Barry Beckham

You only need a frame/mask to retain format if you intend to animate outside of the format size, otherwise you don't

Prior to buying 2 new PC's (His & Her's) I spoke to Igor and took his advice and went for the 512MB GEFORCE 8600GT PCI Express It works brilliantly, super smooth animations B

Try putting a long time into the time interval for new slides (Project Options > Main) A setting of 600 for example will keep the images on screen 10 minutes before they change, but they should change on a key press. Just put in a long time to meet your needs. Don't forget to click Set for existing slides

Wiget If you are still stuck, there is a video download at the link below that might help http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/downloads/PTE5/DVD/dvd.htm

Thanks for the pointers guys Barry

Can anyone throw any light on the following error message when a slide show is downloaded from my web site and played "Exception EApp;ication in module Demo1.exe at 00062DOA. Access violation at address oo462DOA in module C:\Documents & Settings\Temp\wz463e\Demo1.exe Read of address 00000020" The person is using PTE5 and I am at a loss what to suggest. I am not sure if this is an issue just from my own web site or others too. I have the feeling that the issue is on the PC being used and probably has little to do with the download. I have checked the download to ensure no corruptions have crept in and it plays fine for me. Has anyone else experienced this and is there a solution. Many thanks

Dom Thank you for the comments. I am trying to push my own boundaries a bit and there is probably more work in that sequence than anyone would imagine. Every image has been worked through 16 bit raw and many trials and changes to get something that I can view again and again without wanting to change anything else. At least thats how I feel today :-)

John You are a silver tongued devil Kohn

Bernard and John The size was intentional of course as I wanted the shows to display perfectly on my 1024*768 projector when I do a demo. I also wanted to retain the format from my camera and I don't like to see slide shows that are edge to edge either side, but have a gap top and bottom. AV is all about presentation and I like to see a gap all around if there is to be one at all. You will know that to fill the PC screen my carefully composed images would have to have a chunk cut off either side. Regards

Image shot in Ireland in September 2007 http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/slideshow/ireland2007.zip

Dom One of the best things about AV is that whatever level and whatever your personal tastes are there is something for everyone. Back in the days of slide tape I used to visit clubs with about a dozen or so sequences. Given the difference in subject and music, you could provide something for everyone. If the viewer wasn't keen on trains for example, then in 4-5 minutes something different would be played. I am sure you have heard the old saying that you can please all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. This AV was made to be more traditional for those who like that sort of style, which includes me. I don't believe a slide show is made good by varying the transition style, when its needed then I would agree, but not here. Varying the timing and transition length is essential to match the music. The diversity in my show is that the fades are matched to the music and varied to suite that music. I am not a great lover of many of the presentation methods I see, but thats just my preference. I think what you do is great, but I doubt I would want this slide show presented differently, well not much differently. I may well make some changes to it. I always find its best to leave a show and come back in a week or two and look again, I always see something I want to alter then and probably will. Peter s Yes, I have given up work, but I like to recall how mad the travelling was as it makes me feel even better now I don't have to do it

Bristol Traffic, thats a breeze, try London and the East or West suburbs. You can get a year older just trying to get home from work :-) Satnav is the greatest invention since...........well the last great invention whatever that was, Oh yes, they were Photoshop and PTE. I rekon satnav is almost essentail in the UK in some of our cities to find your way around. Over the top is the only way to travel and they do fly right accross Bristol sometimes. B

I have put up a new slide show here http://www.beckhamforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1343

I doubt the images are cropped Mike, but you don't give a whole lot to go on. Have you just gone back to a slide show made in an earlier version of PTE and now you are opening it up in PTE5 ? Perhaps your images are being stretched to fit the monitor your working on, leaving a black band top and bottom. Go into Object and Animation and choose Mode > Original and see if that helps. Barry

Igor This sounds a great idea and I can guess why you chose the label Synchronization. It is more desriptive of the option being chosen, but I favour labelling the button, "Time Line" Its what we all call it and while a small point I think its better. It always seemed odd to me that we click the time line button and open up Customize Synchronization. I think Time Line is a better label.

I just created the PBG file through photoshop, but the problem you have experienced may just be down to a computer glitch, one of those things you may never get to the bottom of. Sometimes we can create hundreds of images and when we open them back up again a couple may say there is a problem or a corruption that has never happened before and doesn't happen again.

Try this to see if the problem is PTE5 or Elements 5. Download a png file I have made from the link below and try that in your PTE5. Right click the link and choose save target as. See if this file shows up corrupt on PTE5. If it does the issue does appear to be with PTE5, if it doesn't the issue appears to be Elements 5 http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/test.png

Veronica That could be good news for PTE. Editors seem afraid to go with any book on AV when they don't run on Macs Please keep us posted

Sdkikikins No 2, Yes, you would need more size for pan and zoom, but often not as much as you would think. Have you seen some of those stitched pans that go on so long you think your life might end before the pan does Better to keep animation minimal in my view, its better on the eye and easier to produce. No3. Your right there, but even now I couldn't actually bring myslf to make a slide just for DVD size. Make it PC sized and let PTE take care of the resizing, it does a good job.

sdkikikins Despite making many slide shows and tutorials, I don't do very much for DVD due the reasons already discussed here, therefore I would not claim to have all the answers and perhaps forum members can add more to what I am about to say or even confirm the logic for my thought. Isn't the issue when we create a DVD that the format of the DVD doesn't match our PC format. (not the resolution issue) If the output of a slide show is destined to be used solely for DVD, then wouldn't it be best to create that show at 720*576. At least we would then be able to make sure the images where as good as we can get them at that size. Sharpness, cropping etc. The slide show software would then have little to do with the size of the images, so perhaps the process would speed up too? If a PC version slideshow is also needed, why not create the images in DVD format. A bit of maths with a calculator soon has us at 1260*1008, which would look OK on a 1280*1024 PC screen and retains the 720*576 format. There is also an article by Pavel (Surely not Chekov) right here on the wnsoft web site http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/aspect-ratio.htm

Here is a solution for Elements 5 Create a new blank file at 1024 by 768, make the new file white for this excersize. Then create a second blank file in black, this time create the size you want your images to be within the 1024*768 page. Select the move tool from the toolbox and while holding the shift key drag the black (smaller square) into the white one (1024*768) The Shift key option will ensure that the black square will drop dead centre onto the white. If you need to shunt it up a bit, just use the up arrows on the key board with the move tool selected to nudge it a pixel at a time. Try 800*600 for the second image, but if that doesn't look right or meet your needs, create another at a different size. I think 875*600 looks best in a 1024*768 page. You can now select the black square with the magic wand, switch to the white square and cut out the center part. Then you can drop the black layer in the bin and with the white frame/mask locked in the layers palette, you can flood it with colour, add texture or whatever you want to create the mask In essence make a template and use that to create your mask. BB www.beckhamdigital.co.uk

Well, I have had 3 PC's built by http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ and they have all been fine. One I use as a demo machine for lectures and two were for my son and daughter-in-law. They both use Photoshop and do video editing and know their way around PC's. They are happy with their machines. A friend also recently bought another from them (only a couple of weeks ago) and is happy with that and I will get my next one there too. They do give a great level of choice and you can contact them too. You can select a high end machine for say video editing and then select different componants, drves etc etc. Then click and get the price and that looks pretty good to me. I would never buy an off the peg PC, not for this sort of work BB

Thanks Igor and all That is extremely useful information. I will ask for the heat pipe technoligy Regards Barry

Igor and Andy Thanks for the info. I assume from your recommendations that the Nvidia 8600GT graphics card does have this heat pipe technoligy ? I have had a graphics card fail already due to the fan and it wasn't that old and what you say makes sense. Been having proplems with my main desktop for a while now and wanted to make it last another year, but thats not going to happen. I am OK with all the other componants of a PC, but want to be sure it will handle the premire slide show software without a hitch (PTE5) Barry

Does anyone have anything to say about this graphics card that I am thinking of putting into a new desktop 512MB GEFORCE 8600GT PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT or maybe 640MB GEFORCE 8800GTS PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT Thanks