RodB

Hi Its called camstudio and is very much like camtasia without the cost http://www.atomixbuttons.com/vsc/ Regards Rod Outputs in swf also

Hi Sure thing Jim , maybe you could answer my very simple question to end this ? To open a post is like like stepping into a room with a few people , if somebody came into a room that you were in and answered 2 other people in that room that asked a question and you asked a direct question and was totally ignored , you tell me how you would feel ? Its very simple , he entered into the post (room), it is manners and edicut to address all that were in that particular post (room) that asked a direct question ! This is the end of this for me , the point l am making is right , if you dont just read the words but understand what lm saying how can you say lm wrong , obviously you have different morals than l do . I am only firing on a point of principle here , this is not nasty Jim , l have no hard feelings about anybody on this forum , my only negative thoughts about this forum is that some people can be over sensitive on some issues at times . Have a nice day Rod

Hi Its quite simple , if you open a post that has 6 questions from different people , l find it an insult to pick 2 out of the 6 to answer , nobody is asking for a long winded answer to every question , but the man is reading the post anyway , to totally ingore 4 to answer 2 is wrong ! My point is if you are going to answer somebody in a post ,its not to hard to very briefly answer the others in the same post if they ask a direct question , Nobody said answer every post in the forum , its a rediculas notion to think this is what lm saying , if you are going to open a post and answer somebody , then dont ignore the others in the same post that ask a direct question . For the people that carnt understand exactly what lm saying here , to open a post is like like stepping into a room with a few people , if somebody came into a room that you were in and started to talk to 2 other people in that room , and you asked a direct question and was totally ignored , you tell me how you would feel ? I stand by what l said , l would not do it and l think it is bad manners . Regards Rod Mike why the hell are you apologizing and what are you feeling insulted about , l have no understanding of where you are coming from here , its like me saying your favorite football team have poor public relations and you get insulted , yeh right ! l frequent more than 15 software forums atm and l can name 3 where the developer answers nearly every question asked .

Hello Igor , to come into your forum and hand pick a couple of questions that you will answer and totally ignore the rest is ignorant , you need a lesson in manners and common courtesy , quick brief answers are not hard to do ! Regards Rod

Hi Igor , how about an option to start another app (exe) at the end or close of a show , its a much needed feature , you could then daisey chain PTE shows together and you would also be able to use PTE to do intros for other mulitimedia shows , can you please add this feature soon , its not a hard programing task ? Regards Rod

Hi Very interesting stuff , l had a look at thier site and the app looks good for this purpose . The reason the audio would be out in Flash is that with Flash the animation and the audio run independate , unless the audio is a streaming swf and then Flash will drop animation frames to keep in sync with the audio , if its not streaming audio , it will prolly run way out of time and finish way behind the visuals ,how much depends on the length of the movie and how heavy the animation is . Low frame rate can work , but if you have any sort of heavy animation it will be as smooth as a gravel road , low frame rate is totally content relevant ,one thing for sure you will not get a transition out of flash as smooth as PTE with a frame rate of 7 , you wont get it with a rate of 30 unless you have a beast of a machine running it ,as we all know PTE has very smooth fades even on slow machines . You can cheat things to get acceptable results using compression ,low frame rates , small playback window size etc , and thats what you will get acceptable , it may even look great , untill ,, you view the same deal with a higher frame rate , less compression . and bigger files Nice chatting with you guys and will have a good look at LiveSlideShow . Have a nice day Rod

Hello Guys Just a note on this subject , have you ever thought of rolling your own music , you would be suprised how easy it is and its great fun to , the best program l have found for this is Sonic foundrys Acid Pro , its very easy to use incredably powerfull , comes with a mountain of great loops , effects etc . It allows you to rip a section of any audio cd and mix it with anything ,you would be suprised what you can make , just to many features to list here , it is a really good program . http://www.sonicfoundry.com/Products/showp...uct.asp?PID=704 Regards Rod PS its great for scoring video also

Hi I understand that the players have a pause , but l mean the editors so its built in to the video , eg still image stays on screen for set time video plays transition next image stay static for set time then video plays transition , l have not seen anything like this ? Rod

Hi l havent seen any video or mov file that has a wait option , l havent seen this feature in any video editor , video is all about motion ,they dont stop and wait , not that l have seen anyway , l must open up quicktime pro and see if it has a function like this . To say you have seen quality video of 640x480 , yes that true , but not the same quality PTE will give you for the file size , to get this quality you will need a high bitrate , if your image in PTE is 100kbs in resolution + size , you will then need for video a bitrate of 2.8mg per second to equal the PTE quality , has to be its just mathematics , of course compression will get it down somewhat , but for quality video you need high bitrate ! l guess its whatever you are satified with . This is based on 29fps and 25fps , do you know for sure this wait function is available or are you thinking it should be ? Regards Rod

Hi A down side to this would be the huge file size , times a 3minute PTE show by 29 frames per second = 5020 images to be shown in that 3 mins , now if you want any sort of quality so it can play fullscreen or at least 640x480 you will need a bitrate of at least 1 to 1.5 mg per second , so to do all this it will run out at about 100mg per minute of slideshow , not very economical . Video is not a very good medium for static objects , as video dont stop while you a looking at a still image . To go swf , Igor would probably have to pay royalties to macromedia and this may stop him , l would actually rather see swf import into PTE than export . If you want to build a slideshow in Swf format , any of the flash content editors like Swish or Koolmoves can do it , but the quality is not as good as PTE as swf is far better at handling vector graphics than bitmaps . Regards Rod

Rudi l build Multimedia presentations for small business like Resorts , at the moment lm doing a cd for Queensland Tourism that will go into our education system about cultural sites of significance in an area of Australias state of Queensland . But anyway , this program can do lots of stuff for me , actually it can just about do it all , the Pro version at 399 has all the features l will ever need , the EXP version is more for programers etc . But as powerfull and feature rich these kind of apps are they cannot build a photo slideshow with the same quality as easily as PTE . Regards Rod

Hello Rudi Yes you are right , they are very basic for what that program can do , l have been playing with the trial for a few days now , and boy o boy has this got some features , check out the feature list enough to get anybody into multimedia excited . Just a sample . Can put buttons , text , or any object for that matter on top of video , its the first app l have seen that can overlay video . Has colision detection for any object , great for games . Can build a project in a easy to use drag and drop manner , put images animations video , what ever anywhere you want , then just export as a Standalone exe , or a html that can be used as a website with all actions working , or export as a SWF file , just brilliant Imports flash content and its just any other object . This app has enough outstanding features l could go on for ages . l will be buying it Regards Rod

Hi l seen these and thought you may be interested in taking a look , they are only small about 2mg or less , there is one in the roup called jukebox , your version is so much better , but you may like to take a look . They are zipped self running exe . http://www.matchware.net/en/support/exchan...rum/default.htm Regards Rod

Hi l dont think you can do it for before show , because PTE would not be able to commnicate with the app to know when it has stopped so it can play . But it would be easy to to add the option to run another exe on the closing of a pte show , this would be a good function ,because you can daisey chain PTE shows or run another multimedia show or app . How about it Igor , its not a hard one to add into PTE functions ? Rod PS This run exe on close could be put in an update very easy , it would allow PTE to be intro to many things , it is a much usefull add on for PTE . Are you listening Igor ?

Hi You might want to check these out . http://www.ulead.com/dps/features.htm http://www.picturetotv.com/index.htm? Regards Rod

Hi Guys My post was based on what you said Rudi quote I just discovered an interesting program, called NeoBook 4.1. Very similar to PTE Please download the NeoBook presentation and have a look at it. You then immediately get the idea, and also an interesting comparison between NeoBook and PTE. And thats what l did Rudi , compared them , and l will still stand by , that when comparing PTE with the programs mentioned , PTE does just make slideshows with the ability to add a few links , its unfair to try and compare PTE to something like Neobook , its kinda like comparing Irfanview with Photoshop . Maybe you should try some of those apps Rudi , then you will see what l mean . If you really want to present PTE in a demo tour , you would be better of making it in one of those apps than PTE , PTE is way to limited for a presentation , it can be done but it would not be in the same boat as to what could be made by those apps that are designed for it . Your JuKebox show was great for PTE , but from the eyes of someone heavy into multimedia ,well l think you know . To finish up here , there is most definately Horse's for Course's in the world of multimedia ! Please dont jump Rudi and take this the wrong way Regards Rod

Hi Neobook is a multimedia design program just like Multimedia Builder , Indigo Rose Autoplay Studio or Opus and at the head of this class is Macromedias Director (steeeeeep learning curve) . l have tried them all and for the money you cannot go past MMB , they are all very powerfull programs in the hands of a script wizard and have many plugins available which gives them much power . You cannot compare PTE to any of the above , the above apps are designed for interactive cdroms , kiosks , ebooks , installation routines , games etc etc they are indeed multimedia . PTE is a slideshow program that will allow a few links , it is specialized in one area while the programs above combine all types of media from video to 3D animation and allow you interact with all of it while PTE makes only slideshows . Regards Rod Multimedia Builder http://www.mediachance.com/oldindex.html AutoPlay Studio http://www.autoplaystudio.com/site/index.php Opus http://www.digitalworkshop.com/dw_shop/products/opus/ Mediator6 Pro http://www.matchware.net/products/mediator/home_en.htm

Hi For the people where this didnt work , all l can think of is to make sure that you have the latest quicktime player installed , it works fine on my Win98se machine , l havent tried on my XPpro partition yet . Oh , and apparantly this wont work on a Mac . l find it very handy and l will prolly use it quite a bit as l output all my video editing and store my stock video in quicktime animation format , so l can easily take a good quality still very quickly from stock video This means a very high quality video camera can get you some excellant still images for multimedia and such very easily , it can be done with no real bother in Premiere or any other video editor , but this drag and drop method is just to easy Regards Rod

Hi This is a pretty handy tip l came across , if you are playing a quicktime movie and want to get an image from anywhere in the movie , just use the slider to get to the point you want and just put the mouse on the movie and drag across to your desktop or an open photoshop doc and walah , you have a bmp image from the movie . Regards Rod

Hello Bob Your right about this being frustrating , you can go mad with this stuff , the more l look into the mci command system the more flaky it can be , but you might want to look at this , l copied it from a web page regarding mci , might be worth a try in your case . Run the Media Player and select the Device menu. An MPEG menu item should appear. This indicates an MCI driver is installed. Make sure the sample movies that shipped with your card play well in the Media Player before proceeding. Also make sure you have the latest version of the drivers for your card. Edit the SYSTEM.INI and in the [MCI] section, check for a line that reads MPEGVideo=<path>\<drivername.drv>, where <path> is the path to the driver, and <drivername.drv> is the driver file name. If a line such as this is not present, contact your card vendor and ask for the name of the MCI driver. Add the above line to the SYSTEM.INI, replacing the <path>\<drivername.drv> with the full path and filename of the MCI driver. If the driver name is present but is set to a device type other than MPEGVideo, change the device type to MPEGVideo. Next, edit the WIN.INI, and in the [MCI Extensions] section, add a line (if not already present) that reads mpg=MPEGVideo. If a line already exists that associates the mpg extension to another device type, change the device type to MPEGVideo. Save both files, and restart Windows. Lots of references to MCI in the system.ini and win.ini files , take a look and compare on machine that works with machine that dont . Still llooking for answers Rod

Hi Bob Glad it worked out , Guido said it tested ok on his machine , if your slideshow is small it will show just about straight away when the movie is finished less than a second on a small fast loading show , but if the PTE show is large it will take a couple of seconds to display a PTE loading image , this is controlled by PTE. Im still working on a last frame image to display during the change from Media player to PTE . On the Win98 machine Bob , if you double click the mpg , what plays it , Media Player or Irfanview , it needs to be Mplayer for this to work . Is the extension of your video mpeg or mpg , use .mpg for my launcher . Does my launcher not work on one particular mpg or on all mpgs on that machine . l have tested this out on 4 Win98 machines and it worked ok on all of them . You could try . Dble click My Computer , then View -then Folder options -then File Types Now scroll the list for mpeg , and highlight it , then click on edit , you can see what its associated to and the extensions and actions . You could also remove mpeg from the file list then reboot and then put it back with Mplayer associated . Regards Rod

Hi guys Well it looks like l have got this to work ok , l have mailed a copy to Guido and Bob , if it works out will make it available for all . It will play an mpg fullscreen and then run your slideshow when the video is finished . Regards Rod

Hi Seeing that video intros and such are a hot topic at the moment , l found this encoder that will convert a video into an exe that has its own player built in , guarenteed to play on any system , it might come in handy to launch a video after a PTE show or something . http://www.radgametools.com/bnkmain.htm Rod

Hi It should work on your 98se machine , as thats what it was built on , but it needs Media Player to play it , as you say having Irfanview associated to mpg is prolly the reason it wont work on that machine . also try with 800x600 screen res . The lag is a big problem because there is a time needed to close the mpg (windows cause ) , also PTE wants to run on top so Media Player must be closed first or can cause lock up , you then go through the normal PTE loading as its running on top . If Igor would add the option in PTE where you can select it to not run on top ( easy for him to add ) this would solve many problems , as then PTE could load underneath an image and then you can close the image after PTE is loaded , giving the smooth transition from video to image to PTE . I must try this MMB launcher with Avi , l think avi is easier to work with than mpg , and for some reason l think avi closes faster . l am very busy on another job atm , and can only give a few minutes here and there to this , but l think it does show some promise , once l get the scripting and timing right , but like l said PTE needs to be run " not on top " for all this to work smooth with Media Player . Rod PS Have got this working very smooth on my system , the problem is the last frame image , it seems that even though it is loaded from outside of the MMB engine , mmb remembers the picture l had setting this up , so if you rename an image , mmb knows its not the same as before and wont display it , no such problems with the the mpeg only the image . but from closing the mpg to executing PTE there is a lag of a few seconds . Its easy to set up for myself , but to make it universal is not so easy lm not trying to out do Boxig with this , he is way better at this sort of thing than me , lm just having some fun and learning some more about MMB and PTE .

Hi Yes m8 , if you avi is small such as Bobs and your bitrate is low , it is no advantage to convert it to mpg . but if you are starting from scatch and making your video file , export it from your video program as an uncompressed file (huge size ) or a quictime animation file , if you dont have quicktime animation export option just go wth what you have but export it with a least compression as room you can spare for the file then use this file and convert it to mpg in TMPGenc . This will give you the best video quality . l sent Bob and Guru a small mpg intro player , if they check there mail . Can you guys let me know how it goes . The trouble is that PTE wants to run on top as soon as it is executed and so you still got to wait while it loads , if it had an option to not run on top , you can have a last frame image on top while its loading underneath and then close the app (image) on top at a set time (pte load time ) , this way it would burst out kinda of thing , or if PTE had an option to place an image on screen straight away while it loaded everything else , l will feel silly if pte already supports these things , l havent had it on this machine for a while now and kinda forget its runtime routines . Regards Rod