Lin Evans

I suspect that each person using PTE could point to one or another area where they, personally, would like to see something slightly different or changed. That's the nature of human/software interaction. From the perspective of a software developer (I spent many years doing just this) it's impossible to please everyone. The best one can do is to try to implement changes and upgrades to continually refine one's product and keep it at the forefront of products of its type. For PTE to achieve and hold the position of price/performance leader it's paramount that certain features be implemented. The one area which has held PTE back in past years is its inability to include video clips as an integrated part of the product. We, as users of PTE, must keep in mind that in order for us to continue to enjoy this fine product, the development team absolutely must sell product. The market for PTE is much wider than the AV enthusiast. The market includes not only those who use the product for competitive purposes, but also the much larger market of the casual slideshow maker who simply wants to create a pleasant show for family and friends, and whether all of us like the idea or not, video is extremely important in that scenario and video is here to stay. Even major dSLR camera makers realize this and have included video in a number of their professional level instruments. The bottom line is that from a business perspective, the time to include video capabilities is here and Wnsoft absolutely "must" respond to this now. As Igor has stated very plainly, development is an ongoing process and there are plans for continual improvements in the audio section as well as in the image quality and video. Right now - today - we can use the very fine audio capabilities of PTE and if they are not enough, we can always use freeware audio editors such as Audacity to achieve our goals. Might it be somewhat inconvenient? Of course. Are there areas where audio improvements will make PTE a much better product? Of course. But the bottom line is that today there is no viable work-around for video with PTE. There is no "magic" potion which the user can implement to include video in any integrated way into our slideshows. Yes, many who frequent this forum don't really care about video. On the other hand - that huge market out there for new customers demands video or they will simply go to the competition which has it. PTE is a unique product. It gives the financially challenged user (that includes many of us who are long time PTE enthusiasts) a product which can do 95% of what it would take many thousands of dollars, Euro's, etc., to achieve with high priced competitive products such as Wings. We should be eternally grateful to Igor and the development team for giving us ways to do things with ease, which are incredibly difficult to achieve with competitive products including with very expensive competitive products. Let's be patient and let Igor and Wnsoft employees do their jobs and do what's best for the company. In the end we all benefit and we all will eventually see continued benefits. Where else can you purchase a product of this type with a "free lifetime upgrade policy?" For that matter, there are few products of any type with this type of advantage. With what other slideshow product can your input as a user be seriously considered, usually implemented, and a product created which contains the very features which the user base asks for? In my experience; none. In my opinion, we should stop nit-picking and let the development team get on with the job of improving an already terrific product............ Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, Yes, it's been a year of trials; but also a year in which I was fortunate to be able to visit with many friends and relatives and renew relationships. I definitely have mixed feelings about 2010..... Best regards, Lin

Hi Jeff, wideangle, Thanks - it's good to be back after an 8,000 + mile, two month trip with my two dogs and dragging my little 23 foot travel trailer around the U.S. Unfortunately, I had a mini-stroke the day before yesterday and couldn't use my left arm or hand or speak. Fortunately, all the symptoms are gone now except a minor speech impediment and a bit of "drooling" on the left side of my mouth - have to keep wiping with my sleeve - LOL. Guess I'll have to start taking aspirin every day now to keep the blood thin. Not interested in taking the "rat poison" the doctors use - HA! Lin

Hi Laszlo, It works perfectly on all my XP systems, but I don't have other operating systems to test it with. Let's go over it step by step just to be certain: 1. Open the PTE file to copy from 2. Go to the Slide List from the Main view (not from Objects & Animations) 3. Highlight (select the slide to be copied) 4. Right click 5. From the drop down list, choose "Copy Slide" with left click from mouse 6. Click on "File" in upper left corner of task bar 7. Click on "Open" 8. Navigate to new show where you want to Paste 9. Put the mouse cursor at the position in the slide list where you want to paste the copied slide 9. Right click in the slide list and choose "Paste" from the drop down menu Save the changes..... On all my systems this will successfully paste the slide to the new PTE file. Perhaps with other operating systems there may be issues I'm not aware of..... Best regards, Lin

Hi Laszlo, You can copy a slide and all the associated animations, but not sound. Open the project to copy from and right click on the slide to be copied in the slide list. From the drop down menu choose "Copy Slide". Do not close this project but open the one to copy to and use the right click to "paste" to the slide list. The slide and any associated animations and timings will be copied to the new project. Thank "Hawk" for discovering and explaining this procedure... Lin

Hi - for JRR Just make them all children of a frame and size or move the frame as desired.... Lin

Hi Folks, Thanks to everyone who has offered their kind words and condolences. I really appreciate it and Sherry would be moved by the response if she were aware (who knows, perhaps she is!). My ex wife and life-long friend Judy, my daughter Mindy and other friends have talked me into opening a Facebook page and I posted a few pictures of Sherry there if any here frequent that site. I have decided to buy a little travel trailer (with air conditioning - our two dogs said they absolutely will not travel with me without it - LOL) and take a couple month and travel to both the west and east coast to visit old friends. I may or may not be able to log on depending on availability of the web, but will try to do so at every opportunity. We have a great network here on the PTE forum and it's one of my favorite places. Hopefully, I'll be on the east coast in Vermont for the changing of the season and be able to get some great images of the Fall colors. After returning to Colorado, I'll hopefully be back to trying to help new visitors understand PTE better. Again thanks for the incredible support and so long for now.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Jeff, You can certainly do this with PTE as Peter as illustrated and so kindly provided a template for. Actually, you don't want to use the flip transition at all, but rather take advantage of the "child" relationship and the fact that you can easily see either side of an image as if it were a transparency. If you begin with two images - let's call them image "A" and image "B" - then make image "B" a child of image "A", you can then use the 3D transform function to perform the "Flip" with. Go to Objects and Animations and choose the Animations tab. Select image "A" and click on 3D Parameters. Put a check beside "Show Front Side" and uncheck the other two choices. Next select image "B" and do likewise. Check "Show Front Side" and uncheck the other two choices. Now select Image "A" and use the timeline and keyframes to perform the flip by changing the Rotate X and Rotate Y parameters over time as desired. This will essentially allow you to see the front of both images as if you had pasted two prints back to back and any rotation or zoom or movement applied to Image "A" will pull image "B" along in the proper orientation. Best regards, Lin

Hi Folks, Thanks to all for your kind words and thoughts. Sherry was cremated today and I know she is in a better place free of pain, suffering and worldly concerns now. Sherry's wishes were that I sprinkle her remains in the lagoon on Manihi Atoll in French Polynesia so I will probably take a small portion, just enough to sneak past Customs, and some year in the future when I can afford to make the trip, comply with her last request. She and I spent a blissful nine days there a few years ago and she fell in love with the tranquility and beauty of the area. Sherry and I have always agreed not to mourn death because death is inevitable, but rather to celebrate life and treasure our memories. I think that's why we love photography and slideshows. I will miss her terribly, but will not mourn her passing, but rather love and cherish our mutual memories and the great times we shared. In the end, that's all that anyone can take with them. Again, I thank all for the thoughts and comforting words and hopefully, I will be able to answer individually the many emails from our friends at PTE. Best wishes, Lin

To all our friends at Wnsoft and around the world - Thank You..... Sherry passed away at 10:45 am this morning... She would have loved the slideshow and I know from her eyes that she appreciated the beautiful card. She was a wonderful companion and the best wife anyone could ask for. We had 33 years of marriage and loved every year. Though the past seven years have been difficult, she always was upbeat and optimistic. She will be missed by all who knew and loved her but we can be thankful that she didn't linger in pain and is now surely in a better place. Lin

For whatever their reasoning, Youtube now supports 4K or 12 megapixel resolution video. Too bad they can't play our executables which already can do so in fine fashion. However, read all about it here: http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/07/whats-bigger-than-1080p-4k-video-comes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+youtube%2FPKJx+%28YouTube+Blog Lin

Hi Igor, Works perfectly! This is fantastic - now if you could just replace the current timeline audio waveform with this envelope so it would be possible to see the video preview simultaneous with using this envelope, the only remaining task would be to have independent waveform control over left and right channels and PTE would be miles ahead of the competition in audio. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, I think you've hit the nail squarely on the head! It's all about money. I've always believed that Apple has been misguided from the top in terms of business acumen. Jobs does a great "job" of collecting and using the best technology available for the company, but has proven that he has little true skills in terms of guiding the company into achieving greater market share. I suppose when you have all the money you need, you can be somewhat arrogant, but this time I think the cards are stacked against him in terms of convincing the world that Flash is inferior. He may love HTML5, and it "may" be superior for some applications, but Flash is not sitting still and has a huge established base. His refusal to embrace it as a viable vehicle has angered a number of people, whom otherwise would have purchased the iPad and iPhone, but who now are turning toward alternatives which do not have the limitation of ignoring the most common method available for displaying active video on the web. It's a shame because he now has gone public with his doubts about BluRay and his opposition to allowing the Mac users to enjoy this really neat technology. I think he is under the impression that internet downloads via the television receiver will eventually win out over media distributed on disc but I'm not convinced that this will be the overwhelming choice except among the very affluent. Only in the large metropolitan areas of the U.S., for example, are fiber optic and DSL technology advanced enough to really support the super high speed interface required to allow downloads of the signal magnitudes necessary for true HD quality delivered in a timely fashion. The costs for these far exceed the cost for renting a DVD or BluRay at the local video store or for using Netflix, etc. Even if eventually the high speed fiber optic channels become available everywhere, unless the costs are diminished by magnitudes, the overwhelming choice of common folks will be Netflix or video rentals as opposed to direct paid downloads. Hopefully, Apple management will eventually come to their senses and realize that not everyone spends 30 minutes a day playing with their iPhone apps. Perhaps they are still only seeing the "trees" rather than the forests. Personally, I don't "want" to see advertising on my telephone and I don't spend any time playing with the phone. It's a young people's toy and ideal for those with excellent eyesight, but the population in the US and in many parts of the world is aging. I believe that the true revelation in cell telephone technology will come when manufacturers begin to realize that older users need larger letters and numbers and quickly tire of squinting at the relatively tiny print on miniature screens. Obviously, that's a bias based on my age demographic, but the numbers are increasing daily. Best regards, Lin My phone - This is why I like this little Samsung! BIG NUMBERS FOR OLD CODGERS, LOL

Hi Igor, I agree completely with your decision. The reasoning of people at Vimeo concerning "slideshow" programs making it "easier" for uploading images whose rights are not owned by the author of the slideshow is logical in some sense, but flawed in the sense that it is very easy to also upload videos not owned by the author. Modern video authoring software makes it exceedingly easy to cut and paste and manipulate video just as one can manipulate still images. The fact that they followed up with their message about allowing Wnsoft to use their API for Vimeo members who pay tends to make me suspicious of their motives. If PTE users want to upload to Vimeo, they can do it without that menu choice in PTE. I believe it's their loss, not ours and if they don't want to support slideshows that's certainly a valid business choice on their part but they should say so up front and not try to make it "conditional" on paying for their "Plus" service. I, for one, plan to withdraw my support for Vimeo and remove my slidshows from Vimeo. Best regards, Lin

Hi Linda, That's a good start. You may want to zip up one of the audio files causing the problem with the combination of PTE and Snow Leopard and send it to Igor. There is something about these particular audio mp3's which PTE doesn't handle in the same way as VLC or QuickTime which is causing Snow Leopard or one of the drivers to reject the combination. Igor can, perhaps, wring out the issue and it will help with the MacIntosh development. Best regards, Lin

Hi Linda, Perhaps one of our users who has a Mac can add more (I don't presently have one), but my approach to this would be to analyze the shows which "don't work" and find out precisely where the difference may lie. Do they have something in common which the shows which "do" work do not have? The first and perhaps easiest task to test would be to remove all music from the ones which don't work and try them without. This will immediately divide the problem between video and audio. If they "still" don't work, then we know it has to do with the video rather than the audio, etc. If they do work, then perhaps add the music back one selection at a time and see if there is one of the audio selection which may be causing the problem. It's sometimes difficult to track down these types of issues, but since these shows work on your previous system we know that the problem lies in the newer OS or in the interpretation or implementation of something associated with the new system. Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, Personally, I believe Steve Jobs is as wrong about BluRay as he is about Flash. His opposition to Flash and not allowing the iPhone or IPad to see Flash has created serious opposition to these devices and opened the door for competition which otherwise would have never happened. People love the iPad because of the many fantastic features, but they hate the fact that when they go to major news sites (essentially all of them) they have big "holes" where the numerous Flash video clips reside. Flash is here to stay and Job's assumption that HTML5 will completely replace Flash is, I believe, a "pipe dream." There are simply too many Flash implementations out there on the web and too much money already invested for major players to abandon it. Steve Jobs is living in a dream world where Apple rules, but unfortunately the world is not going to the come to Apple as he would like. So it is, I believe, with BluRay. Many years ago, before the MacIntosh was invented and in the days of the Lisa Apple computer I was an Apple Representative selling Apple computers. When the IBM PC and IBM XT became so prevalent the handwriting was on the wall. IBM is here to stay and the business world selected it rather than Apple. I tried very hard to convince Apple management that they should open the architecture and even make a dual processor motherboard so they could run IBM PC applications. It would have been very easy for them to do this at that time. Had they done so, they would have easily been equal and even superior to the PC world and would have a major market share today. But Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had their heads in the sand and refused to either open their architecture or include IBM applications with appropriate hardware and this decision doomed Apple to a 3% market share for decades. When they finally came to their senses and created a MacIntosh which, with an Intel CPU, could then run PC applications, their market share tripled! Today we find the same thinking at Apple which held them back in the 1980's and 1990's. BluRay has been adopted by the major movie studios as "the" method for distribution of their state-of-art presentations for home use. Blu-Ray players are being included with the majority of mid-range home computers today. It's here to stay for some time. The industry has accepted this technology as superior to HD, and so it will be until "major" improvements can be implemented. I think PTE users in general would LOVE to have the ability to create PTE shows in BluRay quality but the cost of BluRay burners has prohibited the majority from getting too excited about it. Also, as a group, I think PTE users are waiting until you are able to have video-clip drop in available for PTE and then I think you will find that most will be asking for the ability to output to BluRay. I also think that PTE users realize how much you have already given us, and how hard you have been working to create a MacIntosh compatible version of PTE. Now this decision by Steve Jobs throws a major curve at us. To have BluRay or to not have BluRay. If you have BluRay output for the PC, and not for the MacIntosh user, then we are sort of back to square one. The MacIntosh user would have to run Windows to be able to create BluRay discs; just as they now must use Windows to create native MacIntosh executable output. It's a daunting task to keep up with Steve Job's decisions, which historically have not been exactly good decisions for Apple's growth. It doesn't make your decision any easier either, does it?? Best regards, Lin

Hi Tia That's a complex question - it has two parts. First, if you have an mp3 which lasts for 2 minutes 30 seconds you can certainly create a slideshow with PTE which lasts exactly 2 minutes and 30 seconds, but PTE doesn't "randomly select images from a folder." You must select the image you would like to be in the slideshow and then PTE "can" display them in the order you select "or" PTE can randomly display them and evenly spread the display time of each slide so that the slideshow ends in perfect synchronization with the end of your mp3. This means that depending on the number of images you select, these images will each display for a time span which when added together equal the time of your MP3. You can also lengthen or shorten the time for any particular slide if you manually add or subtract the time difference to another slide, etc. It's very easy to have PTE automatically distribute the slides along a timeline which corresponds exactly to the length of time of your music. Best regards, Lin

This may be of interest to those who want to run high end graphics and slideshows on laptops with insufficient video clout. This may be a relatively inexpensive way to run your PTE shows with intensive graphics on that underpowered laptop or when you want to use the laptop to display your shows at an AV club, etc. There are some limitations such as having to use an ATI video card and needing a recent enough laptop to have proper hardware (Windows 7 suggested), but certainly much less expensive than purchasing a gaming computer. I just thought it worth looking into..... I moved this topic to Equipment - just wanted initial exposure in the "main" forum.... http://www.amperordi...ock_2_4670.html Lin

Hi Greg, It's not PTE's Video Builder which is problematic, it's the entire DVD industry. These type problems exist with nearly every software I've used to burn DVD's at one time or another and with one system or another. There are a tremendous amount of variables including media, drivers, different country codes (on older hardware), premature burn-out on DVD burners and a host of other glitches which make it a nightmare for trying to get a system which works "every time" and for "everyone." Even the two major software developers (Nero and Roxio) are not compatible with each other. If you have formerly used Roxio, there is a good chance that Nero won't work correctly until every vestige of Roxio has been removed from the Registry. If you have formerly used Nero and are trying to use Roxio - likewise. Developers of other than straight DVD or HDVD burning software generally use licenses for what are called "libraries." Libraries are code based functions which are licensed for developers of other software to drop in and include in their own software to allow features which these developers didn't write themselves. Sometimes these core "libraries" are modified to suit the individual software they are included in, but the seller of the "library" may have also licensed part of their own code from some major player such as Nero or Roxio. This means that there are myriad possibilities for error and for incompatibilities with both existing and latent code languishing in the Windows Registry. To add to this issue, there are numerous hardware drivers, media issues and such which are problematic with one or the other software approaches. This makes the entire issue of finding complete compatibility a very large "crap shoot." If one has the good fortune to not have these issues then Video Builder works like a miracle and the user generally can't understand why other may be having fits trying to do something which works perfectly well on their own system. On of the major competing presentation slideshow software companies have even publicly recommended that people using their products not try to burn DVD's directly if they are having issues, but rather buy commercial products made specifically for this purpose. Some of these products have registry cleaners which seek out "alien" code and remove it. That work fine when one has, for example, switched from Nero to Roxio or vice versa, but could be a "big" problem for a developer using a library. The developer who uses a library can't automatically assume that the system his code will be installed on doesn't have one of these major software packages installed. It wouldn't look so good if installing PTE or some similar product disabled some other major software the user depended on. Better that Video Builder or other similar library based product fail than inadvertently disable something the user depends on. Unlike a major change from Roxio to Nero (few would want both on their systems) it's quite possible a user would want PTE "and" Nero or PTE "and" Roxio, etc. The bottom line is that ferreting out these incompatibilities is a major pain even for those who really know what they are doing. For the rest of us, it's sometimes overwhelming. Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, I think he is talking about his C drive (hdd - hard disk drive). Best regards, Lin

Hi David, Unfortunately, like most "polls," there is not a category which fits properly. In my case, I really don't have a "main" monitor but have seven systems which I use on a fairly regular basis. They have monitors ranging in resolution from 2560x1600 to multi-sync models which top out at 1600x1200. I don't have a 1920x1080. To work on the smaller monitors I generally keep them at 1024x768 so I can more easily read text. On the large, high resolution Samsung, I keep it at 2560x1600. A year or so ago I had a Viewsonic VP2290b (9.2 megapixel) monitor which I used because several of my gallery clients used them. It wasn't great for slideshows with any motion, but was fantastic for still images. It took two high resolution graphics cards to operate it and I found that it wasn't very useful for "most" of my slideshows. I probably will eventually buy a 1920x1080 monitor though I dislike having to crop all my images to fit. The problem is that the display manufacturers elected to go with a format which doesn't reflect the needs of the still photographer. The vast majority of digital (dSLR) cameras use 3:2 (after 35mm film) with only the 4/3 people like Olympus differing. Some of the newer dSLR's have a mode which will internally delimit to 16:9 but this is wasteful of sensor resolution because it amounts to what is essentially a "crop." Small sensor digicams usually have a couple modes, but generally not 16:9 unless in video. I suppose that the newer crop of dSLR's which feature video capabilities do shoot at 16:9 in video mode whether it be 1080p or 720p. The problem is that the still photographer is rarely satisfied with 2 megapixel resolution except for display. I detest having to shoot wide on every frame to allow room to crop for 16:9 but it seems that this format is in vogue today..... Best regards, Lin

Hi Ron, It's a bug - email Igor.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Keith, This might work for you: http://www.dkszone.net/6-best-and-free-file-recovery-software Or here for pay but free trial: http://www.easeus.co...mpact-flash.htm Lin

Hi Jean-Cyprien, Thanks! It's a very nice new feature isn't it!! Best regards, Lin