Barry Beckham

We supply the key on the CD case for the customer to manually type in. The customer originally manually inserted the key and used an 1 instead of an I and that would have caused the first rejection. However, I then sent his key to him on an email and got him to copy and paste the key to avoid any operator error and he reported is was rejected. I even tried a second key and he said that was rejected too, but if I use these keys they are accepted without a problem. Given Igor's remarks above I am rather at a loss here. In my last contact I suggested the customer remove PTE and then do a clean install again as administrator and then copy and past his key. I am still awaiting his reply I have looked at the key again to make sure nothing odd crept into the copy and paste and I have even sent him another copy of PTE electronically via the internet. I did this, just in case some write error on our disk is the cause, but I am clutching at straws now and I am not confident that this will help

Nope a bang up to date one

Would an anti-virus program ever interfere with a product key being copied and pasted into the relevant location?

Never used that option myself Igor

Thank you. I will try and remember your advice for next time. I don't know why I didn't think of that

Claudio What about the matching of images to music? Assuming that your slide-show is of that style, (some presentation techniques are not so dependant on matching music and images) but if it is, how will you extend the duration (if you can) without upsetting the synchronisation? This is a task I would do manually with every image, or you may as well use the fit slides to music option.

Dave Well, you're right, but don't you think that misses the point just a bit? As I say, so many times, this sort of thing means little or nothing to the PTE experts like you, Lin, JT and others, but it's the sort of illogical thing that just makes software more complicated than it really should be. It went right over my head and I use the software extensively. Given that fact either I am stupid or the software isn't logical. If it's possible (and I accept not all things are) it should be tidied up.

Lin No I didn't download JT's file, but I have now and and I can see what you're getting at, but it doesn't seem to follow any logic to me. Do we really need to be Einstein to understand our slide show software? I create a 20 second show with 12 minutes of music: Created with No Mp3 conversion the file size is 15.8MB. Even though I hear no more than 20 seconds Created with Mp3 ticked the file size is 1.9MB - this is the issue that was driving me. I had no idea there was another complication as in I create a 10 minute show with just a small thunder roll at the start and at the end. Created with No Mp3 ticked and the file size is 1.4mb Created with Mp3 Ticked and the file size is 20MB What was driving me was to try and make things less complex for newer PTE users, which can only be a good thing. I had no idea it was even more complex than I first thought, but my intentions were still correct and honourable in my view. Things have to be simpler than this don't they? You have to be a technical boffin and have years of experience to understand all this and most of us just want to make a slide show.

I have to say I am beginning to lose the will to live here. Unless I am missing something it all seems simple to me, but I could be wrong and I am willing to stand corrected if I am missing something. Take a look at the attached screen grab Its a 2 blank, one image test with a 12 minute track used

The issue I raised right at the start was caused by simple inexperience of using PicturesToExe, a place we have all been at one time or another. Huge Jpgs were used, taken directly from the camera and hardly compressed resulting in file sizes 7, 8 and even 9 MB. Video wasn't an issue at all, just lots of huge images. The issue is now solved Robert Thank you for the support. I have raised this issue before about sound and what the exe contains, but often the suggestion gets lost in the thread and I wonder if that makes it hard for Igor to spot those suggestions which may have merit. just to be clear for anyone who doesn't quite follow what I was saying. If you made a 5 slide demo with images of 200k each, you will have a 1000k file for the images alone. If you used 20 seconds of a 10 minute track of music, you could be adding at least 10MB to a little demo lasting less than a minute. Total size 11MB. Picturestoexe retains the entire track within the exe file even though you only hear 20 seconds of it. You have to have the knowledge to know this, then find the command for it in the Project Options > Audio Tab. It's a small tick box, easily missed, but when selected the music is automatically trimmed back to just the 20 seconds you used. The resulting file size of your small slide show would now be around 2MB, probably less. If an author used three different music tracks of 10 minutes length each in a slide-show, but through editing cut each down to just 1 minute, (a distinct possibility in a three minute sequence). The file size could still be 30MB longer than it needed to be. Question 1. Why pad out an exe file size with any sound at all that we are not hearing, when we have it at our disposal in the Project file and couldn't get to it from the exe even if we wanted to. Question 2. Doesn't yet another tick box make the software just that little more complex for no reason I can possibly think of. (not for the initiated on this forum, but other users and those who haven't discovered PTE yet) Solution. All exe files should be set by default to trim sound back to only what is used. Remove any options for this from the audio tab.

To get up that sort of 4GB file size, I guess lots of tracks could have been used to make up the 44 minutes. Those tracks could add up to considerably more than 44 minutes and If they are wave, rather than Mp3, that could be an issue too. If the convert tracks to Mp3 tick box wasn't ticked (why do we need that anyway, all exe's should do this by default) and 1 minute of a 10 minute track was used, all 10 minutes would be included in the exe. (again why? I cannot see any possible advantage) Its the only way you could get a file size that huge. This is an interesting question though because it is an indicator of where a newer user of PTE is likely to fall into the AV pitfalls. Its those pitfalls that should be dealt with, within the software, if possible, so it doesn't happen or is less likely.

Just for info. The issue does not involve video and is a slide show containing 480 images and 44 minutes of music. I think the answer is almost certainly that the images were used at high resolution and maybe saved at too high a jpg compression. Even if 1MB was allowed per image and 100 MB for music, the file size would be under 600MB. Looking at my own files I am hard pressed to find images that are 500k in size, most are around 300k Ken Sorry mate he has had to make do with second hand info from me. No offence taken

Very likely

Lin That's as maybe, but when your in full creative flow, we/I rarely leave what I am doing and start searching for a keystroke that isn't obvious. My point is that perhaps it could be as visual and obvious as it is with the images and available across multiple tracks. Look at Photoshop and a menu command will include the keystroke. Its rare for a key stroke as important as that to have no reference in the menus. Don't you think? Mur Yes, your right, but foolishly I thought I had the start of my slide show nailed down, but then a better idea came to me. It happens Anyway, the jobs done now and if push comes to shove I would rather have the ability to add silence into a sound file.

Peter Yes, video is treated much the same as sound in that the whole sound would be included in the exe, unless the Convert Tracks Option is ticked. Its wandering off here a bit, but am I the only person who asks why? The exe file doesn't need all that surplus added. We have it all at our disposal in our project file, so why in the exe where it just produces larger files sizes and therefore problems. Trimming off what is not used, music and Video should be default. I am waiting for a reply to try and ascertain if we are talking about video with this query, which we probably are. I just have in mind a 5 minute sequence that was submitted to our last Queensland AV competition which contained only stills and was 750MB in size. For you and I it would have been 30-40MB

I never thought of trying the Shift key and I should have and usually do try those, I did try the Ctrl key, but never went further, thank you for the tip. However that will only move the comments within individual tracks and you can only move one track at a time. Its also not as obvious as it is with the images. Key strokes should be a shortcut from a command located somewhere else within the software. A key stroke that is isolated in that way can easily be missed even after years of use and I am the evidence of that. You have to almost discover it by accident or be tipped off by someone like you who has come across it. That is not logical, especially when in many other software programs you would expect to right click and select all, something like that. Its not uncommon for every sound file/image needing to be moved. The images in the time line work really well, click the image and you move that and all following images, cluck the tiny blue tag and you move just one. Having said that I would still like a select all tracks/sounds option and be able to slide them along

Yes, I think I need some feedback from the author on how the file size has become so large. It would seem logical that there is quite a lot of video in there.

Igor I have been putting together a slide show where I have 75 sound files. There are two sound effects, one music track and the remainder are small sections of commentary (72 in all). I also have almost 80 images. I reached a point where I wanted to change my opening titles and add a couple of pictures, but then I found I could not move all the sound comments to the right, in the same way I can with the images in the time line. In an ideal world, I would have liked to have had the same options with those sound files within the Time Line as I do with the images. Meaning I can click an image thumbnail move it to the right and all the images to the right of the clicked one will move too. If I just click and drag the blue flag I can can move just one thumbnail independently of all the others. Could sound be made to be as flexible as that? I have never had quite so many sound files before in a slide show and I was looking for a way to select all sound files, even those in different tracks and to be able to move the lot. I appreciate the option to link a sound comment to a slide, but in this situation it would have been just as time consuming to do that, as fix the issue manually. As the production continued and creative ideas and tweaks came to me, I would have liked this option on a few occasions. The reason I had so many sound files is that I cannot add silence between an already recorded sound comment. (unless I use an external editor) The only option is to split the sentences and create two and sometimes 3 sound comments when one would have been enough, if silence could be added. Actually, if I could have added silence in a sound rack, I would not have needed 72 sound comments, I could have achieved what I wanted with one.

Thanks. I have had a query about a 4GB show that plays OK within PTE, but no sound when the exe is created. I guess that the file size is the cause. Not sure what makes the slide show so large

Can anyone remind me what the size limit is for a PTE exe file. I seem to recall reading it was 2 gig, but a search doesn't seem to be fining me the information

Harbrimar Perhaps the animation of these figures is not as complex as it may first look. Its not the figures themselves that have animated movement. (as in legs moving independently to arms) The figures could be replaced with oblong shapes and the animation work required would be the same. The time consuming part is creating the independent animation within PicturesToExe. Each figures skating movement would need to be controlled by Key-frames and the animation speed would also be important. ie slowing down or speeding up. I suppose it would be time consuming in Photoshop if you had to first cut out all of the figures you required from larger more complete images. I guess for the Russian weather channel, the figures may have been drawn specifically for the animation by artists and maybe straight into a computer.

Ray I did make a suggestion for a floating player, but it seems a long time ago now. I work almost exclusively in the time line and don't use the slide list much at all and when you have a few sound tracks a floating player could be moved to a more convenient part of the screen, or perhaps in your case another screen entirely

Here is a YouTube HD version of a slide show/tutorial NB. A You Tube video seems to play back at 320p resolution by default, but if you click the small cog wheel settings icon you can select resolutions up 1080p, if the video was uploaded at those resolutions.

Reine You can upload HD versions of your Mp4, but don't expect it to be quick to upload. I am uploading one as we speak. Its 573MB in size and has been uploading some hours with 148 minutes left to go, but it uploads in the background so I will just leave it and let it finish overnight if I have to. Never uploaded anything this size before so it will be interesting to see how it looks and how it plays, being so large. I did a short demo earlier which is also HD, so from a quality point of view it can be judged Best to view it in Youtube as it seems to come up larger

Peter I never experienced anything myself here and I did download a few slide shows from SSC