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Just copy and paste the key for opening the DeLuxe version into Notepad, then save it as 'deluxe.reg' or similar, as long as the file extension is .reg. Then run that file, the registry will see it and load it, then PTE deluxe should be operational. Note that whether the program calls itself Standard or Deluxe depends only on what keys are loaded. The difference is that the deluxe version allows you to burn DVDs that are playable on a TV via a DVD player, the standard version does not. Otherwise PTE is identical in all respects whether deluxe or standard. Colin

I was caught like that - but only once! I now take my own laptop everywhere I am going to show an AV. If the host machine is not up to the job, I politely insist on using my own. I use the excuse that the show is already on my machine, and it avoids loading it onto their machine. Of course, if their projector is a VGA model at 800*600, the show will be compromised anyway. My next purchase, whenI have saved the necessary, is a good projector so I am self-contained, and can do shows anywhere. Colin

Note that PTE and Videobuilder are one and the same program, with two unlock keys. The first key unlocks PTE, and if you purchase the second key it unlocks the Videobuilder part of the program. Colin

One of the best is 'Bulent's Screen Recorder'. It runs in the background while your slide show is running in the foreground, and uses a 'trigger' key to grab snapshots of the screen on the fly, usually F12, but you can program other keys if you want. It even imitates the sound of an slr shutter, so you know you have the shot. An advantage it has over Windows' Prnt Scrn key is that it is unfazed by programs that prohibit capture with Prnt Scrn, and will capture even protected images. Later versions of the program are modestly priced, but version 1.5 is free, and can be downloaded from: http://johnbokma.com/softwarerecommendatio...enrecorder.html Colin

It works for me, and the file downloads here. Colin.

You're probably right about overloading. 4.5 GB is a lot for a computer with only 2 GB of memory, and with Vista taking a huge chunk of that, not much is left for your show. If that 5MB is for jpeg images, then it's even worse, as that implies >20MB images when in memory. You don't need such big images either. They should be sized at whatever the screen size of projector size is in pixels, typically 1024*768 or a bit bigger if you are using a 16:9 format. Images to be zoomed can be about twice the pixel size to allow for zooming, but otherwise there is nothing to be gained from having bigger images than the final projection size. A 1024*768 image is only about 786KB, compressed to around 150KB as a jpeg, about 1/50th of your 5MB (presumed jpeg) images. Do a batch resize in Irfanview and see what happens then. Colin

I also receive many emails of that kind, sometimes more than a dozen on some days. I have tried to make some sense out of the headers, without much success, except that the apparent paths these emails take vary from copy to copy, as does the timing. From what I can decipher, most of them are propogated at times when my computers are not turned on - I never leave a machine running after I have finished with it, which lets my computers off the hook, so to speak. My best guess at this stage is that some machines with access to my email address (legitimately or not) out there are infected with some sort of virus that propagates these annoying posts, numbers of which appear to come from Russian sources. Some of them contain cyrillic characters. There are millions of computer users who are not computer literate or 'savvy', who wouldn't know if they were infected, who constitute a pool of infection that is impossible to eradicate. I have a number of relatives for whom I more or less regularly have to cast an eye on their machines. The best to date was one machine with so many malwares installed it would not boot. After unshipping the drive and fitting it as D: on my machine I ran several anti-malware programs and removed, from memory, about 70 various problems. On refitting the drive into its own machine, it was able to boot and run. The owner was totally ignorant about the build-up of nasties ubtil they actually stpooed the computer. There are literally millions of users out there like him. Colin

The second one. This is apparent if you look at the image closely, despite the limitations of a small image and monitor, and is most obvious in the lion's lower teeth. It is also proved by looking at the image properties. The second image is bigger than the first, 175,683 bytes vs 174,361, which is characteristic of resaved jpeg images. Practically, there is no obvious drawback to using the second image for slide shows, specially if the first image is not available for comparison, so the situation is more theoretical than practical, fortunately. Colin.

Hello Peter, As I see it, the flaw in your argument is the fact that the jpeg algorithm throws away parts of the image when saving it to a file, which is why it is called a lossy compression. When you open the file again, the image presented is not the same as the one you saved earlier; it is missing the thrown-away data, and contains artifacts that were not present in the original image. The differences may not be obvious, but they are there. It may well look identical on a 72 ppi monitor, but it isn't identical at all. Also, once an image has been saved as a jpeg at a certain size, just simply opening and saving it again without doing any modifications will cause the file size to be different. I just did this with a jpeg from a 5D image, first save was 8,158,695 bytes, reload and second save was 8,229,894 bytes, almost a 1% increase in size - and that was at Photoshop level 12, the maximum quality setting. The increase in size comes from the artifacts that were there from the earlier save; and they and the file size will increase with each subsequent save. If your quality criterion is purely visual, on a monitor or a projector, then the deterioration in quality may not matter, but there is no question that repeated saves of a jpeg image will incrementally but surely reduce the image quality. Regards, Colin PS: The same thing happens with mp3 audio as well. Listening to a 2nd or 3rd generation mp3 saved from an audio editor will show an audible difference. Don't confuse copying a sound or image file with opening and saving a file in an appropriate editor. Simply copying does not introduce deterioration, it's opening and saving that does.

Hello Peter, I see from a post of yours in another thread that you are running Vista on your computer. Given the known problems with that OS, is it possible that despite your graphics card capability, Vista is causing the jumps you are seeing? Colin

I've not heard that about 8600 cards, and my laptop runs an 8600M-GT under XP SP2 with no problems at all. Colin

Hi David, Yes the 8600 series of GPUs is very suitable. My laptop has the mobile version 8600M-GT - the M signifies mobile, i.e. for laptops. The PCi-E version for desktops is even better, since power usage is not such a problem. Be aware the 8600 card has a 4-pin Molex connector on the rear to accept a power cable from the computer supply, the same plug as fitted to hard drives for power, and you will need at least a 300 or 350 watt power supply. Most power supplies have a spare power cable which can be used. If your computer doesn't have a spare you can get a siamesed cable to accept one power plug and output to two plugs. Can you borrow a card for trial, just make sure that the card is the problem? though I'm pretty certain it is. An additional point I forgot to make about the pans in your test is that for such a long pan sequence, the image is clearly a longish panorama, and the GPU has to continuously handle the entire image as it pans. To optimize that image, the vertical size should be 768 pixels high (for a 1024*768 screen), or whatever the height of your screen is, and no more. If the image is bigger that that, the GPU has to resize it as well as panning, and the load on the GPU is even worse. Perhaps you could check that, and if it is a bigger image than necessary, resize it. That could possibly cure your problem. Colin

Hmmmm. Well, Dave, I downloaded your sequence, and it ran perfectly smoothly on my computer. I have changed my thinking on your problem, and my conclusion is that your pans are simply too fast for your graphics card to handle. I don't think it has anything to do with keyframes or keypoints. ' My computer uses an nVidia 8600M-GT card, one of the faster cards available for laptops, and it handles your sequence ok. Looking back at your original post, I see you have an nVidia 6200 card, and I think that's your problem. Unfortunately, that card is classed 'low-end', which, however, isn't as bad as it sounds. It just means that it cannot handle very demanding graphics applications well, and pans moving as fast as yours are beyond its capability. Whay can you do about it? Well, if your computer is a desktop machine, you can buy a faster video card; if it is a laptop then I don't think you could upgrade significantly if at all. What you can do right now is to slow down your pans, to prove the point. Increase the time the image takes to pan across, moving the last keypoint accordingly and see if that cures the jump. Judging by your sample, the pan time could be doubled and still move reasonably fast. PTE, like many modern graphics-intensive applications, uses hardware rendering in the graphics chip rather than the CPU, so graphics chip performance is critical when using pans and zooms, specially with large images. Let's know what happens when you slow it down, Colin

Yes, like Ken, where did you put the zip file? If it is under 2 megabytes you can attach it to a message like this, otherwise you can upload it to www.mediafire.com from where we can get it. Colin

Hello Peter et al, Personally, I have gotten myself into the habit with most programs I use (like word processors, spreadsheets, image editors, and of course PTE), with each material change to whatever I'm doing, to hit Ctrl-S, the 'save' key with most programs. Consequently, I don't really see the need for autosaving as a built-in feature. Once it becomes a habit to hit Ctrl-S, one actually does it far more frequently than any autosave would do. Just my tuppence worth (and worth every penny!) Colin

Peter, Of course I don't mind, in fact All are welcome on this forum.Actually, it's David's thread, and I guess he is keen to get all the help he can. David, Ok, you say the jump is occurring just at the end of the transition phase; is there a keyframe there, a small blue flag with numbers in it? If so, delete it - right click on it and select delete. In fact it might pay to delete all keyframes for that image, and start again with the animations you want. If you do not want any animation for that image, then deleting all keyframes should fix your problem. If there are no keyframes and the image still jumps, then there is a deeper problem, in which case can you do a project zip (File/Create backup in zip) and post the zip file so we can have a look at the problem first-hand. Colin.

Hi Dave, The blue triangle will always move smoothly, that's not what I meant. As it moves, it passes the keyframe timers set in the O&A timeline. My suggestion was to watch for the image jump as the triangle progresses, to see if the jump coincides with a keyframe time. If so, I am suggesting that the jump is because of an inadvertent image shift at that keyframe point. Aslo, you can grab the triangle with the mouse, and drag it left or right to watch what happens to the image. Bets regards, Colin

Hello Xaver, Thanks for your reply. I think it would make sense only if Dave were to forego all animations. If he wishes to continue with animations, Proshow would allow that since it uses the CPU and not the GPU. I don't recommend ProShow, but depending on what kind of show he wants to make, it might be a better choice than no animation. Kind Regards, Colin.

Hello Brian, Just a comment on your comments (this could be endless!). I am aware that HP have a range of laptops, but my comments were more or less specific to the model Dave has, and as you say above, the Intel 935 chipset is intended for business computers, not graphics-intensive applications where the GPU is called upon to do most of the work. In any case, a dedicated GPU like the nVidia 8nnn series is a better choice for graphics than the Intel chips, whose design is based more on minimal power requirements than sheer graphics grunt. You're right about Vista not being the best for that machine; frankly it isn't the best for any machine, in my humble opinion. If Dave installs XP SP2 he would see some improvement, but having said that, a clean install is not something to be taken lightly, specially if the computer manufacturer has 'tweaked' the OS to suit the machine. I remember, back in the DOS days, having an NEC computer running a DOS version different to the other machines on the network, and we tried to upgrade to DOS 3.3, whereupon the NEC would not boot. NEC then told us that standard DOS would not run on their computers, as they had modified their version for 'improved performance', whatever that was. A right pain in the nether regions, was that. I hope HP's are standard in that respect. Regards, Colin.

Have a look at the keyframe timings for the jumping image in O&A. You can click 'Play' in the O&A screen, and watch the blue triangle progress marker as it moves along the line. See if the jump coincides with a keyframe marker. I think you have an inadvertent image shift at some point along the line which will coincide with a keyframe. Colin.

You could have a look at ProShow Gold, a slide show program by Photodex. Its video quality is not as good as PTE, but it has the advantage for you that it uses the CPU to do the work, and doesn't demand the same performance from the GPU. It has a good range of features like PZR, and does a reasonable job, if you don't compare it with PTE. Worth a look in your case. Colin

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Dave, but I think the HP is intended as a business computer, and as such is not up to the task of graphics-intensive output. The write-up by Intel on that chipset sounds great, but it's no competition for powerful GPUs like the Nvidia 8400 or 8600 or similar as fitted to gaming machines - as distinct from business machines. Depending on your interest in sound-slide programs, you might be up for another computer Colin

Welcome to the forum, Dave, there's a wealth of knowledge and experience available from many of the members here. Regarding your laptop, I fear it may be the graphics capability of your machine that is the problem. The speed of your processor, single or dual core, and the amount of memory you have are, beyond a certain miminum, not the problem. PTE, like other modern graphics-intensive programs, makes extensive use of the advanced capabilities of the graphics processor. A GPU not up to the task will negate all other attributes of your machine. Almost all GPUs will handle PTE without pans, zooms, and rotates - collectively known as PZR, but those movements really need a better than average GPU. Some laptops have separate video/graphics cards, specially those intended for gaming use, and others have lesser GPU capability, usually on the main board, like the Intel 950 and similar chipsets. Unfortunately, unlike desktop machines, it is usually impossible to fit a better GPU into a laptop. You don't say what your computer is, or what the graphics processor is. If you can give us more information about your laptop somebody here may be able to help clarify the situation for you. Colin

It doesn't apply because the judge in your scenario is not viewing the images according to the competition specifications, as you say above. If the rules for the competition state that a 1024*768 projector shall be used, then all pre-viewing and viewing of entries must be done accordingly, including by the judge/s. It is not on for a judge to view entres on a monitor at, say, 1680*1050, or other dimensions larger than 1024*768, and the competition organizers should make that clear to the judge. Perhaps the answer here is for the rules of the competition to state that oversized images will be resampled using a good quality algorithm, e.g. Lanczos in Irfanview before being viewed by anybody. The parallel with prints doesn't really exist, since prints are inherently available for immediate viewing, and cannot be changed between viewing and judging, whereas digital images can come in a variety of forms, and all require further work to be viewed, by loading a CD or an image file from the internet or off a memory stick, etc. Further, images are subject to variations in color balance, brightness, contrast, etc. due to being viewed on different equipment that may or may not be profiled to sRGB standards. This is more analogous to the judges viewing negatives rather than finished prints. Unlike prints, a digital image is never final. My opinion here is that the rules should state exactly what is required, and what will happen to submitted images if they do not comply with the rules. All viewing and judging should be done only by projection with specified equipment, color profiled to sRGB standard. There is no doubt that considerably more work will be required of the organizers, and there will be a learning curve for those not knowledgeable about digital matters. Colin

If an image at 1400*1050 pixels is shown full screen on a 1024*768 projector, then it is clear that the image has been resampled by either the presenting software or the projector. I should think that the resampling should be done by the presenting software using a high-quality resampling algorithm, say Lanczos or one of the newer hybrid algorithms, in which case the loss of quality will be imperceptible.. Leaving it to the projector could be asking for trouble. For simplicity, I think the rules for the competition should state the projector's native pixel size and the colour space that will be used, and no more. It is up to the entrant to make sure his image/s are optimised for those parameters, or accept the consequences. Colin