Lin Evans

Hi Jeff, Yes, it definitely requires the latest beta with ability to run animated gif's. Thanks for the reminder! Best regards, Lin

Hi Dom, Thanks! I think they (animated gif's) can be used sparingly to spice up intros, etc., and the Xara capabilities can produce nice ones which look professional enough to enhance some of our shows. Best regards, Lin

Hi John, You might want to run this by Igor with the error message. It appears to be a memory access error, but I'm not certain. Try at a smaller file size such as the default which is about 598x335 and see if it works for you. Generally, there is no need to make an animated gif as large as 1024x768 but I see no reason why it "shouldn't" work at that size. You may be running into some local (resource) issues within your individual system. If it works for you at the smaller size then this is logical. If it hangs up at the smaller size too there may be something else causing it such as some incompatibilities with Windows 7, 64 bit implementation. I would email Igor and ask him to take a look.... Best regards, Lin

Hi guys, Seriously, a very simple to do example of combining a couple of excellent programs (PTE & as John suspected, Xara 3D) to highlight the new PTE capabilities of including animated GIF's in PTE sequences. Xara 3D, Xara Xtreme and Magix 3D are sister programs which allow some sophisticated creations of both animated GIF and PNG output. They are inexpensive and quite powerful tools for creating banners and animated objects which complement PTE's fantastic object handling. 3D text, banners, and objects can be adjusted for lighting, extrusion and a host of manipulations to create some interesting and useful effects. PTE adds a great deal to what can be done with these animated GIF's because it can also apply 3D transforms to them as well as just run them. All the normal features of object handling such as complex motion, PTE's own animations, opacity control, etc., work with animated GIF's just as they do with normal jpg and png objects. John, the relevant settings for the animation are 60 frames per cycle and 15 frames per second and zero pause. Of these three programs, perhaps Xara Xtreme is the most powerful, but all are worth looking at.... Best regards, Lin

http://www.learntoma...e6.5pcintro.zip (8 meg) http://www.learntoma...6.5macintro.zip (MacIntosh 8 meg) Lin

Hi George, Sorry for the confusion, everything is right here on the forum right above. Look for "22 a" and click on the link right below. There are no templates on my learntomakeslideshows site. Go to the first page here on this thread and you will find the link. Best regards, LIn

Hi George, Sorry, I should have posted a link but my original domain name was lost and in the process of changing the links I mistakenly omitted the link to the template. I have since simplified the template by replacing the images with a single image, removing the keyframes and setting the time to 60 seconds. Now you can click on the link (22. a) and simply follow the same instructions for copy/paste of the mask container and set your own slide for 60 seconds and probably everything will work correctly. You "may" have to adjust the size of the mask container but it's set for a full screen default and will work as is in most cases. Best regards, Lin

Hi Roy, It seems you may have run up against a fairly common issue where a codec used in one of my video's is missing from your system. The easiest way to be sure you can play all the videos is to use a player which provides most common codecs. The one I recommend is free and available here: http://www.kantaris.org/ Just download it and install it and you should be able to see as well as hear all of my AVI tutorials. Best regards, Lin

Hi Xaver, That would work, but then it wouldn't be done with PTE?? Best regards, Lin

I think I understand. What you want would be what might be called adjustable brightness without affecting transparency?? If so, you can have that now by placing a black or white layer between an object and the layer below so that when the opacity is adjusted, you don't see the object or objects on the photo in the layer beneath, but instead just see the black (or white) jpg, etc. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, LOL - that's a bit embarassing, isn't it? Best regards, Lin

Hi, It works fine for me using the latest beta. Which version of PTE are you using? Could it be that you have it positioned outside the viewing area for a wide angle display? Do you see the logo during the construction of the video? Best regards, Lin

It's not quite clear to me what your question is. Luminosity, in the relevant sense of the digital image, is delimited by the saturation point of 255, 255, 255 which is as much "white" as can be displayed depending on the intensity of CRT or LCD brightness. At this point zero detail is visible and only the outline of the object or part of the object reflecting pure white is visible. Opacity is the amount of transparency or translucency allowed whereby any image or object on a layer beneath the manipulated layer may or may not be partially visible. In PTE terms, "opacity" can be set from 100% where there is no possibility of seeing the layer beneath, to zero, where the top layer is totally invisible and the layer beneath is seen in its full "luminosity." Best regards, Lin

I made an MP4 at 1024 x 768 for a friend who has an iPad - worked perfectly...... Lin

Hi Jose, In order for a decompiler to completely recover information, that information must be contained in the original executable file. Things such as images, sound files, etc., are almost always contained in a slideshow executable file, but the exact source code which is used to create the executable file may not always be contained in the executable file itself. The PTE file which is used to create the executable file doesn't have to be included verbatim in the executable, just the basics of the instructions. Therefore even with the best decompiler, the precise structure of the PTE file itself may or may not be in the executable code. Having never decompiled a PTE file, I can't say whether the PTE file itself is contained within in its original form. But in any case, unless you have changed the defaults when you created your executable, the protections built in to prevent decompiling will likely prevent recovering what is there. Here's a link where you might find more information about decompiling in general: http://boomerang.sourceforge.net/ Best regards, Lin

Hi Jose, The answer is complex. It could be yes, no or maybe depending on the version of PTE you used to create your original and the settings you used. Current versions of PTE have protection available from decompilers which are tools which can be used in some cases for retrieving the original images and sounds from an exe file. As you know, an exe file in the relevant sense, consists of your original images and music, sounds, etc., as well as a set of instructions generated by the PTE file. These instructions tell the computer in real time how you want these images and sounds displayed and whether or not to construct intermediate images for pan, zoom, rotate, etc. Decompilers consist of software which reverse engineers the executable file and retrieves the content. In most cases, the protection which is built into PTE (assuming the default of "on") will prevent someone from retrieving your images and music and instructions by using such tools. In the event that your PTE files were created with a very early version of the program before these protections were initiated, you "might" be able to ge the original images and mp3's, etc., back. To reconstruct the PTE file itself is very improbable even in such an old version. Your best bet would be to try to recover the lost PTE files. Otherwise you could use a screen capture tool to get the images back at screen resolution (the higher the resolution your screen is set to, the closer to the original the quality) and an audio capture tool which could intercept the sound at the sound card. Best regards, Lin

Hi Davy, The program Ken pointed you to, when run on your old computer, copies the Wnsoft PTE unlock key and allows you to transfer it to your new computer. Here is another link. Download the program, unzip it and run it on your old computer. http://www.learntoma...opy/keycopy.zip After you run the program it will save the PTE key. Copy the key and save it to a flash drive or thumdrive or external drive or CD, etc. Open your new computer, put the media you saved the file on and open it and click on the key to put it into the registry and your new computer will then work with PTE> Lin

Happy Birthday Guido!! Lin

Hi Mick, If you have your own personal web site, why not just create a folder there and upload your zipped A/V's to your own site? Unless you have very limited storage, that works very well. Just give your link information and your audience can download right from your own site. Best regards, Lin

Hello "Bgrady" (If you could give your name it would help with communication), Many thousands of people have purchased PicturesToExe without issues so there is likely an issue with your email rejecting the key or with it being blocked by a spam filter. The first thing to do is check with your email host and look in the spam filter content to see if the email with the unlock key was filtered and placed there. When a successful purchase is made, the service which handles the purchase automatically sends the unlock key. If you have heard nothing at all about the purchase other than as indicated in your post, the strong probability is that your email host is where the problem lies. If you have received other communications, it's possible that the unlock key is contained in these emails. There is no "scam" with Wnsoft or with PicturesToExe. Best regards, Lin

Hi Liz, You can do it as suggested by converting an AVI to Flash (FLV or SWF) or you can directly embed an MP4 h.264 by using the Xara Web Designer 6 as I demonstrate here: http://www.picturest...showtopic=11808 The advantage of doing it with Web Designer is that PTE outputs MP4 h.264 directly and there is no need to convert it to Flash. You can get a free 30 day trial of Xara Web Designer here: http://www.xara.com/us/ Best regards, Lin

Hi Jose, If you have a Microsoft MPEG II or MPEG 4 codec, give that a try and see if it works for you. The number of codecs available depends largely on software you have installed and/or codec packs you have installed. Rarely do two computer have the same number of codecs available. For example, I have 33 codecs on my development system. It sound as if the DivX 6.9.2 codec may be causing this issue. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jose, When you say you could "never create an AVI file using DivX 6.9.2 codec" I would ask what the problem was (error message, etc.) and why did you necessarily want to use the DivX 6.9.2 codec? Most have no problems creating a stand alone AVI file which seems to be the issue requiring you to use Total Video Converter to convert MP4 h.264 back to AVI. Best regards, Lin

Hi Paolo, There are several ways to get the text onto your screen. In order to make it scroll you only need to treat it like any other object. Essentially, the text is treated like any other "object" which can be controlled with keyframes. We just had a discussion about this a short time ago so I'm going to link you to that here so you can get the various methods as suggested: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11886&st=0&p=76546&fromsearch=1entry76546 Best regards, Lin

Hi Michael, Perhaps the easiest way is to use version 6.5 beta 4. In Project Options add your sound with the music tab then click on "Customize" and click on the "offset" and place the exact time from the start of your slideshow where you want the sound to begin. You can also fade it in and out with these features. Otherwise, for older versions you would have to use a sound editor such as the freeware Audacity and add silence to the beginning of your sound selection to cover the time until you want the audio to begin. The 6.5 Beta 4 version is quite reliable and the audio features are much more powerful than in version 6.0. You can also have an audio selection begin at any time during its duration. For example, if you wanted a music selection to begin playing 10 seconds into the song as if that were the beginning, you could set the "start" time to 10 seconds and the first 10 seconds would be silent and the music would start as if the 10 second point were the beginning, etc. You can fade in, fade out, cross fade, etc. Best regards, Lin