JSlugman

Ken- Ralph sent me some test stuff that worked fine. So it was something on my end (big surprise, eh?) LL- My kids keep telling me how "old" and "uncool" I am, so I guess I invited myself into the club. :-( The lens thing was something to keep me busy until I got the new computer. I decided to re-build the show from scratch and lo-and-behold everything worked well UNTIL I added the music. I had 7 slides running synchronized to a 12 second MP3 with the default transition timing settings. Once added, the objects wouldn't work. Remove the music and everything worked fine again. I decided to set the slide timing manually (like we goats did it in the old days...hee hee hee) and now it's working fine. So, what the heck was it? Any takers?

Having been out of the P2E creation business for a few weeks I was pleased to see a new release and eager to build something on my new system (finally...) but now I have a headache. I've constructed a start menu (as I have numerous times before) with photos as objects to start up other P2E shows on a CD. I have the "Run Application" box checked and have the other shows in the root directory, but when I create and burn the whole mess to a CD the start show ends on the last slide (set to stay up until they exit the show) but the objects don't start the show when clicked. No little hand when you mouse over the objects, either. Under the "Run Application" drop down box I have the shows listed as "p2e1.exe" and "p2e2.exe". I have also had them listed under a subdirectory as "\shows\p2e1.exe" and then eventually moved them to the root thinking this was the problem despite making sure I didn't indicate drive names in my path. Ugh. I do have a new operating system but don't think that's the culprit. I've made these silly things a gad-zillion times and this is KILLING me, I'm so sure it's something small. Any help appreciated. HP w/ AMD Athlon 2.0gHz 1 gig RAM Windows XP home

David, It is the Empire Brass doing Farandoles (SP?) Bizet I think, but the CD case is in a crate somewhere on a boat or I'd give you the title. I already have next year's spot picked out to get a bit more of the city in (that or I finally pop for a 14mm lens). Guess which one I'm hoping for...

David, Glad you enjoyed the shows (they're almost as much fun to make as they are to gather photos for...almost). The storm photos are of last fall's huge solar flare event that caused widespread northern lights displays. We get the aurora frequently in Alaska, but not often of that magnitude. I'm fortunate to be married to an Air Force member who drags my big butt all over the globe. But after 14 years we're getting close to settling down and you bet your bottom dollar we'll do it in Alaska!

I do so enjoy having my computer back! I've just posted a show of the fireworks over Praia Bay from last night here in the Azores. The end of the week-long Praiafest was last night and they celebrated with a fireworks show launched from a ship and barge in the bay. I was able to find a spot (along with 1/2 of the island's population) overlooking the bay beneath a large statue of the Virgin Mary with a lovely 20 knot wind. I fear I'm beginning to enjoy the whole digital thing. http://orearviewoftheworld.homestead.com/p2e.html

Hi Al, I didn't know where it was either. It's about 900 miles off the coast of Portugal or about 2,200 miles east of New York city. We found the best time to see Denali is between September and April, when it is COLD!

Well I burned a little midnight oil last night and finished my show about our last days in Alaska, it can be found at: http://www.orearviewoftheworld.homestead.com Click on the P2E link. 15.5 meg in size. Enjoy!

Holy cow, Igor! I take a few weeks off to move from Alaska to a small island in the Atlantic and I come back to this...incredible! I guess this means I have to get back to work... Thanks! James Lajes Field, Azores, Portugal

OK, got a new problem for you guys to chew on. I have a standard DVD intro I've been working on: ~ Roxio canned intro (from EZ Creator 6 package) ~ 6 slide P2E show with background music MP3 ~ 8 slide P2E show with background music MP3 Whole thing lasts about 1:50 seconds. All worked well UNTIL I added narration to 5 of the slides in the last show. When I burned the CD, the transition (standard fade) now turns into a strobing disco party for the duration of the effect, eventually staying on the last slide until the end of the show. Narration are MP3 files. The first main presentation (P2E file 4:52 duration, first of a planned 6) currently runs fine but now I'm a-feared to add the narration to it. Any guesses?!?!?!?!?!?! James angst-filled in Alaska Celeron 500mHz Win98 SE 512mb RAM HP dvd300i burner firmware v1.25 Roxio EZ-creator 6 platinum w/ full updates PTE beta 4 temp dir on a 40gig USB external drive (37gig free)

Michel, Sorry, CompUSA is a computer chain store and I was using their store brand which I don't recommend. I just completed a test with Memorex DVD+RW media and am happy, one for one so far. Show stats: 106mb file size, 28 minute burn time. 2 PTE shows and one Roxio intro animation. I had the 2 PTE shows set at 90% coverage but one of my graphics had a lens flare effect that got cut off so there's something to consider in the future. Looked good on my RCA and Magnavox players as well as my PC. I'll add narration to one of the PTE shows tomorrow and re-burn. Graphics appeared to be where they should be, but I was just eye-balling it 'cause I don't have a grease pencil like some of you guys...hee hee hee. Celeron 500mHz Win98 SE 512mb RAM HP dvd300i burner firmware 1.25 Roxio EZ-creator 6 platinum w/ full updates PTE beta 4 temp dir on a 40gig USB external drive Ain't this fun? I just might start smoking again...

Hi guys, Thanks to Ken for tackling this moose of a topic! Just got done with a major update of my websites so now I'm jumping deep into the DVD fracas. Seems we might be moving to an area of the world mostly devoid of cheap internet access (the Azores) so I have a limited amount of time to learn some stuff to keep me busy for a couple of years. So far I've made a 4-show DVD using ULead's DVD Slideshow Creator 2.0 burning feature with no problems other than a 2+ hour burn time. Looks great running on an RCA player and a 27" screen. Since then I've gotten Roxio's Easy CD/DVD creator 6 platinum and will hopefully be able to burn something tomorrow. FWIW, I've found that when I tried to use CompUSA's DVD+R or DVD+RW media I get a failed burn about 1/2 the time (with an HP dvd300i burner). James O'Rear Anchorage, Alaska www.operationhannah.com (our adoption travels to China) www.foreverfamilyfilms.com

Igor, I've never been so happy to have someone create a bunch of work for me in a loooong time. DVD Video feature works just peachy for me and looks great. I had been reluctantly testing some other DVD slideshow programs and none of them gave me what P2E did, now it appears I have the best of both worlds! My hat's off to you Igor, and I'll even send it to you if you provide me an address! James Anchorage, Alaska

Andrew, I'd love to glean anything you have to offer about alignment of the photos in photoshop. Jim, Yes, we get quite a bit of the green/teal colors. Reds, purples and blues are the most elusive and why I was so excited to see all the reds in this latest round. Igor, Thanks for comment and that site is among my (many) favorites for aurora info.

Andrew- Yes, I am working on the exact thing you mentioned about positioning. I have a new slide scanner and I think there's a trick to getting the mounts to line up. Plus, the first three shots were at the end of a roll and I had to move the camera to get a new roll in. We see lots of greens and teals, I just happend to look to the south over a mountain ridge and saw the faintest bit of red. We have had to worst weather up here this week, tons of clouds and I hear from up north that the action is still pretty amazing. I just got back some print film and have green/red zenith photos, too. If you move up here, it's a rule that you have to go fishing with me. cc- I did have a similar show posted from last season but I'm re-scanning them to give them full justice. I'm also working on a stills gallery. There are two photos from a storm in March in the Nordly's contest at http://www.northern-lights.no that can be seen if you click through the monthly photo contest section. A new contest starts tomorrow, guess which one I'm entering... James O'Rear Anchorage, Alaska

I've gotten lots of e-mail about a show I did called "The Perfect Storm" so I thought I would answer them here in one message. 1) The photos total about 10 minutes "real" time, with a minute taken to re-load film just after it begins. Exposure was about 13 seconds a frame. I took 7 rolls of film that night over about 4 hours. 2) I was just north of Palmer, Alaska which is about 45 minutes north of Anchorage. This particular sub-storm began about 9pm local time (0600GMT). 3) The last photo was taken about 15 miles south of Palmer along the Knik river and all photos are straight scans off of a Canoscan FS4000US with no color manipulation at all and re-sized in Photoshop. 3) Music is from Studio Cutz, their Orchestra CD. Great production/buy-out music. Show is at http://beechbrook.com/pte/ and I made the scans small to keep the show size small. Original scans are 120+MB in size. Hope this answers some questions. James O'Rear Anchorage, Alaska

In the aforementioned PTE show the only transition effect used is a simple fade (the best in the business I might add). I've toyed around with the tricks mentioned previously but haven't been satisfied with the results. There are other programs that will do the push, but PTE is my choice for presentations on a PC despite not having that feature. Yet. GO IGOR!!!!!

Thanks for all the great wishes guys. Clive, you'll be happy to know that dipnetting season starts in 11 days and I'm hoping to find the guy who sold me that fish last year yet again. I'm almost afraid to guess how many shows will come out of this trip's photos. Stay tuned.

Sorry for the off-topic message but there's been a lot of folks here helping me through this crazy thing called international adoption. Yesterday we got the call and a pile of paperwork magically transformed into a person, a little 9 month old girl living in Hunan province, China. We expect to travel in 5-8 weeks to get her. I'd make a P2E show of her photo, but there's only one and she looks a little, um...apprehensive. I'm guessing someone told her she would be living in Alaska. Some tasty salmon should change her disposition. You can get a look at her very driver's license-ish photo at: http://www.operationhannah.com/Emmalea_referral.html Thanks for all the support over this very difficult 450 day ordeal.

I know there are some features that allow a visual cue fr some system events, wondering if that might be something that's making itself known. Between Bill's site and my own there have been about 350 downloads and all but this one are running fine. Driving me nuts (but it's a short drive).

Someone downloaded my Thoughts of Emmalea show and reported that when they tried to run it, they got the following error message: "There was an error while running accessability wizard." It is a Windows 98 system, any ideas?

Just a little background on the show hosted at Bill's P2E site: Jill and I are pursuing a second adoption from China and due to many factors (SARS not the least) we have been delayed from getting any news, much less traveling. There are a whole herd of folks like us, and I wanted a way to help them realize that whatever feelings they were experiencing, others were too. A number of those in the same boat wrote with notes saying that they had watched it and it was what they needed. Nothing helps a tense situation like a good cry I guess. Hopefully this will help the P2E following as I send out links with every reply I write. (My apologies for the poor scans on a series of aurora photos, long story and I get irritated just thinking about it). Music is from the Studio Cutz library, titles done in Photoshop 5.5, hope you like it.

Dusty, I'm using an ATI 8-in-1 card, but I hear rave reviews on the Maatrox dual-head units. Don't be tempted by the $99 converter boxes that connect between the computer and the monitor, spend the extra $50 and get the real deal (unless you REALLY want to buy one and I'll sell you one real cheap, hardly used )

Had they started in Wasilla instead of Fairbanks I'd have some more shots to offer instead of the "city start." Hoping to get prints in of the lightshow real soon. Might make a nice show...

Michel, Can't wait to see it!

Fujiboy, Watch out for Ken, he doesn't speak English but Canadian... I'll offer my services, too, as long as you don't mind getting it back in Alaskan (only 1/2 as bad as Ken's Canadian). LOL!!!!!! JSlugman@alaska.com