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Let me just make it clear that Photoshop also offers a "batch" mode of processing that automates the resizing process and can include sharpening if desired. Now, to "square pictures-round holes"... let me clarify things. I don't, since using PTE, mix orientations in my AV sequences. My sequences built with 3:2 landscape orientation images are resized to 4:3 1024x768 images and the distortion is, in my opinion, so slight that I rarely am aware of it myself after the first viewing. My audiences have never commented on it. Any sequence built using 3:2 portrait orientation is always built on a 1024x768 background and the "natural" aspect ratio is retained. I have, in the past, posted links to examples of both techniques on other threads (repeated below): - Vertical orientation example: "Te Deum" http://www.mediafire.com/?1jdxcd19buv - "Stretched" landscape orientation example: "Wild Side of Florida" http://www.mediafire.com/?6s9cjtmbixd If you want to preserve your original aspect ratios and if that is going to result in varying aspect ratios then I recommend the "use a background image" as per "Te Deum" Finally, to pick up on Ron's point about v4.48 vs v5.0... I would take a different approach. Try v5.0 but DO NOT USE any of the animation capability in your first two or three sequences. Get the hang of doing the basics first and then branch out to the more complex. In your case that can perhaps be put as : amaze your family and friends with a nice sequence of images set to music this Christmas, stun them with an animated AV sequence next Christmas. Ron is right in that respect: learn to walk before you try and run. Good luck - and have fun!

John, Could it be the H2 is a newer product? I never came across any references to the H2 when I was surfing for info. The Zoom H4 is not cheap. But neither are the Nikon lenses that I buy for the cameras: nor are the desktop and laptop computers that I own. What I want are products that are capable of delivering more quality than I currently know how to handle. I can then learn how to get the best out of them knowing that I will not be having to make or accept compromises. Unlike images (which can be improved using Photoshop), a poor sound recording will always be a poor sound recording. If it has underlying hiss, other noise, or distortion due to over-recording it will always have them. Anyone venturing into voice-over and actuality sound recording is going to have to learn a whole new, and very demanding, skill set. But the new possibilities for your AV sequences will open up whole new horizons of experience.

Hi Russ, Welcome to the wonderful world of AVs built via PTE. I'll deal with your first question first. In my opinion it is difficult to manage the transition from landscape to portrait orientation in an entirely satisfactory manner without creating an aesthetic "disturbance" in the flow of the sequence. That is why most AV sequences are either all-landscape or all-portrait orientation. If you must use both formats then I would suggest: - create a background image (e.g. an ivory coloured linear gradient with added texture built in Photoshop) - set all your images on this at a slightly reduced size so that there is always a border around every image - try and make the last landscape subject and the first portrait subject have some kind of visual link and vice versa On the subject of image resolution, you need to consider what format the end-use will be. Will it be a digitally projected sequence? Will it be only run on PCs? What monitor resolutions will the PCs have? For a first attempt I would suggest you build at a resolution of 1024x768. Yes, you will get black bands at the edges on a widescreen and black bands at the top and bottom on a 5:4 ratio monitor. But the sequence will look pretty good on a wide variety of monitors - and will project excellently through most digitaal projectors. The dpi has no no real meaning for a projected image - it relates only to printed output. I suggest you use Photoshop to resize all your images (copies of them!!) to 96 or even 72 dpi and to a maximu of 1024 x 768 - using constrain proportions to keep your existing aspect ratios. The resized image files should come out at about 150-300K And at this point I'll utter some heresy - I always resize my 3:2 digital images to 4:3 for digital projection. I know the image is slightly distorted but my audiences don't! You'll almost certainly get more advice from other forum members. Final piece of advice - have fun building your AVs!

Hi kipper, I've uploaded a sound file (MP3) to Mediafire. Use the following link to download it: http://www.mediafire.com/?4gdwi2bdn1l The original recordings were made in April of this year by just hand-holding the unit and pointing it at the various birds singing and at the light aircraft flying overhead. The only "post-processing" was to transfer the files onto my PC, load them into Audacity, select the best bits and mix them into this final, composite recording.

Hi kipper, I use a Zoom H4 digital recorder to do just what you describe. It's battery or mains powered, records as WAV or MP3 onto an SD card and connects via USB cable to a PC (I don't know about Mac connectivity. Do Macs use USB ports?) It doesn't come cheap - GBP250 - but it is excellent. I'll upload a sample outdoor recording for you to download and hear for yourself. Watch this space!

Thanks, Igor. Your willingness to include the wishes of your customers into your product is what makes PTE such an excellent product.

I am using PTE v5.04 to build a sequence that will be manually controlled. I have succesfully used O&A on some images to place buttons with an "Action on mouse click" of "Go to slide #n". Everything works fine until I insert or delete a slide into/from the slide list. PTE doesn't adjust the slide numbers programmed onto the buttons on the other images to reflect the change that has happened to the number associated with each slide. I am assuming that this is how PTE 5.04 is programmed to behave. Is there a way round this in 5.1 beta? If not, could this be added to the "wish list" for future versions, please? Any moderator reading this and feeling it should be moved to the "Suggestions" forum please feel free to move it.

Hi Felix, Could it be that the missing slide is used as an object somewhere in the show rather than as a main slide? If this was the case it would not show up in the slide list. regards, Peter

Bonjour Bernard, Tutorial en anglais ici: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/PicturesToExe_v5...erManual_en.pdf regards, Peter

Is the music assigned via the Music tab of "Project Options" or via the Music tab of "Customize Slide" button or a mixture of both? If via the "Project Options" then what is the declared duration of the music when you ask it to "Show Music Duration"?

Hi Peter, Would making each of your "pop-up" images a PTE exe in its own right be a solution? I.e. click on the main map to launch the pop-up and click on the pop-up to close it and return to main map. (same principle as a menu system, really)

Hi, and welcome to the PTE Forum. You'll find lots of useful tips and plenty of friendly advice here. I'm not sure a grid will give you any more control over layout accuracy than you already have now. Will the grid lines be exactly where you want them? I have found that it is possible to achieve precise alignment in either columns or rows or both. My method is this: Drag the first object (let's say it's the top left one) by eye. Now, look at its pan values. Re-key them to the nearest round number or even rounded to the nearest multiple of five. Now place the second object (let's say this is on the same row). Again, study the pan values and ensure that this object has the same vertical offset value as the first object but round its horizontal offset as before. Now place the third object (lets say this is the first item on the second row). Set the horizontal offset to be the same as the first object but round the vertical offset. This establishes the basic alignment for items on each row and in each column. By keeping an eye on the zoom values as well, one can ensure that items of the same original size all appear at the same displayed size e.g. thumbnails of images. To ensure that all text is of the same size, get the first item right then use Copy and Paste to create the other items, changing the text content after repositioning the pasted item. If true absolute accuracy is necessary you have three decimal places to play with on the pan and zoom numbers.

Hi John, I don't know whether this will help or merely confuse (if the latter please accept my apologies). I currently have access to four digital devices (3 computers and a projector). The projector has a native resolution of 1024x768. Until mid-summer I was building all my PTE sequences on a laptop whose native resolution was also 1024x768. I then purchased a desktop system whose native resolution was 1280x1024. The PTE sequences that had been built on the old laptop ran OK on this new system (Vista problems apart!: but see other recent threads on this subject). They didn't fill the screen and text objects appeared to be misplaced. This is a not a fault in any software or hardware. Everything is "working as designed". I then added a new laptop which has a wide-screen. The sequences run OK this. Again, they don't fill the screen in all directions and text objects sometimes seem misplaced. The important thing from my point of view is that when I connect the digital projector to the new laptop, the PTE sequences come out at their designed and built size of 1024x768. My experience is that if I design and build my sequences to the resolution of the projector then everything is OK. If I build them using PTEv5 then they also fill the screen on whichever PC I run them on. I now build solely on the desktop system (almost exclusively using PTEv5) and playback to audiences through the widescreen laptop. I can't offer any advice in respect of "future-proofing" for DVD and HDTV usage as this is of no interest to me. Whatever you end up with I hope you and your club's members enjoy sharing their creations with each other.

Hi Dwight, If you still have access to the previouis computer you could use Windows Search to locate a file called Reg.txt. Open this in Notepad and confirm that it mentions Pictures-to-exe then copy the file into the folder on your Vista machine where PTE is now installed. Use this file and location when you register the key.

Hi Steve, You certainly don't need to buy again for Vista. I've recently done exactly the same as you but my original key worked OK. How did you try to load the original key?

Why such big image files? If the sequence is intended only for viewing on the computer monitor (or playback through a digital projector connected to the computer) then the file size should only be about 150-250KB each. Try resizing all the image files down to 96 or even 72 pixels per inch resolution. Also, set the overall size of each image to the smallest size that you need for your monitors: e.g. if the smallest monitor is 1024x768 then resize all images to be 1024x768 at either 96 or 72 pixels per inch.

Let's try again... What size is the exe file? What specification are your two computers (in terms of CPU speed, RAM and graphics card)? What specification are the client's two computers? What size are the individual image files? The more detailed the infomation that you supply, the more likelihood there is that one or other of the highly experienced and technically astute members of this forum will be able to point you in the right direction.

Ignore my previous post. If you are experiencing the problem yourself on Windows XP then it isn't a Vista problem. You could try using the Search facility of the forum to try and find threads that might have a bearing on your problem. I would suggest using keywords such as: Hang, locking up, etc.

Hi, welcome to the PTE Forum. Is the client running Windows Vista by any chance? There have been several threads rcently where this subject has been discussed. For example: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7531

Brian, Thanks for the reassurance about the ATI Radeon graphics and for the "heads-up" about NVIDIA GeForce 8600. I 'm amazed at the depth of your technical knowledge. As an ex-IT "techie" myself, I understand why you, and others, urge getting the latest drivers but I swear by the dictum: If it ain't broke don't fix it! Right now, all three of my computers are working satisfactorily: the oldest laptop having been relegated to family history research work because its Intel graphics couldn't hack PTEv5 animations. The Compaq desktop is NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS and, as stated in the post above, the Acer laptop is ATI Radeon X1300. Both these systems currently are handling everything that I throw at them. Rest assured, if I find anything in PTE that either of these cannot handle properly I'll post a "heads-up" for all the forum members to see.

Tom, Are you sure you really need to rebuild them all? I, too, use Vista Home Premium and have not yet found a need to rebuild any of the old sequences (i.e. ones built using PTEv4 or PTE v5 on Windows XP Home Edition). Have you tried my circumvention (see post #3 above) when one of your shows "hangs". The actions I describe there have always cleared the "hang" and returned me to normal desktop. Moreover, and this is the important bit for me, each sequence on which the circumvention has been applied then runs correctly every time thereafter (and each sequence also responds once more to the Esc key to break out of it - something it refused to do when trying to breakout of the "hang" condition).

I have an Acer laptop which has the ATI Radeon X1300 graphics. It seems to handle my PTE v5 animations OK.

Hi Carol, I think there are two avenues that can be explored in respect of your problem: we can work to help you understand why you are seeing what you are seeing and we can work to advise of how a change of PTE version might, or might not, change the situation. Let's take a look at the first of them. I, too, use menu sequences to drive a group of other sequences. All the sequences are built on a desktop PC with a monitor whose native resolution is 1280x1024. The vehicle for the end-delivery is a digital projector whose native resolution is 1024x768. That digital projector is driven by a laptop whose native resolution is 1280x800. I still build my menus in PTEv4 even though I now use PTEv5 for building the main sequences. For use in PTEv4 menus, I size all my "background" images to be 1024x768 i.e. the correct size for the digital projector. When positioning buttons, text or thumbnail images on the background via PTEv4's Object Editor I ensure that I am previewing (in the Object Editor) at 1024x768. This ensures that the design layout is right for the digital projector. If I feel a compelling need to preserve the spatial relationship between the objects when seen on the laptop I will select all of them (Hold down Ctrl key and click on each one in turn) and then Group them. If I don't Group the objects then their spatial relationship goes out of the window when viewed on the laptop. If I do Group the objects their spatial relationship with one another is preserved when viewed on the laptop but the alignment of the entire group against the background image is still off the mark. BUT... (and for me this is the important point) because I designed and built using the 1024x768 preview, I know that all the spatial relationships will be correct when projected. I'm not sure that the explanation which is about to follow is technically correct but it seems to fit the observed results. I think that in PTEv4 the position of an object is encoded in the pte file as a percentage offset from top left corner of the screen. In other words if you position a button to exit from the menu down in the bottom right corner (let's say at 95% across and 95% down) then that is where PTE will place it. And it will place it there irrespective of the monitor resolution. Now, would upgrading to PTEv5 change the situation? Yes it would. Because in PTEv5 you have the options (on Project Options, Screen tab) of setting the aspect ratio separately from the Full Screen or Windowed mode. I leave the aspect ratio set to 4:3 (i.e. correct for 1024x768 projection) and have the Full Screen mode active. I thus find that in PTEv5 I can view everything at full monitor resolution of 1280x1024 whilst designing and building on the desktop - but with the aspect ratio constrained to 4:3 - and, when I move the exe file to my laptop, PTEv5 ensures that the playback takes place at 4:3 aspect ratio. Spatial relationships are thus preserved in all situations. Previwing the sequence on the desktop I get a small band of black at top and bottom (where the 4:3 image doesn't fit in the 5:4 hole), on the laptop I get a broad band of black on the left and right (where the 4:3 image doesn't fit the wider hole) and on the digital projector I get edge-to-edge image in all directions. Hope this helps you to a better understanding.

I'm all for supplying info that will help Igor and his team get to the bottom of this problem. Having just completed three sequences that had never existed anywhere other than my Desktop PC I thought I would carry out a little test. All three were built using PTE v5.04 on a Compaq Presario desktop system running Windows Vista Home Premium. The processors are Intel Core2 Duos running at 2.33GHz. There is 2GB of RAM. The graphics is NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS. All three were created into exe files. All three exe files were then copied to my USB Flash Memory device using Windows Explorer to Cut them from their home folder on the hard drive and Paste them into the root folder of the Memory device. The Memory device was then taken to my laptop computer: an Acer TravelMate 5514WLMi running Windows Vista Home Premium. The processor is (are?) AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-56 running at 1.80Ghz. There is 1GB of RAM. The graphics is ATI Mobility Radeon X1300. The first sequence was run straight off the Memory device. It ran with no problems and ended normally. The second sequence was copied to the desktop of the laptop and run from there. It too, ran successfully and ended normally. The third sequence was run straight off the Memory device but the Esacpe key (Esc) was pressed after the first image had displayed. The execution was properly terminated and control was returned to the desktop display - all as expected. I have totally failed to recreate a problem which I have experienced in the past. Thinking back to the sequences that did cause me problems, all of them had been created on a Windows XP Home Edition SP2 machine using PTEv4.47. Of course, having now completed the replacement of my old system and having upgraded to PTEv5 I no longer have the relevant items with which to try and recreate that scenario.

Igor, What you have provided is a stepping stone towards what I had in mind when I posted the topic: Building a "heuristic" menu. The extra function I would like to see is to have the change of colour that happens when the button is clicked retained and applied every time the screen is displayed - until the menu exe file terminates. In other words, to know by the colour appearance which buttons have been clicked and which have not. Don't know whether this can be programmed but it would be a neat feature to have available when I'm giving an evening's programme to an audience and letting them pick which sequences to see. Both they and I lose track of which ones we have seen and which we haven't. Does v5.1 have a resolution to the problem, which occurs on Vista, of the screen flashing back to desktop when one exe ends and the next one that is chained off it starts - as happens when having a menu driven approach? I know you accepted that it was something that you would address. I just wondered if it was going to be in v5.1 or in a later release.