Lin Evans

Looks fantastic! Really nice use of features and the little video at the start with the glitter was done seamlessly. Your production took me back to the days of Mitch Miller and "Sing Along With Mitch" when they used little bouncing balls on each word in syncopation with the music... Excellent job! Best regards, Lin

Just a sample of how one might use an "intro" with several different shows. In this case, I used the modified introduction I posted a few days ago as an introduction to a simple showing of Lisah's (a friend) art. She probably would not like the introduction because she likes things very "understated," but then again she isn't much of a marketing type - but "is" a fantastic artist and vocalist. The intro starts softly and builds and the main show's background music is purposely muted and decreased in volume to act only as a soft background for the art. For anyone interested - about a 59 meg zipped Windows exe.... http://www.learntoma...naintroshow.zip Lin

Hi Harold, Yes, I think so.... It seems that you may have a misconception about how keyframing works with PTE... Keep in mind that you can use a video as a background to run behind a series of sequential still slides and you can have a series of still slides running sequentially behind a video. In the case of a single slide as in the example, how would you tell the video to begin say six seconds into the slide while the still slide is still visible without the offset? You could "duplicate" the slide and start the duplicate at the six second mark concurrent and as a second object on a layer with the video residing on a different layer, but without the offset there is no way to make this happen using a single slide and video. When you put two or more objects in the same slide frame on a timeline, they will all be visible simultaneously. That is setting the first keyframe at a starting point somewhere along the timeline other than the beginning will not cause the object associated with that keyframe to "wait" and appear at the time where you have moved the first keyframe position. So to make the video "appear" at the position of the third keyframe, you could set the opacity to zero at the first keyframe then another at zero and cause the video to "appear" at keyframe three but it would have already been running for the time frame between keyframe one and keyframe three. You would miss the first part of it that way. The only way to actually have it "start" at the time of keyframe three would be to have it as a second object or "slide" and to keep the image behind it you would have to duplicate it as mentioned above. The reason I mentioned a possible misconception about how keyframing works is that there really is no straight-forward way to have the video "start" at the position of the third keyframe without the offset. As I said, you could do a "work-around" by duplicating the slide, but there are many scenarios where you can't do a work-around but need to control "when" your video begins playing. A scenario of the type above might be that you have two or more videos running simultaneously on your slide (slide is being used as a generic term here for background and timeframe) and you want to control the timing for when each begins playing. You can't do that with keyframes. Once you work with videos in PTE for a while, the reason for the offset will become more apparent. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tony, You didn't mention the details on your previous post, so I assumed you still had your previous version active. It appears from the fact that PTE knew that you had a "previous version" that the information is still in the registry and the program is still installed on your system even though you may not have the icon on your desktop to run it. If you use Windows Explorer and look in the Wnsoft PicturesToExe folder you will see that in each version of PTE, Video Builder has its own folder and it's own files. I assume that a usable version of Video Builder exists on your system and that this information is contained in your Windows Registry. If you have not "uninstalled" the last version of PTE which had a licensed version of Video Builder, then it will probably still be useable. As I said earlier, Video Builder is not necessary to use video clips and the old version you have will "always" work if it is not "uninstalled." Look in your Program Files for Wnsoft PicturesToExe then look for various versions and I'm betting that your version with a usable Video Builder is still installed. As long as you don't uninstall it, it should be usable permanently. Installing a new version does not overwrite the old. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tony, Let me see if I can help sort it out. Your existing version would allow you to make native exe files for the MacIntosh so PTE is just telling you that your Video Builder has been superseded by a newer version which you are not eligible for free upgrade to. Consequently, your system created the Mac version just as it would have the day you purchased Video Builder. You software doesn't "quit" working when Video Builder expires and you can always continue to use the version you have complete with all the features resident in that version. Video builder is not necessary in order to add video clips. Video builder allows the creation of DVD's and MP4's, uploads to iPhone, YouTube, iPad, etc., but if your old version of PTE had a version of Video Builder, that version will continue to operate just as it did when you purchased it. It will continue to work just like it always has, but you don't get whatever features are only available in the latest version. When you "upgrade" to the latest PTE version, the newer Video Builder version comes with, but it won't work unless you pay for it so PTE "reverts" to the older version to do whatever it was capable of doing. Best regards, Lin

Hi Harold, Offset, whether in the Audio or Video functions tells the software "when, in respect to the start of the timeline for this video or audio" you wish to have that object "start." Let me first explain it with sound because it's easier to understand that way. Let's say you had a music background and you wanted the music to start after an image slide had been on the screen for six seconds. You would set the offset to six seconds and after your image was displayed for six seconds the music would begin. In contrast, the "start time" is how far "into" the music track, you want the sound to begin. Let's say you wanted to skip the first 12 seconds of the sound track and begin the playback at exactly the 12 second time into the music. You would then set the "start time" to 12 seconds. So if you wanted to have that music begin playing at six seconds into your image, you would sett the offset to six seconds and the "start" time to 12 seconds. Video is exactly the same way. "except" that the first frame of the video, as you noted, would "freeze" until the offset time rolled around and then the video would begin. To avoid seeing the first frame, simply keyframe the opacity for the video to zero using two keyframes. The first will be set to zero opacity and the second to zero to hold this zero opacity along the timeline with the third to 100% at the precise time you want the video to "appear." The timing between keyframe two and three will determine how quickly the first frame fades in. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, Could you tell us which operating system you are using and take a couple screen snaps and post them so we can see what's happening? I can't seem to duplicate what you are seeing and would like to see what it looks like. I'm assuming you mean Ctrl F11 and Ctrl F12 rather than Ctrl F11 and Ctrl 12? Best regards, Lin

Hi Jeff, I'm afraid you are up against a loosing battle. Screen video capture software is designed, primarily for use by people in the "educational" fields where perhaps they are explaining how to use software, etc. This use is not very taxing and the primary "animation" is mouse cursor movement. Even though the "capture" software provides high frame rate speeds such as 60 fps, it doesn't "translate" well because of numerous technical reasons. I've attempted to do this for a number of years and have even resorted to breaking down the captured video into still frames and sequencing these frames with PTE. This has worked "much" better than trying to use the video directly. Also, if you don't need audio for the sequence and it's not too long a clip or too complex in colors, you might try conversion software which converts either the still frames to animated gif or converts the video to animated gif. Where there are images which can be adequately displayed with 256 colors, this often works well. Back in early PTE beta 5.7 days, I made a demo of some of the great features of PTE. With the exception of the ability to include video clips, it's still quite relevant today. In this demo, I showed a simulation of the Earth rotating around the sun. This was done using still frame captures - over 800 of them converted to PNG's with transparency - to get the rotation for the simulation. It was a daunting task, but the outcome was very smooth "if" the viewer's system had sufficient resources. As it turned out, I seriously taxed the resources of ordinary video cards and CPU's to get all the animated effects with water, snow and celestial motion. If you have a decent video card in your system and don't mind downloading a 102 meg file, you can see the result from the link below: http://www.learntoma...emoshowfull.zip (for PC) http://www.learntoma...showfullmac.zip (native exe for MacIntosh) Best regards, Lin

Hi Swede, It's not a bug. The logic is a little different than you might expect. The way to achieve what you are looking for is to first program all four keyframes in linear. Next, click on the second keyframe and set all three attributes (pan, zoom and rotate) to "slow" Next, click on custom (do this for each of pan, zoom and rotate) and then click on both "separate here" tabs so that they say "glue here" then click O.K. This should give you what you are looking for. It may seem a bit strange to set all three attributes (pan, zoom, rotate) to "slow" but this is "insurance" against possible mistakes such as accidentally changing a small value in pan or zoom. So even if there is no pan or zoom programmed, change the attribute of all three to "slow down." Probably, the only mistake that you made was failing to go into "custom" and click on "separate here" - that is necessary to properly set the keyframes. You may want to go to my tutorials (PTE Made Easy) on the forums here and review the PZR AVI Tutorial. #1 on the Tutorials List on my post.... http://www.picturest...uously-updated/ Best regards, Lin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TFT_LCD#In-Plane_Switching_.28IPS.29 Lin

Update: I changed the timing a bit to get more of the effect I was looking for. I rezipped and posted back on the original link. I wish I had a bit longer flame sequence, but the video I used was borrowed from a sample from a company I just ordered some slow motion water effects clips from. This company is giving away some samples for the cost of shipping and handling for a limited time. They normally charge around $249 U.S.D. for their royalty free video clips, but right now for a limited time and until they exhaust the current supply of samples, they will ship you some high resolution clips for the costs of shipping, material and handling which is about $8 U.S.D. These are royalty free and can be used commercially as well as for private use. They appear to be very, very good but I haven't yet received mine. They ship not only normal high resolution clips, but also clips with Alpha Channel. For those who are not familiar with this term, for video - the Alpha Channel is like our transparency for PNG files with PTE. I'm hoping Igor will be able to implement the Alpha Channel in a future version of PTE. This will allow us, for example, to have a sequence with flames or water and our own video or stills behind on a separate layer. Only the area of the actual water or flames would be in front (or behind) the other layer. It makes for some really terrific possibilities. You may have seen this technology many times and not realized that it was what you were seeing. For example, a couple news commentators might really be sitting in a studio in Los Angeles or London and they "appear" to be sitting in Central Park or perhaps at a little cafe on the Champs Elysees in Paris with people walking by and chatting at other tables. This technology is possible by blue screen or green screen Alpha Channel and would be a fantastic thing to have with PTE. Anyway, for those interested - here's a link: http://www.footagefi...DayWhileYouWait Best regards, Lin

Hi Colin, Thanks! The font is called Bleeding Cowboys and is available here: http://www.dafont.com/bleeding-cowboys.font Best regards, Lin

Hi David, Just a little fun thing - the intro flames are, as you assume, a video clip. Best regards, Lin

http://www.lin-evans.org/lepona/leponaintro.zip (about 12 meg zipped Windows exe) Lin

Make them for yourself.... There really are no others available otherwise... Best regards, Lin

Hi Mary, You can't do that unless you have the PTE files. The executable can't help you publish, that's done via Video Builder which reads the PTE code embedded in the xxxxx.pte file. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, In all probability, there is no software available to do that. Your best bet would be to have the PTE file then create your own MP4 from that. I'm assuming though that since you ask, you no longer have the PTE files for these available. There are lots of software packages to convert video to exe, but none that I'm aware of to reverse this. It is "possible" to use screen capture software to capture the EXE and save it as video, but these are far from "good" quality and probably wouldn't be a very satisfactory solution. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mark, Nice job! Beautiful scenics, excellent photography and very nice presentation. The only change I would make would be to use a "smooth" rather than linear pan at the end of the pano. To do this without the "glitter or shimmer" which generally accompanies a slow, smooth start or end on a panorama, you could take a single frame which was used in the Pano for the last image on the right as the viewer watches, and just before the end of the pan do a fade which will cross fade a matched for size, etc., single frame to the last frame in the pano. The easiest way to get this is to take a copy of the original pano and "crop" a frame of the proper dimensions. Then everything will match perfectly as far as exposure, etc. Just use this with smooth and a "cross-fade" will hide the fact that there are two images. Other than the rather abrupt stop and change in direction, everything looks perfect to me. You make the duplicate image set to "soft" rather than "sharp" and it hides the shimmer on the slow start or end of a big pano zoom or pan. Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, Nice job - I think you're getting the hang of animation! You may want to experiment a little bit with the 3D transform which can help add a little touch of more realism to falling leaves, especially if it's not overdone. One other technique which can be used very easily now that you have the little S30-IS is to put it on a tripod, shoot a few seconds of video then just interrupt the video by pressing the shutter and capture a still. Then you can use that to start a sequence with by showing the still, then fading into the short video clip and it's as if your image "comes to life." If used very sparingly, it can add a nice touch to scenes where there may be leaves blowing about, falling and "quaking" on the trees. I liked the music - melancholic and haunting. Nice mix with the autumn scenery and darker images. The bit of chromatic aberration up in some of the trees can easily be removed and make those few images where it appeared look a bit cleaner. The easiest way I've found is just to open the image in Photoshop (if you have it) then go to "Image" "Adjust" "Replace Color" - then click on the offending color in the edges of the leaves (usually purple, blue) and adjust the slider until you have most or all of it selected then just slide the "saturation" to the left and desaturate it. It usually looks fine after this little treatment and no need to clone blue or white sky. In general this only happens where the highlights are blown out so desaturation leaves it looking pretty normal. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Try playing the movie clip alone on your HP Notebook. It sounds as if perhaps your video card in the notebook isn't up to the task of playing the video or that possibly you don't have a late version of Direct X and need to upgrade it on your laptop. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bobby, It doesn't actually have to be that complicated. There are some codecs which are very common and "most" people with PC computers will have them so the probability that one of the viewers might not be able to view the AVI file would be small. Codecs such as Microsoft MPEG 2 or MPEG 4 are so common that nearly everyone can view an AVI which uses this. If you simply choose "Create a Custom AVI" then PTE will present the available codecs on your system. The probability is that Microsoft MPEG 4 will be among the choices. In addition, if you simply suggest that your users download and install a popular free player such as Kantaris Media Player the necessary codecs are included and there will probably be almost no one who can't view the AVI file. This is not an issue with PTE, it's an industry wide issue. It's like Flash. If the computer which is playing the file doesn't have a Flash player (free from Adobe) they won't be able to play Flash either. For example, none of the Apple iPads can play Flash! There are so many video formats today that it's impossible to be absolutely certain that virtually everyone will be able to play your video. Players such as Kantaris Media Player are perhaps the best bet for PC based customers. Windows Media Player can leave you in the lurch at times unless you use one of Microsoft's formats. I write tutorials primarily using AVI format and whenever someone has a problem with audio or video, simply downloading and installing either Kantaris or VLC Media Player always solves the problem. To get back to your original problem, the "easiest" way to place a video on a website that I've found is to use Xara Web Designer 7. It will allow you to simply drop in one of the PTE MP4 or AVI videos and virtually everyone will be able to view it. It takes about 15 seconds to create a Video Page for your website with this tool and all code is generated. Highly recommended! You simply upload to a folder on your host server and give the customer the link or put a link in their or your site to the upload folder using your own favorite development tool. Here's a link to literally a 10 second generation with Xara Web Designer 7.... you can make backgrounds as you wish, change the size ot the player, etc., but this is just a literal dump of the generated MP4, export in 10 seconds then uploaded... From import to export is literally instantaneous. http://www.learntoma...ideshows.net/x/ Best regards, Lin

Are you stopping the sound for the duration of each of the other nine jpgs while the viewer reads the text? If so, you probably should look at my tutorial on inserting a video and fading out slide sound and resuming. Even though you have no video, if you are trying to stop the sound while the audience views the text slides, you can use the same technique of adding the same song multiple times (there is no resource hit for doing this) then stopping and resuming the sound via the technique described in my tutorial. You can always stop the sound on a music selection at any given time on the timeline by setting the duration field number for that particular time. You can also fade out sound and even use the waveform for this purpose. It's quite flexible. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jerome, I'm not clear on why shortening a song would help you? It seems that you would either shorten the display time of the slides or have longer songs things would work out better. If you "shorten" a song, then the music will just end more than 1 minute and twenty seconds before the slide show ends? How long are you displaying each slide ? With the number of slides than you have, it seems like a better solution would be to slightly shorten the display time for each slide. The easiest way to make the background music and slides end together is to click on the timeline then on the Timed Points tab then choose "Arrange All Points." This will cause your slides to be evenly spaced along the music so that music and slide display ends together. Best regards, Lin

Hi David, Yes, but probably not enough to really matter unless the aspect ratios were very different. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ian, You don't have to predefine the aspect ratio of the window. If you hold down the Shift key, you can drag the sides of any PNG rectangle to "fit" the existing image regardless of aspect ratio. Best regards, Lin