goddi

Igor, Isn't it great when a problem is solved!!! I have already passed on the solution to the Invision tech people. They said "Thanks". And a big Thanks to you for leading me to the solution! Gary ===================

Igor... Success!!!!!!! Problem Solved!!!!!! I went ahead and fiddled around with the Tools/Add-on extensions. I found out that when I disabled the "AutocompletePro 1.11' add-on, the problem disappeared!!!!! I think it might be conflicting with the newer versions of Firefox and the Invision Power board software. Thanks a million for pointing me in the right direction. It was driving me insane!!! Funny that it only seemed to affect the Invision Power board sites. Sincerely, Gary ===================

Igor, See responses below in bold. If there are any other test to be made, please let me know. Thanks... Gary -------------------

Igor, The PTE Forum seems to be back to its normal quickness. However, the 'black box' or black overlay persists. I just upgraded Firefox to 3.6.6 but it did not make a difference. I also contacted the Invision Power tech people but they do not deal with 'users' like me, only 'clients' like you. But since it happens on their site too, I thought they might be interested. But no luck. I hope you can deal with them to figure out what is going on. Sincerely, Gary =======================================

Ronnie... Yea, I was just about to post the same 'bug'. It also has been happening to me. Gary ================

Igor, Thanks. It really will be a useful fix. When creating different outputs with different filenames from the same source file, it will reduce the confusion and save time to be able to name each file before it is created. Sincerely, Gary ===========================

Igor, Back in March 2010, I brought up the problem of not being able to input a filename in the Output Folder window just before starting the Convert process in 'Create HD Video for PC and Mac' process. You stated that it would be taken care of in the upcoming versions. If I am not mistaken, it has not. When a filename is put in the box, the Create process will go through, but in the end, the file does not get created. Actually, nothing shows up. Will this problem be addressed? http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11499&st=0&p=74464&hl=+output%20+folder&fromsearch=1entry74464 Gary

Peter, Well, I was gone for 3 weeks so I ran the Windows updates and, I think, a Firefox update. I am running FF 3.6.4. Things happen so fast, I can not remember any other changes. I've ran all my virus checkers, registry cleaners, etc., etc... It is strange that Igor's fix changed the black box from being able to get scrolled out of the way to becomming frozen in place. I have tried many other forums but only PTE (and Invisions) site does this. I am running Windows 7 Professional. I seem to have a knack for being the 'only one'. Gary ========================

Igor, The Forum seems to be back to being responsive and quick. However it is worse as far as the 'black box' problem that I am experiencing. When I started to get this black box effect, it only covered up the initial posting's space. I could at least scroll down to see the other postings. The black box space would scroll up and out of the way. Now, the black box is frozen in place and I can only see about 2 or 3 lines of any posting below the black box space. As I try to scroll down, the black box does not move; it is frozen in place. I only have a 2 or 3 line space at the bottom that allows text to appear as I scroll down. This is happening only with my Firefox. I am responding with my IE which does not exhibit this black box problem. I have tried several other versions of Firefox but the black box persists in any version of FF that I have tried. This only started recently...it think after a Firefox update was run. Gary Added later: I noticed that when I click on the Firefox's "Reload current page" icon, the black box disappears quickly but immediately returns. Added even later: I wanted to see what would happen if I visited another site that runs the same Invision Power Board. So I went to the Gallery site of Invision Power Board. The same thing happens. I get the frozen black box. Not sure what this means. =====================================

Greetings, I have been trying to do a little more testing to see what actually is going on. Earlier I said I did not have problems accessing PTE with IE...I take that back. What is really strange is that whenever I go into any Topic, the first posting in that Topic comes up fine but within a second or so, it gets covered by the 'black box'. But this happens only on my main PC in Firefox. I overwrote my current version 3.6.4 with earlier versions of Firefox but the black box effect still happened. It doesn't do this in IE. Any ideas where this is coming from???? Gary

Greetings, Just to add to this problem.... I keep getting Time-out errors. And I am still getting the black-box problem I mentioned earlier. I am using Firefox 3.6.4. So I tried on another one of my PCs that has an earlier version of Firefox. No problems. I just tried again on my main computer again where I am having the problem with the Forum and I tried using IE to get into the Forum. No problem. So, maybe, it has to do with the current version of Firefox? And I think Firefox just issued this update and I installed it. I am not sure how to revert back to an earlier version of Firefox on this PC to test this theory. Does this shed any light on the problem???? Gary This took me 3 attempts to post....

I am attaching a screen print of what the blackbox looks like. Gary

Gerard... Thanks for the reply but I am not seeing what you are seeing. I don't see the drop-down menu you showed. I went to the Index page and clicked on Todays Active Content. I put in a range of dates. But it wants me to put in a filter word. I just want everythings between certain dates. I even tried a filter word but that did not work either. I really just want the results that I used to get when I clicked on View New Content. But worse than that, there seems to be something happening to the Forum. When I try to get in or go to a sub-forum, it times-out. When I open my post, my post shows up for a second, then it is covered by a black box and I only see your response. I wonder if their is something wrong with site. I have no problems getting into any other site. Gary =======================

Greetings, I just got back from 3 weeks in Croatia and Slovenia. So I want to catch up on topics since I missed. I notice that I keep getting a big black box at the beginning of the discussions which cuts out someone's posting. Is it me or the Forum??? Also, I know I have missed a lot of posting, I usually click on View New Content to catch up on the lasted inputs. However, even though I have missed 3 weeks of postings, only the lasted two for Today show up. Is there a way to go back by 'date' to see the postings I have missed??? Thanks... Gary

================= Daniel, Yes, there are choices in the Customize menu. But I am not smart enough to figure that out. I have stuck to using the 'HD 1920x1080' and 'LQ' (low quality) settings. It is interesting to me that I can not see any difference between the 'LQ' and the 'HQ' results. So I use LQ to save space. Maybe with heavy animation, there might be a difference, but, for now, I just use LQ. Gary

Greetings, There has been some discussion about the WD Media Player in this Forum. It will play the MP4 files that PTE can create and display it on your HD TV using RCA cables or an HDMI cable. I have one and it works very well. FYI, I just noticed that Costco now has them in their store. I couldn't find them on their on-line site. But the price is pretty good at $109.99 for the WD TV Live HD Media Player. Gary

=================== Igor, Speaking of sound, are you going to fix the problem with WAV files causing a problem in the "Create"/"Executable File for Mac" output? Or has this already been addressed? I don't have a Mac handy so I can't do a test. Thanks... Gary

========================== Igor... Just to add a bit to the previous note that the sound track gets duplicated when a text object is added. I have not tried this but I was poking around with the Music Parameter menu, not really understanding what I was doing. In 2 different slideshows, the music items in Track 1 were duplicated as Track 2. Don't know what I did but the duplication of the music tracks gets duplicated in more than one way. Gary (using 6.5 Beta 1) P.S. I also just noticed that even though the music files are still listed in Track 1 (no Track 2 at this point), the wave form show only the thin blue line...no music. What caused the wave form to disappear was I just opened the Crossfading menu and just closed it, the wave form disappeared. (and Track 1 was duplicated as Track 2 and Track 3.)

====================== Igor, My friend is out of town but I will do the test as soon as I can get to him. Gary

Greetings, I have a Samsung LED TV that will play the PTE's MP4 format directly from a USB device. You don't need a PC or a WD Media Player (which I also have and it works great). You only need a USB flash drive or any other USB device. However, I noticed that my MP4 files were not being recognized when I tried to play them on a friend's plasma TV. So I tried to find out which other Samsung TVs would recognize PTE's MP4 files. It took some digging around but I finally got an answer directly from Samsung. For those planning on getting a new HD TV and would like this neat feature, here is what they just sent to me about their HD TVs: "The units listed below will offer MP4 video playback from either a USB device or from your PC. LCD: LN26C450 through LN46C750 LED: ALL LED TVs Plasma: PN50C530 through PN63C8000." I had no idea that my TV would be able to do this. It was a nice surprise. Hope this information is of help to someone. Gary

Peter, Not to beat a dead horse (or my idea), but I must try to make my case a bit clearer. I understand that you don't use the Auto Spread method so I get that you might not be seeing what I am seeing. However I am so sure that I have a good point here, let me try to explain, hopefully, in a better way so you might be able to convince Igor how a user, like me, would like PTE to work better. And I don't think this is 'my way of working' but a way to make Auto Spread work better. Let say I put in about 169 images. And my default time per image happens to be 2 seconds. The Mini-viewer shows 5:38 (based on the 2 second interval time). Ok. Then I add 2 MP3s for a total music time of 6:32. First problem is, the Mini-viewer still shows 5:38. So most people would wonder why the Mini-viewer time does not match the total music time. Next, when I play the show in the Mini-viewer, the show stops at 5:38. All the slides have been played, but the music also abruptly stopped at 5:38, not completing the song. A quick look at the Timeline confirms this. The images were not spread over the music. Yes, the show plays correctly with all the images spread over the entire music selections when played with Preview. This corresponds to Igor's note that "This applies to created slideshow only" next to the Auto Spread menu item. However, I think that this is a deficiency in the program. The way it is now, you can not view the show correctly in an 'edit' mode while working with the Mini-viewer. You can only see the correct final results by playing the full show through Preview. Ok. How can this be corrected? Simple. You have to go into the Timeline menu and click on Timed Points/Arrange All Points. After you do this, all the images get spread correctly over all the music selections (you can see this in the Timeline with the waveform). And, it plays correctly in the Mini-view and it shows the correct time for the entire music selection. Then, if I remove a bunch of images from the show, everything is off again. So I have to, again, go into the Timeline menu, choose Timed Points/Arrange All Points, and then everything gets set correctly and plays correctly, and the Mini-viewer time is re-set correctly. I don't think this is intuitive and maybe most users would not figure this out. So my question is, why is the current way better than what I am proposing? I believe that when Auto Spread is chosen, Arrange All Points should be coupled with it automatically. I can not see a scenario that would make my suggestion unacceptable. A person can always get the images to be UN-Arranged by unclicking the Auto Spread button and put in the 2 seconds which was what it was from the start. The main idea is to be able to facilitate the editing process by being able to play the slideshow in the Mini-View correctly with the images spread over the music and have the Mini-view's displayed playing-time corrected automatically. An added benefit is to be able to see the images spread correctly in the Timeline with the waveform. I hope someone who uses the Auto Spread will chime in here and tell me if I am off-base or, maybe, this might be a good idea. Thanks.... Gary ======================

Peter, Thanks for passing this 'panel problem' on to Igor. But I don't see by anyone who uses Auto Spread would not want the Arrange All Points to be an automatic action. The nice things about these actions being automatically coupled, would eliminate the confusion of the musics' length not being correct in the mini-viewer and it would also then play correctly in the mini-viewer. Also, if Arrange All Points is performed automatically with Auto Spread, when you take a look in the Timeline, even though it is greyed-out, you can see and verify the spacing of all the images along the music's length. And even if it is greyed-out, you can do some tweaking of the images by moving them along the Timeline. And then, if you switch into the Timeline View, all the images are evenly spaced and ready for more detailed adjustments along the timeline. So I am curious why anyone who would be using the Auto Spread would not want these items to be coupled. Can you explain under what circumstances that the current settings are advantageous over my example? Thanks, Gary ==============================

Peter... I see the light! Boy, do I feel dumb. All I simply had to do was to reduce the size of the image's window in the Timeline View, which would have revealed the Timed Points icon. I forgot that this could hide part of the menu icons. Then I could hit the Arrange All Points and all is back to 'normal'. The time in the mini-viewer window now shows the full and correct 6:32 length and it plays in the mini-viewer as expected. Maybe Igor could eliminate is 'problem' by putting all of the Timeline's menu items in its own horizontal window, so moving the vertical divider bar will not hide the Timeline view's menu items (in other words, make it work as it does in the Slide view--moving the vertical window divider bar does not hide any of the menu items). Also, this necessity to have hit the Timed Points/Arrange All Points when you are using Auto Spread makes no sense to me. I have raised this issue in the past but I seem to be the only one who has this thought. I believe that when you are using Auto Spread, the Arrange All Points should be automatically accomplished so the music's length would be what it should be in the mini-viewer--less confusion. And the show would play correctly in the mini-viewer. Thought? Thanks for the help!!! Gary =================================

Greetings... Another strange thing that I don't think occurred in past versions. I have attached another screenshot. It shows that the total music length is 6:32(the first MP3 is 2:48 in length; the second MP3 is 3:43 in length) but the preview window shows the length of the show to be only 4:39 (I changed the music selection since my first post). When played in the preview window, the music cuts off before finishing the second music selection at 4:39, showing the last slide. So the slides are not being spread over the full 6:32 music's length. I have made plenty of shows in the past and I have not had or noticed these problems before. Gary

Greetings, Thanks all for responses. I don't even see the Timed Points icon anymore. I have attached a screenshot where I would expect to see it. And, nobeefstu, there isn't any 'Set End of Last Slide at End of Music'. I had looked for that too. Something must be corrupted in my version? RogerN...No, the MP3 is not from iTunes. The music plays just fine. I did run them through Audacity to remove some silence at the end of the song and Exported it as an MP3. Thanks... Gary ========================================