Conflow

Gary, 1) What Op.System are you using ? and what Windows Media-Player is installed (9 or 10 or 11) ? 2) Will your PC play a normal (Retail) DVD Film ?...(Such as you can purchase in a Video Shop) 3) Can this be played on Win-Player only ? or will it also play on the Home Cinema Program ? I ask these questions because I have a suspicion that you may be suffering from DRM 'Lockdown'... This is a situation where Win-Player.11 will only play a DVD with DRM encoding and will reject all others not DRM encoded....this is to prevent DVD copying. If you have XP-Sp3 that upgrade brings Win-Player 10 into line with Win-Player.11. (In fact XP-Sp3 monitors all PC.Ports for DRM infringements) and unfortunately newer versions of Quicktime also have DRM buit in. Just a suspicion... Brian.Conflow. P.S For those who may have this problem the "Link" and "Attachment" below may help. Link:- http://www.ultimatedrmremoval.com/

Gary & Peter Win-Media Player and Quicktime and WinAmp have a "core" Player within their Program Folder. This not to be confused with the (latest-version) of that Player which opens on your Desktop. When you select the "core" Program (select standard or compact version) there should be a Tab marked "View" and in the drop-down List you should find a Tab.."Always on Top". Make absolutely sure that 'Tab' is unticked ~ this frees up your File Associations for other Programs and Players. In fact just clear all such 'Always on Top Tabs' and you should find that the RH.Click on your selected Program will produce the RH Context Menu with a selection of "Open With Programs" ~ simply select the one you want. See "Attachment below" Brian.Conflow.

RMS and Users, RMS, you wrote:..."Do remember to turn the laptop’s volume to maximum to get the correct sound levels".. Woops !! ~ Before serious things happen this is not the correct way to get the proper levels. By turning up Laptop Volume Controls to MAX and keeping them there can seriously overload the internal Audio-Amplifier and 'blow-it' now you have a PC.Motherboard problem. (This is quite a common fault which Laptops develop if unknowingly and accidentally misused) The proper way to do this is by adjusting the (Software) 'Sound-Mixer' and keeping the Laptops' volume just audible. The "Attachment" below explains how to do this. I hope this cautionary note will help to avoid mishaps... Brian.Conflow.

Eric, My apology (brain elsewhere) ~ I had forgotten about the "Griffin IMic" ~ It has a Stereo Input-Socket 3.5mm AND a Stereo Output-Socket 3.5mm and of course it's Microphone Input. (It might be a 2nd alternative for other purposes). Brian.Conflow.

Ken, I agree with you ~ but then the same could be said for Monitors - Griffin iMics - External Hard-Drives, Amplifiers - USB Adaptors - Plug-In CD Drives...etc,etc.. It's why we have 'IEC Product Standardisation' and ISO-Regulations and you "guys" in America & Canada have some of the toughest Safety-Standards and Product Standards in the World just as we have in Europe. In this day day and age, I have no sympathy at all for any idiot who goes and buys some 'Non-Approved' product from 'EBay' or elsewhere ~ but for any intelligent Shopper there are enough 'Consumer-Regulations' covering these aspects provided a person gets advice on the products suitability for purpose, thats the Law. Brian. P.S. Thanks for the Christmas Card, that was a nice one indeed.

Now Lads, Do you not think we at Conflow Services have not already explored the 'Laptop Manufacturers Accessories Lists'??... Well surprise,surprise, most PC Manufacturers don't make their own 'AC.Laptop Power-Supplies' ...Sub-Contractors make these things for them. These Manufacturers also work in close co-operation with the PC.Battery Manufacturers. Most Laptop-Manufacturers will not invest in 'inventory' for DC/AC Inverters for Mobile use because that Market comes under International ISO Regulations, and National & International Safety Certificates and must be 'Licenced' to specialiast Power-Product Manufacturers. (Look at the Label on your Laptop Power Supply).These 'Licences' are expensive. And as far as the 'Laptop-Manufacturer' is concerned its not worth the investment in such a small Market-Sector particularily when he is going to change his 'Battery-Set' in his next years' New Model....would you if you were a Laptop-Manufacturer ?? With the majority of Mobile Electronic-Devices, its down to the Mobile-User to select a suitable DC/AC Inverter for any Application, We have been there, done that, and got the Tee-Shirt to prove it!! ~ note the Avitar. Brian.Conflow

Eric, Desktop PC Loudspeakers are 'Self-Powered' via their own Main supply and use the 'Earphone-MiniJack' on the rear of the PC - so the signal is there. Why not wire up a 'Stereo 3.5mm Mini-Jack Plug' and bring the signal to one of your Self-Powered Amps and try it out. You will have a screened cable with 2 wires. The screen is (ground) common and the 2 screened wires are Left-Signal and Right-Signal (Stereo)...should work well excepting that some Laptops have a fair amount of 'noise' on that Jack Socket...but its worth a try for the few cents involved. Otherwise its a USB Sound Device. Brian.Conflow.

Guys, Guys, Stop ! John is on the right track by contacting Maplin, they do know their Products and we also know those Products as we use them in our 'Amplifier-Systems' which we manufacture for Irish Railways and I can tell you that any well known Brand with CE & UL Labels (Underwriter Laboratories) is O.K. (Here I am refering to 12Vdc to 220Vac Inverters which will energise the PC.Mains Adaptor). John, a word of caution, do not be tempted to use small DC:DC Converters, which plug directly into the side of your PC. Such devices that convert one DC voltage into another,example:- 12Vdc to 24Vdc and visa-versa voltages. The reason being, Car batteries charge at 15Vdc and these minature Converters have 'lousy' voltage regulation (apologies) whereas your Lithium-Ion Batteries demand extreme voltage tolerence and 'step-charging' over controlled time periods. Mini-Converters can not do this job and you run a real risk of exploding the Batteries. (Sony Corporation 2006/7 had such a problem costing $20 Millions in relacement Battery & Legal costs). Hope this helps, Brian.Conflow.

John and Yachtsman, Yachtsman is quite right ~ selection of the wrong Unit can damage your PC by shorting out its AC Power Supply with an over-powerful Inverter. A 175.watt Inverter is way too powerful and will cause 'overheating' of the (special) PC Mains Adapter which leads to 'insulation-failure' and then failure of its internal DC:DC Converter and PPhoof...there goes a Laptop. Technical Most Laptops operate at 12~18.Volt DC at 3~4.Amp thats between: 36 to 72 Watts. A 75.Watt inverter (about 95% efficient) would do the job perfectly provided it has a 'Pseudo-Sine Wave' 220vAC Output. CHECK THIS IN THE SHOP and make sure it has an 'internal-fuse'. If you live in the U.K, Maplin have a few units which may fit the Bill but make sure it has an EC label and BSI and UR label. These are all 'International Safety Certs. (Price: Certified Units are quite cheap due to mass demand Production) Hope this helps.... Brian.Conflow.

Hi Gary, I have been working with Patrick "Off-Forum" with that 'fuzzy' problem and that problem has cropped up here more than once. I also had the experience in the past with 4.48 and 4.49 but overcame it by developing a 'working-technique' when Editing Images. Mostly it has nothing to do with PTE provided the working PC can be eliminated from the equation, ie:- It's working perfectly ? Patrick has a few other issues which need clearing up prior to some 'Hard-Factual Testings' and at this stage I want him to get perfect Script-Comments on to Images (Not using Pte) so he is satisfied that 'things' actually work prior to any attempt at importing those into Pte ~ then create the same with Pte. That will help by exposing any weakness in personal 'techniques' and indeed it could be a soft-bug in Pte but who knows?..as they say.."The proof is in the Pudding"...but we will sort it. Brian.Conflow.

Patrick, I have sent you a PM (personal message) ~ an EMail sent through this 'Invision-Board'. Please check your EMails ~ Inbox for this message. Brian.Conflow.

Patrick, All these 'Shots' are taken from the 'Timeline' and 'Priview' ~ they are not good ! I asked you 4 Questions and I noted your Yes/No Answers..many thanks. It seems that the 'fault' is both in the Timeline and in the Slideshow and the 'fault' is rippling across each PC as you test the Show on each one. This 'fault' can only have 4 sources,viz:- 1) The PC which makes the Show has a fault ? 2) Your 'Working-Method' has a fault ? 3) The 'Graphics-Card' has a fault ? 4) The 'PTE.Program' has a fault ? First, I propose is to check out your PC ~ the one which makes the Slideshow. ** Let me know what Make & Model of PC you are using. ** I need to know what Graphics-Card is in that PC. Then I will get back to you, Brian.Conflow.

Patrick, This is getting more complicated each time you make a reply ~ you keep changing the Goalposts!! You made the Demo-Show on a 32.Bit PC - You used Corel Draw for Scripts - You uploaded what looks like a 'Video' to MediaFire - it was not a Pte.Exe - you downloaded that and played it on your 64.PC. I only asked for a few 'Screen-Captures' of what you saw on your Computer Monitor. I sent you a download Link for a simple 'Screen-Capture Tool' for a very good reason to avoid this confusion. I'm sorry I can only help you if you do as I ask.... 1) Are you making your Slideshow on the 64.Bit PC ?...YES or NO. 2) Are you using the PTE.Slideline-Viewer (Preview) on the 64.Bit PC?...YES or NO. 3) Have you made a Full PTE.EXE Slideshow on the 64.Bit PC ?...YES or NO. 4) Does the 'Fuzzy' effect appear in the Pte.Slideline-Viewer AND in the PTE.EXE Slideshow...YES or NO. ________________________________________________________________________________ It is so simple to make a Slideshow with 4 Photographs (No Scripts) and make copies of those with Scripts so now you have a PTE.EXE Slideshow with 8 Photographs and you make this on the 64.Bit PC.Machine. The Photographs should be about 150.Kb each, and about 800x600 pixels. Now we might get somewhere provided you STOP adding complications with external Programs. Brian.Conflow.

Ken, A slip of the 'concentration' ~ I had just been using a CD-RW for a different job involving signal-aquisition from a Motor-Controller which needs to be changed regularily. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, it's been corrected. Brian.

Patrick, Are you making this Slideshow on a 64.Bit Computer ? and the fault occur's on that Computer ? And are you trying out that 'faulty' Show on your smaller 32.Bit Computers ? The reason I ask is simple, because when I ran your 'Test-Slideshow' from MediaFire every Image was out of Focus ~ what you call 'Fuzzy'~ even your script explainations were out of Focus/Fuzzy. It's definitely not the Fonts as I see you are using Aerial "True-Type" Fonts ~ so it has to be a simple problem, but firstly lets get it clear, are you using a 64.Bit PC ?. Brian.Conflow.

Diana, Christmas Present ~ HHmmm ! You could make a Folder on your own PC, call it 'Christmas-2008' then download the PTE.Program into that Folder complete with its 'Registration-Key' and then burn the Folder to a standard CD-Disc ~ put that into a CD Jewel-Case and print off a nice Label to insert therein. On the back of the Label print instructions to insert the Reg-Key. (Size of label 120x120mm) Looks really classy, and would be appreciated ~ I have done his many times with my own Slideshows but "test-it" first to make sure you have it right. Just an idea... Brian.Conflow.

Patrick, You say you are a 'Newbie' so I guess you are stuck for a few important Tool's to actually show us your problem. You will need a simple Screen-Capture Tool ot make an Image so you can post it here on the Forum You can download a simple Screen-Capture Program by clicking-on the Link below:- (It is very simple and effective) http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/DeskScan/deskscan.html Now you will need to know how to 'Upload' that Image to the Forum. Below is a Screen-Shot showing you how (Click it). (If the above does not apply to you O.K ~ other Newbies may wish to know) You may not know that there are 8.Types of Aerial Fonts and 6.Types of Courier Fonts and many of these are not "True-Type" Fonts so in many cases they are not compatible with the PTE.Program nor with some Printers this depends on National usage in different Countries. Any Font thats marked "TT" will work provided its installed on your PC. There are ways around your problem ~ such as 'Rasterisation' of the Scripts, but at this point in time it would be more useful to all of us if you could take a 'Screen-Shot' of the problem and show it as it is. Hope this helps... Brian.Conflow.

Patrick, I have 2 questions for you:- 1) Are your 'Script-Comments' in photo Gif or photo JPeg Format and then 'pasted' on to your Slide-Images ? 2) If you are using direct Keyboard 'Font Print' on to your Slide-Images what Font-Types are you using ? There are problems with certain 'Font-photos' and problems with certain 'Font-Types' and this is the reason for the questions. Brian.Conflow.

Ekle, You how did you save your project ? ~ did you simply select 'Save' where in fact you should have selected 'Save As' which creates a File called .pte within your Folder. Then clicking on that .pte Icon will always open your Show provided you have not moved anything out of the containing Folder nor have you re-named some Images within the Folder. Its always the simple thing that trips us up... Brian.Conflow.

Ray, My apology for delay in replying to yours ~ yes your statement is correct. Your Show of 645.Mb would just about fill a CD-Disc of 700.Mb (writeable size). The XP-Operating System is approx 330.Mb in size and your Show is nearly 'double' that size. Now for some statistics: Show-Size:- 645.Mb spread across 186 Images = 3.46 Mb. per Image. Anyone on the forum will tell you that those Images are 10~20x Larger than normal for a Slideshow. That Slideshow should be somewhere about 65.Mb in size, thats about 345.Kb/Image which is way more than enough for larger Screen-Format such as 1280x800 and 1400x875 (Wide-Screen 16:10 Formats) To do that you would need to re-size your Images to something more managable such as 1024x768 pixels (the standard) or perhaps a little larger to suit your PC-Monitors' Resolution. Now that you have made the Show ~and if you don't want to 're-do' it, I'm afraid you would need more Ram-Memory to execute that Slideshow whilst maintaining the integrity of the XP-Computer. Regards, Brian.Conflow.

Xaver and Ed, Xaver with respects, that Canon SX-50 has one of the best reputations with Commercial Business and Camera Clubs Worldwide. 'Technical Reviews' put it way ahead of other comparable machines perhaps your Camera Clubs' machine had an 'intermittent' Hardware defect. That particular problem of Ed's is rather unique, particularily the 'intermittency' problem and strangely enough a Google-Search has revealed nothing, no Help Questions at all. If this is a 'desigh-fault' I doubt if Canon would be of much help. Ed, you mentioned that this happened within a 'run' of 18 Shows - could you cast your memory backwards and by any chance is this happening when the Projector is red hot ??....from memory, older Pentium Processors used to go 'Awol' when the Cooling Fan became clogged...could this possibly be the problem with the SX-50?...its just a last ditch idea ? Regards, Brian.Conflow.

Ed, O.K if its not due to Transv-Pan effects it could be Raw or JPeg Compression variations across the 6 Images taken. Now I hear a 'howl' that Raw is not compressed ~ yes it is! ~ it undergoes primary compression within the Camera so that all Image's-Data fall's within the measurement range of the Photo A/D Converter (Analog to Digital Converter) in the Camera. (Its at that stage that the internal 'Digital-Exif' data is created ~ not to be confused with JPeg Exif data). Now you wrote:- "I have a PTE show that opens with a left-to-right pan through a rather large panorama stitch that I created in Photoshop from some six overlapped 10 megapixel RAW images. Ed, with respects, you are trying to create a 'Panorama' with no compression ratio correction and as far as I am aware PTE was never designed to handle that type of 'Pan' job....it was designed to 'Pan across single Images' of known Format. You already know when one makes a 'Panorama' it requires 'special stitching Software'...O.K Photoshop might do that job, but its been my experience that this is one 'heck' of job even for a (stand-alone) Panorama Program and they cost a fortune because they use special techniques to linearise variations in compression-ratios, contrast and brightness. Any variations in the above mentioned between those 6 Images will never give a homogenuous Image no matter how much you edit the final Image because the 'digital control signals' are all different ~ Been there done that and got burnt!! Why not try out (1) Single Photograph ~ Pan that according to the PTE Instructions and then see what happens. At least you will be able to arrive at a logical conclusion as to whether its the:- PC or Projector or the technique you used ! It makes sense to me.... Brian.Conflow. Below is a snapshot one of the least-expensive Panorama-Programs $80 and a Link to its Website. Just 'Google' Panorama-Photography and you will see what I mean. LINK: http://www.panoramafactory.com/

Ray, I just read your last Post, you wrote:- "...Question: The original photos inside IKE came up to 664 mb and I have dual processors with a gig of ram is that not enough to make a slide that size in mb's?".... My C drive has only 1 gig, but is 63% free....Ray are you sure about that 1 gig? Is that the size of the C:Drive or the volume of Programs on it? something wrong here!! Normally it's nothing to do with your C:Drive ~ Just simply 1.Gb of RAM is not enough to 'process' that size of Slideshow because it leaves virtually nothing left for the Dual-Processors to work with. They require +300.Mb for XP to run properly and in Vista its nearly 600.Mb. The machine is probably trying to create more 'Virtual-Memory' for you but it can't create the necessary File-Pages to generate that 'Virtual-Memory' ~ it's doing other invisible things. I bet you have an awful lot of 'Programs' in your Start Menu and there is probably an awful lot of stuff running in the background ~ this clogs up Ram Memory and gives the machine a severe dose of con**ip**ion. Hope this helps.... Regards, Brian.Conflow.

Xaver, Ed and Colin, Xaver there is an 'Opto-Electronic Effect' called Cogging which is a derivitave of the well known 'Lissajous Pattern' effect which we use to determine phase-angle of various electrical signals. You probably know about it...as you have touched on Image synchronisation in your Post. This can be 'accidentally created' with any Pan & Zoom effect in Digital Photography when a certain set of circumstances are accidentally set up, particularily with Image Panning. The "attachment" below describes how it 'accidentally' happens ~ but at this stage I don't want to go into the reasons why as it is quite complex. Its more than likely what's happened with Ed's Image Panning...I also add that this may not be clearly evident on a PC.Monitor but when the effected Image is expanded some 20x~30x it will become very visible indeed. Brian.Conflow.

Stew, Try an 'upload' one single Photograph less tha 100kB in size - JPeg Format. * If that doesn't work- Re-register a New Account with a 'different' User-Name and try an upload 1 Photograph again (as above). * If that doesn't work there is something wrong on your side of things. Select 'Tools' at the top of this Page-->Internet Options-->Security Tab-->Set it to Medium. When finished that, select-->Privacy Tab-->Set it to Medium also. Now try an 'upload' 1 Photograph ??? If it works try and 'upload' your Pte.File. If that doesn't work-->convert your Pte.File-->to a 'Video-File' less than 10mB and try that. (I vaguely remember somewhere that they are now only accepting Video-Files ??) Brian.Conflow.