Ed Overstreet

Yep, done that too, and that's what you arguably need to do when tiling two portraits side-by-side over a landscape, as Jim mentions. However this means down-sizing the portrait images relative to what they could be on the screen, which reduces the impact of those images somewhat. (Having more than one image on the screen at the same also tends to do that IMO, the viewer doesn't "know" where to look in the limited time available, and all the images lose impact to some extent, unless they reinforce each other in some way -- sometimes that works well.) On balance I prefer the method in slide 5 without constraining the height of the portrait image to that of the landscape image. But, as Jim says, different strokes for different folks. And, as with almost everything in photography, it's all about trade-offs, there's seldom a perfect solution, there are pros and cons to almost every option

Back to my morning troll of the forum ... thanks again for all the replies and suggestions. Susiesdad's example (the second one) is what I've been doing in the O&A window, but again I stress (sorry for flogging a hopefully-not-dead horse) that I really prefer to have access to the waveform when I'm doing this sort of thing, and we don't have that (yet) in PTE's O&A window. For my club's AV members I've drafted a three-part example, complete with a Photoshop file showing the third-image approach Xaver suggested (or at least my interpretation of his suggestion). It also has a 2-3 page Acrobat file that describes the two processes, I hope relatively clearly. I've presently only circulated this to four club members who've been doing AV at least as long as I have and who know the problem I'm addressing; I'm posting below a link to the zip file so anyone interested in this Forum can download it and see what I'm getting at. The example is a portrait-to-landscape transition done four ways. First just with a simple fade in/out on the main timeline, which produces a "cross-over" effect on the screen which I and others find distracting. The second method does what Xaver describes (good choice of terminology!) as an asymmetrical fade created in the O&A window, similar to what Susiesdad posted. The third method is my interpretation of Xaver's workaround (any misinterpretatations are my fault not his). The fourth, not described in the Acrobat file, is another trick I've tried, which involves using a slight zoom effect on the landscape image as it is brought up. I used to like the fourth method, until we projected it at our club on Tuesday in a showcase night on our Canon SX50 projector and guess what, even though it's a small zoom and involves no panning at all, the SX50 showed marked jerkiness in the appearance of the second image as it zoomed in. Shades of the other long thread I started a while ago on problems with the SX50 and other projectors on mangling things that looked silky-smooth on my monitor . So I'm not using that effect again until we either find a workaround for the SX50 or our club gets a new projector that can handle something like this without messing it up on the screen. Or Igor figures some way to fix the problem in PTE. Whatever. Here's the link to my examples: http://tinyurl.com/edsexamples Any comments or suggestions on better ways of implementing Xaver's method (the third example, Slides 7 through 9 in the sample show) would be appreciated -- or any other comments or suggestions on the show and the methods demonstrated. Any editiorial suggestions on the Acrobat file's wording, clarity or lack thereof, would also be appreciated but that probably would best be handled via private mail to me as it's not really an appropriate use of this forum thread to ask for editorial comments on a document Personally my preference is for the method displayed in slide 5 (essentially what Susiesdad also posted), but others no doubt will have other preferences among these choices. My friend Paul finesses this portrait-to-landscape issue by never using portrait format images in his shows, but I think that's too extreme. Some images cry out for portrait format or cropping IMO; I believe in cropping images however they make sense to me and then finding a way for the AV software to deal with the "messiness" on the screen as best as possible, rather than locking myself into only using one arbitrary aspect ratio all the time. Again, different folks have different preferences (which is why I never enter competitions any more -- I'm tired of listening to judges pontificate personal opinions and tastes as if they were Truiths, but that's a whole different screed).

Thanks all for the quick and informative replies, as always! I've tried Xaver's method, and I agree with his additional points about using a Screen blend in some situations. However Lumenlux hit the nail on the head -- whether you do this in O&A or with third images, doing an entire show this way would become a nightmare. In O&A, particularly because of the lack of a waveform display and the ability to see the control points for two objects at the same time -- in O&A -- (HINT HINT HINT Igor), getting things to work with the music is tedious. The other way involves a lot of work switching between PTE and Photoshop or whatever. Also, at least in my first quick attempts, I think the end result looks smoother on the screen when you do it in O&A. BUT I really don't like setting control points for something like this if I can't see the waveform at the same time!!!! (More hints.) Gotta run my wife wants us to go to dinner now, but bottom line is this isn't something I'd want to do with every image in a show, just for the "problem" transitions (like portrait to landscape) and maybe the odd messy same-aspect-ratio transition. Cheers everyone. Will keep monitoring for any more ideas.

At present, if one is doing something complex in the O&A window and feels the need to save a project backup, one has to Close the window to access the Save As menu. (One could use the Auto Save, but that over-writes the current project file which is NOT a good idea IMO.) Leaving the O&A window to save, then re-opening, can break one's train of thought when doing something complex with a lot of objects. Instead, it might be nice to have a link to Save As directly from within the O&A window.

Excellent suggestion, Xaver, and thanks. I should have thought of that, but didn't. It should produce the same effect as what I'd been thinking of in the O&A window, with the significant benefit of having access to the waveform so the change-overs could be timed effectively and efficiently to the music. I've passed on your suggestion to my friend Paul, he's been doing AV forever (in fact he taught me how to do my first-ever AV show about 20 years ago), so he'll recognize the idea immediately. Cheers Also thanks Peter for the reminder about backing up, especially when doing complex things in O&A. In fact, it might be nice to have access to the "Save As" feature while working in the O&A window, so you don't have to Close and then re-enter, breaking your train of thought even further ... a minor issue perhaps, maybe I'll post that in the forum section for new-version suggestions. Or maybe you could ... doesn't matter who posts the idea as long as Igor sees it.

Has anyone on this forum tried creating a whole show, say maybe five minutes long, in a single Objects and Animations window? If so, does it run OK, or are there limits to how much one can safely pack into a single O&A window? I’m asking this on behalf of a friend who is switching from analog (Clearlight-dissolve-unit-based) AV to either PTE or PSG. In his analog shows he rarely used a “straight” dissolve, in which projector B fades up exactly as projector A fades down, he always preferred to de-couple the two projectors so he could fade down slide A a bit before starting to fade up slide B. He found (and I agree, especially when transiting between landscape and portrait format images) this can produce more pleasing fades than keeping the two projectors’ fade actions lock-stepped. In PTE, as far as I can tell all transitions in the main timeline are lock-stepped, that is that the first slide starts to disappear exactly as the second slide begins to appear, regardless of the transition effect being used. The only way to de-couple the transitions is in the O&A window (and then only using fades, I don’t think you can use the other effects inside that window as far as I can tell, but that’s a separate issue). You can do this by off-setting the two slides’ control points with 0 and 100% opacity settings on the O&A timeline. As I have mentioned already in another post (see http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....showtopic=9454) trying to offset transitions in the O&A window is frustrating for me, because a) each object has its own timeline and I can’t see the timelines for the two objects simultaneously, which means I have to resort to the low-tech solution of scribbling down the keyframe times and entering them manually, not much fun, and there is no waveform display in the O&A window, which makes it much less easy IMO to get what I want where I want it in the music. So the idea of doing an entire show, maybe 100 images, stretched out on 100 timelines in one O&A window is a bit of a nightmare. (It might be possible if there were a waveform display and the option of maybe two timelines displayed simultaneously, with the user being able to select which images’ timelines (s)he wants to work with at a given moment.) So I’m not interested in testing this myself, it sounds to me like a lot of work that might result in a show that won’t run well (or would it), depending on what technical limits there are on how much you can safely squeeze into a single O&A window on a given computer. But I thought I’d pose the question, in case someone might have tried packing say a 100-image show over 5 minutes in a single O&A window. Anyone ever try this? Did it work, and how well? Thanks for any insights anyone can offer.

To support Peter's excellent points, note that this part of the forum is described in its subheads as, among other things, "discussions." As Peter notes, discussions between people will inevitably "meander" beyond what the person who initiated the discussion may have had in mind. Especially if that initiation was open to alternative interpretations, which is usually the case even in conversations or discussions between people who speak the same language, dialect and have similar technical or other backgrounds. It's par for the course, I'm afraid. The alternative is that things become so policed that people who think they might have something worth contributing will hold back in fear of being slapped down for wandering a bit off topic. Is that what we want?

I think this is a very sensible approach, one that I am inclined to follow (now that I've finally been doing most of my editing with Nikon Capture NX2 which means I've got the original RAW files with all the edits stored inside the RAW file). I think this is what Yachtsman was alluding to in his earlier reference to RAW editing. Rather than create (for today's equipment) over-large JPGs, as display devices evolve I'd be inclined to go back to the original RAW files, revisit the editing (as/if needed), and generate new JPGs at larger sizes (and different sharpening) as the need arose or the spirit moved me. That is very easy to do with Nikon NEF files if they were edited in Capture; getting back the original edits in Photoshop can be a huge pain, as much of the edits can only be saved non-destructively as Smart Objects which create horrific PSD or TIF file sizes for archiving. Not sure what happens in Lightroom editing, I don't use Lightroom, but one hopes it's a bit more efficient of archive space than is PSD format - it would be pretty hard not to be. NEF is a VERY efficient archive format for storing non-destructive image edits, including selection masks. I'm not familiar with Canon's proprietary RAW editor, or Bibble, or some other software, but there are some very attractive options (and more efficient options) than Photoshop for this sort of thing, certainly for Nikon owners Capture NX2 in my opinion is much preferable.

Omigod this is truly scary! I too discovered Power Show some years ago and played with a lot. Interesting transition effects, but the "light table" was a tad tricky to work with as I recall. Scary because this is before Jim joined our photo club (he was a member of one of the other clubs in the area at the time, I think) and before he and I met. I can't believe how we've all traveled on these same paths over the years ... Yes PTE is a HUGE improvement Sorry we are drifting a wee bit off topic ...

Slightly off topic, but 8 out of 35 is pretty good. Our club now has 300 members at last count a few weeks ago, but at the annual AV showcase night next Tuesday only 12 of us have provided shows (a total of 20 shows, we allowed second shows to fill the 90 minutes for the program). In the past we've started out some years with an AV Group of 40-50 folks showing up for the first workshop, but by April we never seem to get more than 12-15 producers. Lots of people seem to be interested at first until they find out how much time and energy it takes most folks to produce their first show, though we've always told them it's a lot easier and faster after the first dozen or so. Some of the 12 of us next week have been producing shows with various technologies for 20 years and more, but we usually get one or two newbies each year -- but rarely more than that. I think the three other clubs in the Ottawa area have the same experience; one sister club didn't produce any shows at all for our annual interclub AV night last December, and the other three clubs only came up with six or seven each (we limited it to one show per person, but at 19 shows most of which were first-rate it was a very good evening).

Adding to the poll: I'll only comment on the image dimensions I use for my own shows, as everything else I'd say has been covered above and I agree with it. JRR and I have very similar views on these matters (except on the image dimensions), and the two of us are responsible for most of the material in the link that JRR provided. I recently gave a presentation to a group at our club (on March 30) on how to do an AV show in PTE 5.6 (for beginners) and there is a link to the PDF notes for that presentation on our club website at the link that JRR gives, which anyone is welcome to download and use (preferably with some credit or attribution). (There is a more direct way to get at the presentation notes, go to http://www.mediafire.com/?ztnz05izmiz where you can get a zip folder that has the PDF notes plus a "template" PTE show for beginners with the project options all set the way we recommend for beginners who want to present a show on our club's equipment. I explained those options verbally at my presentation but this isn't covered in the notes; if JEB or anyone else has any questions about why we use certain settings in project options, send me a private email.) In terms of image size -- I run my CRT monitor at 1600x1200 and my laptop LCD monitor at 1920x1200. Yes I know this produces pretty small text on screen, but I've got used to it. I use my computer heavily for photo-editing, and I figure if I'm going to edit a photo I might as well use the most resolution I can squeeze from my system. Our club has a Canon SX50 projector that we normally use at 1400x1050, so while I create all my AV shows in PTE on a 1600x1200 monitor, I size my JPGs for 1400x1050 and set PTE to display full screen. That results in some upsizing-on-the-fly on playback on my monitor, but it doesn't cause any problems for me on my monitor, and it's ideal for the club's projector. I don't normally use other projectors or display my shows anywhere except at the club, but I have from time to time given presentations to community groups in local churches or libraries that have 1024x768 projectors, and (barring the pesky image-tearing issue on panorama issues we've worried to death on another thread) I haven't seen any problems running my 1400x1050 images on a 1024x768 projector. So my bias, preference and advice is to size images for the maximum size that you're likely to encounter on a monitor or a projector. In my experience PTE seems better at down-sizing on the fly than up-sizing on the fly, so keep your images as large as possible. PTE 5.6 in my experience can handle some pretty huge images pretty well on down-sizing. My infamous panorama file is about 4500x1050 pixels and 1.2 mb in size, and while the Canon projector tears that pan (and JRR's projector doesn't if you set Frame Lock to On), on my monitor at 1600x1200 the display is beautiful. Just don't crowd too many large images too close together, though (keep them at least 5 seconds apart on the timeline), or you may start to see some jerkiness in the followng images after the first big one. But if you space large images out with smaller ones in between, PTE and the computer seem to "catch up" OK on the memory demands from downsizing a big file. Not very elegant technical explanation I guess, but that's been my experience and what I suggest to people if they ask my advice.

Oops sorry I posted this before checking other posts on the forum, where I noticed that a whole bunch of us have been getting this. Sorry for the duplication ...

This morning I received a personal message from the Forum. When I opened the message, it contained only the words "please help" which turned into a hand icon when I moused over it. The sender was identified as "deleted member." I did NOT click on the link. I immediately deleted the message from my inbox. I don't know if anyone else has received such messages, but I am very suspicious. I never open emails unless the sender is clearly identified and there is a subject header that makes sense and seems relevant, and I never click on any link in any email unless I personally know or trust the sender or had previously corresponded with the sender and had asked for a link. If that message actually was from a legitimate member of this forum who actually wanted my help on something (why me?) try again but identify yourself and what you want help on in plain text, with no links in the message. Better yet, post a query so others on this forum (who may be better-qualified than me to help you) can see the query and reply to it. Somehow I don't expect I'll get a reply to this. Just thought I'd post a warning in case others get a similar "private message"

Further to Kyle’s post, and to add some context to it: Kyle, Jim and I returned to our club’s projection equipment a couple of days ago, to test the suggestions from Canon Canada tech support and from Kyle. One suggestion was to try the Frame Lock setting on the Panasonic projector; the Canon SX-50 lacks a Frame Lock setting (though some other Canon projectors have one), but there were several suggestions of other projector menu settings to try, that might make a difference. In a nutshell, none of the Canon SX50 switch settings suggested by Kyle or by Canon solve the "tearing" problem we've identified and have been working on since late December. We are unable to find any configuration of computer or projector settings that can fix the problem on the SX50 to our satisfaction. For the record, the switch settings we varied on the SX50 (which had no visible effect on the problem) were Auto PC, Tracking, and Cinema Mode. It had also been suggested that we try the Progressive Processing setting, but on careful investigation (it wasn’t easy, the SX50 manual isn’t very clear on this point) we found that setting only works when the projector is connected via an S-Video cable. Jim and I had already established that S-Video mode cleared the "tearing" problem but at a cost to image quality that we consider unacceptable. We verified that the Frame Lock switch on Jim's Panasonic projector fixes the problem when running our test show on his projector through his laptop. That switch ameliorates but does not completely solve the problem when running the Panasonic projector on the club computer, however. The only completely satisfactory projection we have seen of our test show has been on the Panasonic projector, with the Frame Lock set to On, using Jim’s laptop. Speaking personally, I am very discouraged and frustrated by the unreliability of P&Z performance across combinations of what I think are reasonably-configured and reasonably-specified computers and projectors. I don’t think it’s realistic to wait for the projector manufacturers to pay attention to this problem, as users like us are too small and unimportant (to them) a share of their market. The p&z feature is not very attractive to me if it means I or my club have to go to ridiculous lengths experimenting with different combinations of computer and projector specs to come up with a combination that might actually allow us to pan smoothly on projection through a panorama image at a reasonable pace. I would really like to hear from the PTE developers regarding Kyle’s analysis and about whether it is feasible to do something in the PTE software to get around this problem.

I have two suggestions for changing the Auto Save feature as it currently works in PTE 5.6. Perhaps these suggestions have been discussed before in this forum, but I would like to reinforce them now. This occurred to me as I am preparing a presentation to my photo club on PTE 5.6, and the Auto Save feature is a rather ‘hard sell’ for most of my audience, I expect. My first suggestion is to change the location of the control in the menu structure. I think controls should be located, as much as possible, in places that most users are intuitively likely to look for them. The settings for Auto Save are currently to be found in the View>Advanced Options menu. I fail to see a logical relation between a feature that automatically saves the project file, and View, advanced options or not. If I were searching for a timed-backup feature (and not searching in the user manual, assuming I can figure out what the feature is called in the manual), I would probably look either under the File or the Create menu. I suggest re-locating the Auto-Save dialog under one of those two menus, in the next version. My other suggestion pertains to how the feature works. Currently Auto-Save causes PTE to save the *.pte file onto itself every X minutes. Most other software that has a timed-backup feature, at least software that I’ve used, saves a timed backup under either a different file name or a different file extension (e.g., *.bkp, *.bak, *.bk!) rather than the original file name. The problem with over-writing the current project file is that the timed backup may occur while that project has some “errors” in it that one wants to un-do, but if the backup is created while those errors are still present, and the system crashes before one notices or has time to fix the problem, one is “stuck” with those problems on re-entry into the software and re-loading the project file. Of course this can be avoided by making repeated manual backups, in which case my preference is simply NOT to use the timed feature at all. However, for those who want the added security, or who fear they might forget to do a manual save (perhaps to a separate file name), having a timed backup feature that saves the backup to a new file name, a new extension, or at least a separate folder, might make more sense. It almost certainly would be more consistent with what most new users would expect from such a feature, based on their experiences with other software. It certainly is what I was (erroneously) expecting when I first tried using the feature. As it now stands, this feature is hard to find in the menu structure and has little or no appeal to me, for the above reasons. I intend to call both of these concerns to the attention of my audience in my presentation in a couple of weeks, because of the “non-standard” way this feature works and the potential problems it might cause new users or even experienced users. PTE is otherwise wonderful software. I hate making nit-picking observations such as this, but I think we'd all like to see the software become closer to perfect than it now is, and this is one relatively minor area where I think such an improvement should be relatively easy to make.

I hadn't noticed that, but you're right. The two cursors should always be synchronized.

A relatively minor point perhaps, but I've noticed that the synchronization between the Timeline and the slider under the Preview window could be improved. If one drags the slider button under the Preview, the blue arrow on the Timeline below moves accordingly, but only as long as the slider button under the Preview remains within the range of that portion of the Timeline currently visible on the Preview screen. Once one manually advances the Preview slider past that range, there is no auto-scroll (in either auto-scroll mode) that updates the Timeline display accordingly. It would be nice to have the Timeline auto-scroll as one drags the preview slider, for some editing purposes.

Check out the discussion at this thread http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9204 and go to www.abaltat.com for an intriguing (but expensive, $300 US) software that can be used to generate music from an MOV video clip (MOVs can be converted from AVI clips, which PTE generates...). The Muse 2 software described currently is only available for Macs, but an email from their tech support tells me they are planning to release a Windows version of the software this year some time (month not specified, they just said "in 2009"). Some people replying to my thread above didn't like the idea much, but who cares how the music was created if you and your audience like it and it works with your images? At least you wouldn't be bothered by copyright or licensing restrictions As a bonus Davy, Abaltat the company that makes the software appears to be Irish, check out the Company info on their website.

Thanks all, especially Dave for pointing me to the other thread, which I found very interesting. So as I understand it, Auto Save will over-write my current project file, rather than creating a separate backup file (which would have been my strong preference). I never worry about power outages, since I use a laptop all the time, generally off the AC adapter but if the power dies the laptop automatically kicks instantly to the battery, which is always fully charged due to the Ac adapter, so I have about 3 hours of time left to do whatever. However as Peter noted in the other thread, that doesn't help if you get a sudden system crash. So I guess for me the sensible thing is to accept the default 7-min autosave and then manually save different versions as I go along in my creative process, if I so wish. At least that way I won't lose more than 7 minutes of work if the system crashes. That sounds fine to me. At least now I know why I couldn't find a file named "backup" anywhere which is what I was expecting. Must remember to pay more attention to the little status-bar notes at the bottom of the screen ...

I searched the forum (+auto +save) and couldn't find an answer to this question, nor is it answered in the user guide. I've only just started using the auto save feature, but so far either PTE isn't saving timed backups of the pte file or I can't find them. I don't see anything in my project folder, nor in any of the PTE subfolders or main folder under c/program files. So my question is, where are the auto save files saved? There doesn't seem to be anywhere in the menu structure for me to set the folder location, unless I've missed something (entirely possible!). Not urgent for me personally, as I prefer to do manual saves, but that doesn't help if the system crashes, and this probably is going to come up as a question I can't answer (yet) in a presentation I'm giving about PTE later this month.

Quick replies to Brian, Peter and Dave: again thanks so much for your help and advice! Peter, not to worry, I learned something too -- it never occurred to me that I couldn't use a 32-bit WAV file on my XP system, now I know better ... Also taught me a) problems aren't always unidentified gremlins, there's usually a reason for them, and any change one makes to Project Options in any software can result in mysterious problems suddenly, one needs to remember these things ... I'd forgotten that I'd made those changes until I did a little more digging yesterday after Dave queried why I was showing 32-bit WAV files when I'd said I hadn't changed the default. Yes I had changed the default, I'd just forgot. (It happens at my age!) Thanks also for the explanations about 128 vs 256 kbps on the MP3s. I have tinnitus in both ears, have had since I was a teenager a) because my father and I used to trigger very loud fireworks annually in our yard, very close to my ears in fact, that left my ears ringing for hours or days afterwards, and neither he nor I realized this could lead to permanent hearing damage, and in the late 1950s I went to a summer camp where we all fired M-1 carbines at a rifle range for an hour or so with NO hearing protection at all, something that no one would ever permit today, but back then even if anyone had thought to suggest ear protection they would have been laughed off the firing range. And as a result I have severe hearing loss at certain high frequencies, I usually can't hear crickets or some song birds at all, never mind those little tree frogs (are they still around? I haven't heard them for decades, but that doesn't mean they aren't there) ... hence I never notice any difference between MP3 and WAV, never mind different MP3 compressions. But it sounds like, in respect to the composers, performers and audiences I maybe ought to be using 256 instead of 128, for the benefit of people out there whose parents were more knowledgable than my Dad was about what very loud sounds can do to your hearing for the rest of your life ... or who grew up in a place and time where the powers that be were a little more conscious and conscientious about those things. All's well that ends well, just wish sometimes I could hear those crickets on a warm summer evening Not to mention having to sit through beautiful chamber music in a quiet church while wondering who let the bloody cicadas into the rafters - though of course the buzzing is all in my head not up in the rafters. Off topic, but be ruthless with your kids and grandkids about not listening to headphones at too-high volumes nor going to "music" concerts where the sound is so loud you feel physically assaulted. They may think that's 'cool' when they're young, but they'll learn otherwise when they're older and have trouble hearing conversations three feet away in a noisy room. They'll either thank you for your nagging when they're older, or at least will regret not having listened to you ... perhaps cold comfort if you're no longer around by then, alas.

Hi Dave. I've noticed over the past couple of years that various people more knowledgable and more experienced than I seem to recommend 128 kbps for MP3, which is what I've been using. The 128 kpbs MP3s sound OK on my cheap sound system, but also sound OK on our club's much better sound system. Is there any particular reason why you're suggesting 256 instead of 128? Not arguing, just curious.

Guess that also explains why my Dell Jukebox can't do anything with the 32-bit WAV file either. Thanks Brian. Maybe in the future, if and when I get a new computer with Vista or whatever other new Windows system can handle 32-bit WAV files, I'll try that setting in Audacity, but it sounds like for XP machines that isn't a good idea.

BINGOOOO! Thanks Dave. Yep that does it. OK what changed is that in the past month I read Peter's Audacity guide and, following his advice, changed the WAV format to 32 bit from what I'd been using in the past (the 16-bit PCM default). THAT was the problem. The new test WAV file as a 16-bit PCM Export from Audacity plays back just fine. Also my dBpowerAMP utility can convert the 16-bit PCM WAV file to an MP3 with no problem, no error message about a codec missing. Obviously my system doesn't "like" 32-bit WAV files, for whatever reason. (Home Edition not media edition of XP, maybe that's it??) Peter, if you're still following this thread, you might want to think about re-wording that recommendation in your PDF for people to change the WAV format. Or at least add a footnote saying that on some systems this is NOT necessarily a good idea, if you plan on using WAV instead of Audacity-generated MP3 final output for playback in PTE or elsewhere. (I can't get Dell Jukebox to play back the 32-bit WAV files either, so this problem on playback isn't unique to PTE 5.6). Thanks very much for the help Dave. I think I'll leave Audacity set for 16-bit PCM WAV format for now, just to be on the safe side ... Cheers everyone, thanks again for great and quick help in trouble-shooting this. Again I am impressed with what a great resource this forum is!

Just saw this as I posted my previous, will try 16bit PCM and see what happens will report back in a couple of minutes.