Lin Evans

Hi Ken, Thanks! Actually, I used three different cameras on the trip. The high resolution shots were with a Sigma DP2 Merrill, a number of others were with a Nikon D7000 and a couple were with the Canon SX50 HS. I just grab the one which works best for the task at hand. The Sigma has a fixed 45mm lens, the D7000 had an 18-105mm and the Canon has a 24-1200 mm. Best regards, Lin

My old pup Honey and I took a little trip to Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park and Monument Valley - Here's a few snapshots... http://www.lin-evans.org/bryce/bryce.zip (about 68 meg) http://www.lin-evans.org/bryce/brycemac.zip (MacIntosh Version - about 68 meg) Lin

Hi Jeff, Another very enjoyable sojourn into the splendor of the southwest. Looks like you and Sammy are still having fun. I just returned from a 2,000 mile trip to Bryce, Monument Valley, Zion and a few other places - hopefully I'll eventually get around to making a show. Thanks for letting us join you on this journey in photos... Best regards, Lin

Hi Patrick, ATV = All Terrain Vehicle. These are common in the USA and come in a variety of sizes, shapes and configurations. Some are small, four wheel drive two axle vehicles and others are larger and may have three axles. If you do a Google search for ATV you will see many pictures. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dan, All good advice - but sometimes when lighting is tricky, you may just want to use the "bracket" feature which I suspect your camera has. Also the overexposed image can be pretty much totally recovered using a few Photoshop features such as selective desaturation and selective contrast enhancement, etc. Here's one of them after a few minutes ot touch-up. Best regards. Lin

Hi Eric, Just put the video in a rectangular mask. Hold the shift key and drag each of the border sides of the mask rectangle to conceal the black frame. Best regards, Lin

That is a simple task in Beta 10 of version 7.5 - I have no problem doing this in any way... Best regards, Lin

Hi Rob, I've confirmed that the video doesn't countdown to "1" with PTE 7.0, however, it works perfectly with PTE 7.5 latest beta. Bottom line, whatever is causing the issue has apparently been resolved in the next version of PTE. I would suggest downloading the beta and using it to see how it works with your project. Best regards, Lin

Hi Rob, Best bet is to post a link to the video clip and let Igor have a look. I've seen this type of issue before, but I don't recall what the resolution was.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Rob, If you could post a link to one of the videos, perhaps some of us can sort out the problem. I'm assuming that the actual time allotted to the video is correct. The possibility exists that since PTE may have something else going on "after" the video where programs which only play this video and have nothing else going on may make absolute time of play an issue. Not knowing exactly how pte interprets the time of a video, it could be that if you just increase the time for the video by a couple seconds it will finish playing correctly. What happens if you let PTE "convert" these videos? Do they then play correctly? What happens if you open PTE and only place the video in and do a preview with no slides before or after. Does it play correctly all the way through? It certainly sounds like a timing issue. See what PTE thinks is the total time for the video versus what other players report. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, That's one of the problems with "language." I would never think to use the word "synchronization" (or British spelling synchronisation) in conjunction with matching the proper audio start position to the proper image or video. When we put in an audio track, unless it is assumed that we want it to start in conjunction with the first slide, we logically assume that we must tell PTE what slide it goes with. Likewise, when we separate an audio track from it's video, to me, it is understood that now we have two separate entities and this "audio" could be used as any other audio with any slide or video. So PTE has no way of knowing that we want to use it with a particular video or slide. We therefore must inform the program of the precise place we want to use the audio. In the relevant sense, that is at the start of the video we extracted it from. I suppose it would be "possible" to program PTE in such a way as to "assume" this by the file names, but this would be perhaps limiting. Personally, I reserve the word "synchronization" in the relevant sense for use in precise micro-matching of audio to the video it came from so that speakers (singers) facial features and mouth movements correspond perfectly to that audio track as it "should" be or have been in the original video. Placing the extracted audio at the same instant of the beginning of the video could loosely be considered "synchronization," but I would never use that word to describe this action. What I would use is alignment or start position because synchronization has a different intrinsic meaning for me. Best regards, Lin

Yes, absolutely correct! Best regards, Lin

Have you failed to set the start time on the video sound track to the start time on your video slide? Synchronization isn't really the right term to use because the video's audio is perfectly synchronized as in the original video but you still must set the start time for the audio to correspond to the start time of the video unless the video happens to be the first slide. In the relevant sense, synchronization would be fine tuning the audio to correspond exactly as it was to the video before extraction. When audio is extracted with an external program then added back and with the video start time and audio start time being identical, and the sound track is not properly aligned with the video as it was in the original, then we have a synchronization issue. Then re-aligning it by micro adjustments is what is generally meant by "synchronization." This has really nothing to do with video in particular. If you want a sound track to correspond to the start or middle of a slide somewhere along the timeline, you need to set the offset to that specific time desired. Likewise it is the same when you place the video somewhere along the time line other than at the beginning. This is audio "alignment" when you place the offset on the audio of that video to correspond to the start of the video. I think perhaps we have more of a "language" interpretation issue than a substantive difference in experiences. What I mean by "synchronization" is that there will be no timing differences between the extracted audio and the muted audio on the video. They will correspond precisely. When you use third party software to extract the video then add it back with the encapsulated audio on your video muted, this is sometimes not the case. Best regards, Lin

Sie können kopieren und fügen Sie Folien aus einer Diashow zum anderen. Alle Keyframes, Übergänge und Animationen wird beibehalten werden, aber Sie müssen in der Audio manuell setzen. Wenn Sie die neueste Beta-Version von PTE verwenden, ist es sehr leicht zu kopieren und einzufügen. Wenn Sie mit der Version 7,0, dann ist es ein bisschen komplizierter. Es folgt, wie Sie mit der Version 7.0 vor: Öffnen Sie die Diashow aus kopiert werden, und indem Sie die Tastatur STRG-Taste auf jeder Folie klicken kopiert werden. Dann nicht "schließen" dieses Slidshow, sondern "offen" die Show, die Sie wollen diese Folien kombinieren und fügen Sie am Ende der letzten Folie. Als nächstes fügen Sie Audio manuell speichern. Bitte entschuldigen Sie meine schlechte Übersetzung - ich bin mit Google zu übersetzen. Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Lin

Hi John, Yes, sorry about the confusion. Put the video in then go to the Objects and Animations Screen, Properties Tab and click so that there is a check mark beside Mute Audio. Next open the Project Options, click on the Audo Tab then click on Add Audio File. You said you were using the beta, so next look down where it says "Files of Type" and click on the little blue box with a down arrow on the right and choose "Video File." Now navigate to the folder where your video file exists and click on it. You video file's Audio Track now has been added as an "AUDIO FILE." If you converted the original video file, use the converted video to add rather than the original. Now you can do anything you wish just as if you were working with a "normal" audio file. PTE extracts the audio automatically and the audio track is now properly synchronized with the video. You can fade-in, fade-out, adjust volume, and use all normal audio features. Best regards, Lin

Actually, it synchronizes perfectly without any changes - that's why Igor did it. PTE removes the video without affecting the audio track. Best regards, Lin

It does in the latest beta versions, but you have to choose "video files" from the arrow drop down to get to them - it's not "automatic." On 7.0 if you want to see the video files you will need to do it as outlined above which will work with all versions including the new betas. Best regards, Lin

Hi John, There was an announcement by Igor a few weeks ago on this. What you do is first mute the video (objects and animations property tab), then "add the video" to the sound track. If you don't know the name by memory, just remember the file extension and use the DOS wild card to see all the videos in the folder. For example let's say your video has a long file name so after navigating to the folder where it resides, just place the following: *.extension name (such as Star Dot FLV or Star Dot MP4) and the program will show all videos with that extension. Then simply choose the video and the audio will automatically be perfectly extracted by PTE and you can use all the normal audio features to control it. This includes the waveform, fade-in, fade-out, offset, etc. The audio will sync perfectly with the video and no third party software is needed. This works in 7.0 as well as in the 7.5 betas.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Ray, It would be much easier if you would just post this link in the Tutorials section. If you post it there it will appear under your name. If one of the moderators posts it there it will appear under their name. Just click on the "Tutorials" sub link under the category you have it in now and repost the info below: We can't move just this part - would have to move the entire discussion. Best regards, Lin

This morning, the double emails stopped - everything is back to normal there. The jury is still out on the double posts. We'll see what happens over the next day or so.. Lin

LOL - no glasses, possible recent blows to the head (can't remember) and definitely too many margaritas last weekend! Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, I'm using Google Chrome with Windows XP. Perhaps the two issues are not related, or could be due to something odd in my system, but I doubt that email and the browser are related issues. I'm still getting two email notifications for each post. Oddly, I did not get double emails for Peter's latest post, but did for all the others - see below: I get the double mail whether using Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird, and only from the PTE forum. Best regards, Lin

When I post a response to another's post, I get two identical posts and must delete one. When I get email notification that there is a response to a thread I'm following, I get two identical emails.... Hmmmm Lin

Hi Gary, I think you missed it. That's essentially what the entire explanation was about..... What happens in terms of change happens "between keyframes." If the "distance" (which represents time) is further, the effect change will be slower. If the keyframes are close together in terms of "time" (not necessarily position) then the change will happen fast. If the two keyframes are one second apart, the change will happen in one second. If they are 20 seconds apart, the change will happen gradually over the 20 second period. Nothing is "instantaneous." If you want the text to "pop up" then you need to separate the keyframes by a tiny increment of time such as 100 ms. Regardless of the actual distance between keyframes in terms of space, what is important is the differences in "time." If you have a long expanse of time represented in a short space as you do for a long video, then a short distance between keyframes may represent considerable differences in time. Remember, changes happen over time. If you want the text to "fade-in" at the beginning of a video, just put your second keyframe at a point in "time" where you want the text to be 100% opaque and set the opacity at the initial keyframe to zero and the second keyframe to 100 percent. Then to hold it at 100% and later fade it out, set a third keyframe at 100% at the point where you want it to start fading out. Then set a fourth keyframe at that point in "time" where you want the fade out to end with an opacity of zero. You may expand the "visual" as I explained with a temporary slide then copy/paste the text to the video slide or do it as Jill suggested which is a bit more convoluted in the end, but works just as well. Yes, it would be nice to be able to expand the "view" to facilitate placement of keframes visually without having to do work-arounds..... Maybe in a later version.... Put it into the forum in the suggestion thread... Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, Sorry, I've been away from the computer for a day.... Let me see if I can explain how this works. Keyframes are arbitrary points in time "between which" events are made to happen. The emphasis here is on what happens "between" two points in time, not what happens at a single point in time. Keeping this in mind, when you begin a slide, video, etc., you start with a keyframe with the opacity set to 100% by default. This makes logical sense because if it were not so you would not necessarily be "aware" that the object of the keframe existed without actually remembering that you had inserted this object, slide, video, etc. So at the starting point, in the relevant case, you have text appearing. If you then set the keyframe to zero opacity, it will stay invisible without a second keyframe (remember between two points in time) to turn the opacity back on. The distance between the two keyframes determines the amount of time on the timeline for the change to happen. If you place the second keyframe very close to the first, the text will appear quickly. If you place the second keyframe further along the timeline, the text will gradually fade in over the amount of time represented by the distance from keyframe one. Let's take an example: If you start with zero opacity then in 20 seconds you set a keyframe with 100% opacity, the text will gradually fade in for 20 seconds. On the other hand, if you start the first keyframe with zero opacity, then place a second keyframe at 19 seconds also with zero opacity the text will stay invisible from the start to 19 seconds.Of course if you didn't place a keyframe at 19 seconds, the text would still be invisible, however, by placing a keyframe at 19 seconds, you can the place another keyframe at say 20 seconds with 100% opacity and your text will quickly (in one second) appear. So any time you wish to hold some "event" such as opacity, zoom, pan, etc., for a period of time and then change it after that time expires, it will require three keyframes. Let's quickly see how we would zoom a picture then hold the zoom, then continue to zoom some more. First we would decide when we want the zoom to happen and we would place a second keyframe with the initial zoom value (the one at the beginning of the slide) in it. Then we would place a third keyframe where we wanted the new zoom value to temporarily end and place the new amount of zoom in it. To this point the image comes on screen and remains for that period between the beginning keyframe and keyframe two, then between keyframe two and keyframe three it zooms to the new value. If we did nothing else, it would remain at the new zoom until the slide display time ended. But, we wanted to continue the zoom after some time. So we place a fourth keyframe further along the timeline with the same value in it as in the third keyframe. This is telling PTE that we want to "hold" this value for that period of time until we begin zooming again. Then we place a fifth keyframe with yet another value further along the timeline and between the forth and fifth keyframe the image zooms to the new value. If we do nothing further, it will remain at this zoom until the display time expires. So what we learn is that to "change" we only need two keyframes, but to "hold" a change for a period of time and then change again requires three keyframes. The changes happen "between" keyframes and to "stop" and hold a change we need to tell PTE by using keyframes. Years ago, when Igor first initiated keyframes, he called them "keypoints." Then because of the use of the term "keyframes" in the video industry, the nomenclature was changed. Actually, I think "keypoints" were easier to understand for someone just beginning to use this feature. Think of keyframes as a "point" in time and I think it will be easier to understand. Once you thoroughly digest this concept, it will be much easier to get the results you expect. Best regards, Lin