HaroldB

Bill, No, I did not know that . And here's hoping that Igor restores the old feature in a way that works for us, and you do NOT have to install old betas! Harold

Bill, Guido, Al: SURELY you guys understand that Quest For Perfection :)! While I agree that there are more important changes that might be made in PTE, putting in the EXE name unconditionally in the Taskbar is a step (a tiny step, to be sure, but nevertheless a step) backwards . So while I wouldn't go as far as Bill's request for a New Field , I respectfully maintain my suggestion. Bill: Be a pragmatist. Drop your suggestion for the new field in exchange for getting back what we had in earlier PTE releases plus using the EXE name if the Caption field is blank . Harold (tongue FIRMLY in cheek, humming The Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha )

Igor, Here is my suggestion for the caption feature. I think the programming of it is simple, and I think it will give everyone enough flexibility for what they want. 1. Have the "Caption of Window" field available in all cases (full screen and windowed mode). This should be the most minor change from beta #10. 2. Have the "Caption of Window" field default to Project Name. This is what it does in beta #10. 3. Allow the "Caption of Window" field to be blanked out. 4. If the "Caption of Window" field is non-blank, use it for the window title in windowed mode and for the taskbar name in full-screen mode. This is how beta #10 worked. 5. If the "Caption of Window" field is blank, use the current name of the EXE for the window title in windowed mode and for the taskbar name in full-screen mode. I think these changes are very minor to PTE, and I think they will give everyone what they want . Harold

Igor, I noticed that, when it is invoked from the timeline, PTE seems to remember which tab of the Customize Slide dialog I last used. When I use it the next time, it goes back to that tab. Could we please have the same functionality when the Customize Slide dialog is invoked from the slide list? Harold

Igor, I happen to be working on my next show for the last few days, and I am simply moved to tell you how wonderful the improvements over the past year or two to PTE have been. The timeline and all its features have really made PTE a pleasure to use! Keep up the great work! Harold

Barry, I LOVE the title sequence for your Yosemite show. A very good idea! Harold

Igor, I noticed that. Thanks! Harold

Igor, Very good point about not opening a presentation in older releases once it has been saved in 4.10 if you are using MP3 files with ID3 tags. I would make sure to include that in the documentation for 4.10. Harold

Igor, It looks like it is working great. Of course, now I have two more what-I-hope-are-minor things that you can quickly fix . 1) Can you not make gray bars on the timeline for slides which don't have a customized transition if the Project Options screen has "enable transition effects" checked and the only transition checked on that screen is "quick (no transition effect)"? 2) I have a reoccuring problem when I am running PTE not maximized that clicking on a slide in the slide list does NOT always cause the slide to be displayed in the small preview box on the main PTE window. I can always "fix" it by maximizing the PTE window, clicking on another slide in the slide list, and then restoring the PTE window to its former size. But can you fix this so it does not happen to begin with? If you can't get to this happen, try running PTE un-maximized for a while. I can't tell you exactly WHAT causes this, since I don't see a repetitive pattern. Thanks a lot for dealing with the timing problem! Harold

Igor, I have just one minor question. Do you think that the error in the previous versions is 136 ms, or 100 ms, or is it variable? Harold

Igor, I see the problem . First, let me give you the answers to your simple questions. I am running CoolEdit 2000 1.1 build 2418. And the length of my MP3 file shows in CoolEdit as 4:08.320 whether I have an ID3 tag in it or not. The transition point you picked to look at (at 0:03.595) DOES occur in the middle of the waveform. To make sure that my CoolEdit exactly matches your Nero WaveEditor, look at the waveform at 0:39.473. Is that EXACTLY where the waveform departs from silence in Nero WaveEditor? It's a very tiny departure in the left side of the soundtrack. That is followed by a trough at 0:39.480, which occurs in both the left and right side of the soundtrack. I'm going to assume that CoolEdit matches Nero WaveEditor, and that they are both handling the ID3 tag correctly. I did the same thing you did and used Winamp to delete the ID3 tag. Like you, I see differences in 4.0 timeline when I switch from the file with the ID3 tag to the file without the ID3 tag, and I see no differences in 4.10. However, if I try to set the maximum time in the timeline in PTE 4.10, the maximum tine it lets me set is 4:08.355 in the file with ID3 tag and 4:08.219 in the file without the ID3 tag. In 4.00, it lets me go to 4:08.356 in the file with the ID3 tag and 4:08.220 in the file without the ID3 tag. Since we think the file length actually is only 4:08.320, I am assuming that you force the last transition point to be 100ms less than the end of the file, and the behavior in both 4.00 and 4.10 seems incorrect for files with ID3 tags. The difference of 136 milliseconds in this timing is interesting, incidentally, because it "fits" with my perception that a shift of 100 was "not enough" to perfectly reproduce 4.00's behavior. IS the actual shift, in your opinion, actually 136ms? So, based on what I see, I tentatively agree with your conclusion that in 4.00, using an MP3 file with an ID3 tag erroneously shifted 136ms, and that this did not occur with an MP3 file without an ID3 tag. The question then arises how to deal with this going forward. If you fix the timeline behavior I described above, and take out the 100ms delay you introduced in 4.10 beta 8, then all PTE shows created before 4.10 with MP3 files with ID3 tags will shift 136 ms when recreated with PTE versions 4.10 and above. OTOH, if you leave the delay then all PTE shows created before 4.10 with MP3 files without ID3 tags will shift 100ms incorrectly. So what to do? I have three thoughts. One is for 4.10 and subsequent releases to check the value of CreationTool in the PTE source file when a PTE file is opened. If the value is before 4.10 and the MP3 file has an ID3 tag, then offer the user a choice to automatically shift all transition points 136ms. Or perhaps don't even offer the choice -- just do it automatically. This may be more complicated than it sounds in case there are multiple MP3 files and some have ID3 tags and some don't. I use only one MP3 file per PTE presentation. My other thought is for you to do what you suggested a few days ago, which is to simply add a new option to allow a music shift, and we can type it in manually if we have a show that really needs such precise timing. The third option is, of course, to do nothing, except perhaps document it. And users who have such a demanding show and have MP3 files with ID3 tags can can adjust the appropriate transition points manually. I find that I have two shows that exhibit noticeable problems, the one I sent you and one other. I prefer option 2, if that's not a significant amount of work for you, although option 1 would be even better. I really DO think that you probably found the source of the problem, and I greatly appreciate your efforts to chase this down. Harold

Oleg,It's exactly what I wanted. Thanks a lot! Harold

Al, That's exactly how I felt when I finally figured out the .027 second addition. What I now routinely do is create my MP3 file in CoolEdit, close it, and then re-open it in Cool Edit. At that point, it is .027 seconds longer than it was before the save, but it matches PTE 4.0 exactly. BTW, you typed 0.27 seconds in your last message. IMX, it is .027 seconds. Yes? Harold

Al, Another thought. I don't have the time to do this myself, but maybe a little reading on the Cool Edit forum might explain some of these mysteries. Let me know if you find anything good! Harold

Al, Keep in mind that my "addition" of .027 seconds of silence is really miniscule, and it's an actual ADDITION to the MP3 file. In contrast, your "truncation" seems to be something that is between PTE and Cool Edit, no? FWIW, I have no idea what "joint stereo" might mean... those boxes came checked by default and I left them that way . I remember spending more than a bit of time experimenting with Padding, thinking that my extra .027 seconds of silence might be some kind of padding I could get rid of. But in my experimentation, I discovered that you really NEED ISO padding on MP3 files . It's interesting that you said you had no truncation effect with Win/ME. That obviously explains how you and I can both be sane . I have done no sound programming on Windows, but I hope the fact that this is only a problem with Win/XP and Win/2000 (which share a common code base) might give Igor a Clue as to what might be happening here. How could Cool Edit possibly display a waveform differently depending on the OPERATING SYSTEM it is running under? Harold The Puzzled

Al, That's not what I pointed out . I pointed out what seems to me to be about a 150ms (it's difficult to judge the exact amount) discrepancy between PTE 4.0 and PTE 4.10 beta 6. I see no discrepancy between Cool Edit and PTE 4.0. The only "discrepancy" I have with Cool Edit has nothing to do with PTE. And that is that when saving an MP3 file (with the settings I give you in my post in that other thread), Cool Edit seems to add an undocumented .027 seconds of silence at the front of the file. That .027 seconds is visible if the saved MP3 file is closed and reopened in Cool Edit. And this is discussed as a given on the Cool Edit message board. Harold

Frankly, your post left me mystified. And the stuff you posted to Igor was even more bizarre. Let's see if we can concentrate on exactly one problem: the difference between Cool Edit 2000 and PTE 4.0 using MP3 files. I use that combination for all my shows, and have never had the problems that you describe. Let me first paraphrase what I think you are saying so that you can see if I have it right. You have an MP3 file that shows as duration 10:43.395 in Cool Edit, but duration 10:44.6 in PTE. Furthermore, the first 1.7 seconds of that file are silence in Cool Edit (and the music begins at that point), yet in PTE 4.0, the music begins at 3.1 seconds on the PTE timeline. So here are my new questions: 1. This is a silly question, but are you 100% sure that you are using the same file in Cool Edit and PTE? I have always seen them show exactly the same total duration. 2. Is this a VBR file? If not, what bit rate is it? I use CBR, 128KB, 44100 Hz. 3. What created this file? If it was not Cool Edit, could you save the file in Cool Edit and see if that synchs up with PTE? 4. What "options" do you use in Cool Edit to save the MP3? I use CBR, 128kb, 44HZ, Stereo, Fast Codec, Allow mid-side joint stero, Allow intensity joint stereo, Write CRC checksums, and ISO padding. I discovered during my early testing that the ISO padding was particularly important to get the file to match to PTE. If you use different options, could you try it with those? Remember that when you save an MP3 with Cool Edit, it adds .027 seconds of silence to the front of the file. So after you save it, close it in Cool Edit, and reopen it to look at it. I hope this finds the source of the discrepency. FWIW, I am running Win/ME, but this certainly doesn't sound like an operating system type of problem to me. OTOH, who knows? Harold

Oleg, Using cracked products raises its own moral questions. But I can't think of a better company to target than Adobe. Harold

Thanks, Kurt. I already own Cool Edit 2000, and the upgrade price from that to Cool Edit Pro is $199. If I wait and upgrade to Audition, the upgrade price is $99. Harold

And the DMCA law is, IMO, the dumbest of them all. The way that stupid law reads if a company copy protects something it has copyrighted by using the most obvious copy protection method (fx, changing all the a's to b's and so on), and a programmer writes a program to unprotect it, he is liable to a prison term for "decrypting copyrighted material". This law was "snuck through" in the tail-end of the Clinton years, and was undoubtedly fully paid for by Hollywood and recording industty interest's campaign contributions. A perfect example of corporate greed. There was a widespread movement to boycott Adobe when they had the programmer arrested for cracking one of their stupid e-book protection schemes. Adobe quickly backed off, but since it was the U.S. government that did the arrest at Adobe's behest, the programmer remained in prision for a while before they arranged some kind of a cockamamie deal to free him. I agree with you in priciple about boycotts. But the idea of a company causing a programmer to spend time in prison for programming is so reprehensible to me that I simply can not bring myself to buy an Adobe product since then. I use JASC's Paint Shop Pro for photo editing, and I love it, and it's inexpensive. I may just relent if you absolutely love Audition. Harold

Al, That makes no sense to me (and I'm sure to you either). Tell me more. 1. What version of PTE are you using? Try using 4.0 so that we don't get into this beta area. 2. What do you mean that the "music starts" at 1.7 seconds in Cool Edit? do you mean to say that there is simply silence before that? 3. What do you mean when you say that the "first slide doesn't start until 3.1 seconds"? I assume that you are talking about PTE... IMX, the first slide always starts with the very beginning of the music file. Where does the number 3.1 come from? 4. Check the total length of the music. In PTE, that's shown at the bottom of the synch window. In Cool Edit, it will be in the lower right hand corner of th window in the View/Length when you first open the file. Harold

Al, I am going to try to break that thread into multiple threads now. TTTT, I have a personal aversion to using anything from Adobe ever since they had the U.S. arrest that Russian programmer for violating that dumb copyright law.I am actually thinking of buying the Cool Edit add-in that we talked about a while ago, while it is still available, in order for me NOT to have to buy Audition. And yes, I realize that this makes no economic sense. I just find it really hard to deal with a company that wants to put programmers in prison for programming. Harold

Igor, I take it that the reason you are afraid to add it is that somewhere along the line you found the 100ms to be an error, but the 50ms seems like it would be wrong to add? If not that, I'm not sure I understand why you are afraid to add it. Not really. This IS a problem, I think. When I create a show, I find it hard to get the exact right transition points in PTE, since PTE does not display the waveform for the sound. So I have Cool Edit open at the same time, and I figure out the transitions by clicking in Cool Edit. Then I simply transcribe the transition times to PTE. Unless I'm not thinking clearly (and it's early in the morning here ), that means that if PTE is 50ms off, the way I create PTE shows, I will always be 50ms off. No? Maybe if you explain why you are afraid to add it, I can understand better. Your idea of a an adjustment is fine by me, although I would expect it to be the least used option in the world ! OTOH, Al had already said that he likes it . Harold

Igor, Thank you *very* much for the new Customize Slide button in the synch window! I have one tiny suggestion. Nowhere in the synch window or in the slide options dialog box is the file NAME displayed. I haven't built a new show using the 4.10 betas yet, but it seems to me like it might be useful to have the filename displayed SOMEWHERE. Maybe in a smallish font under the small preview window? Maybe in a frame at the bottom of the synch window? The slide file name should change every time the picture in the preview window changes. If that is a lot of work, maybe put it in the slide options dialog box, so at least when I am changing something, I can easily see the file name of what I am changing? As I said, I didn't really NEED this yet. But it seems like a Good Thing To Have. Harold

Al, Actually, speaking purely philosophically, I disagree with you, at least a little . While I realize that it is necessary for some old shows to occasionally break with new releases of PTE, I think a design goal of PTE (and for that matter, all software) should be for that never to happen. After all, think how Igor would feel if Microsoft kept on changing the compilers he used so that with each new release of the compiler, he'd have to tweak the code before it would again compile! I DO realize that it can happen sometimes, preferably for rarely-used features. For example, in the last year or so, Igor got rid of a particular transition I used, and I went back and changed my shows accordingly. With the beta versions of 4.10, I had one show that suddenly crossed that "tight transition time threshold" and I had to go back and change it. But I think that such incompatibility should be kept as small as possible. And it should only occur when necessary. In this case, it is simply a matter of finding the right adjustment factor to make the new version of PTE work properly -- there is no real reason to leave an incompatibility. Here is another factor for the case in point. Up until now, the timings in Cool Edit (and I assume other sound editors) and PTE matched perfectly. It makes a lot of sense to me to keep it that way. I don't think that you and I disagree much on this. I think that I'm just articulating a slightly different emphasis. Harold