nickles

Pik, I used to have the same complaint. I think your problem will go away if you put all your PTE source files in one directory for that particular show. The files should include all jpegs, and mp3s that are used in the show. You would then have a different directory for each show you make. I did a quick test of this by making a short show with music and created a *.pte file for the show. I then quit PTE and renamed the directory and moved it to another hard drive. When I opened the *.pte all worked well. Prior to version 4.40 this didn't work so well. Just make sure you put all associated files in the same directory and not some of them in subdirectories. ken

Andy, A very effective use of of a new Panorama technique (new to me, anyway). I like yor 72 degree rotation idea. A nice way to look inside a building. I would offer the suggestion that you slow the rotation some, maybe half as fast...could make one a bit dizzy. Very nice photography....and from 31 photos...simply amazing. A couple of questions: What focal length did you shoot the photos at? What tool did you use to stitch the sequences together? Very nice... Thanks for sharing your show and technique... sincerely, ken

Lumenlux: I think I'm to much of a perfectionist, although I'm far, far from perfect. I didn't post because of my misexposure when I shot that 360 panorama. Thought I might try another photo shoot of a 360 panorama with better exposure. What may appear as seams are mainly mis-exposure. hmm...may not have the time for a reshoot...may post at Bill's place anyway. NOTE: I uploaded to Beechbrook Cottage this morning. Bill should be posting when he awakes. What a nice service he provides. I hope he gets a little support from users. thanks for your comments, ken

All: In case you missed, I edited my previous post and added a link to "360degree Panorama.zip". NOTE: I uploaded to Beechbrook Cottage this morning. Bill should be posting when he awakes. What a nice service he provides. I hope he gets a little support from users. ken

A French Canadian PTE user emailed and asked if I had tried a 360 degree panorama with the PTE panorama technique. Of course I hadn't, but it got my curiosity going. I remembered experimenting with 360 degree panoramas a couple of years ago and fortunately I had retained one in my photo files. The panorama was not equally exposed in all frames but good enough for a test and fortunately the end frames matched up very well. The panorama was originally made with Canon's "photo stitch" program, that does a pretty reasonable job of matching seams, and shot with a Canon G2 camera. The panorama is quite large, 10617x1536 pixels. The hard part was determing how to crop. For a slideshow display size of 1024x768, I decided that seven(7) crops would work nicely. As 7x1024=7168 pixels, I resized the panorama to 7168x1037 pixels, which maintained the original aspect ratio. Next, I did a major crop of the photo to obtain a final panorama of 7168x768 pixels. Now I precisely cropped the seven slides, to be used in PTE, to a size of 1024x768. I put the 7 slides into PTE with a 15000ms left to right push effect and 1 ms slide duration. I also setup to "repeat show" so that it would pan forever until I hit <esc>. I included some MP3 background music...and ran the show...it worked the first time. Of course there is still the momentary pause between slide transitions but not bad. Sure wish Igor could fix the momentary pause between transitions. I remember back when I was experimenting around with panoramas, I decided that this is useless as they are to wide to print and there was no good way to display them. This little experiment has regenerated my interest, as PTE can do a reasonable job of displaying them. Just thought a few people might be interested in this little test. Update: For those interested I've uploaded this test slideshow here: 360degree Panorama I won't guarantee that the link will work, Yahoo! briefcase has admitted to a intermittent problem. Just keep trying and you might get there. NOTE: I uploaded to Beechbrook Cottage this morning. Bill should be posting when he awakes. What a nice service he provides. I hope he gets a little support from users. ken

Hello DaveG, Glad to here of your success. Did you try a pan that required more than 2 pans of crops in one direction. For instance, the old feed store, was three crops that were panned in the horizontal direction. I got the "momentary pause", when the middle crop was fully panned into view. This occured when panning left and then right. It's not obious on the last panned crop, as it must pause anyway. Just wandering if you might have found a solution to the "momentary pause". I've never used a midi on a PTE slideshow before...I noticed it blurped a few times. When the midi, BKNUSA.mid, is played on my PCs music player their was only one blip at the absolute end of the midi. I converted the midi to MP3 and used it for the PTE Panorama slideshow and it didn't burp. Maybe PTE has a problem with midis? ken

Alrobin. Thanks for your kind comments. There isn't distortion if you play a 1024x768 slideshow on a conventional 4:3 or 1024x768 monitor. The distortion comes about if you play the same 1024x768 slideshow on a 5:4 LCD flat-panel display that has been set to 1024x768 screen resolution. If you set the LCD's resolution to its native 1280x1024 screen resolution, you get black bars on the top and bottom during the slideshow, but no distortion. Unfortunately, this black bar appears between the slides during a vertical pan. The horizonatal pan is okay and has no bars between the photos. The bottom line is that if you prepare a 1024x768 slideshow and desire to run it on a LCD panel you must set the LCD panel for 1024x768 screen resolution. The distortion isn't that much, about 7%. If you plan on making a show with a vertical pan for running on a 1280x1024 (5:4) panel, I suggest you use a slide size of 1280x1024....but, this 1280x1024 slideshow may not run well on a 1024x768 monitor...I may try this and see what happens. Hey...this is sort of sounding confusing to me...if you have access to a 1280x1024 flat panel...I suggest you run PTE Panorama on it...the problem will quickly become obvious to you....just hard to explain. Hope this makes sense and doesn't add confusion. sincerely, ken

Just a Note: I tried the PTE Panorama on a computer with a high-rez LCD screen that’s set at the native(but non-standard) screen size of 1280x1024. I noticed the vertical pan ends up with a black bar between the vertically panned photos. It would work if the panned photos had been cropped at 1280x1024. I then set this monitors screen resolution to 1024x768. This fixed the black bar problem, but distorts by stretching the vertical height. This brings up a good point and one of my pet peeves. The new flat screen monitors typically have a native screen resolution that gives an aspect ratio of 5:4. This presents a dilemma as most PTE slideshows are created at an aspect of 4:3. If you play a slideshow that was created for a 4:3 aspect ratio in full screen mode on a display with a native resolution 5:4, distortion may result. The same goes for creating a show at 5:4 resolution and playing on a 4:3 monitor. I don't think the display manufacturers thought this out very well I hope Igor gives this incompatibilty some thought if he designs pan and zoom into PTE. ken

Isabel: Thanks for the link. ken

Smart Ol' Ronwil, Thought I had created a unique deal...and can't believe a UK'ers "beat me to the punch". I've packaged up all the image files, PTE files, and a PTE Panorama_help.htm file with the slideshow and uploaded to Beechbrook this morning, that explains the process. It will be renamed PTE Panorama w/PTEfiles at Beehbrook. It should provide anyone who wishes to play around with timings, etc., with my pre-made images. Ron...maybe Ken Cox beat you to the punch...he earlier mailed me that I used the "push effect". Hope Igor reads this, and figures a way around this momentary pause! sincerely, ken

Ron: I totally agree with you. I guess I got in a hurry. I've added one more music track but not removed any images. The added track is my favourite and I think that it blends in quite nicely. Bill has kindly posted the revised version. It's play time is nearly doubled....may still be a little fast...but I think it's much better. As always, I sincerely appreciate your inputs and critiques. thanks ken

Hello Isabel: I'm currently a subscriber to SBC/Yahoo DSL. I've got a premium service that gives me 260MB of storage in what is called the Yahoo! Briefcase. This has turned out to be very unreliable and Yahoo! admits to a problem (after a tedious 2 weeks of inquiry to them). I'm interested in what you are using. Do you have an adress to a Yahoo web page that describes the product that you are using? thanks, ken

Hello Everyone, Had a very nice photoshoot yesterday morning. Made a pretty quick PTE show from some of my results. I think the title shares a little of what I saw and how I felt. If you download, I hope you enjoy. It's located at Bill and Karen's place: Beechbrook Cottage ken

Okay Barry...... I think that you've totally outdone your previous work, that I've seen. A splendid show that captured my eyes and ears. Excellent..crystal clear photography. Your techniques of splitting images and bringing in multiple images on one slide frame, and then reblending them, was very artistically done. The sound was a perfect match with the visuals. You've definitely set a new standard for creativity. A show I must hang on to and study further. This show might just displace "Black Country" from the very top of my favourite PTE slideshows. Bravo! Bravo! Very sincerely, ken

bharkins: Are you pleased with the results from MS PhotoStory3. How well does the P&Z work? Does the software produce a .exe file or must you have MS PhotoStory3 installed on the computer that you run the show in? Maybe you could post an example show with P&Z? thanks, ken

I sent Granot the following E-mail and he suggested I post for comments: If the Yahoo server is up(it's been working off and on lately...it was working at the time I wrote this) you can download the short PTE slideshow here: A Short Concept Slideshow Download It's named TextSlideShowFrames. Looking for comments. ken

Yahoo had a problem....maybe it's fixed. The above Skins download link worked at 1:47pm CST....3/20/05. We'll see......... ken

My wife has been urging me do go out and do a little spring yard chores....I ran across a PBase gallery whose entry poem caught my mood. Thought there might be a few others who would appreciate. Interested? Then look here: Out and About This may be against posting rules...but what the heck. have a nice day, ken

Ok Granot: Now that I know their's a 2.0.0.9...and installed it works. A suggestion, and important there is a [?] button on MultiShow Player. When you depress this button you are advised of the version #. Could you keep that up-to-date ? Especially, when you're in the middle of betas. People expect a lot for "free" stuff don't they. I sincerely appreciate your efforts with the PTE users. Have a very nice day or night? sincerely, ken

Ron: Not sure what's going on. I use Yahoo! Briefcase...but not alot...for storing files for public consumption. I tried putting the skins in a folder last night, then it wouldn't let me get to them...and I'm the owner....I finally gave up. This morning I retried and all went fine. I tested the download post several times and all worked well...on two different computer systems. But, just now it want work for me either. I did run an up to date virus scan on the files befor uploading and all was fine. I think Yahoo! may be experiencing a "come and go" type problem. I'll try to resolve but will be happy to E-mail you the files...about 750 kb....just let me know. sorry ken

OK Heres's the Deal Granot: Go here: Windows Message As I moved down and highlighted a playlist item, I anticipated that the jpg in the text window would change in accordance with the highlighted show. This didn't happen...but when I "ran selected shows" for the highlighted show I got the Windows message. When I responded, OK, the show "50th Anniversary" ran, but just prior to running, the jpg in the txt window changed to the appropriate jpg. The same process repeated when I attempted to run another show...I get the same Windows message and must respond OK. I'm sure you can figure this one out. I do think it would be nicest if the jpg in the "slideshow information" text window immediately changed when you highleted a show in the "playlist". I suspect that LumenLux's thinking was that the jpg could give the user a sort of preview image for the highlited show...but just guessing. ken

Granot: For some reason, this feature didn't work for me...still playing around with it. Yes, I liked my wife's idea of the film frames for a txt.jpg. She came up with that following LumenLux's neat suggestion...although it means more work... I created a thread for downloading the skins. ken

Hello All..... I've created a permanent location for downloading the latest MultiShow skins here: MultiShow Skins Download Maureen Albright has also kindly offered to provide a download link for these MultiShow Skins. Maureen's download site is located here: http://www.digital-av.co.uk/ Thank you so much Maureen. Click on Skins and download zip file. When the file is "unzipped" it should create a Skins folder with Leather and Smooth subfolders. There should be 13 skins in each folder. The only difference in the 13 skins is the color or hue...the smooth skins have a smooth surface and the leather skins have a textured surface. To Use: copy (not move) the skin you wish to use in the same folder as MultiShow.exe. Then rename the moved skin, skin.jpg ... ken

I thouhgt my wife had a neat idea for a txt background. Look here: MultiShow Text Background ken

Uh! Oh! Granot: Between v2.0.0.5 to 2.0.0.6 you inadvertantly cropped the CD Image. Take a look here: CD Image Cropped on 2.0.0.6 It's fine on 2.0.0.5 Ken