Lin Evans

Be sure and check your spam filter - often, for what ever reason, mail from Wnsoft gets shuttled into a spam filter and people don't get the reply. They are usually very prompt in replying - but remember the time difference between your location and Russia... Best regards, Lin

Hi Colin, Lots of good tunes in the 60's & 70's for sure. Fun just playing with the new features and trying different ideas... Best regards, Lin

LOL - tell the girls.... Lin

Hi Frans, It's all features in the PTE 7 beta. You can have simultaneous videos in multiple ways and treat them like any other object with PZR, 3D transforms, opacity control, keyframing, add borders, drop shadows, etc. There is no resource "penalty" for having multiples of the same video and you can use videos as backgrounds across multiple slides, etc. In this sample, the text was used as a mask with the video running under the mask so it appears in the text. Best regards, Lin

Just playing with video possibilities.... http://www.learntoma...demo/Sloopy.zip (about 18 meg) And a variation showing another masking technique with video: http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/demo/Sloopy2.zip Lin

Nice job Paul! Between Curling of Page (Horizontal/Vertical) and Curling of Page (Diagonal) you will find a checkbox which allows having a solid color and your choice of color on the back side of the page. Using a solid color will replace the "transparency" of seeing the back of the image during page curl. Best regards, Lin

Hi, As far as I know, all current versions of P2E work fine with Win 7 64. The issues with installing the Video Builder key are not that common and are primarily caused from client anti-threat software which strips or corrupts the key. The issue isn't with PTE, it's with offending software which alters the file sent via email. The reason this is not reported as frequently with some other software is that many developers or distributors use third party clients who send a "link" for download versus using email. The downside of a link is that it can easily result in theft where emailing a key is less problematic. The other side is that their forums are carefully monitored and complaints are removed before the posts are made public. Wnsoft is quite up front and the forums help to resolve issues. I don't know of a single issue that has not been resolved to the customer's satisfaction. There has been no "delay" on the part of Wnsoft in dealing with these problems, but many times their emails communications are lost in spam filters. Apparently, this happens more in some countries than in others for various reasons. The fact that reporting is allowed via the forums tends to emphasize the "problems" and you never hear from the multitudes of very satisfied customers who purchase, install and use PTE without issue. In all, the number of "complaints" is quite low, and the number of happy customers is very high. You are drawing conclusions based on skewed evidence. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, That wouldn't be the answer either because it's three out of five which are not properly aligned. Three (Start, Duration and Offset) are misaligned while De-Interlacing and Video Clip are proper. Something is pulling the three to the right and that is difficult to explain. Igor will have to look at this one. Even a malfunctioning video card would not normally cause only three to be perfectly aligned with each other, yet shifted horizontally to the right of the other two. Best regards, Lin

Hi Cor, Very enjoyable and you did an excellent job with the narrative and music coordination. Though I don't speak Dutch, I was able to understand more than I thought I would. I noticed that Helen's writing and many of the objects in the home with text were in English. Not being that familiar with South African history, it rather came as a surprise to me. It's often the case that artists are not recognized until after their death. It's too bad that Helen never lived long enough to realize her dream of recognition. She seem to be quite innovative - I noticed old "headlights" from some type of vehicle were used as "eyes" in one of her cement owls. Thank you for sharing these memories with us! Best regards, Lin

Hi John, Could you give us some details such as your screen type, aspect ratio, version of Windows, etc. - it looks fine on my system like this: Best regards, Lin

Hi Brent, Logic says no; but I gave up logic long ago where creation of video files were concerned. I've seen slideshows fail because of audio when the same audio played fine in most players. Go figure! Sometimes these things just require trial and error to sort out. At first I thought it might be a resource issue and that still could be at the root of the problem. Something as simple as a memory glitch could cause a problem during the creation of the file. Without knowing exactly what the internal procedural differences are between the creation of a 10,000 bitrate and an 24,000 bitrate file, it's difficult to guess at where the problem might lie. The fact that you can create a small video with only a couple images at 24,000 bitrate means things are probably working correctly in the software. The larger the file, the more resources are taxed in most cases. This may be a bit extreme, but if you could zip up the images and post a link to the zip file, perhaps I or someone else might try creating a 24,000 bitrate file using your parameters. If successful, then we can eliminate the software and look at resources. If not, then perhaps Igor could look into the problem? I would suggest first trying the removal of a file or making without the audio to eliminate those possibilities. Best regards, Lin

The issue "may" be with one of your images or with an audio file. Does it always fail in playback after the same image? If so, try removing the image where it fails and recompile. The fact that it fails "about half way" through and that the file size "seems correct" would lead me to suspect that one of the images is problematic for some reason. Even though an executable is produced and runs normally, there "may" be an issue either with an image, or with the background audio at that particular point. Another test would be to try compiling without the audio and see what the result is. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Thanks! Now I understand. I wasn't used to using the term "stroke" as a synonym for frame since I always build my frames as PNG files with feathered inside edges. Perhaps it might be easier for a single image application to do it with "stroke" but this modifies the image, (I think) and I like to keep my images separate from frames, so I just wasn't thinking that way. Best regards, Lin

Hi Robert, Since it's still pretty early beta, there will probably be changes along the way. I suspect Igor will eventually, before the release, add to the extensions which are recognized. It's good that you can use the files now at least. Sometime soon, there will be a conversion feature in the later betas and they may recognize the newer formats. Best regards, Lin

Hi Robert, It "may" be the extension which is causing the problem. Try renaming the file to xxxxxx.mpg and see if PTE will recognize it. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jeff, I'm a bit unclear about the details of what you want. If you could perhaps sketch a picture of what you are trying to achieve - even just a really rough pen or pencil sketch and scan it or shoot a picture with your camera and post it, maybe I or one of the other forum members can give you some direction. The issue is that a picture is worth a thousand words in this type situation. I'm unclear on what a "stroke frame" is and if you could point to the area via a screen capture and maybe print and sketch on the print what you want and where it would really help. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jeff, As David says, you need a mask. In this case the mask would be simply a pure white rectangle which limits the area in which the image and frame can be visible. The mask can be created right in PTE and you can adjust the shape of the rectangle by holding down the shift key while you drag the bounding rectangle with your mouse. The mask contains both the frame "and" the image and you move the combination by keyframing the mask container. All the little "gymnastics" in the demo are done with keyframes on the mask container by using PZR and 3D transforms as you can see by observing the values. You can also zoom the entire image including the frame (I didn't do this) by zooming the mask container. Here's a quick sample - just extract into a folder, load the PTE file, run the preview then study the construction.... http://www.learntoma...maskingdemo.zip (about 2.6 meg download) Best regards, Lin

Hi Ron, There are a number of great resources in the Tutorials section on the forum. I have AVI files there which show you exactly how to create cubes, etc. Follow the link below and you might find some easy answers to questions you have yet to ask... Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Looks good! For those who don't have or understand Photoshop, they can do it fairly well with the drop shadow so several ways to "skin the cat" - LOL. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, You can make the "stroke" any color with the color picker for drop shadows. I just used black because the default text color is white. Best regards, Lin

Hi Anthony, I can't answer for Igor, but my understanding is that the video converter will be a means of optimizing the video for use with PTE and not necessarily a way of getting greater compression. Video, by nature, is tough on file size. When you have, for example, 30 frames per second (29.97) or even 25 fps, you have a tremendous amount of data which is being stored. For a 10 second video clip at 30fps you have 300 separate images which must be stored. This means that depending on the size of each image in terms of pixel dimensions and compression, you could have quite a large file. Especially, if you are trying to use HD video you will have large files. The "best" compression right now is being done with Flash format. A 35 megabyte AVI or MP4 could be as small as 4 megabytes in Flash with only minimal loss of quality. So depending on your use of video, you might choose to convert to a Flash FLV or SWF rather than load an mp4, AVI, or other supported format. I doubt that one could "expect" that the internal PTE converter would necessarily make the file size smaller, just insure that it runs with minimal distortion and good sound and video synchronization. I'm sure when Igor reads your question, he can shed more light on it.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Could be, but is this what you want? This is a complete outline done via "Drop Shadow" by manipulating "spread" ..

Hi Dave, There "may" be a way to do this with PTE, but it's not straight-forward. If you create your text in both white "and" black the overlay the two making the black slightly larger and on the bottom layer, and using the "shift" key to distort the black as needed, you can outline the white text with black. I'm not sure, without seeing your results if it would be roughly equivalent or not, but it might be useful. Unfortunately, it's not possible to make text a child of text so it would require duplication of keyframes to facilitate motion, etc. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, I wasn't familiar with the term. I don't think there is any way to accomplish this in PTE unless one wanted to experiment with shadows which "could" serve a similar purpose; perhaps not an identical effect. By the way, I modified the demo using a video rather than the animated still and posted it on the same link. It only added about 4 meg including the sound in the video which I didn't strip out... Best regards, Lin

Sheila, Geoff, Mick, Thanks! - there are a number of possibilities and I think someone with a more artistic and creative mind than mine might expand on the idea and create a really interesting opening title example. Best regards, Lin