Barry Beckham

Ken I can't do any tests at present, just about to leave the UK for Australia Peter No, it has nothing to do with PC power and I will explain why. I use the same desktop PC to record videos and make slide shows. Animation is perfect when displayed on PC screens using this PC. It is not perfect when viewed through a projector from the same PC. Dom I don't think that is the issue either, because the email contact I had today was using a 1024*768 club projector. The AV's were native 1024*768. Now sometimes I will increase the resolution of my PC when showing 1280*1024 shows at demos and you could be onto something. However, why are the same issues present with shows being shown by my contact which are created and displayed at 1024*768. Dave The answer to your question is yes, that is why this issue is so baffling. To be honest I think the PSG thing is a red herring, there are a number of reasons why they might run OK, but god knows what. Usually it is PSG that doesn't display smooth animations even on a PC screen. I have experienced this animation issue on two different projectors and just lived with it as I don't use animation a great deal. It is only the email received this morning that reminded me of it.

Tom I am sure there are other brushes available if we search the internet, never felt the need I have to confess. In fact we can make brushes can't we. Not too sure of that statement though. Thanks for the events list, but you may be a little late, We expect (hope) to exchange contracts today on our house sale and by the following weekend 18th/19th we will be permanent residents of Brisbane Australia. You don't have a Pdf list for the Brisbane area do you?

I received this question today via email. Last night we had our club AV competition. Three of us showed PTE sequences and in all three the animation was faulty when shown through the digital projector. The panning was really jerky and not smooth. The strange thing is that on our laptops and PCs it is smooth and normal. Other sequences made with Proshowgold and other software did not show the same effect. I also notice this problem when I do demos and now I come to think about it, I don't know why I havn't raised this issue myself. I use a fairly powerful desktop (not a laptop) for my demos and my animations run perfectly on screen but not through my Mitsubishi or Epson projector. Any ideas why this should happen and what, if any, is the solution

I was impressed with the iMic recordings. It sounded great to me. Not sure about the recording on the NYM Railway AV. It had a distinct warble that I was not too keen on. The sequence was great though

Personally I don't change the sepia colour on slide shows I make, but I think that is a personal choice of the maker. There is not a great deal of change you can make to a sepia tone and when we move towards red it looks wrong to me. In my view your example looks perfect given the subject. There is nothing wrong with the edge effect your using and it works well with your example, but you can use any of the shaped brushes in Photoshop to create what you like. For a slide show where you going to be placing edge effects on quite a few images, perhaps a ready made one (or three) is the best approach. However, create a new layer above your image and flood that layer with white. Set the blend mode to screen and choose black as your foreground colour. Now you can use any shaped brush to create all sorts of edge efects. If you get it wrong switch to white and the edge effect can be repaired/altered. Try the thick heavy brushes and use the brush opacity down around 2-4%

Peter Yes, they will run in any program that supports third party filters. I did a review of them some time ago and have used them in a few slide shows. The Art of Cornwall being one and Fountains Abbey was another, but those sequences used Alien Skin Snap Art filters. Link to the article below. http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/filters/al...n/alienskin.htm Thing is they are not the cheapest filters, but in my view they are one of the best makers of filters. Link to those slide shows below http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw3.htm

I appreciate that some third party filters are not cheap, but there is a set of Alien Skin filters called Exposure 2 where you can simulate many different old film effects. There's a turn up for the books eh. Digital, imitating film, whatever next....... Anyway one filter is called old Daguerreotype and it does give and aged feel to the attached image. I think it would work well for a historical slide show.

But with Mp3 files we are not constantly doing that. We may change the project file a little, hardly the same as major work with a Jpg. We need to be careful on forums that we don't over state things and make it sound as though unless we work in wav files we are losing lots of quality. If I am, I or none of you have ever heard anything. I have played loads of sequences in big halls through some quite sophisticated sound systrems and as I have said, I cannot hear any quality issues working entirely in Mp3's.

Tom Yes, that Sepia is the sort of thing I had in mind, but perhaps an older looking sepia, that one looks a little too red to me, but its what I had in mind. You could also experiment with some light filteration to try and add some age, not sure if grain alone will do that, but it costs nothing to try a few images. Best of luck

Tom I enjoyed your show, the venue and variety of images looked pretty good to me. I wish I knew that event was on as I would have liked to have gone too. Why do we always hear about these things a few weeks too late? I think your soundtrack is OK, but I also believe you could get it a little better. Some of the fades are a little too abrupt for my ears. Fades are one thing that has surprised me with sound editing. They often need to be fairly long to really sound good. I think the chatter at the start of your sequence is the one thing that has to go. In my view it doesn't add anything to your sequence and I am not sure what you are trying to convey. Was it the sounds of a real encampment or the fact it was a general public event with them in the background. Either way I don't think that part has worked so well. The one battle (pun not intended) we always have with these events is trying to capture some of the history in our images. For reasons we all understand everything is too pristine and clean and we have a great deal of problem trying to dispel that fact. We have the same issues at places like the Black Country museum and steam railways. I know it is used rather a lot, but if ever a show needed to be in sepia tone, I think this is it. If the images were presented with faded edges like old photographs, you could add a hint of colour every now and again if you wished. Just as though they had been hand tinted as they would have been at the time. A lot of work has gone into this sequence and even if you change nothing, it remains a good sequence. Remember, you cannot produce a work of art by committee, listen to views, but do what pleases you in the end.

Umberto I use Vista business and find the same issues as you do with regards to a locked music file. It isn't the be all and end of course, all we need to do is change the name of the sound file each time we adjust it and re-save it. However, there are times when for speed I don't want to do that and I miss the opportunity to just hit save from my sound editor and be back in PTE in seconds. With the greatest respect to experienced users of PTE on this site I think that the music quality issue is a little over stated. I have thousands of music tracks on my PC and listen to lots of it and I can't hear the difference between Mp3 music sampled at 128 Kpbs or at higher levels. I am listening through a good quality amplifier and quality headphones where sound quality is far more evident. I have put together loads of soundtracks and have never used Wav files at all and I have never detected any quality issues. Those who know me are aware that I am pretty keen on image quality and the same goes with the soundtrack too. I would be onto it in a flash if I thought my slide show sound was below par. As this seems to be a Vista issue, perhaps it isn't a PTE thing at all and Igor may not be able to do anything about it. I have noticed that the increased security of Vista does seem to throw up a number of small odd things different from XP.

There is a lot of technical debate about this issue, but can anyone provide some links to slide shows where live sound recording has been used? I would be very interested in seeing/hearing those shows and I guess others would too. This will allow those of us who are not turned on with technical specifications to actually hear the results used in a slide show so we can draw our own conclusions using our ears. Can anyone provide a link to a show and just let us know what recorder was used?

I think Umberto has a point here as I miss the ability to do exactly what he says he wants. To make a quick and simple change to the soundtrack and have it straight back in PTE directly from the sound editor. We always could with PTE4. I personally think this quality argument is overstated and anyway that is the authors choice. Its just a suggestion. I have always worked as Umberto would like to and have never had any issues with sound quality. Well, not to my ears anyway. I applaud the effort put into wave files to retain quality, shame we don't see the same effort with the images.

That is the magazine I have written tutorials for in the past and I don't think they have a mag on line. I don't even think they have a cover CD. The editor is Will Cheung I believe and I do have an email address for him if you want it Igor.

I agree with Patrick, I can see where you idea came from, but it's not working at this speed.

I do all my tutorial recordings off the top of my head with nothing ever written down. The recordings always sound calm and natural. On the odd occasion when I have written a script, I sound like I am reading that script and the difference is immediately noticable. Even the pros on TV can't shake off the fact they are reading an autocue. So, the best natural recordings you will make are those that come straight off the top of your head, but I agree in some circumstances that is easier said than done. Best to learn the facts you want to impart and then do it in your own style rather than reading it. If possible

Conflow Thank you

When a DIAP made of still digital images, (with PZR effect if desired), and audio contains a section of video it becomes a different medium, in effect a movie with still images. This is then a different area in the AV spectrum and the two should not be mixed. Where have I heard this before, isn't the word BAN usually in there somewhere I think we have an exiting future when we can mix video and stills where the quality of the two remains the same.

OK, but is the H4 suitable for our needs and would most of us be happy with the performance and why would the base be amplified to a degree it breaks down. I don't really understand why that would be done if it is detrimental to the quality

I appreciate your motives for the post Conflow, but am I the only one who doesn't anderstand the numbers and techno speak of this article. Surely anyone who understood all that stuff you would not be in need of the review. I am in need of the review or would appreciate one, but the nature of it doesn't add anything to my knowledge, because I don't understand it. I don't have the patients to research what all the technical numbers mean to an actual recording. Am I unique here or am I Mr average who is voicing what many others think. I would love to see a reveiew of this piece of kit from someone who could speak in a language I understand. Maybe including some examples too.

With regard to your image clarity, PTE5 will try to expand your images to match the screen they are being played on. This can present them bigger than you intended and affect quality. You can prevent PTE doing this, but there are are a few if's and but's attached. It is to do with image size and resolution. I have something on my web site at the link below that may explain it better. http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/audiovisua...e%20%20size.htm With regard your other problems I think we may need some more information. What operating system are you using and was the show that wouldn't end/escape made originally with PTE4? Not sure why you are stuck with just one transition, why not go into the project options and hit the set defaults button. Then try again.

Guy For what its worth I agree. I know that the Dom's original example is very good quality, but the streaming video example of the same show isn't very good. Like you I would find that unacceptable and would not like to put my slide shows up for streaming untill the quality improves. Your streaming videos are much better quality and I assume you made them with PSG. I abandonded PSG some time ago, when it became impossible to create good quality animations when output to an exe file. (what PTE does with ease) However, PSG does seem to have the edge with streaming video, if in fact it was PSG that you used in your examples. PTE seems to be moving more in the direction of streaming videos now and the quality will need to improve. I am sure it will.

Toobig Once you have set the transition globally for all images, you can still change individual images when you need to. In fact setting a global setting is a good place to start. Set a transition that you expect to use the most in your sequence and just change the odd ones that require change.

Go to Project Options > Effects tab. You will see 2 small boxes upper right, click the one on the right and all the ticks will be removed from the transitions. Now you can select one transition only that will be applied to all images. You can also set the transition time from the bottom of the window. 5000ms would be 5 seconds

JF Glad you are now back on track with your slide show. You would think that the question what size images do I need to create for my slide show would be easy to answer. In fact it can get quite complicated to answer it and there are many tutorials on this site aimed at helping. I have tried to answer this question on my own site too. http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/audiovisua...e%20%20size.htm