Howard Bagshaw

Peter, Here's a zip of the outcome.Howard TBox-Lid-hb.zip

Hi Peter, My solution: In Photoshop I cut out the top of the box and then transformed it to a rectangle and saved this as a new, small image (top). I did the same from your second image of the bottom of the lid (bottom). I also took your two images, put one on top of the other as layers and created a new 'scene' which had no lid at all, i.e. replaced the open lid with the corresponding bit of the wall. I then went back to your PTE file, pasted the 'top' and 'bottom' to your moving frame as 'children', scaled them to fit and set the appropriate 'show front side' and 'show backside'. There's no thickness to the lid, but it produces a fairly convincing opening lid. On the other hand, I may have totally got the wrong end of what you are trying to do. Regards, Howard

Peter, You're a star !!! I can already see where this will save time. Happy New Year, Howard

Hi Mick, You have some lovely photographs which give a good impression of the scenery in autumn. Your story of a walk around the lake, looking at different buildings, makes an interesting structure to the sequence. I would definately have a play with the relative levels of the background music and your narration. At the moment you are being drowned out by the music. Perceived wisdom is that the music should be about 20db less than the narration. I would also look to where the narration comes in and try to make use of the music rather than fight it: e.g. while you are saying "...The very fine September weather this year..." you are talking over a lovely change in the mood of the music. I would perhaps let that mood change happen before you start that bit of narration. Again, I would finish with the music, rather than the sitation at the moment where you seem to be racing to get the last sentences in before the music finishes. They are interesting facts which shouldn't be rushed and then you could finish with the last bars of the music. I'll try sending you a personal email with a few more observatuions/suggestions. However, congratualtions on the sequence, I think that narraton already adds a lot of enjoyment and information to the sequence. Best wishes, Howard

Hi Colin, Voice on 'Ride to the Wall' was actually a friend's, the first time I've tried using someone else, but fortunately he was an am/dram actor, so did a good job. My voice is on other sequences such as 'Sudursveit' (see http://www.staffs-av.org.uk/Resources.html and scroll to bottom of page). Regards, Howard

Hi Colin, An interesting quetion, "...what is the best method for recording narration?" Rather like, "what is the best camera?" there are a multitude of possibilities, often depending on what you can afford. I have used the following: Samson 'Go mic': This is the least expensive USB mic I could find that produces sensible quality. Plug straight into a laptop (or desktop) and record in Audacity. I did a bit of a review for our group, which includes a sound sample on http://www.staffs-av...son_go_mic.html Samson C03U: also a USB mic, but better quality, I used it for the narration on 'Migrant Mother' (which won the RPS International, so it can't be too bad.) Both Samson mics are great for narration but of little use for location recording (unless you want to drag a laptop around with you). Omni-mics built into an Edirol R09: I use the Edirol as my portable recorder. Quality is no better or worse than many other such devices, though it's a bit flimsy. I've used this for all my location recording on it's own or with an additional mic plugged in. The newer R05 looks more robust and I'm told that quality is about the same. Sennheiser K6/ME64: This is a modular mic, the electronics are built into the base, the K6 part, and include a battery to power it. You then screw on the microphone capsule that you need. I have 3, an omnidirectional, a cardioid and a short shotgun (equivalent to fish eye, normal and telephoto). This plugs into the Edirol or into a 'USB sound card' on the computer. Quality is very good, signal strength high and noise levels low. MXL 2010: this is a studio cardioid microphone which I am just starting to use. Sounds really good with some voices and poor with others. I used it for the narration on 'Ride to the Wall'. It needs external power (48volts of Phantom power) so not so easy to use. However, like choosing a camera, it's not easy. Almost more important than the microphone is the technique (as with taking photographs) and for me this has taken some time to come to grips with. However, take Xavier's advice above about the set up. Regards, Howard

Ian, You can set the button so that you can see when the mouse is over it and it's active. Once you have set the action for the button ('previous slide', 'go to slide 25', etc) then return to the 'Properties' tab in O&A while that button is selected. You will see that the text colour option has changed and that you can enter 3 different colours. These represeent the colours of the text normally, the colour when the mouse is over the button and the colour when the button is clicked. Change these colours to something suitable and you will be able to see when the button is 'hovered over' and when you have clicked it. Incidentally, in this situation I use text rather than buttons (a personal preference). You can use text in just the same way as a button to hyperlink to a different slide. regards, Howard

Thank you all for your words of encouragement. I have taken 'trailertrash's suggestion and submitted it to Beechbrook. Howard PS, Many congratulations also to you Roger, I was sat behind Marilyn who couldn't contain herself when your result was announced.

Hi, This is the first time I've posted a link to one of my sequences. The sequence 'Ride to the Wall' relates to Remembrance, but from a different slant. Sequence is 16:10 format, images 1400x875px, 34Mb, 4min 15sec long, for a general audience. All pictures taken by me on 1st October this year. Download from www.staffs-av.org.uk/AVs/Ride.zip I hope that you like it, but would welcome any comments. Howard

Hi Tom, I have had exactly the same requirement recently. I tried a number of the free screen capture programs, most of which failed to successfully capture PTE exe files. However, I finally had success with some free software from Koyote called 'Free Screen to Video' http://www.koyotesoft.com/video-software/free-screen-to-video.html I set the computer screen resolution to 1024 x 768 (the resolution of the original sequences) set the software to capture as WMV files and to capture the whole screen. Getting the audio volume was a bit hit and miss, but I got there in the end. It's not the most sophisticated software in the world, but it gave me a pretty good quality video which would then go quite comfortably into PTE v7 or into Sony Vegas video editing software. regards, Howard

Hi Geoff, I can make it work in v7.0 this way, though there may be other ways: In project options I untick 'Synchronise music and slides' and in the music tab, make sure that there is no background music. The first slide where I want the music to start, I customise that slide by ticking 'Play new background music file(s)' and then add the music in the 'music' tab. The next slide(s) where I want the music to continue, the 'Play new background music file(s)' needs to be unticked. The slide where you want the music to stop, tick 'Play new background music file(s)' but don't have any music on the slide. You should then be able to move manually through your slides at your own pace, the music continues playing over your selected slides. The only problem is that the music ends abruptly when you get to your 'stop' slide, I can't do anything about that. Howard

I'm not sure if this is a new bug, but will report it anyway. I have a problem when converting and cropping .mov video files from my Canon 7D even when using beta 20 . If I just convert the file, all is fine, but if I convert and crop at the same time, then I loose 'lip synch', ie the video crop doesn't match the audio crop, by about a second. However, if I do the conversion as a two stage process, firstly convert the whole file and then reconvert that file with the crop, then the synch is OK. Has ayone else had this problem? Having discovered the two-stage-process 'work round' I can live with it. Howard

Hi Ave J, I run Windows 7 64bit version. All versions of PTE that I have will run i.e. 4.47, 5.5,. 6.0 and 7.0beta9 (all deLuxe). As far as I know (and I'm no expert) when you install the software, Windows7 looks at it, recognises it as a 32 bit application and runs it as such. So as far as I know, Windows 7 will run any version, but not as a 64bit application. Is that a problem for me? Not so far, I've yet to come across any specific problem. Regards, Howard

Stonemason, My experience is that, for sequences all made with the same version of PTE, then if you launch the menu on the second screen, subsequent sequences, called from the menu, will automatically run on the second screen. You don't have to modify your menu system or include reference to the second screen in the calls from the 'Action on mouse click'.. Howard

Peter's funeral was attended by his family and a large number of colleagues and AV friends. I have made a short sequence of the occassion for those who could not be present and as a brief tribute to Peter. http://www.staffs-av.org.uk/AVs/Stardust.zip Regards, Howard

Friends, Peter Sephton Coles BSc Dip Ed FRPS FIPF EFIAP FACI(M), very sadly passed away on 31st March. His funeral yesterday was attended by family and by many colleagues and AV friends. I have made this sequence as a brief tribute to a man who has not only produced so many great AVs, but has inspired and helped countless AV workers around the world. For those unable to make it to the funeral, this is a brief glimpse of the occasion and my tribute to someone who will be sorely missed. (Words are from Peter's sequence 'Your Star', I hope that he won't mind me using them) http://www.staffs-av.org.uk/AVs/Stardust.zip Howard

To join the debate, I think that we will see a whole range of uses of video being incorporated into sequences once we get the facility. Some, I guess will work well, others will be awful. Just to give us an example to talk about, I've put up an example I made. The background is that my wife and I and a couple of friends went to an RPS AV day at Bradford (UK) and on the way back had a tyre puncture on the motorway (in the dark and rain). While waiting for the services to arrive I took a few pictures and a bit of video on my wife's Lumix TZ7. As I was due to be a speaker at the next Bradford event, I thought that I could start my talk with a very short sequence (1min 7 secs) of the incident. The audience enjoyed it incidentally! As PTE7 is not yet available I took the bit of video and used a free utility to break it into individual frames which then went into the sequence at 40msec intervals. The 'stop motion' start to the video section was deliberate, but in hindsight doesn't work. Once we get the ability to add video more easily, then the transition from still to video will be much easier. Download from www.staffs-av.org.uk/AVs/Flat.zip 14.5Mb; 1280x720pixels; 1min 7 secs; video could be jerky due to high frame rate (25fps)

Geoff, I'm not sure if this helps or not. I've just created a little PTE show using version 4.49 (the oldest I have) on my Windows 7 machine and it runs and covers the task bar without problem. Screen is a 1920x1200 monitor. I created two versions, with or without 'fit to screen' ticked. Both covered the task bar. My task bar is set so that none of the check boxes are ticked, ie does not 'autohide' and leave that one pixel line. My only suggestions are that either the sequences have been created in an even earlier verion of PTE, or that they have been created within a previous verison of Windows and that has an effect, or the lap top's graphics card does not behave like mine. Frustrating isn't it, regards Howard

Just a thought. I would split your problem solving into two bits. How about trying a commercial DVD with a known aspect ration of 4:3 on your system? I found a number in my old collection which were old and/or made for TV shows. With such a DVD you will be able to set up your DVD player/ TV combination to give you the correct aspect ratio on screen, i.e. black bars down each side. As Yachtsman says, you'll need to find something in the TV menu. When you have the DVD/TV behaving, then you can tackle the variables in the PTE production. Incidentally, I'm not sure of what the 'virtual size of slide' actually does. If for instance I make a sequence using 1400 x 1050 slides (an aspect ratio of 4:3) the virtual size is set to 1024 x 768. I sometimes remember to set the virtual size to the actual size, other times not and I don't see any difference in the final sequence. Howard

Hi DAB, Lin is perfectly correct, however you might want to rotate the png file around a point which is not dead centre. In O&A, with the rotatable object selected you will see a small dot/circle in the centre of the image. If you hold down the shift key and then use the mouse to drag the dot, you can move it to where you want the exact centre of the rotation to take place. Howard

Hi Laszio, I have an Epson 2000 and some time ago tried to get the right settings to run a PTE AVI. I didn't succeed and gave up once I got an iPhone, PTEs look great on this. Any chance that you could tell me the settings I need for the Epson? Howard

Hi Lin, Sorry folks. Just reinstalled PTE and it's working fine now. Forget previous questions. Howard

Hi Lin, OK, looks like it might be a problem with this system. I've just tried the same on a different computer (uses an ATI 3850 video card on a 1920 x 1080 screen) and it behaves correctly, as per v5.6. Is there anyone out there with an NVidia card (ideally the same spec as mine, 9800 GTX+) who could check this for me? Thanks, Howard

Lin, thanks for getting back so quickly. Yes, I'm comfortable with using the scaling pull down, but could you check out it's functionality for me on your machine please. In v5.6, if I set the scale to Auto, the image fits nicely in the window. If I then click 'Play' there is no change to the size of the image in the window. If I do the same thing in V6.0 however, when I click on 'Play' the image resizes up to 100% during play and afterwards, until I rescale. This happens no matter what original scaling I set. Thanks, Howard

Hi, I have a problem, don't know if it's me, my kit or v6.0 beta 18. If I 'run' a slide in O&A the size of the slide expands to 100%, which in all cases is bigger than the viewable window. The 100% option sees to be big, irrespective of the aspect ratio set, the size of the original image or the 'virtual size of slide'. Only if, in screen options, I fix the size of the slide, does the viewing behave normally. I'm running on XP using a GeForce nVidia 9800 GTX+ card at 1920 x 1200. Any help would be appreciated, Howard.