Alan Lyons

This thread proves what A/V workers have said for many years. There is no right way to compile a show. I have used all of the above and in some script driven shows I have even gone out with a shooting list which hopefullt gets shorter after each visit to the location. If your visit is a once off then as Ed said you need to have an idea of what you want to do when you get there. The only thing I have found that is constant is the really good ideas will not leave you alone untill you get them on screen. Alan

Hi all, the main advantage of a single mp3 file is, you only load one file at the start of the show and it is played for the duration of the show. If you use seperate mp3 files P2E needs to load them just as they are requires so on some machines this will cause a delay which will become audible on playback. There for the mixed track is always the better option, Alan

Winston Churchill once discribed Great Brittan and the USA as, "Two great countries seperated by the same language"

Yes Igor, I feel the waveform should be seperated from the slideline as per Gerard's screen shot. It is quite easy to relate all information down through the screen if the bar passes through all info. As I said to Maureen in email the other night, I normally stand back and let the "Beta Boys" at it, but all the inovations you have put in this time are too tempting to wait till the final version. We will soon have the best slide show software, with the best development team, and the best and friendliest forum around. Alan

Hi again, go to http://beechbrook.com/upload/ you'll need your .exe, an icon and a small image for the site, this is usually your Title slide. Full details will be on the upload page. Once you have uploaded, your show will apear on the site once Bill has had a look. Then you can hide in the wardrobe . Alan

Glad to be of service, your Ronship

Hi Colin, Welcome to the forum you have come to the right place for any problems you may have using P2E. Most have already been answered but it's no harm to start a thread and see where it leads. Your problem is that you need to "add new transitition" to the timeline beyond the last slide you had in position before you added the extra(s). You need to do this for each extre slide. Alao check the project options to see if you have requested "Leave last slide on screen" To have your show finish you need to sellect "Exit after last slide" This should put you on the right track, Best of luck, Alan

Hi Jean, Just on your image size, did you switch off "preserve aspect ratio"? this is on by default to insure that when you resize an image it remains at the same ratio, i.e. a scan from a 35mm slide would have a 3:2 ratio. This would explain why some images fit and not all. If you change one demention say the width aspect ratio finds the hight within the orignal ratio. Switch off and you have to edit both dementions, but watch out for distortion. I usually find a happy size which all images will go to without much distortion, then, resize again to your ideal width. this is done with aspect ratio on so all images get the same drop. This may not be the ideal for screen size but you will be fairly close, Alan

Not quite,Micheal, What you can do is put your sound file into a sound editor and add a silent section to the start of the file. This can be done simply by dragging the start of the sound along the sound editor's timeline to a point wher you want it. Your file then becomes the silence + your music. When placed in P2E the file will "Play" the silence sdo you can use the sync. on the P2E timeline. Alan

Al is now in Scotland, but will be back with us in Ireland on July14th. There is internet in the pubs, but I recon he is on to "wheres me Pint.com" I'll tell him you are checking up on him Alan

Hi Igor et All, I just had a quick fiddle with the upgrade on Saturday and was as always impressed. I was one who asked for the light table and it looks impressive. The zoom scroller at the bottom is great as you can fill the screen with one or many images as you work. I did however find that the way the sound wave is presented in the sync. timeline a problem. On my screen some of the waveform passed over the grey fade bars and made them difficult to see. Perhaps the wave could be put on a seperate track below the image line. A credit to Igor and his team, every time we feel the programme is at it's best they launch us on a rollercoaster ride of new toys to play with. The only complaint I have heard so far is from Al Robinson who is over here from over there at the moment. To quote "Now I'll have to re do the tutorial AGAIN!!!! . Exellent work Igor, keep us on our toes, Alan

Hi Jeanie, to answer in reverse,the download count is the number of times the show has been down loaded from the site. I agree that the download time is prohibitive for us who are using 56k modems. But if you start compiling CDs of shows for sale, you start getting into copyright laws and other legal nasties. I have given and recieved work on CDs within the forum and also the A/V comunity here in Ireland and the UK. I think this is a good way to share ideas and show your work to a greater audience. But you need to be sure of the person you give your work to, and that they will honnour the spirit in which it's given. I know Barry Beckham has CDs for sale on his site if you want to search the forum for the addredd. These include some of his fine work, but I think a "greatest hits of the forum" would be dificult to organise and control, Alan

Hi Mike, one more thing, the time line is based on the time of your soundtrack so you will need to have your sound added to your project options music tab. You should see a time line equal to your music lenght with no slides added. you then need to add your slides by clicking "new transition", or "add timed points" from the "arrange timed points" PDM. Alan

Hi Julia, just to add to whats been said so far. The image is always centered. This is to allow exact registraition from slide to slide (one of the holy grails of analogue projection). To see why this is importent, take one of your colour images and make a Black & White copy of the slide. Place both into P2E and preview. All that will happen is the colours will fade from the image! Great if you need to travel back in time . To place smaller images off center, I would use photoshop layers. This way you can check each image relative to the previous and the next before you add them to your show. The object editor does not anchor the image to the background so it's position can be moved by a change in screen resolution. See http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...t=ST&f=2&t=2088 Best wishes, Alan

Hi Eric, I agree with David when he says the transition is devided between both slides. Those of us who have used dual projectors in analogue shows will understand that the transition happens when one projector light fades and the other comes on. The time taken to go from projector A to projector B = your fade time. P2E operates on the same principle, but for calculating time I relate the fade to the slide now leaving the screen. so in your example slide1 has a show time of 6 sec. However in a script led show I use a rough guide to see where script needs to be put to match the slides and then move slides to fit the sound. Syncronization of a show is like French polishing, if you think you are going to get the prefect result on the first go, then you are bound to fail. You need to build up the polish in layers until a smooth finish is achived Alan

Hi Dave, Just Guessing but, it sounds like a processer problem. What size is the file and what format. It may play ok in other media players but, remember, P2E is running pictures as well, so this puts a strain on the processor. Try MP3 as opposed to Wav and see what happens. One other thing, are you running the show from the CD Rom drive? Alan

Hi Dean, There are many posts on the forum about this subject. But to sum up, if someone wants to take your pictures they will. Your only protection is to issue lo res images sized too small to give good prints. You can also water mark them. You should also think about the time limmit option in P2E. You should search the forum for more details, Keep banning on that coffin, you'll be let in some day Best wishes, Alan

Start with the obvious first Travis, was it the .exe file you coppied? The prosessor may be too small to handle the work needed to show your A/V. Alan

Hi Jenie, Good to see the project is moving on . Adobe Audition is very expensive and quite intensive to learn. Think Photoshop for sound. The Audacity programme much touted on this forum is a good place to start. It is easy to use and better still is free. When you are used to Audacity you can then deside if you need to pay for a bigger and better programme. To make an A/V sound track you tend to need only 4 tracks i.e. 1+2 stereo sound, 3 Voice, 4 FX so you may find Audacity is more then enough for your needs. Can I put in another vote for a mix of traffic noise and laid back music for your "Brew" show, Best Wishes, Alan

Hi All, The last time I got this Message: "Sorry, but trial period of this presentation has expired." It had nothing to do with the auto run but with the fact in the Project Options for the show in P2E, I had set an expiry date for the show. Youneed to load your .pte file into P2E and remove the date limit. Then re create the show and overwrite to your cd. What catches people out is the date here is entered MM/DD/YY and not DD/MM/YY so if you enter incorectly a show will expire on the wrong date i.e. a show you want to expire on 1st Nov 2004 if entered incorectly will expire on 11th Jan 2004. Alan

Hi All, Just on what Jeanie said about downloading. I use Zone Alert firewall, and if I choose to download a file I have to switch off part of my privacy settings. This allows enbedded thingys and whatyamaycallets from the host site. So yes downloading is a problem. I leave the setting on and only turn it off if I wish to down load from a trusted site. I get a access denied notice then I switch the section off then refresh the page. I switch on after the down load so the gate is only open for the minimum time. I think the best way to deal with these nasties is to find the people who unleash them, have them trampled by a Trojan Horse then locked in a "close place" full of nasty viriuses. I use Pest Patrol to scan my drives for these intrusions. Oh! while I'm here Jeanie, a commettee will meet over pints in Dublin to discuss your music for your stop for a brew show. It's a nasty job but someone has to do it Full report next week Alan

to put in brief terms what David is saying is when you set a task for a button to run a show, in the browse box all you need is "showtitle.exe" and not C:/shows/showtitle/showtitle.exe. What I do is set up a floder on the HD and fill it with the shows you want to link you can then test your buttons to see if the links work. If all is ok then transfare all to your CD. I would send it first to a CDRW so if there are problems you can coreect then copy to CDR, Alan

Hi Jeanie, You seem to have the concept formed in your mind of these people stopping for a brew, by the way is it tea or "falling down" brew. This alone could change your choice. You might consider starting with a hetic tune to convey a bussy day adding some street scenes to the show, then slowly fade to a restful piece like you hear in the comercials for teas or any thing to do with unwinding. Then a return to the cahos of the day afterwards. The first piece could even be sound fx with the second coming in over a scene of the first candid with the traffic out of focus in the backround. This would lead well into the main body of the show and you could use the same in reverse to get back out. Alan

Hi David and all, Pity you can't be there for a pint, but we'll raise a glass to you at some stage. You say rules, I say guidelines, how do you say tomatto? In no.2 I suggest that you don't talk over lyrics, as this confuses the listener. It sounds as if your show, David is one which the target audience will love, and what else can we hope for except to reach an audience you did'nt expect. The wife/ husband is one of the best editing tools available to us, so long as "creative differences" don't split up the band. "Perhaps that's not the intended use of PTE" Of course it is, thats like saing a piano is only for playing classics in a concert hall and not for bashing out tunes in your granny's parlor at Christmas. Now we'll just wait and see what Jeanie thinks of our meanderings, Alan

you hum it lad, and I'll play it