goddi

======================== Dave and Lin, I am better understanding what is happening, now. When I did the Zoom, I used the Zoom's up/down arrows to set the initial Zoom parameter. However, when I 'moved' the map to reposition it after setting the Zoom, I just clicked and dragged the map over to where I wanted it to end up. I wasn't thinking that I was actually 'Panning' the map over to that position. So I now understand the Pan/Zoom movement explanation and see it is the combination of the two. Maybe there is a good reason for being able to select different settings for Pan, Zoom and Rotate a keyframe, but why is it not the default to have Pan, Zoom and Rotate automatically retain the same setting (with the option to undo the default), and then allow the user to be able to be override the default, if that is what one wishes? For example, if one choose Slow Down for either Pan, Zoom or Rotate, they would all change to that setting. This would avoid these 'shifting' problem without having to understand the non-intuitive way to avoid it, but allow for the flexibility that in now has. Thanks... Gary

====================== Peter, The reason I would call it a 'bug' is that the shifting does not occur if you select the Linear or the Slow Down settings, but it does in the other two options. Lin has the easy 'solution'. I just don't think users should be jumping through hoops to stop the Zoom from doing strange things with non-intuitive steps. Your steps might be a remedy but I don't want to get too complicated when trying to do a simple Zoom. Thanks... Gary

Dave, I was in the middle of making the arrow to have an Opacity of zero at the beginning and going to 100% midway. I just was not finished with it and eventually will be 'fixed'. Work in progress.... Gary

================== Greetings Lin, Well, I must have missed that tutorial. I have noticed this funny movement problem for many years. I always thought it was something I was inputting. Thanks for the tip. I tried it (setting Pan, Zoom and Rotate to the same linearity setting) and it stopped the shifting. This is a pretty strange effect and seems to be a 'bug' because who would have thought that this is the way to 'fix' the problem? It must be a technical hurdle to fix, but thanks for the work-around. Gary

Greetings, I have seen this problem before but I could not figure out where it was coming from. But now I have found what is producing it. The problem is that when I have selected Accelerate or Smooth of the Animation/Zoom, the image (the map in this example) will shift slightly to the left and then back to the right as it is doing the Zoom animation. It does not do this with Linear or Slow Down. I have attached a PTE sample with just 2 slides. The second slide is a map that I have set to Zoom with Accelerate. The shift is more pronounced with Accelerate, but it also shows up with the Smooth setting. Is this a bug? If not, how can I prevent these 'shifts'? I could increase the map's size beyond the 100% to help hide the shifting but I don't want to just mask the problem. Thanks... Gary ADDED LATER...and if you notice if you select Smooth, the map will, after shifting back to the right, makes a tiny shift back to the left at the end of the Zoom. Tortuguero-Test Animation_Jul24-2012_11-35-47.zip

============================= Greetings, I agree. Sure there are many ways to go search and create arrows and other shapes outside PTE. I, sometimes, like to add an arrow or a comment shape and have to go to the Internet to find something. It would be so nice, and convenient, to have a pallet of shapes (such as in Paint, but with more flexibility) right in PTE. This is something I have also wanted for a long time. Gary

========================== Greetings, Yes, there used to be a faint blue line indicating the end/beginning of a piece of music. Initially, I asked that it be made more visible because it was a bit hard to detect if you were scrolling too fast in the Timeline. Then it disappeared. I asked several times to bring it back but I never got any response. Maybe it is just us two who are missing it but I hope someone will bring it back!!! http://www.picturest...h__1#entry88178 Hopefully, Gary

New slideshow posting, "In Search of the Quetzal": http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/ Location: Costa Rica Year: June 2012 Aspect ratio: 16:9 Screen resolution: 1920x1080 Videos: None Size of file: 46 Mbs Run time: 3:07 Manual control (yes/no): Yes Camera and lens: Nikon D7000, 18-200mm Any other info: The "In Search of the Quetzal" is a slideshow of one morning in Costa Rica where we looked for the elusive quetzal. We were in the high altitudes, almost 9,000 feet, of the Cerro de la Muerte area. We were fortunate to find a baby quetzal who was just about to leave its nest. The father with the long tail feathers was nearby and had a beetle in his beak. The images of the quetzals were with the lens at 200mm; lighting conditions were not good; camera was hand-held. So the images are nothing to write home about but I am happy I got what I got. Hope you enjoy it. Comments and critiques are welcomed. Gary Oddi

========================================== Jill, I brought this topic up back in '08 when I mostly used Autospread because the Timeline was a bit scary at first. To have to go to Arrange All Points to actually show it it the Timeline did not make much sense to me then, and it still does not. I was a beginner then and it confused me a bit. Now, I am more into using the Timeline. But, if I remember right, even though you choose Autospread and then Arrange All Points, and the Timeline goes 'greyed-out', you can still adjust the display times of individual slides along the Timeline. My posting in '08 didn't get much attention then. Seems there is more agreement with your posting now. I tend to use the Timeline function now. I can use the Autospread/Arrange All Points just to get them spread out for the start of the processing with some music thrown in, and then I switch to Timeline for the serious processing. But I agree that beginners would not necessarily find that ticking Arrange All Points after choosing Autospread is intuitive. I certainly did not. But once you learn the quirks, one just accepts it. Learning curve... http://www.picturest...h__1#entry57219 Gary

Daniel, Quote- to have the possibility of multi soundtracks and multi sounds (comments + sound effects or others...) associated with slides by using the "Add Sound or Voice" button ; Yes. ========================================== Igor, Speaking of 'sound', have you or are you going to put in a feature that will let us adjust the volume level of the audio track from added video? Gary

============================ Joy, I don't have an answer to how you can 'lock' the music track to one specific slide. But, when I want the music to start after a slide or two, etc., I just add a silent mpg just before the music. I usually have made a few 'silent' mpgs for this use. Some a few seconds, some longer. They are easily made in Audacity and can be adjusted to keep the music to start exactly where you want it to start. Or just make one for one second and keep adding or subtracting this 'silent' mpg until it sounds right. Not an 'automatic' way but it will let you keep the music track starting where you want it to. Gary

=============================== Maureen, As usual, a great show. I agree with Morturn about seeing shows about travel. This one was special for me because I was born in Florence, right down from the Ponte Vecchio. I noticed your shots of the 11th century San Miniato al Monte church. Not too many people make the trek up to that church. It is really spectacular. A few years ago, we went to place some flowers on my brother's twin who is buried at the church and it was interesting that they have all the grave site locations computerized...helps locate them. We happened to be there for an Easter morning service in the church. Really nice. Thanks for bringing back memories... Gary

================================ Igor and Mickp, I have been getting the exact same error message when I have played the River Mouse.exe show. See here: http://www.picturest...h__1#entry95574 It always shows up at the exact same slide in River Mouse. I thought it was something in the show but no one else seemed to have be getting the error message. Using Malwarebytes, I had found a couple adware bugs and removed them. That seemed to be a fix but it might have only been a coincidence. A few days ago, Malwarebytes showed my PC was clean, but I got the error message again at the exact same spot anyway when I ran River Mouse. River Mouse is the only show that causes this strange error message. I have not run Montauban yet, but I will give it a try to see if that, too, causes the same problem. Gary ADDED LATER: I just tried River Mouse and Montauban but I could not make the error message show up...at least not yet. I have no clue as to what is going on. I have Windows7, both shows are played on the Desktop .

============================ Steve, Yes, I enjoyed the show. I also have Microsoft Security Essentials but it does not give me any alerts, even when Malwarebytes had detected some adware type bugs. PCs can drive you a bit nuts when there is no obvious explanation for what might be going on. I just ran Malwarebytes and it did not show any problems. I then ran your show again, and guess what...got the same error message. I re-ran Malwarebytes and it still does not show any problems. So, let's just chalk it up to alien activity..... I just have no idea what might be going on.... Gary

Steve, I just happened to play your River Mouse again. I got the same error message in the show in the same place as indicated in my Comment #4 above. I ran Malwarebytes again and it found a couple 'bugs' again (Adware and Toolbar type files). I removed the bugs and now your show plays just fine. It is really strange that only your show comes up with this error message and that Malwarebytes fixes it. This is not a complaint or any negative report. It is just interesting that this happens with only a PTE show and only your show and apparently only on my PC. But this is a good reminder to run Malwarebytes and other diagnostic programs to find what is lurking in the background. Gary

==================== Peter, I just had a look at the show. Really terrific. Lots of good techniques to learn from. Thanks... Gary

========================== Lin, I played your file on several players. Here is what I found: 1-Quicktime-It would not play because it said I needed the "XVID component for Quicktime". I did not download it because I wanted to first see how it played with other player in my Windows7 Pro. 2-VLC-The show looked 'fuzzy'. Played well but did not look 'sharp'. 3-Windows Media Player- It looked 'shakey'. Hard to watch. 4-Kantaris-Played well but it also looked 'fuzzy', not 'sharp'. 5-Daum PotPlayer-This player has been my 'default' player for some time. When I played your file, it looked the best compared to all the others. I actually played your file in the PotPlayer at the same time as the others to see if I really saw a difference and I did. My eyes kept going over to the PotPlayer version. Images were sharper and the colors more saturated. I don't know why there is a difference but I see a distinct improvement when using PotPlayer. See if you see the difference. Gary LATER: I just added screen shots of the white cat with the pink ribbons. One from Kantaris and one from PotPlayer. All I did was to rotate them.

============================ Ken, I installed this program and discovered that it is free (for personal use). See below: "Now TaskInfo is "Free for personal non-commercial use". Check Corresponding "CheckBox" on "Help/Set Registration Information Dialog" if you really use it for "personal non-commercial use". " Gary

========================== Barry, Yes, it is coming back to me now. I remember when I started using the Autospread that I 'complained' that the Timeline did not display the actual spreading of the slides. I now understand what Peter was saying. I have transitioned to using the Timeline more now and I forgot all the problems that I had when I was trying to understand how the Autospread function worked. Funny how you forget things that you think you will never forget. Thanks for reminding me... Gary

====================== Peter, Apparently, I am not seeing what you are seeing. When I tick the Autospread, the Timeline gets grey-out, and nothing else happens. After highlighting a string of manually coded synchronized slides, I have to select the Time Points/Arrange Selected Points to get PTE to autospread them amongst their section in the Timeline (not affecting any other slides). If I understand what you are saying, I should be able to untick the Autospread feature and all the formally manually coded synchronized sides that I just Autospreaded will revert back to where they were? I don't see that happening. That does not happen to me. As I mentioned before, it seems the only thing the Autospread does when ticked is to grey-out the Timeline. What am I missing? When I first started to use PTE, I used Autospread for every show because I did not want to deal with the Timeline. I never was able to Un-Autospread them even if I had first manually adjusted any of the slides before I did the Autospread. Are you saying that by only ticking the Autospread feature (and nothing else) that something happens (besides greying-out the Timeline)? Gary

============================= Barry, I just discovered something. After reading these posts, I went back and started to play around with the Autospread function. It seems that there has been a change to this function or I did not understand fully how it worked in the past. Now, whether the Autospread is ticked or not ticked in Project Options/Main tab, you can autospread all or selected groups of slides. If you select Timed Points/Arrange All Points, all of the slides get spread evenly over the music(s) selections. If you highlight a group of slides, and then select Timed Points/Arrange Selected Points, only the highlighted slides are spread over their own time lengths--the other slides are not affected and the ending slide ends at the original ending point. I did this with the Autospread being ticked and unticked and it did not make a difference. Perhaps this is what you were pointing at in your original post. So it seems that the Autospread function in Project Options/Main tab should have a note for the user to then go into Timed Points to actually make it happen. Seems like the only thing ticking the Autospread does is to grey-out the Timeline (?). Gary

============================ Barry, I brought this subject up back in July 2010, and got no responses. When I started using PTE, the ability to Autospread the slides over a music selection(s) was what got my attention. No other program did this at that time that I could find. But it seemed a bit quirky since you had to, after selecting Autospread, then go into Timed Points/Arrange All Points to make it actually work. Now I am using the Timeline more, but I appreciate both functions, but as it seems, the Autospread is a bit tricky. http://www.picturest...h__1#entry77713 Gary P.S. I notice that I also brought up this issue back in November 2008:

===================== Eric, Cameras are getting so complex that I never use many of their abilities. Taking a still while taking video could come in handy. My Nikon D7000 does not do that (l think), so I have used VideoPad to take a still image of a frame of my video clip. I took a beginning and an ending shot and put the video in the middle. Nice effect to use as a fade in and out of the video clip. What will they think of next???? Gary

===================================== Eric, Yes, indeed, I could not remember who or where someone pointed out about 'abrupt' starts in one of my shows. Now I remember. But I thought the 'abrupt' starts had to do with the transition from a still image to a still image, not from a video clip to a still image (or another video clip). The technique to eliminate the 'abrupt' transition is a bit different. I think once someone starts shooting stills and video, it will be a natural desire to include both in a show. And I think it can work well...it just needs some trials and errors. I am happy to hear one of my shows encouraged you to start to dabble with the video. It really is a lot of fun. Hope you have thawed out. Gary

============================== Eric, I see one technique that would improve the transition from your video clip to a still image or from a video clip to a following video clip. If you look at, for example, the transition from the swinging pirate boat video to the next still image, the pirate boat stops swinging at the end of the video clip, then it transitions into the still image. If a video clip is, say, 10 seconds in duration and you insert the video clip, PTE will drop it in with a 10 second duration. This is the problem. This will cause the end of the video clip to show a 'freeze frame' at the end of the video clip and then do the transition to the still image. This is not a smooth transition. For a smoother transition, the solution is to shorten the duration of the video clip to about 9 seconds or so, so that the video clip will continue to play as the transition to the still image comes in. It will eliminate the 'freeze frame' at the end of the video clip and show a smoother transition from the end of the video clip to the following still image, or from a video clip to a following video clip. So it might be important to be careful where a video clip is trimmed at its end. Maybe leaving a couple seconds after the point that you really want the video clip to end so you have some leeway to work with when in PTE to be able to make the smooth transition without eliminating any important portions at the end of the video clip. Gary