Lin Evans

Hi Gary, You must have a selected keyframe to move or change any object or file. The essence is that you tell the program via Project Options or Customize this Slide how you want the initial image to appear in terms of "Original, Fit to Slide, Cover Slide," timings, etc. Any other changes require the selection of a keyframe so if you want a slide or an object to appear differently than the default you must inform the program when and where. This is accomplished via keyframes. Sometimes a keyframe gets deleted by accident and then you must create one before being able to make changes in size or position, etc. That may have been what happend to you in this case. But it's perfectly normal to need to have a keyframe and have it selected in order to change the position or size of any object or main slide. "Usually" this happens by default (selected keyframe in the initial position" but it's possible to accidentally delete one which then requires you to recreate it. Best regards, Lin

Hi Brian, We must wait until next week when Laura returns home from a family emergency which took her and the family away to find out more. She has just begun making DVD's so no history to rely on. We don't know that the problem is her PC because she burned the DVD's then played them on an external player connected to a TV. I don't believe she has played them on the computer at all yet. The one's I created for her are enroute now so when she returns late this weekend we will explore the problem further. She is going to try to borrow an external burner to test with. If the problem still remains we can then eliminate her internal burner and narrow it down to the PC or external player connected to TV. If the DVD's I sent her work properly on her external player we can eliminate that and concentrate on the PC. Best regards, Lin

Hi Barb, Please read the following: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8391 It "could" be the burner or it could be the player which you play it on. Are you playing it on the same computer you burned it with and using the same DVD drive? If not and you are playing it back on an external device connected to a TV it "could" be that as well. Stay tuned and we will get to the bottom of this... Best regards, Lin

We've narrowed the problem down to the following possibilities: 1. DVD Burner 2. DVD Player connected to TV 3. Laura's Computer Laura sent me her zipped PTE files and I took the four music selections, brought them into Audacity, removed excess space from the ends of each, combined them into a single mp3 and burned multiple copies of the slideshow. The copies work perfectly on my two external DVD Players connected to two different television receivers. I zipped the modified PTE and Laura downloaded it and burned a DVD with identical problems with sound. I'm sending her a burned copy to try on her system and she will borrow an external burner and try that. We've eliminated PTE and Video Builder as the culprit. The remaining elements will be quickly eliminated when she gets the properly burned copy to test on her external player. If it has sound problems then the issue is the external DVD Player/TV combination. If it works properly the probability is that it is her internal DVD burner and using a borrowed one will hopefully eliminate the internal burner from the equation. These type issues are difficult to trace when one has only a single system to work with, but we will get this worked out and this may solve problems for others as well. Best regards, Lin

Hi Laura, You need to click on Video then on Burn DVD - Video Disk. You don't need to make an AVI. Navigate to the folder where your PTE file is and it will appear in the upper-right window. Drag and drop it into the lower rectangle above "Project Options" and "Next" - the long, horizontal, rectangular window. Click on Next. Somewhere within this process you will be prompted to upgrade or click the unlock key. Do this and proceed with making your DVD as per instructions on the PDF User Guides. Unfortunately once the key code is installed in the registry I can't tell you exactly how it works because it doesn't ask again and I'm working from memory from 2 years or more ago. Where do you live? Email me at lin@learntomakeslideshows and perhaps we can talk. Best regards, Lin

Hi Laura, Just put the file on your hard disk and when you open Video Builder and are queried about the registration navigate to and click on the file name. That "should" load the text file into the registry and activate the key. Best regards, Lin

I don't think it's necessary to create a single slideshow for all possible users. You could do it like Barry does and make a couple popular sizes or make one high resolution and one medium resolution version. I usually make my shows for web posting at 1024x683 or so and they look fine on the majority of monitors. For clients I make shows specific to their own requirements which in some cases are full resolution from one of my higher resolution cameras and for most I make 4 megapixel shows which satisfy both the higher common resolutions as well as lower resolutions. The issue of aspect ratio is more differentiating I believe than resolution. Even my 1024x682 shows look fine to me on 1080p monitors. Yes there is some black on the sides because I rarely crop to 16x9 but the output still looks very crisp. Even conventional DVD (PAL or NTSC) dosn't look bad on these monitors to me. I think we tend to try too hard to cover every possible base when we should be worrying more about content and less about the technicals. As a business, we have multiple resolution monitors ranging from 2560x1600 to 800x600 including several multi-sync models. I had a Viewsonic VP2290b (3480x2400) but I let one of my clients talk me out of it. I think in the future there will be many 30" 2560x1600 (4 megapixel) displays sold as prices come down. Right now they are becoming quite popular with the photography and digital graphics crowd and will begin to make inroads into mainstream use as prices drop in the next year. They are already quite popular with the military and this will probably serve to lower prices soon. Best regards, Lin

Hi David, Yes - many have monitors with greater than two megapixel resolution. A number of my clients have nine megapixel monitors which display 3840x2400 in 2D mode. It's quite common today to find 2560x1600 in use. 1920x1200 is also quite common. Best regards, Lin

Just click on the "Buy Now" button and you will find a drop-down menu from which you may select either the deluxe or standard or upgrade. Lin

Well - last new effect added and I'm tired of cubes - LOL... How many "cubes" does it take to fly a helicopter? Lin

Can't afford them until I get a big "advance" from the studio - LOL... I've added a last slide with a new technique I'm working on.... Lin

Hi Graeme, Could you use the PTE zip feature (File - Create backup in zip) and post it for me. I will create a DVD and see if I have the same problem and perhaps figure out what is happening. Have you tried the DVD on both the computer and on a stand-alone DVD player attached to your TV and is it the same on both? Thanks, LIn

Hi Leona, AVI or MPEG files are huge by comparison with executable code. This is one reason why many prefer executable files. Not only are they (AVI, MPEG's) large, but to equal the executable image quality it's necessary that they be even larger. The differences are highly technical, but to greatly simplify an executable code uses the power of the viewer's computer to create the multiple images necessary to see the animation motion in real time so that only the original images and the code necessary to create the intermediate images and transitions need to be stored in the executable file. When you create an AVI or MPEG II, etc., each image must be not only rendered (created) but stored because the device (TV, etc.) which the file might be played on is essentially "brain dead" compared to a computer. Though these files can be played on a computer, they are really designed to be used with muiltiple devices which have display power but not "creative" power. This necessitates storing huge amounts of data on the removable media (CD, DVD, BluRay, etc.) so that all the necessary information to display the show is available to the display device which "may" not have the power to interpret code and "create" on the fly the transition images between the original image and the final image in any animation sequence. This then means that the AVI or MPEG file actually stores all these intermediate images and transitions rather than creating them as the slideshow is being displayed. On a typical high quality AVI or MPEG there are between 25 and 29.97 complete images stored for each one second of display time. It's a huge amount of data so storage requirements for displaying a similar slideshow are huge for AVI, DVD, MPEG II, etc., compared to executable files. The amount of compression does influence the storage requirements indeed but when you highly compress you also loose image quality. The bottom line is that if the people you send your slideshows to have a PC, it's much better to zip up the executable and use one of the aforementioned services to link them to the download. This results in their seeing a much better rendition of your slideshow. If they have a MacIntosh which doesn't have PC compatibility, then you have no choice other than using some alternative method which will result in either a huge file or a much smaller image and somewhat compromised quality. My suggestion would be to use a Flash converter and convert an AVI of relatively low compression to Flash which will be much smaller in size but somewhat compromised in quality. Also when creating the AVI don't use the original large photos out of your digital camera. Use Irfanview, etc., to downsample the originals to 800x600, apply about 14% sharpening during the batch conversion and then make your AVI. Things will go much smoother and quicker. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Majestic frames indeed! Awsome rainbow and I loved the Pika checking out your gear.. Great UW work - wonderful closeup of the Moray. All great memories and perfect timing on the wildflowers. Best regards, Lin

Wouldn't that result in an incredible amount of "clutter" when there are many, many objects?? Some create animations with as many as 600 objects. By doing it as it's done now it's possible to "usually" see all keyframes for each object serially, but to try to show all keyframes for all objects simultaneously would make an impossible screen. I could see this for simple animations when there are only a few objects, but for complex animations it would seem to be untenable? If it were an "option" then how would one decide how many object to allow when using this option? It would seem that one would run out of discernable colors rather quickly so this would only be useful for a limited number of objects. I see the utility for certain animations, but having this "rather" than the way it's done presently might not be suitable for every application. Best regards, Lin snip

Hi Gayland, I've searched my posts but not sure which one this might have been. Is there some particular question about O&A which could possibly help me locate it? I think the O&A tutorials I posted on the previous link cover most of the issues, but if you can remember what her question was it might help me locate a specific response and link post. Best regards, Lin Could this have been the one you are looking for? http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7928

Hi Ken, New big ending for you on original download... Lin

Hi Robert, Probably it was one posted in the Tutorials and Articles section here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7901 Let me know if it was different... Best regards, Lin

The music's good - LOL http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/samples/cubefunz.zip Lin

Hi Leona, Save as AVI or MPEG II or put them on DVD - all should work with Mac. Lin

HI Claude, I'm not certain I understand exactly what you want to do, but it's easy to place a number of PTE shows on one DVD with Video Builder. Perhaps you already know this and I'm missing something, but you just drag the PTE shows onto the workspace and you can easily have up to 99 PTE shows (to the limits of the DVD capacity) on one DVD complete with menu, chapters, etc. Best regards, Lin

You may want to download and read the Official PTE User Guide and the Unofficial PTE User Guide from the Help link on PTE. To make a stand-alone AVI file you must use "Create Custom AVI". Click on Video then on Create AVI then click inside the small circle next to Create Custom AVI Video File. Next click on Video Codec and choose one which resides on your computer from the list. If you don't already have a Codec Pack I would suggest downloading a free one such as the ACE Codec MegaPak and installing something common such as Microsoft 2 or Microsoft 4. After you have selected a Video Codec then choose an appropriate size depending on your eventual output destination. 640x480 works well as does 800x600, etc. The other functions are designed to be used with specific software to burn DVD's or BluRay, etc., and the default codec "PTE Codec" doesn't create a stand-alone AVI file but rather creates an AVI "Template" which informs other software such as Ulead Movie Factory of the images, order, transitions, music, etc., which the third party software would use to burn the disc. Best regards, Lin +

Yes - but it takes time. Will be possibly a couple years.... Lin

Hi Dom, I think you made an excellent choice for a first camera and to learn with. Cameras are like carpenter's tools, different ones work better for specific purposes. I use many different cameras, some for experiments and some for professional purposes. I do camera and peripheral testing for several manufacturers so have a rather large collection of dSLR's, prosumer and consumer digicams (over 30) including most major brands. I find that for convenience, a camera such as the one you selected works quite well. It's small enough to have with you nearly all the time and has sufficient zoom range to capture landscapes, wildlife, architecture, macro and candid frames alike. As you learn more about photography you may eventually want to add a dSLR and lens collection to have a complete set of tools, but the one you have chosen will do nicely for now. Best regards, Lin