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The new Bet4 update works very well now and standard DVD's can be easily produced. BUT.......... I have added a flash movie as my opening titles and using the utility provided by Boxig, it works great on the computer screen. However when I Burn a DVD (Movie Factory) it loses the .swf flash file and the animated titles do not play back. Can anyone tell me how to include all the files necessary when burning the DVD. i.e. PTE.exe and the .swf and the flash utility?

Let me explain. I know that we all are very busy with what Igor is working on but I have a project that I need some advice. I am about to end the semister at our Bible School and I want to make availabe all the lectures in audio format from the video .avi format. Today I used Roxio "Field Stream" and I did get only the audio but it seems you HAVE to use this program only to play it back. I want a program, would like it freeware, that I can do this and that the students could play the audio cd in the car or in the home in a cd player and the computer (all three) So, does anyone know of such a FREEWARE program that I can do this? Harry

After creating the AVI file, the PTE's dialogue box refers to using “Ulead DVD MovieCreator2” to burn the DVD. However, I can’t find such a product on Ulead’s site. Ulead has a product called DVD Movie Factory which I am familiar with, but I have never seen the “DVD MovieCreator2”. Is this simply a typo, my old age, or perhaps a Russian version of the DVD Movie Factory? Ray

I was trying to make an AVI with music. Using an MP3, the creation process would crash about half way through with an error message of - Access violation at address 004F017D in module 'APR.EXE'. Read of address 805EC358. The MP3 file I'm using was encoded at 112kbps, 44.1khz, 16 bit stereo with a duration of about 2 1/2 minutes. I used Cool Edit Pro to convert the MP3 t o a wave and all was well after that. This isn't a big issue as using a wave file works fine but more of a curiosity. Is anyone else having this problem or is it something in my computer? One more little hiccup I found interesting. When creating the AVI, I must go to "Custom Syncronization", click on the more button, and select "Add arranged points". Otherwise I get an error message that reads - Not enough transition points. Please add transition points for all slides. I don't get this error when I create an executable of the project, just an AVI. What is the difference?

Movie Factory 2 will recognize my music and the gradient background that I use in my project, but will not recognize the pictures, when using the PTE AVI format. Any ideas? I have successfully burned other dvd's of PTE projects when using another codec. (but not quite the quality I would like.) Frank

Well, I brought this up as part of beta testing feedback in the original beta annoucement thread, but there have been no comments. Since beta testing feedback seems to have split up into seperate threads, I started this one just to discuss aspect ratio! Here's my dilemma. All the images for my shows are scanned at 800x600. I want to keep that aspect ratio (4:3) when I burn my shows to DVD, because most of my customers still use 4:3 TVs rather than the newer, 16:9 digital TVs. I know that DVDs _can_ have that aspect ratio because I've rented many at my local Blockbuster that use it. When I produce a custom AVI at 800x600, that's what I get - an AVI with frames of 800x600 pixels. But not all those pixels are taken up by my original images. PTE is reducing the size of the actual image and putting a thick black border around them. I've burned that AVI directly to DVD using Roxio and also using Roxio after a TMPGenc encoding to MPEG2. In both cases I see the thick black border on my TV screen. Is anyone else having this problem, or have all of you who've managed to burn a DVD been using shows with 720x480 images? Is there still a thick, black border when using 720x480 images? Igor, is this intentional? If so, what is the purpose? I'd really appreciate help with this because it looks unprofessional and I don't think my customers will be happy with it. And I really can't take the time to rescan every slide to 720x480 and go through all the original digital retouching I did - that would be a 3-month project by itself!!!! Ray

Hi, I have succesful created a SVCD and DVD with beta 2, using TMPGenc. But what is the difference in the AVI-dialogue when I mark DVD or SVCD? The size of the temporary AVI-file is the same, whether I mark DVD or SVCD. Is the quality of the output file the same or is there any difference? Tripstrilles

I didn't succeed yet in getting an .avi file from PTE that can be read by either Ulead Movie Factory 2 or TMPGEnc. I have also obtained from PTE an uncompressed .avi file that CANNOT be read by any player, including WMediaPlayer, nor can be read by TMPGEnc! Do I need to change/set something specific in PTE? Do I need specific codecs or renderers installed? The error messages I get when trying to read or play the .avi files produced by PTE are: "The file format is not supported by " Windows Media Player "can not open, or unsupported" TMPGEnc "Unable to open file - File reading error" when trying to add video to Ulead MovieFactory2 I am using XP Home edition Windows Media Player series9 Directx9 Is there somebody that can drive me to the success? I am using PTE since almost three years and have really appreciated it till now.

Well, if I would have known it was going to work I would have filled the CD up with P2E presentations of VCD's It was just OK actually for my 19" TV! When I made the picture a smidge darker to bring out the color it looked decent. Now, SVCD I can't do because I need the Mpeg2 codec plug in but not wanting to purchase now. Going to use my money to increase my RAM So I was using: Gateway PII 96 RAM Intel MMX 386 hertz (whatever) But I always wanted to do P2E into VCD and keep the fades etc. Xat will do fades in VCD but you have to made all the pictures small and when the program enlarges it to fit the screen it can get sort of grotesk. Harry

Why does the PTE AVI file get automatically deleted when you click "finish?" Suppose I want to archive the PTE AVI file. Do I just not click finish, or do I copy the file to another folder before clicking "finish"? What is the best way to do this?

I have now managed to create 3 DVD's of PTE presentations lasting 70 mins, 67 mins and 63 mins. They contain varying number of sequences 8, 5 and 5 for the last one. The version of PTE used for the first 2 was beta1 of 4.2 and for the last beta 2. The method used was as follows. The first PTE sequence was loaded and an AVI saved as PAL - interlaced using the DVD'Video disc option. I then ran the Ulead Movie Factory 2 trial and added the video just saved by PTE. I then closed Ulead and opened Sonic MyDVD which came with my Sony external DVD writer (DRU-500A) which does all formats. I then loaded the same PTE file into Sonic MyDVD. Now you may ask why!!!?? Well initially I tried to load all sequences into the Ulead prog which recognised the files Ok but then fell over when trying to recode. As for the Sonic sometimes it would load one OK but failed to recognise the next one so as the computer (a 2.6 Athlon running XP) might have been confused as I also have an internal CD burner I experimented with combining both Ulead and Sonic progs and it works. I did try some of the other codecs but the quality was not good. Having successfully added the first sequence onto Sonic MyDVD I then minimised the first PTE seq and restarted another version of PTE and loaded in the second sequence - saved the AVi - loaded into Ulead -closed Ulead- loaded the second sequence into Sonic MyDVD which was of course still running. I continued this technique until I had loaded all sequences. You end up with several versions of PTE running. The quality of the result is outstanding! On my 30" wide screen TV I can easily read small text on a map from 10 to 12 feet (a couple of meters) away. The dissolves are perfect and sound from the mp3 file amazingly good. If your sequence has been done in wide screen format (1024 x 576) then it will look great on a wide screen TV. I have yet to try the results on a video projector. Watch this space! Well done to Igor and his merry band of helpers!

Finally able to try the new AVI feature...and it ain't working for me! Trying to use PTE AVI file to create DVD in Studio8 DVD, version 8.10.40, PTE versions 4.20 beta 2 and 2a. Create the AVI using the DVD Video disc option, NTSC, interlaced. Pull AVI into studio, place on timeline, go to make movie tab and set to create DVD and click Create Disc. Studio reports that it can't encode the file because it has a non-standard video frame rate. Also tried setting frame rate to 29 and same message. What's up - anyone else using Studio successfully? Dana

The new PTE avi feature has me looking more closely at Irfanview function. Although I have used Irfanview for a long time, I find there are undoubtably simple things I don't understand. Any help here would be appreciated. Initially, when I tried Irfanview to run a PTE avi file, I experienced sound only. Now I see in Irfanview that I can open the irfanview Player and that will indeed show video and sound of the PTE produced avi. But from reading the help info in Irfanview, it appears there may be a way to use a plugin so that it would be unnecessary to open the Irfanview Player. I would like to simply click on the PTE produced avi file and have Irfanview be the default player that would open and run the avi file. Related question. When downloading Irfanview I always download the "All Plugins" file for Irfanview. But how do I install the plugins? Do you need to install individually any of the plugins you desire to use? If so, I click on a selected plugin (.dll) but I get the old "open with" dialog. I can't tell if the plugins actually are activated. Maybe if no one else knows, guru can appear and explain how this should work.

Using: Windows 98 96 MB ram I have made many VCD's using Xatco so I know that this old computer can do at least that. I follow the notes Igor made and I can preview just fine and it looks good and I understand that the fades are not the best until I make the VCD. However when I burn the vcd the music plays fine but the pictures start and end real fast. One pictures after another real fast. I have in my computer upgrade to add a 64 and 128 MB to give me 192 total MB. Also, one time I brought a completed edited avi file from work and burned a vcd and the sound track was off. Any thoughts on this. I am excited about all this so I needed some input. Harry

Have a little experiment with the DVD writers? Which hardware advise ? I look at the DVD writer Pioneer A06...some know it ? Perhaps Wnsoft could give us a help ?

When trying to obtain an AVI file I get the following m essage "catCantCreareFile" and I am stopped! Thanks you in advance for your support in solving the issue. Best regards

The objective of this thread is for members to place tips for making avi's. It will be the responsibilty of the members to add/copy their experiences to this thread. When Igor gets caught up, hopefully he will agree with this approach and will make a TIP Category -- It is not intended to be a social thread -- before i start copying my entries over, Members what do you think ? ken

It's impossible now to use Ulead DVD MovieFactory2 if you want to get smooth transitions and CORRECT DVD-Video disc. Unfortunately, as we've explored, this software doesn't recognize interlaced AVI files (and doesn't allow to set it manually) and creates DVD-Video in progressive format. Such disc plays OK on most of DVD players connected to TV, but transitions will not be smooth on playback on PC or on TV & DVD players with HDTV connection. However we recommend to use Ulead DVD MovieFactory2, if your presentation has only Fade in/out effect. And if you set DISABLED "Interlaced for TV" option in PicturesToExe | AVI dialog. (You can use and another effects, but they will look not so smooth without this option turned on). If you want to write really fully correct DVD-Video disc which has smooth transition effects (not only Fade in/out and all others), please use TMpegEnc Plus (the most popular encoder to MPEG2 format) and TMpegEnc DVD Author (it allows to create DVD menu and also burns the DVD-R/RW disc). But these two programs costs $100 (if buy them together). http://www.pegasys-inc.com In comparison to Ulead, TMpegEnc Plus allows to right assign DVD-format. In case of PTE's AVI files, you should to set "Interlaced" and "Bottom field first (Field " and it will produce absolutely correct DVD-Video disc with smooth transition effects. Also you can use any MPEG2 encoder which allows to set "Interlaced" option for the output DVD-Video disc. p.s. I'm very apologize that we found this unpleasant situation with Ulead DVD MovieFactory2 too late. We even fully supported special extended AVI2 format which marks produced AVI that it consists interlaced video frames, but Ulead DVD MovieFactory2 doesn't recognize this parameter and always produces DVD disc in non-interlaced format. I've contacted to Ulead and asked them to solve this problem. Another solutution: probably we will able to write our own MPEG2 encoder which solves this problem.

Ever since the days of the Kodak Picture CD and TV player, I've dreamed of having good quality, slide show viewing on the Tv. Until now, the quality has been unacceptable and not worth the trouble, not to mention the expense, to create a CD/DVD for the tube. Well I'm happy to proclaim, that the day is finally here. Naturally, it's not computer monitor quality, but it's something that is viewable without the severe eye strain that was inherant with previous attempts, and for the majority of the non critical viewers out there, it's a welcome change to those painful group showings huddled around the puter. Many thanks to Igor, one of the most dedicated, hard working, software genius' on the planet. He's developed a piece of software thats ready for prime time! So, here are my results: Working on a 2.6g, P4, 512ram, XP Downloaded and tested a dozen or more avi to mpg encoders and came to a simliar conclusion as others....TMPEnc was the ticket for me! My workflow: 1. Select the SVCD avi option from PTE 2. Open the resulting avi file in TMPEnc and convert to SVCD/mp2 (the Wizard will lead you thru) 3. Ready to Burn! I use Nero 5.5 4. Open Nero Express, choose Videos/Pictures SVCD from the pop up and gooooo! It also helps you create a classy looking menu as well. The resulting SVCD is excellent, even at close viewing..........haven't burned a DVD yet, but with the first class SVCD results, I know the DVD will really shine! (TMPEnc is one of the more expensive encoders, but I'm sure even better results could be expected if one explored the many options offered. I relied on the default setings and the first class results were at the top of my list!) Don't know what the problem with Ulead was, I just found that this other just worked so much better, and picture and sound quality were superior! Hope this saves others in the forum time and a lot of trial CD's......I burned a bunch!!! Also, tried and tried to put my PTE.exe file on the same CD with no success. Anybody know? Anyway, hope this is helpful PIP

I am not a video/audio expert, but this is my personal "guide" that I use when I am making a SVCD! This is what I have posted at my site. Hope this helps If you plan on doing your own encoding, purchase the best encoder you can afford. I personally use TMPGEnc Plus http://www.pegasys-inc.com/e_main.html to encode my AVIs. But your perference may differ. Remember, image is everything and if your image has artifacts, blockiness and noise, it will reflect upon the quality of your message. MPEG-1 The practical limits of MPEG-1 are 352 x 240 pixels at 1.152 Mbps to 3.0 Mbps. For CDROM wide distribution, use the Video CD bit rate of 1.152 Mbps video, 224k Stereo Audio at a 44,100 sample rate. The resultant MPEG-1 files will play at 30 fps on a Pentium 120 minimum. The Video CD bit rate allows approximately one hour to be placed on a CDROM. Higher bit rates will yield better image quality, but less time on a CDROM and slow playback on older slower machines. Also, MPEG files are fully scaleable, even to full screen on a newer faster machine. Software MPEG-1 encoding from an .avi file can yield high quality MPEG-1 files if the .avi is captured uncompressed. Also, render the .avi out at the end of editing at 352 x 240 as uncompressed as possible. Digital formats can be software encoded or rendered back out the to digital tape format and encoded on a real time encoder. MPEG-2 MPEG-2 is 720 x 480 and from 4.0 Mbps to 15.O Mbps. A practical working bit rate is 5.0 Mbps, 224K Stereo at a 44,100 sample rate. Raise your bit rate to 6.0 Mbps if your files have a lot of motion, animations or detailed transitions. Bart

As the title suggests, I have created a few vcds using P2E and Pinnacle Expression. I know nothing about Pinnacle. It was a freebie with my PC. Well the vcds are terrible. Photos are blurry and distorted. I don't think it is the fault of P2E since others seem to be getting good results. WinXP, P4 2.5G, 1GigRam.

Here is what I have done so far: Made a presentation and saved it and brought a .avi file from work. I used "ahead Nero" and it converted the .exe presentation to .avi and I could preview the presentation from Nero. I went to burn without clicking finish as the instructions read. Nero was in the process of "encoding" the project and at 10% into the process which took 45 min. Just a very long process for me and at that rate of process time I could be encoding all day?!!! However, the .avi I brought over was a 25 min class which I thought that is why it is taking so long. When all this is said and done (completed) with my VCD, which is first the slide presentation and then the avi or the other way? Harry

Does one have to burn only a dvd? Can I just use my Roxio Platimum5 and burn for now a "VCD with my .avi file: (using my cd burner) Can I preview before I burn? This may be getting into a sort of upper income program for me for now. I think I am going to need a Digital Vid Camera, a program to capture my tape and edit just to get to the new P2E AVI program. And then purchase the "Ulead Factory2" and a DVD Burner I'll for now just sit back in my seat, in the background, and study the forum. But please, someone let me know if I will need all this new hardware? Harry

Maybe this new topic can focus one aspect of the many threads now going on PTE to dvd players. Igor has indeed recommended Ulead as a high quality necessary link. It may be what many of us end up using - especially if it does produce a noticably better quality. But as Rick stated, many of us would like to try the possibilities we already own or find freeware or shareware. Maybe one is even better than Ulead. I suggest as each of us try various back-ends for the PTE produced .avi we can help each other by posting both successful and non-successful experiences. My own experience so far has been with Pinnacle's Studio 8 to produce SVCD disk. I think someone has been successful with other Pinnacle products, but has anyone produced a PTE-SVCD using Studio 8? If you have, please share how. I admittedly don't know Studio 8 very well, but it appears I should be able to use Studio to take the PTE .avi file to MPEG for the SVCD. The way I have tried, Studio gives me a message The selected clip has non-standard Video Frame Rate thus cannot be encoded to MPEG. I think I might be able to try the alternate codecs but will not Igor's proprietary combination likely be better if I can make it work?

I am keen on DVD et al, as many people who are recipients of my PTE shows keep asking what about a DVD version. But I don't have a DVD burner...yet. (Hey, I still do analog 35mm versions of my PTE shows as I am not thrilled with the image quality through a digital projector) There have been some mentions of the compatibilty issues with DVDs produced from computer burners and DVD players that are bought for viewing movies on DVDs. Could someone please give us neophytes (luddites some might say ) a primer on the compatibility issues on DVD and also explain SVCD - if I have the initials right. The move to DVD is a major improvement for PTE, but the technical details need to be better explained if possible. Thanks