ContaxMan

I'm pretty sure that what you have done is to burn the "production show" i.e. the one with the suffix .pte, on to your cd. This is not the "real" show, simply an instruction list for the pte program to reconstruct it from your original files. The list you got is the clue to this. The program is trying to reconstruct the show and can't find the files on the cd (because they're not there, they're still on your hard drive presumably). The solution is simple so long as you still have the original files. Redo the show in pte and, when it's ready, be sure to use "File - Create Slideshow As" to convert the pte show into a self-contained slideshow (you can tell the difference because this will have the .exe suffix). It's this file that you need to put on the cd or whatever. Think of the .pte file as a recipe, and the .exe file as the completed dish of the day! Good luck with this great product - without doubt the best value for money on the market.

Try installing it on the other machine rather than just running from the cd. I didn't know we had decent fish & chips in York - where were they? Whitby is the place for good f&c.

I'm sorry - I have no idea. But I've posted just to reassure you that someone does actually read these messages. Over to someone else...

When you created the .exe file, did you save it on your machine? If so, does it run OK from your machine? Can you test it on another pc? (If you don't have one, you could email it to me to test for you). These questions won't necessarily solve the problem but should narrown-down the range of suspects.

It's difficult to guess exactly what you're missing here. A useful technique I find helpful is to open the .pte file for a problem show in a simple text editor such as notepad or wordpad. You can soon sort out what's included in your show. This may give you a clue. If this doesn't help, you could try saving your show as a template and sending it to me. I'd be happy to see if i can find out whgat's wrong. I hope this helps.

I'd love to see these - any chance?

Try a search on "music" - you'll find lots of information about similar problems. The simple answer is to make one music track for the entire show. This is easily done using software such as "Audacity" (which is free!).

I'd like to see this too. Will you post it on Beechbrook?

I got the aego2 speakers - tried them last night in a large hall and they performed very well indeed. Just the job.

If you "loiter within tent" on this forum I'm sure the members will keep you informed. Good luck with your show - it'll be interesting to hear which option you used in the end.

If it helps, I used the same technique (i.e. very long duration time) with a presentation last evening and it worked perfectly. I've lots of experience with powerpoint but still chose PTE for this because the talk was about photography (including using PTE) & I wanted to keep to a uniform style throughout. All I did to control the show was to set the mouse options to Pause for left button & previous slide for right button, making sure the cursor was not hidden. Good luck!

I've just prepared a tutorial on this for our camera club. Look at: http://www.bishopthorpe-camera-club.com/Re...ces/goodies.htm where you'll find a pdf file of instructions and also a ready-made Photoshop action to resize landscape images to 1024 pixels wide, portrait to 768 pixels high, and allow you to select values of unsharp mask for each image individually. The tutorial explains how the action was made and how to use it for batch resizing of images for PTE. But, as Al says, you need to do some levels adjustment first, then save your original images in two folders, one for landscape & one for portrait.

If you have Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or similar, you can use that to make excellent title slides. Start with a new page 1024 by 768 pixels, fill it with black, then add your title picture (if any) and text (as desired), all on separate layers. Save the title slide in several versions, revealing one layer at a time. For example you might start with just a picture on screen, then overlay it with some text, add some more text..., then move on to the rest of the show. I hope you can follow this!

Please accept my good wishes with all the others. I hope things improve soon.

Have you thought about adding your logo text as a layer in Photoshop? You could easily make an action to do this automatically - perhaps when you resize your pictures for PTE.

Unless I've misunderstood your comments, what you wish to do is already possible. At the bottom right hand side of the preview window is a small icon that looks like an open folder. Clicking on this shows the transition into that slide and the show continues to play from that point.

As you say, users can't actually view the pte version of your show without the software. The exe file is the one to distribute, and it's best to install this on the users hard drive rather than try to run it from the cd. If you look back though the "pictures to exe" section of this forum, you'll find references to "multishow free utility" which is designed to help with this. By the way, you may still need to sharpen after resizing as the values needed in the unsharp mask tend to be different where the image is intended merely for screen display. I sharpen images mor efor the web than I would for print.

Just tried it - no problems!

I've located this in the tutorial material available when you download Audacity. Try this: Open the background music). Select Import Audio... from the Project menu and open the other sound , e.g. a recorded narration. Listen to your sound using the Play button. Audacity automatically mixes them together. Choose the Time Shift tool and adjust the position of one track or the other until they're synchronized the way you want them. You can even move tracks around while they're playing. If you hear clipping which wasn't present in either of the original files, it means that the combined volume of the two tracks is too loud. If so, elect one or both of the tracks and then use the Amplify... effect to reduce the volumes until you don't hear clipping anymore. Save as mp3 for pte.

I don't normally use Audacity (- wish I'd investigated it before spending a small fortune on Audition!). I can do what you say in Audition so I'll have a look to see if I can get Audcaity to do it too. If so, will let you know.

I resize all my images to the pixel dimensions of my screen i.e. 1024 by 768 pixels. In order to do this, I sort them into two folders - one for landscape & one for portrait. I then run actions in batch mode that automate the process for me - landscapes are resized to 1024 wide and portraits to 768 high. Incidentally, the 72 pixels per inch figure you quote has no relevance to images intended for screen display. If you look at the image resize window in Photoshop you'll see that this figure comes under "document size" - i.e. it refers to a printed output. (I can let you have my actions by email, and a tutorial on their use, by email if you wish). The actions include steps to convert 16 bit images to 8 bit (where necessary), flatten and resize the image, then sharpen using unsharp mask - with the user being able to adjust the values of this for each image as the actions run. All resized images are automatically saved by the batch process as jpgs at compression level 6 or 7 (aiming for a file size of around 200k per image). Music is added as a single mp3 file - if necessary individual tracks can be joined together in software such as Audacity (a free download). The only other issue of note is that it is best to run the exe show produced by pte from hard drive rather than cd (as some cd drives, particularly those on laptops, can be slow). I hope this helps.

Al's list seems pretty comprehensive to me. Taken with the other ideas mentioned here, should be enough work to keep you busy! I wonder whether the in-program help needs updating, e.g. there isn't much about templates. Since we have free access to a perfectly servicable audio editor (Audacity), in my opinion the sound editing suggestions are less important than getting the visual side of the program as effective as possible. But it's a great product already and we love using it! Thanks a lot.

The waveform display in PTE is simply to help with positioning image transitions to the music, e.g. you may wish to have a particular slide appear at a peak in the sound wave. It is not a music editor - you need to stick to Audacity or similar. To combine music in Audacity simply get the two pieces onto the screen, select one waveform by dragging over it, press CTRL C (to copy it), position the cursor at the end of the other wave, press CTRL V (to paste). You will then have the two waves combined. Look at the Audacity link where you'll find links to tutorials etc. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/windows.php?lang=en I hope this helps.

There's no need to shout. In my experience, support is excellent if one exercises a little patience. A quote from an earlier post in this Forum: "For starters. When you get your reg key , you must copy it out of the email message, then double click it to install it then save the key to floppy, or cd and take the key to a spot you will remember on your hard drive support will get hold of you so be patient - they are in Russia so there is a time difference." If you look back through the Forum you'll find more help with this.

OK - I've given away my location in "God's own county"