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Barry, I'm with you on this. It would be a really useful additional feature to be able to preview the fonts in the manner that you describe; especially now that the vectored fonts in v6.0 give such precise appearances at all sizes. regards, Peter

Kalain, Now I understand! That is not a feature that I miss. I have learned that the best way of working for me is to start a new AV sequence by creating a new folder for it and then copy into that folder all the images that I think I might use. Then I simply use PTE's features to select the images and place them in the order that I want. regards, Peter

Not me. E-mail alerts were working fine yesterday. I suggest the problem lies with your ISP. regards, Peter

Kalain, I suggest you double check this. If neither drag and drop nor Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V are working, how are you getting your images into the slide list. I'm not aware of a third option? I've just checked v5.6.4 and v6.0 b18 and both of these versions support drag and drop and Copy&Paste. I cannot believe that b19 has suddenly dropped these essential features! regards, Peter

Ernest, Using Rename in this manner has the effect of changing the file name of that image file as it is stored on your hard drive. You are not just changing a displayed label. You are changing the actual file name. If, elsewhere in your sequence, you use this same file as an object on some other "Main Image" you will have destroyed PTE's ability to find and resolve the file reference and will get errors reported. The nature of these errors is such that they will, almost certainly, cause great confusion in your mind. (We've had numerous pleas for help on this forum concerning "missing images"). Tread carefully when thinking of using Rename on your image files. regards, Peter

Dom, Don't be so modest! If not "the master" you certainly are a master craftsman when it comes to using PTE. regards, Peter

Geoff, It didn't work in v5.6.4 either. And I'm happy that it shouldn't. It runs the risk of totally screwing up the timing of a sequence. I'm happy to settle for "drag and drop" in the Timeline and either "drag and drop" or Cut and Paste in the Slide List. regards, Peter

Ernest, I can speak only of the external implications of the "Main Image". There may well be coding implications within the software which have no externally perceived impact. The "Main Image" is the one that appears as a thumbnail in the Slide List along the bottom of the PTE main window. If you have an image made up of objects each of which fades up into view during the duration of the slide you may want to change the "Main Image" designator to be an object other than the first that you added (which may not be the first to be seen). Having no "Main Image" is technically permitted but not recommended. I seem to recall that there have been instances in the past of folks getting themselves in a mess by not having a "Main Image". In Q5, which User Guide were you quoting from? Lin Evans and Jeff Evans work that was based on v5.0 or the official User Guide? Re Q6: changing the name of an object (via the Common tab of the O&A window does not rename the image file. The name given via the Common tab is simply a name of your choice for that object. If all objects shave been deleted you are, essentially, just giving a name to a "place-holder". PTE does not copy the image files into the project file. It simply adds "pointers" to their whereabouts. Only when you use the Create option does PTE actually go and get a copy of the appropriate image file from your hard disk drive and place it in the exe file. Hope this helps further your understanding. regards, Peter

Hi Phil, Firstly, you're in the right section of the forum! Now, presumably you have done "Create...AVI Video File". If you are intending to produce a DVD for playback through your DVD player-TV combination, why don't you take the "Create...DVD-Video Disc" route and let Video-Builder burn the DVD for you. If you do your first few burns on DVD-RW discs you will not produce any "silver coasters" if things go wrong during the early attempts. regards, Peter

Ricardo, C'est un jour où les créateurs AV se rencontrer pour discuter de leur travail. Voulez-vous toujours de participer? It is a day on which the AV creators meet together to discuss their work. Do you still wish to participate? regards, Peter

Peter, Create...HD Video for PC and Mac in v5.6 onwards. regards Peter

Henri, The size of the EXE file is determined by adding together the following: the total size of the sound files the total size of the image files the project file contents (the instructions that PTE uses to run the sequence) Each element is dependent upon several factors. Sound files can be estimated as follows: WAV = 10MB per minute, MP3 = 1MB per minute Image files are less easy to estimate because so much depends upon the dimensions (pixel x pixel) and the compression value used when saving as JPEG files. As a rough rule of thumb, a 1024x681 image (3:2 aspect) saved as a JPEG at quality level 8 would come out between 200-300KB depending upon the amounts of the various colours present (a monochromatic image would be smaller than a highly coloured picture) The PTE project data is usually the smallest element of all. Drawing upon my own sequences for examples I find that a 10 minute sequence with no animation and only simple text captions as objects is about 100KB. But I also have a 4m 30s sequence that is solid animation with hundreds of objects and the project file is 12.5MB So, you see, it is possible to estimate duration from EXE size but you need to know the details of the EXE in order to do so. I suspect that this has not really helped you, sorry! regards, Peter

Hi Gary, Let's talk about image size and aspect ratio first. Your Nikon D80 is taking images at 3872x2592, which is an aspect ratio of 3:2. The HD standard is 1920x1080, which is an aspect ratio of 16:9. If you were to resize your images to fit the 1920 width, constraining their proportions to retain the 3:2 aspect, they would be 1280 high; too big for the HD screen. If you were to resize your images to fit the 1080 height, constraining proportions again to keep the 3:2 aspect, they would be something like 1613 wide; not enough to fill the HD screen. If you want to fill the width, you will have to crop the image height. If you do not want to crop your image you must resize to fill the height, and you will then have a space at each side of the image. So, there's your first decision: do you keep the aspect ratio and resize to fill the height or do you crop the image and resize to fill the width? As for the Project Options...Screen settings: I believe that if you set the Virtual size of the slide to 1920x1080, PTE will automatically detect this as an aspect ratio of 16:9. Create a little test sequence of two or three of your images and play around with these settings. You will see what happens in the mini-viewer area. regards, Peter P.S. Much more interesting question!

Igor, A new bug in v6. Previous version v5.6.4 worked OK. I set up a manually controlled show with the mouse buttons programmed for Left=Next and Right=Previous. The mouse is always visible and control via the keyboard is permitted. The sequence runs as I would expect. I can change slides using either the mouse buttons or the cursor arrow keys. I then add a Nav Bar customised to show just the Next and Previous buttons and set to be always visible at the bottom of the screen. Again everything works OK. I can change the slides using the Nav Bar or the mouse buttons or the cursor arrow keys on the keyboard. I now disable the Nav Bar. Now I can change slides only via the cursor arrow keys. The mouse buttons have also been disabled! regards, Peter

Dom, I did my checks using v5.6.4. I now confirm your finding that under v5.6 beta 18 it doesn't work the same way. I'll go further and state that under v5.6 beta 18 manual control via the mouse buttons doesn't work at all if I turn off the Nav Bar; this despite the fact that I have got the mouse buttons programmed for Left=Next and Right=Previous. Control of show via the keyboard (using the cursor arrow keys) does work OK. There's a bug in there somewhere! I'll report it via the beta programme topic. regards, Peter

Dom, Sorry but that's not true. I have a couple of manual sequences that have both Nav Bar and Left=Next, Right=Previous mouse control. I can use either to move to and fro. regards, Peter

Gary, As a follow up to your question: I'm disappointed in you. You used to ask such obscure questions. Recently they have become much more mundane! regards, Peter

Gary, You have two "safe" options: For a "Main Image" you can simply click on "Change Image File" on the upper tool bar of the main PTE window, and then navigate to and select your replacement file. For an Object image, you go into the O&A window and use the Properties tab to navigate to and select your replacement image. Taking a slightly bigger risk, ensure that all your replacement images have exactly the same name as those they are going to replace and simply copy the lot into the folder where your existing images are stored - forcing the new to replace the old. Then simply open the PTE project and it will automatically pick up the new hi-res images. Use the information bar at the bottom of the PTE window to confirm that it has picked up the new image files. regards, Peter

It has my vote, too! regards, Peter

Dom, I don't know for sure but I suspect that the PTE forum board may be hosted on more than one server, set up to mirror each other. I have noticed several instances of minor delays in events appearing and am wondering if this could be the cause. regards, Peter

Kalain, Why not just key the desired value into the box? That's what I do. regards, Peter

Kalain, Why not just overkey the value to that which you want using the keyboard? This is what I do. regards, Peter

Hi marie1997, The problem, almost certainly, lies with the mp3 file. How did you produce this file? Download from website? Rip from CD? Do you have any sound editing software installed? Adobe Audition? Audacity? If not I would strongly suggest that you download and install Audacity from http://audacity.sourceforge.net (It's free!). regards, Peter

The Royal Photographic Society's AV Group holds its next bi-annual Great Yorkshire AV Day on Sunday 22nd November 2009 at the National Media Museum in Bradford. The guest speaker is Ian Bateman, a creator of first class AVs and a contributor to this forum. This event is open to members and non-members alike. For more details contact me via my e-mail address below. regards, Peter

The Royal Photographic Society's Northern Audio-Visual Group meets on Saturday 24th October 2009 at Snods Edge in Northumberland (just off the A68 heading towards Shotley Bridge). The meeting starts at 10:00am and is open to members and non-members alike. For further details contact me via my e-mail address below regards, Peter