Lin Evans

The only way I know is to include the video navigation bar in the exe. Run the exe, drag the bar to the end of the show and read the time displayed. Without the video navigation bar I don't think there is any way to tell the length of the show from the exe file without running it completely to time it. Of course you "could" fix this when you create an exe by including a hotspot to click on which jumps to a slide otherwise not included in the show displaying the run time. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, I had seen your show previously, but it appears you have made positive changes - Congratulations on a very nice and informative production. I found it interesting that Louis Hunton died from tuberculosis (consumption) at such a young age. I wonder, perhaps if his family were formerly from Wales.... Long ago when i was the official photographer for the 10th Annual UFO Congress in Laughlin, Nevada, I was attending one of the presentations and sitting next to me in the audience was a woman of Hebrew ancestry. She asked me what my genetic heritage was and I explained that I was essentially a "mongrel" having a mixture of English, Welch, Irish, French, German and Comanche Native American. She asked whether I had any Jewish ancestry that I knew of and I told her not to my knowledge, but it certainly was possible. I told her that on my father's side the genetic heritage was primarily Welsh. She told me that it was indeed possible that my Welsh ancestry were of Hebrew descent because during the 19th century a sizeable immigration of Jews came to Wales primarily to work in the coal mines. It seems that among the Welsh people there was a genetic condition of some prevalence which caused weak lungs, and that the Jews were quite healthy and capable of working under the trying conditions which prevent many Welshmen from staying long in that occupation. Apparently something in my appearance made this lady believe that I had Hebrew genes - perhaps she was correct - I'll never really know. It's a shame that Louis didn't live out a normal span because it seems he had both the interest and intellectual capability of furthering his curiosity. Certainly it didn't hurt to have Michael Faraday to learn from - he was certainly a gifted individual. Thanks for an enlightening presentation! Best regards, Lin

That's possible, I'll see if I have an older version to try .... The oldest version of I.E. I have is 8.0.6001.18702 and it works fine... so unless Microsoft broke something with I.E. 9 - it must be something else... Best regards, Lin

Interesting - hard to say what the problem might be - I doubt it is the forum software, most likely either a cache issue or perhaps vimeo requires a codec which you don't have to see the embedded player. The fact that a boot revealed the player for Mick seems to point to the cache rather than a codec. At least we know that more than one person has problems with an embedded Vimeo link... Igor is out-of-pocket for a while so maybe we can sort it when he gets back... In the meanwhile, Barry try clicking on the lower left corner of the black area and see if an actual link is just hidden - that's where the hotspot for the link is located... Drag your cursor around on the lower left corner and see if there is a change... Best regards, Lin

Mick, Try this link - I've placed the Vimeo link again for Jan in this response below: https://vimeo.com/95589858 Best regards, Lin Please let me know if you do not see the link above ....

Hi Mick, That's really strange. Which browser are you using? I'm unsure why the player doesn't appear on your display. Perhaps others can comment on whether they see it or not. I see it with Mozilla, IE and Chrome and on the two systems I have running at present. Below is a screen capture from my display: Best regards, Lin

Hi Mick, Don't you see the embedded video player and the link to Vimeo??? It appears on my display... Hmmm Maybe it's a cache thing? Try pressing CTRL F5 to clear the cache and let me know if you don't see the link and embedded video player - I see it on all my browsers.... Best regards, Lin

Nice job Jan! Great use of depth of field photography with multiple quick frames and worked very well with the background music. Looks like fun was had by all and a great use of PTE to memoralize the event! Best regards, Lin

Hi Jacek, That appears to be the easiest way to do it with PTE. If you place these small files as "Add Audio or Voice" and "link" them to the individual slides, then if you later move the slides, the audio portion will stay with the proper slide. Also you will be able to manually advance the slides and the audio narrative will follow properly regardless of how long you remain viewing an individual slide. Best regards, Lin

There are two possible ways - click on the small green square icon to the right of the "link" chain then give the url where file resides or click at the bottom right where the "More Reply Options" (to the right of Post) then choose under Attach Files (Choose File) then "Attach This File" - You will not see the actual image until you "Add Reply" Click on small icon below to see . Best regards, Lin ...

Hi Jacek, That makes it more difficult because the voiceover needs to happen in synchronization with the display of the slide rather than in conjunction with a timeline. To do that, the audio needs to be added as a "sound comment" (add audio or voice) for the individual slide. I'm afraid there is no way to avoid cutting it into 45 separate files. Each file would then be added as a sound "comment" for the individual appropriate slide. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jacek, Yes, regulating multiple sound tracks can be difficult so possibly having multiple small audio files on a single audio track would be a better method for you. Either way, it's lots of work. My own workflow is to do the entire slide show with background music setting fade-in and fade-out appropriately. Next I use the PTE video type navigation control to stop the progression at the slide where I want to insert my first voice-over narration. I note the time for the start and stop which is indicated by the video navigation mechanism. I set the start time and offset time for my first audio track according to these figures and then I continue through each slide writing down the start time and offset times. I enter these values into the proper places in PTE and it all works out well for me that way. Best regards, Lin

Here is a link to the suggested way to do this without cutting your voice-over into 45 separate files. Load the zipped PTE project file and run it. On track one is the entire background music. On tracks two and three are the same audio voice files. The "start time" has been changed to 12 seconds for track three so it begins at the proper place in the narrative. The track has been visually dragged to the proper position to begin the audio narrative where it left off at the end of slide one (this modifies the offset time). Now it continues with slide three and slide four. This is one way to do this without cutting your voice track into separate files.... http://www.lin-evans.org/demo/voiceandmusic.zip Best regards, Lin

It is "possible" to do the entire narrative in PicturesToExe, but it might be more "convenient" to do it in a sound editor. For example, you can place your entire narrative into 45 separate tracks - put the entire narrative into each track - there is no "penalty" for adding the same sound track multiple times. Then you use the waveform envelope on track one to stop or fade-out the audio when you want it to stop the first time. Next adjust the "start time" for track two to the time when you want to continue your narrative. Continue doing this by stopping each "segment of audio" via the waveform envelope on the timeline and beginning the next segment by ajdusting the "start time". The start time adjusts how far into the sound track that audio begins. The "offset" adjusts when a soundtrack actually starts playing from the beginning of time on the timeline. So you don't necessarily have to do editing in a sound editor, it may just be more convenient. If you do it this way, I would suggest adding each track incrementally - that is don't add all 45 tracks at once. Do track one, then track two, then track three. This way you won't have multiple audio trying to run simultaneously. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jacek, Could you perhaps ask your question in your native language and also use Google Translate? It's difficult to understand exactly what it is that you want to know. It's possible with the present version to completely control the sound, but it's done differently for sound on a video. On a video you can "mute" the sound - which means "turn the sound off entirely." It's also possible to place the video into the audio track and PicturesToExe will convert the video to an audio. By the combination of "mute" and the audio waveform, it is possible to totally control the sound on the video just as if it were an mp3. For regular audio, you use the audio waveform or (envelope) to adjust volume, turn the sound on or off at any time during playback. This audio waveform is found by clicking on the "timeline" tab. Please see the help instructions for audio here: http://docs.picturestoexe.com/en/project-options/audio-tab And here: http://docs.picturestoexe.com/en/main-window/the_timeline Best regards, Lin

Hi, There are a couple issues. First, with a 32 bit program, the absolute size limit for an executable file is 2 gb. This is a Windows limitation and PTE is a 32 bit program. When you create a video presentation rather than an executable presentation this same limit doesn't apply because the video is "canned" meaning everything is sequentially spooled and the images, sound, etc., pre-coded. With executable code, everything has to be concurent in terms of operation and this limits the absolute size possible to the 2 gigabyte limitation of Windows for 32 bit executable code. Your video portion adds up to about 1.053 g which means that what remains is probably exceeding the 2 gigabyte limit and causing at least the largest part of your problem. Without actually seeing your PTE file, it would be very difficult to say exactly what is happening, but the way I would proceed would be to first limit the pixel dimensions of your images to the size necessary for your expected playback resolution. For example, unless you are doing a deep zoom on a particular image or images, there is absolutely no reason for images to be any larger in pixel dimensions than the screen resolution they will be displayed on. So, for example, if you suspect your audience will be playing your show on an HD display of 1920x1080 pixels, then having any of your images in the show larger than 1920x1080 will be a waste of resources and will not in any way make the appearance any better than had they been resampled to the HD matrix size. Only for those images where you zoom in tightly is there any advantage to having them larger than HD size. So the first thing I would do is if you have larger images, resize them appropriately for your show. The next thing I would do is to create a single slide show (that is a test show having only one image of say 55 minutes duration and all the sound files) and include the entire sound track to be certain that there is no particular mp3 (and make all your background music mp3 rather than wav) which is causing problems. If it plays completely through with one slide set to 55 minutes, etc., then the mp3's are probably fine. Once you are sure that all the music plays appropriately, the you can proceed with the following: For each video, on the "Properties" tab in the Objects and Animations screen - select the video by clicking on it in the slide list. Next click in the box which says "Do Not Include File to Exe." Doing this will run the video outside of the exe file and with your five videos will decrease the exe file size by the total amount of the combined videos. So by resizing your images to the minimum size necessary for optimal play, excluding the videos from the exe code and testing your sound files before including them in your production, you should be able to keep the size of the exe under the 2 gigabyte limit and have a successful result. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jacek, Could you try the same but in the Project Options Advanced Tab use "Run Slideshow" instead of "Run Application" - be certain all three shows are created with the same version of PTE. Please let us know what happens. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, You might want to have a look at Burnaware which is an inexpensive, but very good alternative - see it here: http://www.burnaware.com/ Best regards, Lin

Hi Bert, Hopefully it will work just fine. There have been lots of issues with Windows 7 and cloning per this: http://www.anotherwindowsblog.com/2011/02/windows-7-not-genuine-after-disk-clone.html Can't say from personal experience since I have never backed up my own Windows 7 system with a cloned drive. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, I have multiple OS systems on different machines - everything from XP to 8.1 but I keep XP on my development machine because it has features which I like. My issue with PTE finding files may be only on the XP system, truthfully, I haven't tried it with any other OS, but it does present problems now and then. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, So you set the bios priority to boot from the USB device and if necessary, that boots the system. Then you do the restore from the latest virus free image which then only requires restoring (if available) any files subsequently added after the date that image was made? Sounds reasonable. Either way, since virus or malware infestation is nearly always limited to the C:\> drive, for speed of recovery or cloning, keeping the C:\> free of all except applications would be the best strategy. Unfortunately, I have a rather large amount of data on my C:\> drive which I probably "should" migrate to external or backup discs, but to do so would confound programs such as PTE because of the change in location of the data files. I've begun to try to keep zipped backups of all my projects now to eliminate the time sink of searching out the new locations for relocated data. Hindsight - LOL Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, You answered apparently while I was modifying my original reply. Yes, the clone software only works when the orignal drive is operational. But in that respect, so too does the imaging software. Both apparently will, as you say, restore the entire operation to a new drive. The difference is that you must use the recover disk to boot your system so that the imaged information including OS, registry and boot sector is made functional on the replacement disc. The cloned disc just has to be installed, or in my case connected which takes only a few seconds to get things working. The advantage of the imaging "plus" incremental backups of the imaging software is that everything is up to date and according to the article I linked, there is less probability of a virus infecting both Windows partitions. Of course that's not a problem with the way I did it because only one drive is functional at a time. Were the drives mirrored, then the probability exists for a virus or malware to infect both. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, Almost all of the present clone software packages also have the option to create a boot disk to get the system up and running. Some of them also have backup functions such as Acronis True Image. The one I recommended is strictly a cloning software rather than a cloning and backup software. All of the imaging software in the world won't help you with a total hard drive failure. Yes, you have your backups of your application software and your data files, but if the hard drive itself is trashed (not just files corrupted or missing boot sector, etc.) you have to purchase a new hard disk, install an OS on it, recover all your files from the imaging software and then register each to make them work meaning you must enter each unlock code for each software which requires it. By cloning your drive, and then optionally mirroring, you prevent this and only need to recover the data installed since the cloning operation or, in the case of mirroring, just disconnect the defective drive, make a simple bios change and you are up and running immediately. They are just different ways of achieving the same result. My comments about Acronis do indeed refer to an earlier version but on the ease of cloning with Acronis and not referring to its backup capabilities. Perhaps imaging software now has the ability to restore the boot sector and registry? If it does this I wasn't aware of it. If so, it would appear to be functionally identical to cloning software? LATER: It appears that I'm out of date about imaging software which apparently can also backup the registry and boot sector and restore it as Gary did with Acronis. My old version of Acronis could not do that - it was both clone and backup, but could only clone to an identical size drive and to do this one either had to have the capability of installing two drives in the single enclosure or purchase an enclosure with power supply to temporarily house the cloned drive. With incremental backup capabilities, it seems that perhaps even an external hard drive could be used to temporarily hold the image to be restored to a new internal drive in the event of total hard disk failure.... I found this which is dated 2009, but may be helpful in deciding which way is better for you.... http://www.pcworld.com/article/164972/image_or_clone.html Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, I suspect that the best way to go depends on several factors. Having multiple systems helps - I too have multiple systems. If - and it's sometimes a BIG if, one has all the application programs and unlock codes for their software stored and available for reinstall, then it's just a matter, as you say, of installing the new drive, operating system and applications. Much of this can be automated from the backups if they are current. In my own case, I have probably right at 200 application programs, the majority of which I purchased on-line so have no install CD's. I generally keep my unlock codes in a text document so I can easily recover them, but having suffered crashes in the past many of them have been misplaced over time. I have actually purchased some of the same software over and again because of crashes and poor backup habits so in my own case having a cloned drive is a huge time and effort saver. With the incredibly low cost of internal hard disks today, It's cheap insurance and only takes a few minutes to temporarily install a second drive in a desktop unit and let the clone software run overnight. In my case and because of the huge number of files the clone process took about five and a half hours, but the peace of mind of knowing that if my system crashes I can, within about two minutes be up and running as if nothing had happened is invaluable to me. Over the years I have had numerous backup systems from external hard drives to incredibly expensive optical drives and LTO - Ultrium tape libraries, I've had them all, but never really was tremendously organized with my procedures. My late wife would probably roll over in her grave if she heard this. She was a VP and Marketing Director in the tape library business for Hewlett-Packard for many years and fortunately, through her and her engineering contacts, I had access to incredibly expensive (for home use) tape backup systems. She used to laugh at me when I suffered hard drive failures and having all these expensive and complex systems for backup, never really availed myself of the technology so had to spend days rebuilding files, reinstalling applications, searching for unlock keys, etc. She would be very happy to learn that I finally learned my lesson the hard way and now just clone the drive and laugh at the possibility of a system crash. Of course if she were giving me advice, I would not only have a cloned drive available on site, but have an additional one stored off-site so in the event of a fire or other natural disaster, all would not be lost. I think we all have systems which we have worked out over the years for protecting the data we find critical and what works best for our individual cases. It's indeed not a one size fits all situation. Best regards, Lin

Nice job Mur - excellent example of the flexibility of PTE and excellent job of using the 3D features to build and display your house! Best regards, Lin