LumenLux

Reporting live here - - Yes, you've got it working just fine. That is the full screen running of the mpg then into the PTE. There is a clean black screen while the pte loads. (That is good that there is no glimpse of whatever else is underneath on the monitor. It might still be nice, in some cases, if the last frame of the mpg could stay on screen until, the pte kicks in - but I understand what you have explained about PTE always taking top position.) I have not been able to get the mpg to show up on my one Win98se pc. When I run your starter, the screen runs black until the pte portion is reached. I am convinced this is some graphic setup quirk on my machine, not in your mmb work. (Yes, the mpg will play by itself with Media Player and other players.) On the xp machine the whole setup runs like a charm including from HD and Autorun from CD. Thank you for your interest, attention - and the result. I think you could certainly post it for general use for those that have an occasional need for it.

You might help isolate the problem by copying your show FROM the cd to a new folder on your HD and see how it runs from there.

Hi RJM, The only way I can think of would be to also add additional sound track time. You could add "silence" as the end portion of your mp3 or wav file. In other words, if your synched show originally has 25 slides at 4 seconds each, add your last slide for 4 seconds and remodel your sound track (with the silence) so it now lasts 104 seconds instead of 100 seconds. It seems the show should then "resync" with the original 100 sliides staying as they were.

Michel, I can't go to bed without telling you how nice your show is. Wonderful photography presented perfectly! Not being able to read french, I am wondering if the photos are all by you in this show? I am also fascinated by these shots and others you take where "your" mountains in France look so much like "our" mountains in Utah. It's wonderful how these shows, forums, websites, can make us all feel like these beautiful scenes are our own no matter where they are located. Thank you for your great contributions.

Sharon, I think a program or two shared by nobeefstu and by boxig will work quite well for you. I think they are all still available on Beechbrook.com. Without looking, the name might be Autorun or Autolink. Having visited your site in the past, I can imagine your current project would be a mesmerizing presentation. Hope we can view it.

Rod - new information- Your mpg intro works on a computer here running XP home. I have not been able to make it work on my pc running Win98 SE. It may just be a problem with my graphics card or who knows. On the XP machine, with 1024x768 screen, the mpg stretches to the full WIDTH of the screen while keeping it's normal vertical size. Looks like a new wide-screen movie format. Now that your utility runs for me, I can see that there is indeed a serious gap between the end of the mpg and the start of the PTE. The gap reveals whatever screen clutter is going on underneath. So I guess there would need to be further work on the utility or maybe it could be used within a small PTE show as I have with boxig's avi utility.

Granot - not to pre-empt Sterling or others, but here are my thoughts on your "can do's" Can make full black screen under movie. I think this is important, yes. Can make AVI show full screen. This is only useful if video file is itself full screen capable. This "feature" is probably best addressed as part of your next "can do" here - Can make few defined options for AVI size which you can choose. I think full screen option and maybe three or four other common sizes to choose from. If having these options makes your program overly complicated, just do separate but identical programs for each of the sizes. Right now I have your first version and your full screen version in the same directory with my shows and I can simply choose which screen size works best for the video in question. Can keep the movie 1-2 seconds on screen after giving "Run" order to the show. It seems to me it could make sense to keep the last frame on screen for much longer. This would then accomodate a PTE show that loads slowly. It seems that it won't matter if the video stays on "too" long, because PTE will open on top and cover it until it closes. Hope this may help your good work.

I could not resist trying your good work, so I am back already. Rod - That Gspot utility is great. Simple and informative. In just a few minutes it enabled me to get a better appreciation of different avi characteristics and the visual differences on screen. The digital camera avi I was working with had 15 fps and avg bitrate 860 kb/s. A avi which I had captured from my analog video camera had 14.979 fps but avg bitrate of 9827 kb/s. And a avi captured direct from my TV tuner card was 29.9 fps and 15,741 kb/s! I was then able to run these various avi's with boxig's utility and observe visually what a difference the above stats make. As for your mpg intro utility - I have not been able to get it to work. I may well be doing something wrong - although your instructions seemed clear and simple enough. After setting up the files as you indicated, I tried it on my HD. When I run the autorun.exe, my screen is black and it appears the program is "running" but my mpg does not show up. Then after a few moments (maybe the length of the mpg which I am not seeing) the PTE slideshow does indeed appear and run correctly. I did move all the files to my root directory and the result was the same. My mpg file, which I renamed "introM.mpg" does play in Media Player. It does NOT play in Irfanview. So, as I am writing this, I am thinking maybe I have Irfanview as the associated viewer for mpg files and that I need to undo that association and try again? I will do that and let you know if that works. Or if you have any other thoughts? Granot - Your full-screen version of your avi start utility works just dandy. However, as Rod has been explaining to us, the quality of a 320 X 240 avi does not have acceptable quality when run at full screen 1024 x768. I have not run it with screen set at 800x600. So, if I want full screen avi intro to PTE, you have done your part, but I would need a higher quality avi if I want it to look decent. Or I could always tout the overblown avi as an "artsy" introduction to the slide show. Also, even with full screen version, when the avi finishes, there is a brief but disturbing view of whatever else is on the monitor, before the PTE begins. As far as I have figured out, I can only avoid this by having your utility run from an object in a small PTE show. For now, continued thanks.

Rod & Granot, I have received all your files. Now my challenge is to try them as soon as possible. Like many of us, I guess, my spurts of time devoted to PTE can not be sustained. Thank you very much for the quick response on your end.

Rod, The avi produced by this tiny digital still camera is only 320x240. When I watch it at normal (native?) size, the quality is quite good. When I view the same file at 2x, the quality is not nearly the quality that the PTE slides are. When I view the same avi at full screen, the quality is bad. Where the avi is only 320x240, the bit rate is unknown to me, but probably not very high - judging from the quality of larger view - Are there ways to convert or resize to achieve a higher quality AND larger picture? Question part 2: Is there a way to convert the avi to mpeg# and achieve a better quality larger image? Would an mpeg video work with a utility like boxig has constructed on within a container like you offered? Also, my test/learning examples have been run only from my hard drive. If running avi/pte or mpeg/pte from a CD going to shift judgement as to what method is best to accomplish what we are trying.

Rod, The avi produced by this tiny digital still camera is only 320x240. When I watch it at normal (native?) size, the quality is quite good. When I view the same file at 2x, the quality is not nearly the quality that the PTE slides are. When I view the same avi at full screen, the quality is bad. Where the avi is only 320x240, the bit rate is unknown to me, but probably not very high - judging from the quality of larger view - Are there ways to convert or resize to achieve a higher quality AND larger picture? Question part 2: Is there a way to convert the avi to mpeg# and achieve a better quality larger image? Would an mpeg video work with a utility like boxig has constructed on within a container like you offered? Also, my test/learning examples have been run only from my hard drive. If running avi/pte or mpeg/pte from a CD going to shift judgement as to what method is best to accomplish what we are trying.

Onward boxig, but you know we do feel some guilt of you working all day at your computer. But also understand the stimulation and satisfaction . As for my using your video utility "backwards" - I think you are somewhat right. But I am doing it for a reason. Of course maybe there is a better way which would invalidate my reason. By using your utility from my one-slide PTE show, the small window of the avi plays on a chosen black screen. When I simply used your utility as the starting point, the small avi window does not show well on whatever else is open on my monitor. Is there a way to use only your utility to blank the screen except for the avi window? My idea to have the last frame remain on screen so the PTE slide show can grow out of it, is my attempt to transition from the tiny avi dimensions to my normally full-screen slide show.

Ok, Granot - your video utility tests out fine for me, and has already shown great utility to me. Unimportantly, for my own use I refer to your utility as "Vidstart" Now I have a question and a request/suggestion - as you suggested/requested: If I use your utility to incorportate with a PTE show, is the playback of the avi file dependent on the PC of the recipient of the show? Will the success of the avi portion depend on what avi "viewer" is on the playback PC? The way I am using your utility right now is as follows. I have a one-slide PTE show with two button objects. The one object 's action is to open and run your "Vidstart" utility. The other button object has "exit" actiion. So the PTE oneslide show blanks my screen to black for the avi show to run. Your utility runs my avi and then follows with my PTE slide portion of the show. At the conclusion of the show, the original one-slide show is still on black screen for the user to select to "End Presentation" (exit) or to select the button to run (again) your utility and the whole show. My suggestion concerns the screen appearance at the moment the avi finishes and the PTE show begins. As I now have it, the avi ends, the black screen is vacant briefly while the PTE show starts. Can you modify your utility to hold the final frame of the avi on screen until the PTE show's first slide is on the screen? Maybe it would be necessary to have the avi final frame remain on screen during the entire PTE show, but that might not matter as long as the PTE slides are all larger than the avi dimensions. This feature would allow me to have the first slide "grow" out of the final frame of the avi and thus make the presentation more nearly seamless. What do you think?

Guido and Rod - your guidance influenced me to simply go into Google to find and install the codec that Irfanview needed to play the particular avi. By the way, the avi in question is one from the video feature of my digital still camera. The camera does not provide any player software as I now surmise that the codec is not so rare - just necessary. Now with the avi readily viewable, I have used it with boxig's nifty little video utility. Thanks again friends.

Yes Rod the avi will run on Media Player. The Gspot utility sounds like it could be useful on this and future questions. Please do send it to me. My email is available here in the forum. Thanks

With all the Irfanview users among us, I hope some of you can clarify something. When I use Irfanview to play an avi file, the "default" result on my computers is that the sound plays but there is no picture in the Irfanview window. In Irfanview "properties" I can select EXTERNAL viewer and then when I use Irfanview to play the avi file, it will open Windows Media Player as the viewer. I have "all plugins" of Irfanview in the appropriate directory I think. When I select EXTERNAL, is Irfanview using the plugin (which results in Windows Media Player) or is there a way that the plugin should be working if I have selected INTERNAL video view of Irfanview?

Granot, can you help educate me here a little further. When dealing with avi files, what is it that makes the viewable video size such a restrictive item to deal with?

You are so right Rod. Where else can we have it this good. Not only different opinions but different info. There are indeed a lot of people having a lot of fun and success with PTE. And though I may not use all that is available, I really appreciate seeing what other users do and hearing from you and others of what all is available.

Mike L Davies - I don't remember if you frequent this site or not. I hope you do, because I would like to applaud in public. What a superb presentation is your Fields of Fire. Beautiful, powerful, even enjoyable. Now if you would be so kind as to tell us a little about your fine effort? Truly, this is one of my favorites. Thanks for shareing.

Good job Kurt. Have you perfected the landing? Just for fun - how many individual frames?

Well Ken, I can only agree "partially" with you. I agree Igor's time can better be spent on other aspects. That is why it is nice of boxig to contribute his ideas as he does. Whether it is "important", is, as you know, up to each of us. I think though it is not a waste of bandwidth. As fellow old timers, you and I must realize how much we have learned from sturff that may have seemed a waste of bandwidth to someone. By the way, I thought of you yesterday when I saw a photo and short bit about how photography is prohibited of many of the bridges around the country. All your bridge work would not now be allowed! I suppose one could, in some cases, get a "permit?" Or you can reallly give someone something to worry about by sneaking around at night to get your shots.

Thank you Igor. Now let the games begin . . .

No JRR, I can't come up with any names to call you. But if I did, I might want to auto-sync the sound track that voiced the names. That way I would not take more time on the show than it was worth. I agree totally that a superb slide show normallly reaches that plateau with the absolutely critical "perfect" sound phases. But many users, and most of us fit "many" at sometime, can't justify the time and skill it takes to create the perfect show every time we have a use for PTE. PTE is so versatile that it can be a great tool for much of what we want to accomplish with any given set of photos, etc. And there are admittedly several of us who have on a given occasion taken the time to do at least a careful manual sync, only to be saddened when that very effective sync was lost when the show was run on a slower computer. "Ouch" with a well synced echo. . . .

Igor, that sounds great. I think you must also enjoy the excitement of the accomplishments and never-ending challenges? Thank you for your good work.

Mark, you are right - a very useful feature not yet available. I'm confident Igor can and will do this one. Meanwhile, one of nobeefstu's utilities (still available on Beechbrook.com I think) might help you. As to the "invisable" to the viewer, I'm not sure. It is certainly worth your looking if you have not already tried it. Then your result can remind the rest of us.