Search the Community

Sometimes i play with the builtin mask parameters 500:500:0:50:50 and directly edit them to fine tune the mask effect. If i mistake and type something that goes out of range an exception raises. Sometimes it's possible to recover it by undoing the mistake, closing and reopening the O&A editor but sometimes PTE enters into an exception loop that requires a task manager kill. I think it can be useful to clip entered parameters to the maximum available range to avoid this annoying error. Greetings! Umberto

Original size mode is needed by photographers who want to keep the original image size. Several years ago there was a debat about original size mode. If I remember well, JP Dollangere was a very strong supporter of this option. He was right! Most of photographers, who make AV shows, want to keep their original image size and do not want to see their work be modified by software. As it is today, even in v750, PTE does not offer this possibility. If you want to keep original image size, image by image, you have to 1) select a mode (fit to slide or cover slide) 2) set the right size and position in size/ position in pixels. Doing that, the zoom values displayed by PTE are false and require specific calculation. That is taking too long time and is a source of errors in case of animations! It would be very interesting to have a third mode "original size" which will allow to keep the original size of their image at zoom= 100%. This option will also ease a lot the work for those who want to make accurate 3D animations. First example. Screen = 1920x1080 Image original size = 400x400 0&A Common / Mode 1) Fit to size => image size becomes 1080x1080 / O&A > PTE zoom value =100% (that is false, it should be 270= 1080/400) see att 1 : 2) Cover slide => image size becomes 1920x1920 cropped at 1920x1080 / O&A > PTE zoom value = 100% (that is false, it should be 480= 1920/400) see att 4 : The fact that zoom value displayed by PTE is false may introduce errors in the choice of image resolution by the AV maker Then, if I want to recover the original size of my image I have two choices : 1) select Fit to slide - then size/ position in pixels - set size 400x400 but in this case PTE Zoom value is no longer 100% but 37,037 although the real image ratio is 1/1 see attachment 2,3 att. 2 : att. 3 : 2) select Cover slide - then size/ position in pixels - set size 400x400 but in this case PTE Zoom value is no longer 100% although the real image ratio is still 1/1 see attachment 5,6 att 5 = att 6 = If you want to make accurate animation using original image size, then you have to modify all zoom value given by PTE depending on the selected mode. That is not logical at all and too much time consuming. Second example If you choose "fit to slide" mode for all images whose height > width, then whatever the image definition in pixels, PTE will give them the same number of pixels in height (slide height) and the same zoom value =100% which is totaly wrong and not logical at all. That is very confusing for those who wants to work keeping original image size. Daniel

Hello I have been using P2E for the last few years (not all the time though) but I am now making a mini documentary so this is the first time I have had to use the audio multitrack feature to add VO and music. I'm finding it difficult to dip the music down when a voice comes in - lining it up I mean. Seems very difficult to do accurately. I am a video editor and in the end I did the audio mixing in my NLE. In there all the tracks are lined up under each other and I can set nodes to dip the volume where I need it. Very easy and simple. Perhaps a new feature sometime unless I'm missing something! Peter

* *Optional* feature to be specified on/off during slideshow .exe creation. * Auto-saves the current slide position whenever you exit the .exe viewer. * When you re-open the .exe slideshow viewer, it opens directly into the last slide known slide position (eg "33/105"). Reason: ======== * For much longer presenation files - eg up to 100 slides. * It's awkward / unprofessional to be there scrolling back trying to remember the place where we had finished previously in the last session. * Looks cool. Technical suggestion: ===================== The setting might be saved either to 1) A .INF file (created into the same folder as the .exe viewer) **. 2) Or if not INF file, then hard-code each presentation to random GUID key. Then save the slide position to the Windows registry. The slide number position can be as small as 4 bytes for a uint32_t value. Using the Registry way might pollute the registry 1 GUID key per slideshow ***. If using Registry sounds bad, so use .INF file then. ** This feature is optional so presentations compiled without the feature enabled won't ever need to write the INF file. *** Windows now has better management and cleaning of the registry user data with Windows 8 - "refresh" / "restore" / "reset".

* A keyboard shortcut specifically for navigating long presentations, eg 50-100 slides. * The Key combination (Ctrl+Left/Right?), will jump 5x slides for each single-press. * Otherwise we are left forever pressing Left/Right button too many times to get through to the middle / end of the presentation.

This program is pretty great really. However like all of the other ones, it cannot seem to produce an .exe file that will toggle between a fullscreen and a Windowed mode. Is this possible? It would be a great feature. For example, pressing "f" to toggle Windowed / Fullscreen mode. Nothing too elaborate. Hehe.

I wonder if it's possible to hide the pictures panel. Once i added all my pictures in the project (mostly with drag and drop from windows folders) i'd like to hide it and give all the upper part of the window to the mini player, even if it will not fit the entire width of the window. It's less distracting. I see there is an option to hide tree panel, but none for pictures panel... Greetings! Umberto

I have recently been exploring the new audio handling features within the Timeline view and would like to make some suggestions for improvement. The first time I muted and locked tracks I did not immediately see any on-screen indication of that change. Eventually I spotted that the warning symbols appeared way over at the extreme right hand side of the track. This placement struck me as rather odd. The filename information is shown aligned over at the extreme left hand end of the track. This was where I was looking for the Mute/Lock information. I also found it difficult to move tracks up or down and still retain their precise alignment against the timeline. I think both "problems" could be overcome if each audio Track had a small, fixed header at the left hand end. This header would be where the symbols would appear and would also be where the vertical drag could be applied in a manner that guaranteed no sideways motion. This concept of a "header" could be implemented at Track level or, better still, at clip level. regards, Peter

I didn't find such feature so i suppose it's worth a suggestion. The project i'm currently working on is composed by hundreds of complex slides, some of them group 10-20 png files at high resolution (i don't mind the runtime performance because i go out to full hp mp4 file). But each time i load the project it's a pain because it takes a minute an so to load all thumbnails in the time line. The program is very unresponsive until all thumbnails are produced. I know that it's possible to uncheck "show real slides" in the system pane, but if i do so nothing appears in the thumbnail, and this leads to high difficulty in finding the right slide. What about computing this thumbnail and save it into che project file? This should not take too much additional space. This will lead to lightning fast loading times. Maybe as an option, and if this option is checked and the project doesn't contain updated thumbnails, well, they are computed ad load time. I know that the thumbnail could not reflect the real image content if they are updated out of pte, but i can live with this issue if i can enter the O&A editor and exit it to refresh the thumbnail. Greetings! Umberto Uderzo

In the Timeline view, at the far right of the middle toolbar is the check-box for "Time Points". When this is chosen (i.e. ticked), a numbered "flag" appears on the timeline at the start of each slide. This flag is a mouse-selectable object (by which I mean that the mouse pointer changes to the "finger-hand" when the mouse hovers over the flag). I suggest that clicking on the flag should produce a pop-up window in which that slide is displayed in the same style as it is displayed in the Slides view - with an AB button, a transition duration field and a slide duration field, and that these items should be interactive in the same way that they are in the Slides view. regards, Peter

Igor When I first saw the default option for Compact view of mixed channels I felt it looked odd and said so. As I thought the attached email is the second I have received in the past weeks I don't know if you can help me with this problem. It is nothing serious but just a nuisance. When I insert my sound file into the AV, everything looks and works OK except for one minor problem. The wave form at the bottom of the screen only shows half of the detail which I have not experienced before. I have upgraded to PTE 7.5 and also Adobe Audition 6 with Windows 7, so this is all new software to me. I have attached a screen grab so that you can see what I am talking about. If I close up the top half of the screen, it still makes no difference to the wave form. Are you sure you have this set at the right default, it just looks odd

Hello Igor NS FRIENDS ... SUGGESTIONS RE ANIMATION IN PTE This suggestion was put forward in February 2010. It received a very enthusiastic response from Peter (fh1805), but not a comment from anyone else. If I have not explained my thoughts well, then I should re-work the item. Trouble is, it will be even longer than now! = = = = = I am now using PTE 7.5 (was 6.02 back then). I think PTE is a wonderful program, and in general the animation features are implemented brilliantly. However, I gather from some recent discussion on the forum (both then and now) that some users do not find those features as exciting as I do. I have only one complaint, and that concerns the way keypoints are relocated when the duration of a slide is changed. Here are my suggestions as to how things might be enhanced. Specification of Keypoint Location I note that keypoint objects in a PTE file have their locations defined by the Origin= parameter and the Time= parameter. Origin can be SlideBegin, PrevEffectEnd, NextEffectBegin or SlideEnd (Let us call those the four “special points”). Time is a number of millseconds relative to the specified Origin. For keypoints that do not lie at one of those special points, the PTE user interface appears always to generate a time relative to SlideBegin. However, I have successfully edited PTE files to have keypoint locations specified relative to the other special points, and both positive and negative time values appear to work. However, if I subsequently move the keypoint (in Objects and Animation), its Origin reverts to SlideBegin (with the Time value suitably adjusted). The present behaviour has some unfortunate effects. For example: (1) if a slide’s duration is reduced, and “Scale keypoints” is unchecked, keypoints that were within the main viewing time of the slide (between transitions) can end up in the next transition; (2) if a slide’s duration is increased or reduced, and if “Scale keypoints” is checked, keypoints that were placed at PrevEffectEnd or NextEffectBegin are no longer located at those special points; (3) keypoints can get out of sequence, when those at the special points remain there, while others move past them. I suggest a change to the PTE program could free us users from these problems. It would be better if each keypoint had its Origin set to the nearest one of the four special keypoints, and its Time value as a positive or negative offset from its Origin. This should apply both to the initial creation of the keypoint, and to its new position after a move. This way, we would get the following benefits: (1) keypoints that are placed at one of the four special points would remain there, (2) keypoints that are supposed to be within a transition would remain within that transition, (3) keypoints that are supposed to be between the transitions would remain there. All these are true whether “Scale keypoints” is in effect or not. Scale Keypoints It remains useful to keep the option “Scale Keypoints”. Scaling should be applied within the range of adjacent special points, not across the whole range from SlideBegin to SlideEnd. In other words, scaling should apply to keypoints within a transition when the transition duration changes. Keypoints between PrevEffectEnd and NextEffectBegin should be scaled within that range only. If the user wants to adjust the duration of a slide, by extending or reducing the main viewing time (between transitions), but wants to keep the timing of the animations near the start and near the end, then Scale Keypoints would be unchecked. If the aim is to adjust the duration of a slide and the animations within the main viewing time, then Scale Keypoints would be checked. In neither case is any animation within a transition affected. On the other hand, if there is animation within a transition, then its keypoints should be adjusted when the transition duration is changed. This would have no effect on animation within the main view time. Potential Problems A reduction in slide duration, without keypoint scaling, could cause keypoints to “collide” or cross over in the centre. This should provoke a message to the user, with the option to cancel the change or drop the keypoints. Removing a transition should cause any keypoints within the transition to be dropped. Possible extensions It might be worthwhile to allow a right-click option on keypoints to enable them to be “anchored” to any one of the four special points. Different colours could be used to give visual feedback. It might be beneficial to have one more special point: Centre - Half way between PrevEffectEnd and NextEffectBegin. Thank you, Igor, for giving this your consideration. If anyone else has read this far, I say THANK YOU! APLman (Ken Travers) - Moss Vale NSW Australia

What about an option to switch between the current single selected object track and all object tracks? This will simplify the editing of complex nested animations because all key point will be visible. Being able also to select a range of key points (by box selection) and move them on the time line would be my heaven Greetings! Umberto

My target : produce a manually controlled show where defined audio-titles will start at defined slides . As a solution in PTE 7.5.3 , I run several concatenated shows which start with these slides and the wanted audio-titles . Draw-Back : as I can't predict the current audio-title (manual control) there will be an angry 'break' in the music performance when changing to the next show which allows to fade-in the first title. Proposal : during the display of the last slide of a show allow for a defined fade-out of the current audio-title. This could be related to a button which when activated initiates the fade-out . For me a fixed / standard fade-out time would be sufficient . Regards - Paul

Suggestions for improvements: 1-Autosave Notice. I was playing around with a slideshow, experimenting with various different menu items. I didn't want to actually save anything. I was just testing different menu items to see what would happen. After a long session I closed the slideshow (without saving). I noticed that some of the last changes, in fact, had been saved to the slideshow. It was fortunate that I did not make too many drastic changes and I was able to get the slideshow back to its original state. I had forgotten that the Autosave had been selected in the Settings/Preferences menu. My suggestion is that, when the Autosave has been selected, a notification warning will pop up in the main screen, perhaps to the left of the Comment window. It can be very dangerous to forget the Autosave has been selected if you make changes that you don't really want to save. A notification in the main screen might help to avoid a potential problem. 2- Relative Keyframes. I have noticed that keyframes do not adjust in a relative fashion when the slide's duration is changed. When a slide's duration is changed, the keyframes remain in their absolute positions. I suggest that there be a way, when you increase or decrease the duration of a slide or group of slides, that the keyframes will adjust in a relative way to the total change. This would be helpful, for example, when you need to increase/decrease the duration of a group of the slides to match up with the audio's length. Currently, if you increase/decrease the duration of a group of slides, you have to go back into each slide that has multiple keyframes and readjust them. If we could have the choice to have the keyframes readjust relative to the increase/decrease in a change in the slides' duration, it would help to maintain the keyframes' relative positions. 3- Latch audio files in Timeline. It would be helpful to have the ability to temporarily latch adjacent audio files together. This would allow the shifting of a group of audio files together, without disrupting any crossfading you have already carefully set. Using the Ctrl key to select the audio files would be intuitive. 4- Latch keyframes together. It would be helpful to have the ability to temporarily latch adjacent keyframes together. This would allow the shifting of a group of keyframes without losing their relative positions. Using the Ctrl key to select the keyframes would be intuitive. 5- Allow the expansion of the O&A's keyframe timeline. It would be very helpful to be able to expand the O&A's keyframe timeline when you are working with multiple keyframes that are very close together, similar to how the Timeline can be expanded. Gary

PTE's video editing/ conversion process is so simple & could be used more often if the process was reversed. At the moment 7.07, the video entered into the conversion process has to go through that process whether you want it to or not. Sometimes when using videos from sources other than my camera, the process inflates the file size without any noticeable difference in quality. I would like to be able to crop etc my video then decide if I wanted to convert it as well. Most video editing programmes are complex unless you use them regularly, PTE's could be made even better iMO. Please :P/> Yachtsman1.

Hi! I have tried to drag sounds in Timeline, its works very well but I would like to adjust times by steps of 0.5 seconds (for example). I think this is only possible in Project options panel, by changing the times by hand. I suggest to define a grid or a time step, then when I'll drag sounds in Timeline it will be possible to snap to this grid by holding Shift or Ctrl key for exemple. What do you think about it?

Igor said (09 JAN 2013): The idea is really interesting, but I can't answer now. Please create a new topic for image stabilization in "Ideas and suggestions for next versions". The suggestion is to introduce in PTE (video section) an image stabilyzer. Almost all video editors have this feature. My experience shows that SONY VEGAS stabilizer is far better than any other, it has 3 stabilization degrees and it is very much effective in each degree. For people including videos in PTE projects, this feature in PTE would avoid at least 1 video conversion and consequent quality loss, because, as Igor says, stabilized image should be the original one, and after zoomings, fades, etc., it would be rendered only once (on the PTE converted video file), or so I understood. Jose

I wonder if the behaviour that I am experiencing when switching between the Slides view and the Timeline view is the most appropriate. Consider the following two sequences of actions: Sequence of actions 1: I am working in the normal Slides view I use the "triangle" icon to switch to Fullscreen mode of the Slides view I switch to the Timeline view Sequence of actions 2: I am working in the normal Timeline view I use the "triangle" icon to switch to Fullscreen mode of the Timeline view I switch to the Slides view In both cases, the final action reverts to normal mode on the selected view; it does not preserve the fact that I am working in Fullscreen mode. The question I am asking myself is: should it preserve the Fullscreen mode? I've started this topic to see what thoughts others have on this subject. regards, Peter

I recently dipped my toe into the screen capture software fountain. I have tried 3 versions, Camtasia 8 came out head & shoulders above the three I tried. Unfortunately PTE's video conversion system (7.07) will not accept any of those I have tried without upsetting the original video to the extent that it becomes unusable without running the video through a third party software. So what I'm asking for is for PTE to increase the range of video codecs it accepts & to include videos from video capture software. Camtasia now records at 30FPS giving a much clearer picture than the others I have seen, I believe the codec is TSC2. Yachtsman1

Slideshows that contain static images would benefit from variable frame rate video export. File size should be smaller than fixed frame rate video. Wiki Variable frame rate MPEG-4 Allows variable frame rate Thanks, Tom

My #1 Suggestion would be to make picstoexe compatible with Blu-Ray and Blu-Ray burners. Most of my clients who purchase slideshows from us are now using Blu-Ray format. I mean i can have the program create an .iso file and use imageburn to create the disk but it would be nice and much easier to have the burning feature within the program.

The standard time that the clone of a keyframe advances in O/A appears to be 0.500 seconds. I want to clone keyframes numerous times by the same amount to match the beat of music. Is it possible the set the clone keyframe advance time to a different value other than 0.500? I know there are a few ways of repositioning the individual keyframes with Keyframe time, Shift keyframe, etc but they are very time consuming if a lot of cloning is required with a fixed advance. If there is no easy way in any "settings", can the advance value be changed in the PTE programme? Roger

Igor I would like to ask you to re-think your decision to hide the icon away that will easily start a slide show from any highlighted image. I have been making a couple of slide shows recently so I have been putting 7.5 to a good test. As usual I find myself wishing to do a full screen preview from a cetain image dozens, if not a hundred times during the production. Am I unique in doing this? I doubt it, but the button to allow that does not even show untill you access the options to display it. Yes, I appreciate Ctrl+R does the same thing, but I make this point for others, not me or the faithful. Although, having said that, when you work with a graphics tablet rather than a mouse. A button to tap is sometimes more convenient than Ctrl+R In my view, that button to start a slide show from a select image should be big and bold and up front where even the most innexperineced user will see it. Our main working area is along the bottom third of the screen and that is where it should be along with the main preview button. IMHO of course :rolleyes:/>/> PS. there still seesm to be a visual issue with the mouse pointer in the Objects and animation screen. There has been little mention of this so I am unsure if it is work in progress or it's been missed. I have recreated it on 3 separrate PC's and reported it in another thread.

Greetings, Maybe it can be done now, but I can not see how. I have 3 audio tracks that I have positioned just right, except that I want to nudge them slightly, as a group, without interupting the careful crossfading and customization that I have made to all of the audio tracks. So my suggestion is to be able to highlight the audio tracks (as we can do with files) and then use the mouse or arrow keys to move them all together as one track. Perhaps there could be an specific amount of time that can be selected to move the selected tracks per left/right arrow click. Gary