stonemason

I want to give the viewer of an atutomatic slideshow the ability to pause, restart, and to go forward or back one slide, with key strokes rather than showing the control panel. Is this possible, and if it is would appreciate knowing how. This is for PTE 4.48, not new version 5. many thanks Geoff

Hi John From the days of slide tape AVs one thing to try to avoid is mixing horizontal and vertical format pictures thus avoiding the cross effect on screenas one fades to the other. If you must use both formats for some reason then try to make the change from one format to the other through an intermediate square picture. Also avoid similar pictures fading through each other as this sometimes produces a blur effect rather than a pleasing "third image". Not really sure if this is the kind of info you were seeking, but it may be of some interest anyway. regards Geoff

Hi Ron Glad you enjoyed the AV. I agree with you about the slide order, and idealy I would have done that. However the shots of the vultures and hyenas were taken very early morning, and the shots of the lions around mid afternoon. For this reason the overall lighting and mood of the AV seemed to work better in the order that is in the finished show. Many thanks for the feedback, its always welcome. Regards Geoff

Hi jcsdmd Images taken with several Canon cameras show similar "resolution" issues as you describe. Go to dpreview and do a search. There was much discussion about this a while back. Geoff

My latest Audio Visual "Lions of The Massi Mara Kenya" is now at Beechbrook Cottage. I hope you enjoy it, and as usual any feedback, the good, the bad, and the ugly, would be most welcome. regards Geoff

Lumenlux your show played fine on my computer which is Athlon 2.5ghz cpu 1gb ram GeforceFX 5600 128mb graphics It was just the transision style you used which wasn't to my taste, but as I said this is very much a personal choice. Regards Geoff

Hi Lumenlux I very much enjoyed your pictures, however for me the slideshow was spoiled somewhat by the pixeling dissolve. I would have prefered a fade effect, but that is very much a personal preference. Also the cursor stayed on screen. The idividual pictures I enjoyed very much, excellent photography. regards Geoff

Thanks for the info Hawk, always as well to post warnings that you hear about even if they are proven to be unfounded. Regards Geoff

Be very wary of messenger Ron if you use it, it's vital that Anti-Virus is always up to date. People have got some potentially destructive bugs that can be traced back to messenger activity. Geoff

Ron do a search on your C drive for *.cpl to see if the individual elements of the control panel are still there. If you find any they will all run individually by dbl clicking. Also make sure that antivirus is up to date and do a full scan. Did a search and found this maybe it will help. Come back here with results of above and I'll see if I can help further. regards Geoff

I aggree with you Ron, which was the whole point of the post, I would like to see PTE remain as an exe creation programme, with the avi creation left as it is. However I wondered if it were possible to have a new dedicated piece of software that would recieve and process the avi streams from PTE, not as some people seem to think the PTE software itself modified to do more DVD work. This in my view has several advantages. Firstly that PTE and future PTE development would be concentrated on exe slideshows, with the present avi output system remaining unchanged. Secondly people with interest in DVD could purchase the new piece of software which would enable them to alter sharpness, and colour corection etc. and type of output ie. VCD SVCD or DVD. Lastly the new software would produce a standard mpg file of the type required which would be acceptable in any DVD authoring software. I have no idea if this is a feasable or commercialy viable option, but given the number of questions asked about getting slide shows onto TV viewable media, I thought it worth asking the question. I would be interested to hear Igor's views on this, be they positive or negative. Geoff

Hi John Glad you managed to get your show onto the cottage. Just finished watching it and thoroughly enjoyed it. One suggestion you may consider, personally I like to have any descriptive text at the end of the AV, and just have the title at or near the begining. Also should you ever enter AV competition then "The End" is a definate no no. A good well produced AV. regards Geoff

Whilst we wait with some anticipation for the release of PTE v5, the discussions about getting PTE slide shows onto DVD continues unabated. I include myself in the number of people who would like to see it made easier to get slide shows onto DVD, however I am begining to wonder if we are not clouding the waters somewhat. PTE is primarily a superb piece of software for creating exe slideshows for running on computers, for viewing either on a monitor or through a digital projector. I have a suggestion which Igor may like to consider, and that is to keep PTE dedicated to its core function, with the option of frameserving avi into an add-on piece of software, dedicated to PTE in which all the necessary adjustments, mentioned in other posts, such as sharpening, and colour correction could be carried out. The slideshow could then be rendered as a mpg1 or mpg2 file for use in any DVD authoring software. If Igor could create such a piece of software, I for one would be prepared to pay for this as a PTE addon for those interested in creating DVD, and would allow those just interested in exe slideshows to stick to the PTE core programme. I am no programmer, and don't even know if this is feasable, but it seems to me to be worth considering given the numbers of problems people seem to get using PTE in conjunction with various DVD software, all of which seem to vary in the way they accept input from PTE. The method outlined above would ensure that PTE and its addon mpg software always worked well together to produce the best quality mpg file possible. Geoff Just for Ken, can we now please discuss the suggestions outlined in the post

Hi John the numbers you quote are about what you would expect for zipping a 27mb file. My slideshow the river is 32.3mb and zips to about 30mb. The reason is that zip files do not compress pictures very much as by their nature jpg files are already compressed. In effect you are only compressing the music file and also the PTE file instructions. The main reason for uploading a zip file to beechbrook, is that windows, especially the xp flavours, is very picky when asked to download exe files. In addition your broadband connection will give you much slower upload speeds than than your stated speed, typically about 20% of the stated speed. Hope this is of some help come back if you need anything explained better, and I will do my best. Regards Geoff

In 24 hours 285 people have read this post, so there would seem to be lots of interest. Would it not therefore be better to discuss the topic rather than argue about where it should be? Geoff

Hi Ron I aggree with your comments about the pinned topic "How to create video". However the forums do seem to contain lots of cry's for help from people about this topic, so I think that it is good for the interaction on the forum to keep exploring it. As to where it is discussed, most people seem to ask their questions on the main PTE forum, so here seems to be the best place to talk about it. To allay any thoughts that I am pursuing some sort of crusade in starting this topic, I personally have very little interest in outputing my work to DVD, but am able to do so without very much trouble. I have for several years now produced all the AV's for one of the major slide exhibitions in the UK. Initially this was slide/tape AV but latterly has been exclusively digital, so I am a fair way from being a novice. The point of this is that when I started, and I suspect you also, help in the form of forums was not available. Now that we have this wonderful way of sharing ideas and knowledge I am very keen to encourage people to take advantage of it, either to learn, or to pass on their knowledge to others, but most of all to be involved with Igor and his superb piece of software that gives us all so much pleasure. regards Geoff

Sorry Ken you lost me what has hdtv to do with this discussion?

Sorry Ron I disagree with you as this is a discussion about the future of PTE as a software application and how users would like to see it develop, not about creating video, then the general PTE forum is the right place to discuss it. regards Geoff

Whilst we wait with some anticipation for the release of PTE v5, the discussions about getting PTE slide shows onto DVD continues unabated. I include myself in the number of people who would like to see it made easier to get slide shows onto DVD, however I am begining to wonder if we are not clouding the waters somewhat. PTE is primarily a superb piece of software for creating exe slideshows for running on computers, for viewing either on a monitor or through a digital projector. I have a suggestion which Igor may like to consider, and that is to keep PTE dedicated to its core function, with the option of frameserving avi into an add-on piece of software, dedicated to PTE in which all the necessary adjustments, mentioned in other posts, such as sharpening, and colour correction could be carried out. The slideshow could then be rendered as a mpg1 or mpg2 file for use in any DVD authoring software. If Igor could create such a piece of software, I for one would be prepared to pay for this as a PTE addon for those interested in creating DVD, and would allow those just interested in exe slideshows to stick to the PTE core programme. I am no programmer, and don't even know if this is feasable, but it seems to me to be worth considering given the numbers of problems people seem to get using PTE in conjunction with various DVD software, all of which seem to vary in the way they accept input from PTE. The method outlined above would ensure that PTE and its addon mpg software always worked well together to produce the best quality mpg file possible. Geoff

Hi LumenLux The music has been edited together from two versions of Sons Of Scotland by Mark Knopfler regards Geoff

Hi LumenLux Thanks again for your kind comments. If you would be interested I could send you the pictures which make up the storm sequence so you can have a better look at them. Regards Geoff

Thanks for your kind comments. The AV tells the story of a typical river from raindrop to the sea. The river itself is made up from images of several UK rivers, one of which is the river wharfe in yorkshire. The thunderstorm sequence was created from one image, which had varying degrees of brightness applied depending on the strength of the lightning (Lightning was generated in photoshop), and each time saved to a new image. Ron I did try slower fades, but felt that the sequence flowed better (sorry about the pun) with the fades as they are. In hindsight I tend to agree with you about the last slide, and if I revist the sequence may well change it. Hope this answers most questions Regards Geoff

My latest Audio Visual The River is available for download at Beechbrook Cottage. Please feel free to heap praise, or derision on my efforts. Seriously I would appreciate feedback, positive or negative, as its the best way to learn. Hope you enjoy it. regards Geoff

Hi John Digital rights management is a microsoft thing that is encoded into wma files as they are created to ensure that music downloaded from the web (legally) or is ripped from CD into wma format is not freely distributed. It can cause lots of seemingly random problems, and for this reason it is best to use a programme such as Audiograbber (freeware) to get your music onto the computer, and only to use mp3 format. Hope this helps Geoff

Hi John As a rule of thumb stay well away from wma files and use mp3. There can be problems with digital rights management if you use wma. Do a forum search as there has been much written about this topic. regards Geoff