goddi

Greetings, I have uploaded a new show to Beechbrook. This is a show of our walk in the Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia. It is on the World Heritage list. The show is 16x9; 45 Mb; NAV bar is active; 7:06 in length. Comments, critiques welcomed. http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/downloadfile.asp?id=1879

================ Greetings thedom, Thanks for taking a look at it. I spent almost a year in Can Tho. I was a 2nd Lt. trained in the 8 inch howitzer (most accurate at the time). My specialty was the assembly of the 8" nuclear round. When we went for training, we could not take any notes or have anything to study from. So when my orders came through for Vietnam, with Top Secret clearance, I thought to myself...are we going to be firing nuclear artillery??? Scared the pants off of me. Normally I would have been assigned as an artillery forward observer (whose life expectancy was measured in day) with the South Vietnamese. But my accounting degree got me stationed in Can Tho to replace 3 officers who had been running the Officers Club. I think that job was worse than being a forward observer (...not really, but it was a pain--another story). Thankfully, I was quickly reassigned to a searchlight battery. On red alerts, we were the first ones out there shinning our lights down the runway to catch any sappers who were trying to destroy the aircraft on the runway. I also had an anti-personnel radar detachment on the Cambodian border and an anti-mortar radar detachment at the airfield. Anyway, no, I have never found anyone who was in my unit. I have hardly met anyone else who has even been in Vietnam. So the slideshow is somewhat of the only reminder of those days for me. I probably wouldn't believe it unless was able to put together the PTE show and watch it every so often...Then, I say to myself, I really was there! Gary

================================== bbdigital, Thanks for the explanation. I see what you are doing. I didn't understand fully that you were doing this 'on the fly'. My suggestion was to solve a similar problem when you were doing the New Transition not 'on the fly'. When this is done this way, you hear only the remaining portion of the Sound Comment after the end of the transition period, so you miss the first 1500ms (if that is the transition length) unless you manually reset the vertical blue line back to the beginning position of the slide. It would be nice if your problem can be fixed to work as you have suggested. I'd like my suggestion to be implemented, too, if possible. Gary

============= nobeefstu... Wow...I learn something every day!!!! There are so many 'hidden' things in PTE. I am starting to use the Timeline more now so this will come in handy. Super thanks... Gary

================ Xaver... Programming is something I know nothing about. I marvel at what these guys do. They program in things I didn't know I actually wanted! However, a good program, to me, has to be intuitive and easy to use. I love PTE, though it is not as intuitive as it could be. The two features I would like are really already there. Igor already has the guide line feature in the new audio feature. And clicking on the vertical line is already there. All I am asking is to make it easier to click on it by putting in a little icon to click on. Well, thanks for the discussion and teaching me a new trick. Gary

================ Xaver, Thank you very much for teaching me something that I had not really played around with too much. I tried it again with your directions, and it worked just fine. Yes, this is a good way to shift a slide or groups of slides. However...I would still want to be able to input a guide line as a reference point. So I could do the math as you suggest, or I could just drag the slide over to the reference point (a guide line), with no math involved. I'd prefer the 'guide line + drag' approach. Is this not a reasonable approach??? And to get the correct start time of the slide in the miniplayer, you have to manually drag the solid blue vertical line from the end of the transition to the beginning of the transition. This is why I suggested to put a small icon at the bottom of this solid blue vertical line so all you need is a click and it is accurately positioned onto the slide to the correct millisecond. Yes, you can also click on the dashed vertical blue line that on the slide but you might be off a millisecond. It would be easier to have a bit larger target to click on. So we would be able to choose to do the math, or drag. Gary

============================ Xaver, Yes, I see that you can do this and it is a neat feature. However, it is difficult to read the little milliseconds bars and add them up and eyeball the exact position. There is no way to put a marker where you want the shift to go to. I think if we can place a marker (guide line) where we eventually want the shift to go to, it would make this process much easier. I would like to be able to place a marker (guide line)at the point of a music beat while the music is playing. Then I would be able to just drag the slide or group of slides over to that marker (guide line). Those little milliseconds bars get to be a bit blurry after a while of looking at them and having a marker (guide line) to guide you would be a little bit of help. Or just being able to put markers on the Timeline as points of reference would be helpful. Gary

=================== Ok... Here's is how I see the problem. Maybe it is not what you are talking about but this is the way I have interpreted it. You are in the Timeline. You click on a slide. You add the sound comment. You want to hear it from that point but the start point of the playback is at the solid vertical blue line (the end of the transition), not at the dashed vertical blue line (where the sound comment should start). So my point was to put a little round icon at the bottom of the dashed vertical blue line that will allow you to just click on that icon to start the playback of your sound comment without you having to reposition the cursor manually. If I am in playback and I hit New Transition, the sound comment stays with its slide and plays with that slide. Maybe you are talking about something else. So please let me know how exactly are you want this function to work. Gary

============== Sure. We don't all work the same way so maybe you just have not had a similar problem that I have had. Let's say you have put in a lot of slides that are positioned to appear at the beat of the music or just spaced exactly as you want them. Then you add/delete a slide or even delete a section of the beginning part the the music. Now the group slides that were just right, are now off the beat or just not right. You then want to reposition this group of slides exactly as they are, all at once. If you highlight the first slide and then click on end, all the slides in the group are highlighted but now your view is at the end of the group of slides. You then have to drag the Timeline back to where you were and find the exact spot of the beat you want to drag this group of slides to. If you do anything besides drag them, you lose the highlighted group. So what I am saying is that it would be nice to be able to preposition a guideline at the exact spot you want to move something to, in this case a large group of slides, prior to highlighting the group of the slides. I had over 100 slides that I wanted to move all at once, without changing their spacing, up to a new point in the Timeline. If I were able to preposition a guideline at that point, it would have been much easier. I hope this is clear. Maybe there is a way to do this but I have not found it. What would also be nice is to be able to insert a guide line in the Timeline to the beat of the music as it is being played, like New Transition, but nothing would get moved yet. Basically, all I am asking is that Igor put the Guide Line function in the Timeline as he did in the new 'Wave Form and Envelope Tool'. It would be helpful. Gary

================ Peter, Yes, I see what you mean. You can now go to the actual start of the transition for a particular slide, but, as you said, it actually would show the previous slide. And this entails being very precise on where you click on the Timeline. Suggestion: Maybe a little round circle can be placed at the bottom of the dashed vertical blue line, just below the wave form, where one can click on and go to the precise beginning of that slide. This would give the user the ability to move the cursor quickly and easily to play from that precise location. You can then get to the start of the transition of a slide with only one precise click instead of two clicks (and the second click might not be too exact). Gary

==================== I was playing around with this question and it seems that the problem is that when you click on a slide, the vertical blue arrow returns to the end of the transition period, not to the actual beginning of the transition period. I added a Sound Comment to a slide, then dragged the vertical blue arrow back to the beginning of the transition (or start of the slide) and the Sound Comment played. So perhaps, if I understand the question, PTE should have the vertical blue arrow re-positioned at the beginning of the transition when you click on a slide or add a new transition to have the Sound Comment play as you want it to. I noticed this behavior when I click on slide #1 in the Timeline and want to play it from the start. It actually starts at the end of the transition period. So I have to go up to the mini-player and then drag the (what do you call it?) 'little blue knob' to the left to reposition it to the actual start of the show. Is there a reason for the vertical blue arrow to be positioned at the end of the transition period as opposed to the beginning of the slide??? Gary

=============== Peter... Ah....I didn't think of doing it backwards!!! Ok, that works to be in a better position to drag the block of slides. However, I still want to be able to preposition a guideline so I know exactly where to drag the group to (for example, the beat the music). I think this would be a good thing for Igor to add. Since he has it for the new Audio customization window, I hope he could add it to the Timeline. How about this idea??? Gary

Greetings, Thanks, Patrick and Snapcam... Talk about emotional attachment to pictures.... At first, I had put more images in the show but they might have needed some explanation or maybe they would not have an impact that I would want. So this time, less was more. Glad you enjoyed it. It is more of a cathartic experience for me. Gary

Greetings, I am now using the Timeline more frequently. First I use the Autospread function to arrange the images equally across the selected music. Then I want to be able to move a selected group of slides. However, when I do a Shift-End to select the slides, the screen shifts to the end of the Timeline and I visually lose the point where I want to shift the group of slides to. What I would like is to be able to do first is to input a guideline (like in the new Wave Form and Envelop Tool) at the point where I eventually want to shift the selected group of slides to. For example, say I want to move the group of slides to a specific point where a beat of the music is at. Is there anyway to put in a mark or a guideline in the Timeline before I do the Shift-End so I know exactly where I want to come back to??? Thanks... Gary

=================== Rick... The slides are about 40 years old. Had lots of dust and stuff. You should have seen the 'noise' on them before I spent hours and hours and hours just getting them to this point. I finally gave up and let them just look 'old'. Also, to get the file size down, I had to reduce them twice. Maybe this is the 'noise' you are talking about. But thanks for the comment. I know they were not sharp/clear as I'd like them to be but back then, I was a real novice in photography. Gary

===================== Igor, Will we get a PTE slideshow with voiceover of your speech??? :D I hope... Gary

================== Mary, Thanks for the comments. 62 and counting... Long time ago but sometimes seems like yesterday. We really had some great music back then. I think I got carried away with this font program!!! I wanted something different but maybe it was too different. Just experimenting. Thanks for the 'welcome home' Didn't get too many back then... Gary

Greetings, This is a slideshow of some slides I recently re-scanned of my time in Vietnam in 1971. Pardon the dust and scratch marks. I have already spent hours/days trying to clean it up. Just gave up. Anyway, also pardon this self-indulgent ‘it’s-all-about-me’ show. This was my first PTE slideshow years ago and I have learned much since and wanted to make it a bit better. It is long, but shorter than when I started. I tried to be brutal with the editing. For me, it contains the some of the best music of that time. 'I am still a boy and a man, I’m 18 and I don’t know what I’m talking about…got a baby’s brain and an old man’s heart…'. It really fit the experience. And caution, it contains a couple Playboy centerfold pin-ups in the background. 6:48; 48 Mb; 16x9; Nav Bar active. Comments/critiques welcomed. On Beechbrook: http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/downloadfile.asp?id=1877 Thanks... Gary

==================== Snapcam, After the record hot summer we have been having, it is a bit refreshing to watch your 'cool' slideshow. From a photographic standpoint, I noticed in the first few snow shots that the snow was not as white as it could be. When taking snow pictures, the camera tends to reduce the exposure because of the brightness of the snow. The result is the snow is not as white as it should be. So you have to compensate by opening the f/stop by one or two stops. Or, lock in the exposure on something that is closer to 15% gray which will get a better exposure to get whiter snow. Or it can be fixed, maybe, in Photoshop.... With a digital SLR, it is easier to do than with a Point and Shoot camera. I used to be more careful with exposure setting when I shot slidefilm, but I admit I tend to get forget these effects with digital, unfortunately. My other comment is about the lack of user controls. I know this is a very sensitive topic but let me bear my chest on this. Some say, let the slideshow run as the author intended with no user controls being available. The only control your show has is the right mouse button that allows advancing to the next slide. Not even a pause control was available. I always hope that if the NAV bar is not active in the slideshow, at least put in the next/previous/pause keyboard controls. This lets the viewer watch the show as created and also lets the viewer go back or pause during the show. If it is a long show, as I tend to make , it give the viewer a chance to get more popcorn, or answer the phone, without having to start all over again. It gives the viewer the best of both worlds. If we can pause/forward/rewind movies, why not slideshows??? Just my point of view... I am not telling everyone to do this but to keep this in mind. Gary

=============================== I see what you are talking about. I put together the sequence of my slideshows mostly as the images were taken. You can't really help getting pictures of the sea in many different locations. For example, we took the local bus from the Old City up to where the cruise boats come in. That's where the fish market is...and more sea. Then we walked back to the Old City...more sea pictures. We did the walk around the wall of the Old City...more sea pictures. Couldn't really group them. Then driving down to Kotor...more sea pictures. They are the same...but different. We were rushing to get to the entrance of the point where you start your walk around the city wall before it closed. These dancers/musicians came out of nowhere to put on a concert in the middle of the town. I wish I had taken better pictures, but I just stood there in their path and snapped away. Same thing with the concert pictures. We hear some music coming through a door and we poked our heads in and found it was a free concert given by the local high schools music class. It was like their final recital. You just never know when something will happen. I love these serendipity moments. Thanks... Gary

====================== nobeefstu, Yes, you are right. I was referring to an external audio editor like Audacity. I did not know you could edit the titles of menus. Cool. But I think Igor needs to review the names of many of the menu items. Many of them just don't tell me WHY I would want to use them and what they do. It would be a great help if mouseovers were developed for many of the items with a more detailed explanation as to what they would do. Thanks for the tip on editing titles, but that would come in handy only after I figured out what it did. Gary

=============== Greetings, Thanks for the comments. It is so very interesting how other people 'see' what I don't 'see'. I do appreciate the comments. Actually, I had already taken out some other aerial shots. The flight in, looking at the coast line, is so spectacular, hard to exclude. Yea, I thought of cutting one or two of the pageant images, and I should. The fish...Croatia is a place for fish. Being a coastal country, fish is king and I found it interesting to see their variety of catch. But, I don't share the feeling that verticals can't stand alone without some horizontal background. I will play around with your suggestion but sometimes I find the vertical overlaid over another image is distracting, at least to me. Interesting point, though. 25,000 images!!!! Ouch...you have a job for life. Thanks... Gary

=============== David, Yes, LONG seems to be the word. Before we invite people over for a viewing, I'll get out my machete and hack away!!! I see I am in big trouble now since I have about 20 more days of images from this trip to get into a slideshow(s). Excuse me now, I have to go find a knife sharpener. Glad you enjoyed it... Gary

================ Greetings, Actually, it would probably take me about 6 months or more after a trip to as brutal as I need to be to reduce it down to 10 minutes, and I can not argue with the need to do that. Less really is more...just hard to do it when, as I said before, having an emotional attachment to each image. Each one evokes a memory. I agree with your comments on change of pace and maybe more animations and formats. My problem is an inherent lack of creativity. But comments like yours will open my mind. I am not sure of what you mean by 'having a start and finish and not going back and forth'. It started in Dubrv. and ended in Kotor. Please explain. Thanks for the comments... Gary

=============== Greetings, Yes, I understand it was a bit long. It is always a bit difficult to get music that you can chop off or fade out to establish a particular length of a show. So I tend to fill in the music's length with images. The music is usually too long or too short. But I think music is just as important as the images for an enjoyable show. I really should make two shows...one for me, and one for the public. But that would make the decision to eliminate images even more difficult! And there is that emotional attachment to each image. And that is why I always put in the NAV bar--you can scoot through them at your speed or pause. And about the pace, it did not change at all, except for the map. It must have been a psychological effect of the different music types?? As far as your boat route, I would use the same technique that Lin and TheDom have demonstrated, and that I used. I would, however, instead of drawing a contiguous 'road' type route in the water, why not just use the round erase brush in Photoshop to make transparent dots in the water for the route??? Just select right sized eraser dot. Piece of cake! Gary