Lin Evans

Hi Eric, Of course as you know, (and I understand the humor), but just for the public record - "Rick" (Humphry) never said "play it again Sam" and neither did Ilsa (Ingrid). Rick said simply "Play it," and Ilsa said "Play it Sam."

Hi Peter, It's quite easy to do what you intend actually, it just requires using more than one slide. Use the first slide to do your pan around, etc., then copy that slide for the start of the second slide where you do the actual map. Just use the same zoom, pan and rotate values for the start of the second slide as for the end of the first and use "Quick, no transition" for the transition between the two. As long as the second slide is sized and positioned the same there will be no perceptible change when the second slide is displayed, but there will be a big break for the graphics system on the computer. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, First, the method which Peter (the other Peter - LOL) mentioned in his reply would definitely be the way to do this rather than with masks (though you may want to use masks at certain points along the route). That method, using two files with the top one cut out, was first done by theDom and then I did a map example and wrote a tutorial on how to do it in an AVI file which you can find on the Tutorials and Articles section of the forum under the "PTE for Smarties" Pte made Easy heading at the top among the "pinned" articles and tutorials. Second, if you really don't need the "full" map size because your route only uses a part, then the following may help greatly. My suggestion would be to first greatly reduce the overall file size by first making a much smaller version for those slides where you want to show the entire map as an overview, then crop out only that portion which you will be using for your actual route (the 800 percent zoom) and this will effectively make your PNG file much more palatable to your graphics card. The smaller the overall PNG file, the less loading on the system and the smoother it will run. Best regards. Lin

Hey Davy, click the link below for a zipped file I have for you: http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/davy/Davy.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Nix, You must have missed my post above..... Click on this link: http://www.wnsoft.com Click on "Download Trial." Install the trial version taking all the defaults... On your computer the "Trial Version" will be the "Real 5.64 Version" because it will read your keycode which is already in the registry. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, I wish I knew. The first time I visited Wales I thought I might look up some relatives there. My great grandfather was one of seven "Evans" brothers who came to the U.S. and settled variously in Kentucky, Illinois and Colorado. My great grandfather settled in Colorado. I looked in the phone book in Cardiff and I'll swear half the book were "Evans" - LOL. It seems "Evans" is as common a name in Wales as Smith or Jones are in the U.S., so I gave up trying to discover my family origins in Wales. Likewise with Germany, France, England and even the U.S. The only family records were kept in family bibles which have been lost over the years so I only have memories of what I was told when young. Best regards, Lin

Hi Xaver, Sorry, I meant her family four generations back on her mother's side were from S-H, but she was born in California. Her father was German, Russian and Cherokee (American Indian). Best regards, Lin

Hey John, LOL - it's not a "contest" just a discussion so no "defeat" or "victory" is needed or assumed. Absolutely "honorable" and all opinions are welcome and equally valid I believe. The tune "Londonderry Air" is definitely Irish and a beautiful, lilting melody for the lyrics to Danny Boy in my opinion. I also want to thank Maureen for furnishing a wonderful slideshow which has afforded us the opportunity to discuss our many different feelings and opinions about music and its application in our shows. Diversity is a breath of fresh air to me. By the way, my ancestors were from Wales, Ireland, Germany, France, England and America. My wife's from America and Schleswig-Holstein (if you know that history, you "know" she's a mix - LOL). Best regards, Lin

Hi John, Actually, the above is an excellent example of my point. Danny Boy was written in 1910 by an Englishman (a lawyer, Frederick Weatherly) who never visited Ireland. The lyrics were written for a different tune, then in 1913 were modified by Weatherly's sister to fit the tune of "Londonderry Air" It was first recorded by a German, Ernestine Schumann-Heink (born Tini Rossler). So you see many musical things are not always so clearly culturally defined and evolve and are "adapted" over time. Best regards, Lin

Hi John, That's just the point - it's the opposite of disrespect. As a musician myself, and having performed myriad types of music both professionally and privately over the last 50 plus years, I realize that while regional musical styles and instrumentation once may have been strongly identified with particular cultures and even with ethnic identities, that's no longer true in the music world. For example, for many years I played in bluegrass bands and helped pay my way through college by doing so. Bluegrass music is typically thought to be of United States folk origin and was named by the "father of Bluegrass," Bill Monroe, a man whom I was proud to call a personal friend. However, bluegrass style music had roots and influence from a broad background including black slaves in the U.S., Appalachian mountain people, etc. So by influence, the roots were Irish, Welsh, African, Scottish, English and in general, from settlers of that part of America from wherever they or their ancestors might have originated. Today, there are fine bluegrass musicians and bands in numerous countries including Germany, Japan, Ireland, and so on. Music is not static but rather dynamic and fluid; ever changing due to influences from a broad world specturm of contributions. One would be hard pressed to identify any significant musical differences between the London Symphony Orchestra, the Beijing Symphony Orchestra and the Denver Symphony Orchestra even though they are composed of people of vastly different cultural and ethnic identities. Music has a common language and though we can easily identify specific "composers" such as Motzart, Debussy. List, etc., their compositions don't necessarily reflect a particular country or region or cultural or ethnic identity, but only the different expressions of the language of music. Of course many years ago, regional and specific musical influences were less widely appreciated because of geographical isolation. Today we live in an electronic world where what happens in a remote Romanian village this morning can be instantly known in a remote Kentucky village this afternoon. If we carefully examine the history of musical instrumentation we may find many surprises. Though one might typically connect bagpipes with Scottish music, you may be surprised to find that bagpipes were historically used in at least seven countries in Western Europe, five countries in Northern Europe, two countries in Eastern Europe, four countries in Southern Europe, in England, in three North African countries and in at least four Southwest Asian countries. So when you hear pipes it may engender feelings of the Scottish Highlands but when people of other cultural heritages hear them they may be reminded of Tunisia, etc. My point is that the feelings engendered by musical sounds and compositions are not necessarily identified with specific geographical locations in the same ways by everyone, and not necessarily representative of any particular culture. It's rather specific to the mind of the listener and his or her own cultural identity and perhaps ethnocentrism or even eccentricities which may make it seem so. Had you no experience or knowledge of the geographical locations in Maureen's slideshow and no knowledge of the composer of the music, ask yourself if you would have the same feelings about the appropriateness of the musical selections. Best regards, Lin

Hi Nix, Just download the "trial version" and install. This will be recognized as the full version upon installation when the software will read your keycode in the registry on your computer. Any upgrades are handled this way. The installation will automatically read your registry and find your keycodes and install as the full version. You should email Igor about the double payment. The basic package of PTE comes with free lifetime upgrades. VideoBuilder which comprises that portion of PTE which is the "Deluxe" version has a two year upgrade cycle. That is all upgrades are free for two years and after such time you pay an upgrade fee only for another two years. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, That size clip will probably be no problem for my template. If you will zip up the video clip and post a link to it, I'll have a look and let you know how it would work. If you don't have a web site, go to Mediafire.com and upload the zipped clip there then a link to it on the forum... Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, If you could email me at: [email protected] we could discuss in detail the animation you want to achieve and perhaps the best way to set it up with PTE. From your description I think there may be a couple possible ways to do this and I'm sure we can find a way to code what you have in mind for the best possible effect. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, Please see my response in your post moved into this section of the forum below: See Pictures To Exe section thread titled "Rotate/Video Template Available" Lin

Hi Mike, Importing videos is planned for future versions of PTE but is not yet available. On the other hand, there are ways to do it with workarounds if you are interested in trying it. If you read the posts with sample here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....showtopic=10243 and here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....showtopic=10095 You can see what is currently available via template. How long is your video clip and how large in terms of image dimensions? Best regards, Lin

Hi Nix, Actually, the latest release of PTE is version 5.64 and it shouldn't be any problem at all for you if you just take the defaults. The program will "not" overwrite the older versions of PTE which will remain in your Windows Program Files folder. Just let the newer version create an icon and it will be available along side your earlier version. This way you can test to see if perhaps a file has become corrupted in 5.5. If it doesn't work you always have the option of using 5.5 which will remain on your drive. So let me reiterate that it's quite O.K. to simply "install" the latest version of PTE without uninstalling your current version. Perhaps in the past you may have uninstalled when it really wasn't necessary. Best regards, Lin

Hi Maureen, These are beautiful and inspiring photos and a great presentation! Personally, I agree with you in that I feel that the music was very appropriate for the scenery and settings. Music transcends geographic borders. Though we have become accustomed to identifying breathy flutes with Peru and the Andes, Native American Indian flute with America, pipes with Scotland, the harp and lute with Celtic, etc., I believe it's due time we put aside geographic, ethnic and cultural differences and realize that today we truly have a world audience who can appreciate blends of music from many venues and the feelings these sounds engender, without necessarily identifying the source and expecting to see images from specific geographic localities associated with same. It's simply the "conditioning" we have had from the movie industry which has caused a degree of "bonding" to particular musical themes which permeates our psyche and causes these feelings of appropriateness or not for musical selections rather than listening for the feelings evoked by the music juxtaposed to the images presented. In short, I very much enjoy the show as it is with only the suggestion that you might consider hiding the mouse cursor during the show since there is no real need for it and it "can" appear depending on the particular position the cursor may occupy on one's individual computer at the time the show begins. Best regards, Lin

Hi Nix, Yes, of course there may be other issues such as corrupted drivers, etc. Just to be certain, if it's possible to borrow an external USB DVD burner to burn a PTE show and rule out a mechanical issue with yours, that would be helpful. If that isn't possible, the next thing I would try is to possibly download a free DVD burn software and try burning any DVD or CD to assure that your burner is working properly. If it doesn't work with the other software either, then try downloading and installing drivers for your burner. These are generally available at the website of the manufacturer. A corrupted driver could definitely cause this type error. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, Sure, the template is given freely for anyone to use, modify, experiment with, etc. I'm in the process now of expanding it so that in a few weeks (it's a slow process for me) it will be able to handle up to about four minutes of video. Right now I have it up to about 44 seconds. So as to not overload the graphics card, I have settled on 631 frames per slide then using multiple slides. The issue which is taking me much time is manually entering image numbers for each frame. JPD does this with Excel then merges the output into the PTE file but I'm not that confident in my Excel skills so it will be a few weeks until I have finished the complete template. As it stands now, if you will tell me the length of your video clip I will try to post a version of the template for you which will allow that length up to about one minute. To answer your question, the way you proceed is to first decompile your AVI, MPG, etc., into PNG frames then name them in order using IrfanView or other batch processing (Photoshop with and action, etc.) so that the names are image001.png, image002.png...... Place the template in a folder by itself then start PTE and open the videosimulate.pte file (this will be the name of the one I post which is customized for you). From the main menu select and copy the available slides (there will probably be three slides) then without closing PTE, open your slideshow where you want to insert the video and "Paste" the slides where you want the video to appear in your slide sequence. Copy your decompiled video data with the renamed (image001.png, image001.png, etc.) images into the folder with your other slides which will overwrite the tiny placeholder png files included with the template. If you have fewer images in your decompiled video than the default number in the template, simply select and delete the object numbers (image3220.png, image3221.png, etc.) which are superfluous. You can then use the parent frame at the top of each slide to position and size the video. If desired, you can insert a slide as a background. Just place your background slide as the top object above the frame. You can animate this background object or treat it as you would any other via keyframe, etc. You may also have any other objects, etc., in animation around the running video. Experimentation will help you decide. The speed of the video as I have programmed it is about 30 frames per second. If you want to slow it down or speed it up (like slow motion or fast forward) just adjust the slide speed via "customize this slide". Leave the "Scale Keyframes in Objects" checked so that you don't loose any frames and the video will run faster or slower depending on what time you select for the slide. Remember, if you adjust the frame for position or size that to keep this size or position you must copy/paste the pan or zoom values from one slide to the other since there is a transparent slide change between image631.png and image632.png, etc. I would suggest saving your original slideshow to a new name for the purpose of experimenting until you have the show completed with the video addition. Let me know if you have questions.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Nix. First, it would be very helpful and more economical to invest in a small quantity of rewritable DVD's just for this sort of situation. Here in the states we can buy them in quantities of 10 or 15 in a package. This will eliminate your unusable "coasters." Was your slideshow really only 2.9 megabytes, or was it 2.9 "gigabytes?" I assume that it was actually gigabytes. Actually, 2.9 gigabytes is well within the acceptable for standard DVD's and over 140 gigabytes of free space is plenty. Approximately how many DVD's do you think you may have burned on your DVD burner? The reason I ask is that they do have a limited life of about 300 to 400 burns per DVD burner. It "could be" that your DVD burner is responsible for this issue and not a computer hardware issue or software issue. Video builder works quite well for so many and you haven't had problems in the past so the first thing I would do is borrow another DVD burner, buy some rewritable media and try it again. If it doesn't work with another burner then you know the problem is likely a corrupted DVD driver or similar situation. If it does work with another burner it's likely that yours simply has exhausted it's limited burn life. Unfortunately, DVD burners, though they can "read" practically forever, do have a very limited burn life - something that the manufacturers don't tell you. We burn commercially and have replaced dozens of DVD burners from HP, Sony, Plextor, etc., over the past years when they fail. The most I've ever gotten from a burner before failures was 430 complete DVD movie burns (full disk over 4 gigabytes). Best regards, Lin

Hi Ron, Yes - see my post to Gary just above. This can be done with several different software packages. The one I'm most familiar with is Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 12 - Link below: http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/P.../Studio+Family/ Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, You can burn MP4's to either BluRay or HD format on "standard" DVD media using several products, but to play them back you need either a BluRay or HD player connected to an HD TV or computer with proper resolution. The software I'm most familiar with which can do this is Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Version 12. Link below: http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/P.../Studio+Family/ I would suggest calling Pinnacle for more details.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Isabel, Thanks! That's a great tip and an excellent looking product. Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, That's good to know! I substituted an icon with only 256 colors and it wouldn't work either... Best regards, Lin

Hi Jean, The icon as included in the zipped file is definitely defective, but this isn't the only problem. Even with a good icon 5.7 beta 4 won't run properly so let Igor sort it out. The ico file in your zipped folder does have 16 million colors and is way too large for an icon file. I'm not sure why the original seems to be a defective icon but I couldn't open in Photoshop CS nor in IrfanView. I was able to open it in Picture Windows Pro 3.0 and is shows 16 million colors. However, even substituting a known good icon it doesn't work in 5.7 so there is a problem. Best regards, Lin