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I don't suppose you have burned the show to a DVD and are playing that on the laptop? Laptops commonly cannot read a DVD fast enough to present a smooth show, and the software codec in the laptop may not be able to keep up as well. We have this problem sometimes at the Camera club when somebody brings along a show - usually a ProShow compilation - and playing the DVD on the club laptop is unwatchable. A workaround we use is to copy the show to the hard drive, which generally works, depending on the complexity of the show's construction. If the above is the case, you could try burning an exe file to a CD and playing that on the laptop.

Unfortunately it doesn't work in Excel 97. The spreadsheet opens, but when I try to retrieve a .pte file, the program cannot see any. I created a separate folder with only one pte file in it, but no luck, the program could not see the file. I tried using Quattro, but that was no use at all, I guess it didn't like VB. I also am not buying constant upgrades from MS either. I am now retired, and my win2000 machine is going to stay that way, no XP or (horrors!) Vista for me, and Office 97 is it. Actually, I use WordPerfect in preference to Word anyway.

Hello Gilio, I have just viewed your show, and the photography is excellent, marvellous colors, well composed and very sharp, every detail visible. I hope you don't mind a little constructive criticism, as there are a couple of points I would like to make. The first is the wording in English on the opening image. I realize that your first language is not English, so I have taken the liberty of rewriting some of your phrases, as follows: "The replicas "Batavia" and "Prins Willem" were built in Dutch shipyards. The title "Gold and Silver" stands for the Golden Century and the silver cargo. Currently they are working on a new replica of the "7 Provincien" at the Batavia shipyard in Lelystad." No apostrophe is needed in 'replicas' - although that is a very common mistake even among native English users! and th other changes reflect normal English usage. The second point is that the timing seems too fast, and the transitions too long, and the result is that there isn't really enough time to study the immense amount of detail in the images before the fade into the next image starts, and I found myself wanting to stop the show to better see the images. Regards, Colin

Another thought from a PTE newby but a computer oldie. How are you running your jerky shows? If they are jerky in Preview or from an .exe file on your hard drive, then ignore this post. If, however, you are running the show from a CD or DVD, then you may have problems with the read speed and software decoding of the DVD program file. Have a look in Device Manager\ IDE/ATA/ATAPI settings and verify that your CD/DVD is using DMA access and not PIO. PIO seriously limits the performance of your CD/DVD drive. Colin

Hello Al, Thanks for the elucidation. I jumped into Powerdesk and looked at the PTE folder, and there was the VideoBuilder folder underneath, so now all a have to do is sign up and get the key. Whacko! Colin

hello all, Another newby question about AVI files. I intend to upgrade to the deluxe version from my recent $24 PTE purchase, and I see the choices in the drop-down menu in the purchasing screen to upgrade at $20. That's fine, but I cannot see anywhere the VideoBuilder file to download. Is it perhaps part of PTE, and activated by the Deluxe license, or if not, where do I find it please? Colin.

Thank you again, Lin. I did this time download your nonlinear video - last time my so-called broadband was managing just about 20 - 25 KB/s, and I abandoned the download as I didn't know how big it was and it was taking too long. Having downloaded it this time, all became clear, and I was able to get the zoom/pan working properly. I have to say the procedure is not instinctive, and since all three PZR functions have to be altered to 'smooth', and then all three have to be separated, it seems obvious that a single 'shortcut' keystroke could do all of it at once, while retaining the manual setup if one needed something different. My next task is to find out how to do multiple images at once, travelling in different directions and/or zooming as well, like the 'Creation" show done by Stephane Bidouze. That show is just fabulous. Kind regards, Colin

Hello again all, I'm trying to get my head around zooming and panning, and my problem at the moment is with an image of a group of about 12 people. I start off with about a second of the whole frame showing, then I zoom in to the leftmost person until I have a waist shot of that person showing, than a small pause, then I pan along the row of people to the rightmost individual. If I set this up using 'linear' zoom and pan, the motion works as expected, but when I turn on 'smooth' zooming and panning, the initial zoom to the leftmost person is ignored, and I get a simple combined zoom/pan straight to the rightmost person. Further attempts with pan on smooth and zoom on linear gives an image which now zooms into the middle of the group and then pans with increasing speed to the end; while pan on smooth and zoom on linear produces a weird movement, the image vanishing completely off the screen to the right, then sliding back as the zoom and pan combined goes to the righthand end of the image. The actual length of the slide duration doesn't seem to affect the image behavior. Sorry to be so long-winded, any rational explanation will be gratefully accepted!

Hello Lin, Thanks for the fast reply, and you were right on with your diagnosis. There was some inadvertent panning during the zoom, now fixed. I feel a bit silly, not recognizing the problem, I guess it's all part of the learning curve! Cheers, Colin

Hello all, I am still quite new and on a steep learning curve with PTE, having migrated from ProShow. I am finding, with both beta 11 and 12, that zooming under linear conditions works well and is very smooth apart from the abrupt start and stop, but when I invoke smooth zooming, the image appears to move bodily up and right, leaving black lines at bottom and left of screen. The zoom function rapidly fills these areas, but when the image reaches the zoom limit, the picture again moves bodily to the right, like a short pan. The smoothing parameters are unchanged from the defaults, i.e. 0-20 and 80-100. My computer is an Asus P4C800-E deluxe m/b, 3.00 GHz P4 processor, 1 GB of ram, and a GeForce 6600GT graphics card, running at 1024 by 768 and 85Hz refresh. I just today replaced my older ATI A9250 graphics card with the 6600GT, with much smoother presentation than before; but this problem was apparent on the ATI card as well. Has anyone seen this movement on their computer, or am I unique? Colin.

I think "Four Seasons" was written by Vivaldi. Colin

Thanks, Al and Jon, for the fast replies. If Igor has acceleration/deceleration on the drawing board, then that's ok, It'll be easy to mod the shows when it comes out. I really like the timeline concept, one can pan up, down, and across all on the one image, a great implementation in my book. Things are looking uo here! Colin

Hello all, My first post here, having purchased PTE 4.48 and downloaded 5 beta. I was very impressed with the quality of the screen display from PTE, and in fact I migrated here after becoming frustrated with the quality of ProShow displays, as I gather so have others. I am re-doing some of my PSG shows in PTE, with gratifying results. One thing I do find not to my liking is the panning. The pan starts off with almost a jerk, and finishes the same way. I would prefer a 'soft' start and end to a pan sequence, which is one thing that PSG does do well. Maybe there is a workaround for this, and I would be pleased if that is so. Colin