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Hi Ray, You stated in your last reply that you have added text objects (.png files) to your title slides. Are you sure that the total elapsed time of your animation keypoints is less than or equal to the overall elapsed time that you want for this slide? I have had some really screwy results when my animation keypoints inadvertently go beyond the end of the main image's duration.

Hi Ray and welcome to the Forum! I've just tried to recreate your problem by building a quick little sequence myself. I proceeded as follows: Using PTE v5 I navigated to a folder containing some images I use in demo sessions. I then built a sequence comprising Black Slide, Blue slide and Yellow Slide to represent your two title slides, two red slides to represent the rest of your sequence and a final black slide. At this point I haven't changed any of PTEv5's default settings. I then went into Project Options, Main tab and set the slide duration to 7 seconds and clicked the "Set for existing slides" button. I went into the Timeline to see what it showed. All slides at 7 seconds as expected. I Ok'd out of Timeline. I then clicked on the first "title" slide to select it and then clicked on the "Customise Slide" and set the "Display slide for" value to 15 seconds. I did not, repeat not, tick the "Use customised settings" box. I repeated these actions for the second "title" slide. Again I went into the Timeline to see what was what. Again all was as expected: the two "title" slides showed 15 seconds, the rest showed 7 seconds. I gave the sequence a piece of music (I couldn't get it to "Play" from the Timeline window without doing this) and let it Play. All was as expected. I then OK'd out of Timeline and ran Preview and all was as expected. I cannot recreate your problem. Does what I have described differ from what you have done?

File location in Vista: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\ProgramData\PicturesToExe\Versions\5.0\apr.ini

Hi John, Now that you have clarified the exact sequence of events I can confirm that it also occurs on Vista with both v4.47 nd v5.04 of PTE.

Hi padav, Welcome to the Forum! Re your questions about the music tracks. You'll find that most AV workers use separate software to manipulate their soundtracks - mixing tracks together, cross-fading and such like. One of the most popular is Audacity - available free from http://audacity.sourceforge.net Many of the PTE Forum members have a wealth of experience with this software, too.

Hi John, I don't understand your problem - or, at least, I cannot recreate it on my Windows Vista system and so it might have Operating System dependencies. I'm using PTE V5.04 on Vista Home Premium. If I switch to vertical mode and then try and drag any of the vertical "separator" bars over any other "separator" bar it refuses to do it. It always forces a gap to be left (i.e. I cannot destroy a "sub-window" as you seem to be able to do) I've tried the same set of checks on PTE v4.47 and it did look as if it was going to let me go over the next "separator". At this point I chickened out and didn't push it all the way. I realise this doesn't help you resolve your problem but it might help others to narrow down the problem area.

An alternative way if you are using PTEv5 would be to Create Backup in Zip and then extract the zip file into your new folder.

Ooooh, yes please! It's nice to have all the new function added but I think it's equally important to keep streamlining the user interface.

Hi potwnc, If I've done everything correctly there should be a zip file attached to this post.PTEv5Demo_Oct17_2007_7_57_40.zip Hope it helps you resolve your problem

Hi everyone, Further to my previous post above... I've now had an opportunity to tryout a few different laptops courtesy of friends and members of my local photographic society. None of the laptops was older than about 18 months. Some had NVidia graphics, some had ATI Radeon graphics - and the PTEv5 animations ran smoothly on them all. One had Intel 915/Intel 910 graphics and the sequence ran smoothly on this as well. The majority of the laptops were Acers and I chose to buy an Acer TravelMate 5514WLMi which has the ATI Radeon graphics. I bought it from a local PC specialist shop that has developed an excellent reputation with its clientele. If I encounter any problems I'll make a fresh post to the Forum. Otherwise, assume that "no news is good news".

I've just run a little test and cannot recreate your problem. My starting point for my test was a three slide sequence: Black slide, Blackslide with seven animated objects (20 keypoints in all), Black slide. I ticked the "Hold time points" box, opened the Timeline, did an "Insert slide" betwen the first and second slides without changing the start time of the second of these slides, OK'd out of the Timeline and Previewed. Everything ran OK. I then went on to move the second, third and fourth images to different points on the timeline, ensuring that I kept sufficient elapsed time on the image with all the animation. Again, no problems when previewing. Are you ensuring that the elapsed time of your animated image isn't dropping below that required?

Hi Ken, Yes, I'm aware that with Systems Administrator powers under Windows XP there are such options. I used them occasionally on my laptop under XP. Vista is a whole new (and frequently frustrating) ball game. I'm the only defined user of my Vista PC and so I have System Administrator rights defined. But Vista, in its infinite wisdom, takes most of those away from me to protect my system from my own stupid actions. When I need them it begrudgingly gives them to me. First a pop-up asking me to confirm that I do want them and that it was me who asked for them. Followed by a second pop-up asking me to confirm that I really, really do want them. It seems to me that Microsoft have, in Vista, gone overboard with their solutions to the various "security" concerns. I have not yet found a way on Vista to have Windows Explorer show me the hidden and system files and folders. But I'm not really bothered since I know that the number of occasions when I would like to see them is probably going to be counted on the fingers of one hand. And I now know that I can find them using the Advanced Search option.

Al, Is this sort of change (to the timings of the keypoints) something that your PTE-Adjustor spreadsheet can do? Igor, If you are reading this, it would be a fantastic feature to have: the ability to group objects together and then move them along the timeline of the main image whilst retaining the relationships between their individual keypoint times. I've had to make these sort of changes already myself - and it is a real pain having to move each individual keypoint.

Sorry, Ken, should have thought to do that without being prompted. The files were found by running an Advanced Search in Vista looking for "ConvertedImages" and with "Include non-indexed, hidden and system files" ticked. They are in the hidden folder: C:\Program Data\PicturesToExe\Versions\5.0\

Igor/Ken, I found where Vista had hidden the ConvertedImages folder and deleted the entries for the image files that had been causing problems. I have now installed v5.04 and re-run the tests that are described in posts above. All works fine now. Many thanks once again, Igor, for the excellent and incredibly fast response to this problem. I don't know of any other software company that would issue a new release just to address one fault reported by one individual. You and your team are absolutely fantastic.

Igor, I've downloaded v5.04 but not yet installed it. I don't have the file path that you quoted because my desktop PC is a Windows Vista PC. What would be the equivalent file path on Vista, please?

Hi Igor, Thanks for the reply. I'll look for 5.04 to download at the weekend.

Hi Ralph, Now that is really neat. I should have thought of it myself. Not only does it get the mask centered where I want it but it also allows me to ensure that the mask is of exactly the correct proportions and overall size. Brilliant! In fact, using PTE O&A in this way to position the mask area would work for masks of any size/shape any where on the image. I've actually used every single step of your solution at some time or other - just never thought to put them all together in that particular order to achieve that end result.

Hi Gilbert, I'm in a similar situation to you. My current laptop is showing clear signs of not being upto the task of running complex multi-object animation in PTEv5. I also have a desktop system and based on the dual ownership I would make the following general observation: If you build the PTE sequences on the lowest spec machine that you have, then they are more likely to run without problem on a higher spec machine. I'm speaking from experience because I've fallen into this very trap myself. My desktop machine on which I now do all my building is vastly higher in spec than the laptop that I use for playback to audiences. That's why I'm in the market for a suitable new laptop. From my own researches through the Forum archives the one essential seems to be having the right capability in the graphics components. From past posts that would seem to mean either nVidia or ATI Radeon but not Intel. As I want a laptop primarily for playback and some limited interactive demonstration work, the amount of RAM, the speed of the CPU and the size of the harddrive are less significant factors than they would be if I wanted the laptop to be my primary or sole computer. I've seen some very competitively priced laptops in my local Tesco superstore - but they will not allow me to "try before I buy" - and I'm not willing to spend a few hundred pounds on a "sight unseen" item. Thankfully my local camera club has a thriving digital group so I'm arranging to try out my sequence on a variety of laptops owned by the members. I just hope this gives me the confidence to then go out and buy one.

Colin, In one of your posts above you wrote: "...Also, exe files are completely loaded into memory before running..." Don't be too sure about this! I occasionally move my exe files from desktop PC to laptop PC and vice versa using a USB memory stick. Mine has a little green LED which illuminates when the stick is being accessed. I, like you, thought that Windows would load the entire exe file into memory and run it from memory. Let's face it both PCs have at least 1GB of RAM and the biggest PTE exe file I have is only 125MB - so there should be enough RAM to fit the exe in completely. But when the sequence is run directly off the USB stick, the little green LED flashes away like mad all the way through the play of the exe. And this happens on both systems - laptop is XP Home SP2, desktop is Vista Home Premium. So, when the PTE exe file is actually running, something is accessing the USB stick on a very frequent basis.

Barry, Thanks for your suggestion. Sorry I didn't acknowledge sooner but I never got an e-mail alert for your post.

Al, Thanks for the reply. I'll take a look at "PTE-101" but it probably will not be until the weekend.

Thanks to all those who have contributed replies to this thread. I really appreciate the help that all you experienced PTE users give so freely. I'm satisfied that the problem I encountered was neither a PTE bug nor a "user error" on my part in my use of PTE. I now know that I have hit an apparent bug in Photoshop Elements v5 but, thanks to your collective input, I have a good reliable workaround which is entirely acceptable to me. As far as I am concerned this thread is now closed. Once again thanks to you all.

I wonder if any of you wizards out there can think of a solution to this... I have some 15 short AV sequences (varying in duration from 2 minutes to 15 minutes) which I use to provide an evening's entertainment for various local clubs and societies. These sequences are currently triggered from a series of buttons on a menu system that was built using PTEv4. What I would like to be able to do is have a menu system whereby, once a button has been clicked and the sequence has run, the button is then "greyed out" and disabled. Any ideas as to how I might achieve this? If any of the Moderators feel that this thread should be in the forum for suggestions for the next release then please feel free to relocate it.

Al, Thanks, that's increased my knowledge but it's left me no wiser as to why things are happening as they are. The only consolation, so far, is that someone else (Ken) can recreate the problem on his system. So at least it isn't just a glitch on my hardware/software combination.