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That's fine, and I am glad to see that there is an understanding for architectural design questions in the right place Regards, Xaver

Dave, Let me tell you that you did not hit the point. Thank you for your calculations, but as a mathematician with a long research and teaching history, I actually do not need this help that much. If you had some experience with Wings Platinum or any other track based AV tool, you would better understand what I am thinking of. There are lots of situations where overlapping parallelism is of favour. But as long as PTE only offers a single track of slides these situations will be difficult if not impossible to handle. My proposal does not provide a complete solution, but it could be a step into the right direction. Regards, Xaver

Peter, Working with a spreadsheet is not a solution, if at all, it is a workaround. Think of an object with a smooth animation that lives across 20 slides. Then change the display time of just one slide: How many parameters do you have to change, in order to keep the smooth animation? What do you propose in cases where the animation is not linear? Do you think that there are many users who would like to program shows in the way of JPD or Jean-Cyprien? If PTE is to be regarded as a professional tool for AV shows, then we should not take spreadsheets into consideration. Regards, Xaver

A major disadvantage of PTE is the fact that images can only be animated within the lifetime of a single slide. I would like to see a mechanism which allows to keep an image across the lifetime of several slides and an appropriate way to program animations. A typical example: You want to show a constantly zooming background across the whole show, but you do not want to program the show within a single slide. Regards, Xaver

Hi Lin, Dozens of PTE users support WnSoft doing beta testing (which is ok in my opinion), and you call it a "beautiful thing about the product", funny, isn't it Best regards, Xaver

Kim, For the parent/child business, you may look at the following posts: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10607&view=findpost&p=70183 http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10640&view=findpost&p=69070 Regards, Xaver

This is a hypothesis that is difficult to prove. In general, there are too many positive comments in this forum. This may be encouraging, but it will not increase the quality of the productions Regards, Xaver

Hi Cor, I must admit, that I'm not really happy with the term of "slide". What is a slide in PTE: It is a container object that contains one or more visual objects like images, frames, texts, etc. During the lifetime of this container, the included visual objects can be animated. "Slide" may not be a good name, but nevertheless the situation in the English UI is much better than in the Dutch or German one. In both UIs the same term (Afbeelding/Bild) is used for the container (slide) itself, as well as for the images inside the container, quite a confusing concept. In this matter I wrote several mails to WnSoft, and once I had a discussion with the German translator. Several improvements of the German UI could be achieved, but in the slide problem, I ran against a wall In my opinion, there is a general problem with PTE's slide concept. As said above, an animation of an object only lives during the lifetime of its container (slide). So (as an example) it is (almost) impossible to run several slides while there is common background image that has a constant zoom. Wouldn't it be nice to have parallel tracks of slides (or what other name we may choose)? This would give us the advantages of both worlds: PTE and Wings/m.objects. Regards, Xaver

I would like to see a real light box function, as provided by Wings/m.objects. Both light boxes in PTE have their deficiencies. Regards, Xaver

In my opinion, the new Main Window is OK. I do not want to make a comment on the light box. In the present form I do not regard it as very useful. In a light box it should be possible to arrange the order of the images, and when placing an image into the show it should not any longer be seen in the box Regards, Xaver

Obviously, it is a presentation of fine images. The answer to the question if it is AV, will depend on the position of the person who gives the answer. Those (like me) who share the position presented here will say: It isn't. On the other hand: The most important question is: Do you like it for yourself? Regards, Xaver

The question is: Will it be possible to link video objects across several slides? It is the typical advantage of the track oriented AV tools (m.objects, Wings) that an animated object in the background can live "forever", while in PTE the objects have vanished once the transition to the next slide has finished. Regards, Xaver

But how shall they do it (making their slide shows)? From nothing nothing comes Regards, Xaver

Lin, It shouldn't be difficult to find some music that matches the mood, but in my eyes it is better to choose one that isn't well known. From the moment when the viewer recognizes "Oh, it's Hotel California", her/his mind will start to wander BTW, I really prefer the wide-screen version. Best regards, Xaver

I think that this analysis is (more or less) correct, but it does not take into account that it will overburden the typical member of this forum to write significantly more than just "I like it" or "I don't like it" Regards, Xaver

No problem with the animation (Nvidia 9600GT). Sky shows noticeable posterization. Hotel California may not be regarded as an appropriate music!? I would prefer another aspect ratio (16:10 or 16:9). Regards, Xaver

These remarks are not new, but they are among the best that has been written in this section of our forum, which is dominated by freaks of animation techniques. Those who are interested in this subject may have a look at the following article by Ron Davies: Producing an AV Sequence And those who have the opportunity to read German may look here, as well: AV-Dialog Regards, Xaver

I do not give a comment, either, just a smile Regards, Xaver

Dan, If I got it correctly, you use an Intel on-board graphics controller released in 2002. You cannot expect an appropriate performance from this hardware. Sorry Regards, Xaver

In the timeline view you will see a small input field (to the right of the button "Timed Points"). This field shows the time of the transition point that has been highlighted. You can click on the entries for minutes, seconds, or milliseconds, and change the corresponding values using the arrows. You may also type in directly. Sometimes PTE does not make the update at once, but clicking the arrows will force PTE to do it. Regards, Xaver

I gave a description of this method, but I do not use it. I prefer to start with a rough distribution of the transition points, and optimize first the end of the show (music and images end simultaneously). Synchronization of transitions and music comes next, following Peter's suggestion. But what do our French colleagues say: "Chacun à son goût." Regards, Xaver

A possible way (not the way that I myself like): 1. In the Main Window choose the Timeline view. 2. Click Timed Points > Cut All Transition Points one or two times. The slides are now shifted to the right. 3. Place the cursor to the start position. 4. Start the show in the Mini Player and move the mouse pointer to the button New Transition. 5. Listen to the music and place the transition points by clicking the button. The disadvantage of this method: Once you have placed all slides the music may not have come to its end. So you have to fade out the music which is not a good solution. Regards, Xaver

If the end of first show and the beginning of the second one show the same screen, the "Run Slideshow" command (in Project Options > More) should provide a seamless transition. Both shows have to be created with the same version of PTE. Regards, Xaver

Isn't it an advantage that you do not need id and password for RegNow. I myself hate e-commerce web sites which I only use once in my life, but which force me to make a registration Regards, Xaver

If you like it, why not? We have to keep in mind that there might be key points which are glued for pans, but separated for zooms. So should we have independent radio buttons for all three kinds of animation? I would prefer the KISS principle Regards, Xaver