extracted the frames of a video clip of his dog and then let PTE play them back... it was quite smooth. Not something you'd want to do for a very long clip however. A better bet if you want both stills and actual video clips together might be Medi@Show. (I'll look for that other sample if I can find it and reply again) - Rick

Are you trying to SAVE the PTE show (which will create a .PTE file) or CREATE a show? For putting on CD so that others can watch your show, what you want is an .exe file as the final output (hence the name - Pictures-to-EXE !). If your preview works fine, then click the Create button (or use File/Create slideshow as). You can also create a screensaver which will have an .SCR extention. The PTE file is only the directions to make the show, it is not the show itself and in most cases, is worthless for burning to the CD (though perhaps useful if you want to make adjustments to your show later. For a CD that will work in a computer and autorun, you really only need two files burning to your disc - the show itself -- Myshow.exe (or whatever you wish to name it) and a file called Autorun.inf (this MUST have this name). You can make an autorun.inf file using Notepad (or other text editor) it will look like this: [autorun] open=Myshow.exe icon=myicon.ico The first line must appear as shown. The second line should appear as shown, (but put the name of your show where it says myshow). The third line is optional, but allows you to include an icon if you like (and if you do, be sure to burn it to the CD as well). Put all in the root directory of the CD and all will work well. Have fun!

I suppose that depends on what program you will be using to make your DVD (actually these are VCD) show. When I use Xatshow, it takes care of the image size, it's not something I have to do. Obviously if your aspect ratio is not the same as your TV screen, you will have borders on the edges (such as with vertical images). Sometimes I think people try to make slide show creation too hard... just go with the defaults of the program (at least for the first couple times) and you will usually have good results.

For batch-resizing a group of photos, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better (or cheaper - it's free!) too than Irfanview -- IrfanView PTE will make a nice show from these photos and can handle the music sync better than most. If you want a show that will also play in a DVD player, my choice is Xatshow Xatshow As for making a show using video, you might take a look at Medi@show Medi@Show At present, there is no "one best" program that does it all. Fortunately, most of these programs are relatively inexpensive and all have free demos. Let us know how you make out!

Stu.. Thanks for your detailed reply. Forgive my "tone" in the previous note...no doubt my frustration at seeing a good tool and then not being able to make it work right. I think these must be XP issues as you discuss which are the heart of the problem. I'm curious... what OS are you using when you design these programs? - Rick

Stu..... I'd really like to like this program...but.... I -HATE- programs that insist on installing in a directory they specify. I am very careful what I place directly off my root directory. I prefer to have ALL my programs under C:\Program Files The fact that your program wants to live in C:\AutoPlayer bugs me. I don't understand why the program requires the PTE .exe shows to be copied into C:\Autoplayer\Shows. These files already exist on my hard drive...making another copy of them (and some are very BIG) only doubles the amount of space they take up on my hard drive. I tested the program with 3 shows loaded in a group. I started the first show, but then rather than watch the whole thing, hit Esc to exit. I then saw a "Loading" icon come up that would have continued forever if I'd not hit Esc again. Then, sometime later, a "Compiled AutoIt v2.64 script" message appeared which indicated that I'd have to press the WinKey a few times to activate shows that might be left in the link sequence..." Huh?? What is it about Esc - quit that this program doesn't understand?? I never did get the previous AutoLink program to work right - it exhibited much the same behavior. Programs that do things "behind the scenes" and that won't quit when I want them to make me nervous. WinKey? I've never used this key before and really don't know what it's even good for. I like the concept of AutoPlay/AutoLink. The user interface is beautiful too. But when programs do quirky things on my PC, I get rid of them rather than wonder if they are gonna cause other grief. Like I say...I really -do- want to like this program, but it just hasn't earned my confidence. Sorry...