aplman
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Posts posted by aplman
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No Ken, computers are not good for that, unless you want to hand over creative control to a computer. How will it know, by how much you want the music faded down by, for the sound comment you intend to use, it will vary depending on the type, volume, style of the background music. Surely your not suggesting that background music is cut off abruptly and started the same way, once the video sound has been heard?
Hi Barry ...
No, I'm certainly not suggesting as per your reference above.
I'm not sure how to get the forum to refer to previous posts, but let me try ... this is a previous suggestion:
I do know what computers are good for, and people who want absolute creative control do not have to use the facilities that I (and others like me) would find extremely useful. What I have suggested, partly in my recent post, and previously in the post whose link is above, should be an aid to creativity and definitely an aid to productivity.
Ken T (APLman)
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I would like to suggest that a separate forum section be set up for discussion of beta versions of PTE. There have been so many different comments/bugs/suggestions covered in one topic - it seems to me to be unwieldy. Within a PTE Beta sub-forum, it would be much nicer to see each matter as a separate topic.
Ken T (APLman)
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Hello
I've added some H264 movie in my slideshow. I want to mute the background music when the movie is played and listen to the movie sound. Then next slide, back to background music of the P2E show.
How can I do that in last beta release ?
Thank you
Good question, and I'm glad you asked it!
I have been waiting for the same feature with still slides with Sound Comment attached. It was "promised" (well, perhaps I should say "mooted") a year or so ago, but has been delayed - or shelved?
I find Sound Comments very useful, but only if they can be heard! It's not practical to reduce the background level manually, because it's imperative to have the ability to move slides with sound comments, and that requires the background to be reduced in a different place. Having this done by the PTE software would be wonderful ... and isn't that the sort of thing computers are good for?
Maybe this need will be answered in version 7.5?
Ken T (APLman)
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The introduction of video into PTE has led to changes in the handling of Slide Duration . Ensuing discussions have brought to light a few difficulties, some of which relate to Transitions. I understand Igor is still wrestling with ideas.
I would like to put forward the following idea concerning Effects and Transitions.
Transitions generally may not have any relationship with a particular slide - they simply provide a visually appealing way of progressing between two slides, and have as much connection with the second slide as with the first.
On the other hand, sometimes a particular slide needs a particular incoming effect, and/or a particular outgoing effect. Some slides may need both incoming and outgoing effects. For example, we may want to introduce a new subsection of a show by unrolling a "curtain" with title or description, and after the appropriate interval, rolling it up again. These effects need to be kept with that particular slide, if any movement, reordering or copying takes place.
I suggest that the Customize Slide dialog, which currently has Main and Effect pages, could have additional pages for Incoming Effect and Outgoing Effect. Any effect specified in those pages should be attached to that slide, and should go with the slide when it is moved. Effects specified in this way should take precedence over any transition before or after the slide.
My own preference for the display in the Slide List would be for transitions (in the current sense) to be shown between slides, rather than above the incoming slide.
I have not thought this through in the case of video slides - I leave that to Igor and team.
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Ken (APLman)
When your putting a slide show together, what is it that determines for you how long your slide/video will be enjoyed (assuming we are talking here of the image once its fully revealed and before fade out)
Can I also ask, do you use the time line at all when putting together a slide show?
Barry, thank you for your interest.
Your first question is an easy one ... My own judgement on the importance and interest of each slide. I do not like having the same uniform duration, slide after slide.
I suspect your second question is very insightful. I tend to use the time line only when I'm adding music. Perhaps I do not yet fully appreciate the timeline's benefits - but I'm open to ideas.
Thanks again
Ken T (APLman)
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Thank you, Shaila, Dave, Barry, Peter, for your helpful suggestions.
However, my comment was meant to be not a plea for help, but rather a suggestion as to how PTE 7 might be made even better. Probably it should have been under "Ideas and Suggestions for New Versions", but I was hopeful of influencing version 7. Too late now, I suppose!
Ken T (APLman)
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APLman, Thanks for your suggestions! But I really don't see the ideal solution yet.
There are 3 different way to show slide duration in the slide list:
1) ProShow Producer.
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2) PicturesToExe 6.5 and earlier versions.
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3) PicturesToExe 7.0
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Igor, thank you for the detailed explanation - much appreciated.
2) PicturesToExe 6.5 and earlier versions.
The software displays pure slide duration + incoming transition effect.
You don't see full slide duration and you don't see pure slide duration. The more I think the more I find this mode useless.
I suppose it's not "useless" if many existing users are familiar with it and rely on that behaviour. I agree it's not logical to regard one transition as belonging to the slide, but not the other. I have a new thought on this, which I will put in the "Ideas for future versions" section.
Anyway, Igor, thank you so much for continuing to look for the best way!
Ken (APLman)
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Before I discovered PicturesToExe, I tried several free programs to make slideshows of my travels. Then in search of better quality results on DVD, I actually BOUGHT four other programs, all of which disappointed me. From the moment I started to play with PicturesToExe, I was thrilled! Yes, thrilled - that is not an exaggeration. Three of those four others have not been touched since. The remaining one I have occasionally used for quick shows, and to include video clips. Now that PTE can do that, I have no need whatever for the others. Hearty thanks, very grateful thanks, to the WnSoft team ... and the incredibly helpful forum members.
Ken Travers - Australia. -
There has been much discussion about the change to the handling of Slide Duration. It seems to me that there are still problems associated with the new way.
Although I have less experience with PTE than the many experts who frequent this forum, and do such a fabulous job of assisting the rest of us, I see one aspect clearly that I don't believe has been discussed adequately.
If my understanding is correct, prior to the more recent betas of version 7, "slide duration" meant the time between the beginning of the introductory transition, and the beginning of the next transition. In other words, "slide duration" included the time of the introductory transition, but not the time of the concluding transition. Why one and not the other? Why is the relationship of a slide with its "before" transition more special than the relationship of a slide with its "after" transition? I expected, when I was new to PTE, that the duration would be exclusive of both transitions. That seems to me to make more sense to a new user.
I understand that the new scheme means that the specified slide duration includes both before and after transitions. That causes problems when the specified duration is not sufficient to include both transitions. It also means that the time a slide is clearly shown is less than the specified duration by the sum of its before and after transitions. I don't like that at all!
If it's not too late for version 7, may I suggest that it would be far more sensible, more intuitive, and far more convenient, if the duration specified excluded both transitions? That would mean that any positive number of seconds would be acceptable for slide duration (and that makes sense to me), and any change to transition time would have no affect on slide duration.
It has been mentioned that a benefit of the old scheme was that the overall show time could be derived simply by adding up all the slide durations. Surely we don't have to do that addition for ourselves? The total show time is already on display. In the scheme I am suggesting, the show time would be the sum of all the slide durations plus the sum of all the transitions. That makes good sense, does it not?
Does anyone agree?
What does Igor think?
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In my opinion, the first thing to do to make the O&A windows much eausy to understand, is to include a SCREEN object in top of the object tree.
This sounds like a good idea -- but it should be a SLIDE object, not a screen object.
It could waste screen space, however, as all other objects would be indented.
Ken (APLman)
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What you can suggest me to improve usability in PicturesToExe?
My shows are all travel stories, and I like a little subtle animation (pan and or zoom) on every slide - keeps my viewers interested!
I love the existing animation features. However, it has needed hundreds or thousands of mouse clicks per project. Most of these would be eliminated if there was a way of adding keypoints to the main image of a batch of slides. I would like to be able to choose any or all of SlideBegin, PrevEffectEnd, NextEffectBegin and SlideEnd, and have those keypoints added to the main image of each selected slide. I promise I would use this ability on every slide in all my projects, and every thousand keystrokes or mouse clicks would be reduced to a dozen or so.
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We don't need new names! SLIDE is a fundamental concept in PTE, and is the right name for the "container".
SCREEN is totally different. There is only one screen (or maybe two). There may be multiple WINDOWS within a screen. A slideshow does not have many screens, it has many slides.
PARENT/CHILD is a fundamentsl concept in computing and software generally. It's what gives PTE so much of it's flexibility, compared to layers etc. It's worth learning!
Igor, please let us have both ways of changing between "Fit to Slide" and "Cover Slide" - default for new slides, and ability to apply the change to selected slides.
Thanks Igor for guiding us in the best direction.
Ken (APLman)
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Geoff,
I think you have fallen into a common misconception here ~ please re-read the above again ~ I was quite clearly
talking about the "Video-Format" Standard used by PCs & Laptops NOT the Physical 'Size-Ratio' of the Screen
which is nothing to do with your problem. If you go into 'Display-Settings it will show you its 'Native-resolution'
which you can change to suit the Video. (Formats listed below).
Important See Below
Brian (Conflow)
This may be a more up-to-date view of the PC standards:
Seems 1920 x 1080 is known as "HD 1080".
Ken T. (APLman)
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Hi Ken,
Which version of PtE are you using? With the latest 6.5 there is now the facility to easily customise the background music to accommodate the 'voice overs'
In the project options 'music' tab click on the ''waveform' icon at the bottom and use the envelope tool to reduce the music volume at the 'voice over' section. This is so useful and very easy.
Does this answer your question?
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Anthony
Thank you Anthony for your interest. I am using version 6.5.7, so I'm up-to-date with the latest sound capabilities. I like what has been done so far, but my suggestion seeks to make life easier for those of us who are frequently changing and improving their shows. I feel we have to be able to add or remove slides, change durations, change voice comments, and so on, without having to make detailed individual changes to volume levels every time.
I want to be able to specify that the background sound should be reduced to a desirable level whenever a sound comment comes along. I think the concept is simple enough, and I trust Igor and his team to make the right decisions as to detail.
It has already been agreed and promised that this facility will be in PTE in due course, and I for one will be delighted when it's available.
Ken T. (APLman)
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I have previously suggested a very desirable enhancement: the ability to cause background sound volume to be reduced when a sound comment (attached to a particular slide) is played. Some months ago, Igor indicated that this feature would be implemented, but it has not appeared yet.
Now I would like to improve my suggestion. Previously I suggested that in Project Options, a volume adjustment factor could be specified, to be applied to the background volume level whenever a sound comment is encountered. I now think I have a better suggestion.
For clarity, let's call the background sound "music", and let's call the sound comment "voice". I would dearly love the ability to specify the desirable music level in relation to the actual volume level of the voice ... for example, to say that music volume should be no more than 15 percent of the voice volume. Even better might be to be able to specify the factor for individual sound comments.
Naturally we would expect to specify fading down/up before/after the voice passage.
I realise this is a bigger challenge for the programmers, but it would allow us to make changes to music or voice passages without having to re-work the other.
Thank you Igor for giving this your consideration.
Regards
Ken T. (APLman)
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I was looking for something that would move a section of slides together with the associated piece of music to a different place in the show rather than having to customize the music in Project Options and Audio Clip Properties. It sounded as if "Synchronize Music and Slides" may have done that - but sadly no. If anyone knows a way, please let me know.
Mick, I think you can achieve your aim by
(1) Untick "Synchronize Music and Slides"
(2) rather than setting your background music in Project Options, use Customise Slide and the Music tab.
Each of your background pieces can then be set to begin playing at a particular slide, and moving sections of slides with their music should be possible.
Regards
Ken T. (APLman)
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Apologies - I found it quite difficult to express this problem in a few words for the topic title.
In making a DVD with Video Builder, I initially had the captions under each menu picture in the default font.
I changed the font of each to my preferred font (Comic Sans MS).
The screen showing my menu thereafter showed the captions in my desired font ... but with a blackish image underneath, which I think was left over from the previous font.
Even after saving and later reopening the ptv file, the bad image was still present.
I suspected it was time to do Accessories / System Tools / Cleanup, so I did that.
Trouble is, (a) sure, the bad image has gone ... but (
my font changes have been lost.Could there perhaps be a need to store the menu details in a more permanent place? Or have I done something wrong?
Ken T. (APLman)
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It's a simple omission in previous version, because technically it has support in sound engine. I'm sorry about this missed feature. We'll add Offset parameter to sound comments to the next version (7.0).
Thank you very much, Igor - this is good news!
I appreciate very much your attention to ideas from your users!
Ken T (APLman)
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... In sliding pictures left and right to rearrange the order there are about 12 images at the bottom which are easy to rearrange within the group of 12, but how do I slide an image 24 positions to the left or right? ... when I drag, it just stops at the edge.
Edwin, if you have a steady hand, try this method of moving one or more images beyond the screen limits. Drag to the left or right edge, then (still holding the mouse button down), come back just a little from the edge.
I think I stumbled on this by accident - now I use it all the time.
Good luck!
Ken T. (APLman)
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Oh, dear! I don't imagine Mr Elgar would like to hear Nimrod mentioned in the context of "Background Music"! Not a piece deserving of voice commentary over the top!
Seriously, though, I have a new idea, an improvement, I believe, on my original suggestion. I will put it in the "Ideas for Next Version".
Ken T.
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Peter ... I appreciate your advice, based on much experience - thank you.
In my own case, much as I love classical music, I am happy to use as background pieces with relatively level volume ... Andean flutes in my current project (after spending all of September in Peru). So finding the appropriate volume reduction for a project would be easy enough. The background volume adjustment during voice commentary passages should of course be a Project Option, not a "one Size Fits All" figure chosen by Wnsoft.
I should have started this discussion in the "Ideas for Next Version" forum. Thank you for getting involved here.
Ken T.
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This is a wonderful idea, and deserves more response. I'm here to add my enthusiastic support, provided it's not too huge a job for the developers.
As one simple example, I would use it in every project to add my usual set of keyframes to every slide - and save myself many hours and mouse-clicks.
Ken T.
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Peter ... Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
It is instructive to see how experienced users adapt their work process to the software provided. However, as an experienced programmer, I tend to look for situations where a one-off effort in software development can save many time-consuming and/or tediously repetitive steps across hundreds of users or thousands of projects.
An option to turn the music down when the narrator starts talking seemed to me to be just such a situation.
Apparently, Igor had already accepted that it's a good idea. I am hoping to ensure that the promised facility is not about to be lost in the next round of changes.
Thanks again, your posts are always good reading.
Ken T.
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If I may add to my suggestion above - it seems that some re-working of the audio facilities is likely in the near future. I would therefore like to make my suggestion less specific with regard to the existing implementation.
What I would really like to see is a provision for separate RUN-TIME control of background sound level (usually music) and foreground sound level (typically commentary). In the context of my travel shows, this would make possible:
* Running a show without my commentary ... other members of the travel party could enjoy showing my pics but give their own verbal spin;
* Reducing the background to make the commentary clearer.
The same facilities, if available in Preview, would facilitate development of a show with minimal repetitive annoyance to housemates.
Ken T.
Separate Sub-Forum for Beta Versions
in General Discussion
Posted
Thank you Igor. As I have had reason to suspect many times ... you are a very reasonable man! Glad you liked my idea!
Best Regards ... and thank you for a giant leap forward with PTE 7.0.
Ken T (APLman)