HaroldB

Maybe 4.0 was so wonderful that we are all spellbound and have no more problems and/or suggestions? <wink> Harold

Bob, Could it be that your XP machine is slower, and that your transition timings are cut close, so that they work on the faster machine, but bog down on the slower machine? I think that that's the problem in most cases like this, and that's why I think that Igor changing the PTE display engine to not stutter when the transition timings are off is An Important Thing. Harold

Thanks a lot, guys. Here's what I did to fix my problem, not that it makes much sense to me . I had set the .ICO extension on my system (Win/ME) to point to IconShop, which I use to manage ICL icon libraries. That gave all .ICO files in Explorer lists the 16x16 icon of IconShop. And somehow, when I told PTE to use any 32x32 .ICO file, it picked up the correct 32x32 icon, but the resulting EXE also got the 16x16 icon of IconShop! I deleted the association of .ICO files with Iconshop on my system. That made .ICO files show in Explorer lists with a 16x16 version of the 32x32 icon contained within the .ICO file. Then, when I deleted the icon specification from the PTE file and added it back again, the resulting EXE showed on Explorer listings with a 16x16 version of my 32x32 icon. This behavior was independent of the PTE version... the same things happened with 3.8 and 4.0. Thanks for your help, Bob & Guido! Harold

I'm trying to add a 32x32 icon and "automatically" get a 16x16 icon without me specifying the 16 bit icon. Alternatively, do you know of a small good freeware program that takes 32x32 icon files and makes good 16x16 icon files out of them? Harold

I'm not sure that this is a bug, but... Previously, when I specified a 32x32 bit icon, PTE always seemed to automatically generate a 16x16 icon into the EXE (for use in File Explorer lists) without me explicitly telling it to. Now, with 4.0, when I specify a 32x32 bit icon, PTE seems to imbed its default icon as the 16x16 icon into the EXE, with the net result that all PTE shows show the default icon in the File Explorer window. Is this something I am doing wrong, or is this a bug in 4.0? Harold

Was this CD burned to disk all at one time, or was it burned in multiple sessions? If it was burned in multiple sessions, the reading drive has to be multi-session capable -- is it possible that it is not? Harold

Or Paint Shop Pro, which is very full-featured and is MUCH more reasonably priced! Harold

I do it a bit differently. I create a custom MP3 for each slideshow I do, and I also create a text file that says exactly how what I did in CoolEdit to create the file. Each time I want to change the slideshow sound file, I recreate it from scratch. It sounds like a lot of extra work, but it turns out to be really simple. Incidentally, there is a scripts feature in CoolEdit which sounds like it will completely automate this. I haven't found the time to try it, though. Harold

Number one on my list would be the ability to change transition effects and duration from the timeline window (and to access the timeline window directly from the PTE main window). Number two would be to change the PTE execution time engine so it automatically shortens the duration of a transition if the slide duration will be exceeded. Harold

Try opening the .PTE file in Notepad/Wordpad and do a find for the filename given in the message. Then you can see which slide uses it. Harold

Jim, I thought synched shows were supposed to run the same on all computers. Hmmmmmm.... maybe Igor added logic to deal with the case when the images are coming so fast that the machine just can't keep up? Harold

Chuck, I echo Guido's thoughts. That show is a keeper! Harold

I really enjoyed this show on Beechbrook! I thought its synchronization to music was simply great. I am sure that Rachel enjoyed it, too . Harold

What a lovely show! If I may ask, what camera (and post-processing, if any) did you use? The images are wonderful! Harold

Jim, Good work!!! It must have taken you AGES! Harold

Kidrep, Just to try to make sense of the two apparently contradictory responses you have gotten: PTE produces two files for a show. One file normally has a .PTE suffix and is not usually distributed to the end-user. The other file has a .EXE suffix and is what the end-user gets to actually run the show. If you have the .PTE file, see the response from Boxig. If you have the .EXE file, see the response from Hawk. Harold

I second what Jim says. Try decreasing the transition times and see if the problems go away. Harold

Jim, A workaround for this problem is to uncheck "Enable transition effects" in the Project Options window's Effects tab. If all you have checked in that tab is "quick", unchecking "Enable transition effects" does the same thing and displays the gray bars appropriately. Harold

Just to extend what Jim said, you can also click anywhere on the timeline while the preview-in-the-little-window is running and the show will reposition to that place. Also, you can click on any picture's marker in the timeline and then click on the Preview button in the lower right-hand corner of the timeline window to start a full-screen preview from that point. Hitting ESC when you're in that mode returns to the timeline window. Harold

That is exactly how it works in 4.0. Check out the new Preview button in the timeline window. Click on any slide number on the timeline and then hit the Preview button and viola! Harold

It sound perfect to me! Harold

Igor, Please make sure that you adjust the internal player to what the external player is! If you adjust the other way, all the shows that were done with the external player are going to be off! Harold

I downloaded this and played with it just a little. I think the problem with cuts (quick transitions of zero duration) showing a gray bar on the timeline should be fixed before you release it. Harold

Mike, I would love to hear what Igor has to say about this. It SOUNDS to me like this might be a manifestation of the transition time/slide duration time problem within PTE, but your facts don't jive with the way the problem typically presents. From what you say, it sounds like the timing in the last few slides must be off. If it doesn't drift "gradually", then something must be going off *somewhere* to cause the slides to end early. I'd try figuring out exactly where that happens and then try fiddling with the setttings there to see if you can figure out what might be causing it. Harold

I'm very curious about this. When you say that it was 1.1 seconds "adrift" when you initially played it on the P4 machine, was the slide show itself playing faster or slower (ie, which *direction* was it adrift in)? It sounds from what you wrote that the music was too short. Did you try moving PTE and .pte file without the extra 1.1 second of soundtrack back to the P4 and preview it in the timeline and see if it drifted slowly out of alignment as the slide show progressed or there was some problem with a slide or two? (This is so weird that maybe it is a problem in the music players on one of the machines? You're not using the internal player, I presume.) Also, when you say that you "then redid the show on the normal 333 Intel machine", do you mean that you simply moved the .pte files and created the EXE on the normal 333 Intel machine, or did you have to retune the synch? For synched shows, the only problems I have had is that when it executes on a slower machine and I am using music that has sharply defined beats that I use as "transition points", sometimes the transitions are a tiny bit "off", presumably because it takes longer to load the slides. OTOH, that doesn't sound at all like your problem. (I've also had the stuttering problems when the slower machine can't load the slide fast enough to honor the specified transition time, but that seems like a different matter.) (FWIW, I think that the only way this might be controlled was if PTE loaded the "next" slide from disk while it was displaying the current slide -- not when it was "ready" to display the next slide, but as soon as it was finished with the transition of the current slide. For all I know, it perhaps does it that way now.) Harold