jevans

This is a very interesting thread and I can see and agree with many of the views expressed. However progress cannot be halted in the computer world and there is little point in expecting development of any product to just stand still. A point that has not been mentioned is that PTE is really just a tool to enable an individual's artistic talent and photographic skill to be shown to others. However wonderful the tool is and however many features it has, it will be a failure unless used in a skillful and interesting way. The hard part is to have the imagination and photographic skill to make a presentation which will interest and impress the viewers. Fancy bells and whistles will help but are not a substitute for the former. Jeff Evans

I also agree. I have updated PTE since my original purchase and would certainly be prepared to pay for any major upgrade such as the one we are all waiting for. jevans

Hi DaveG, Thanks for response. The device you mention looks interesting and I might purchase one. However I note that on my minidisk, the optical connection socket appears to be "line in" only so I could not use this connection method to output recordings made on the minidisk to the computer which I think you were suggesting in your previous post. Jeff Evans

I would also be very interested in this solution daveg if you would not mind letting me know. Jeff Evans

Hi jeannight, You seem to have the answers now, but just for general information here are som more comments. The latest Sonic stage software provides two types of file when you download from the minidisk to your hard drive : an .oma file(which is the sony minidisk format) and a .wav file which you can import directly into a sound editor. Previously you could only have the .oma file which needed to be converted. You can get a free .oma to .mpg converter here Himdrender, Another approach is one suggested by Ken in which you connect the earphone output socket to the line input of your computer and just play the minidisk and record the imcoming sound into your sound editor. You do not mention what sound editor you have, but I recommend Audacity which is free. You also need a small add in to enable you to convert a file into .mp3 format. You can get Audacity here : audacity I use Adobe Audition 1.5 as a sound editor but it is very expensive and Audacity will do most of what you need. Best of luck with your recording Jeff Evans

Hi jeanight, This is what I use. A Sony mini disk recorder Type MZ-NH700 plus a Sony microphone Type ECM-MS907. I am afraid this combination is not cheap, about £130 for the mini disk and about £60 for the microphone. If you do decide to go down this route, ON NO ACCOUNT, buy a cheaper microphone as you will be very disappointed. Hope this helps Jeff

I fully support the comments in this thread concerning the need to prevent PTE from becoming too complex. With software development, it is always possible to think of new things to do and clever tricks to perform whislt losing sight of the main objective of the software. Jeff Evans

Hi Tim, It may be that you have slides too close together, i.e. I find I need at least 300 ms between the end of a transition on Slide 1 before starting Slide 2. On my computer, if I reduce this spacing, then the fist slide just repeats itself. Jeff

Thanks Jim, The key was that a path to the exe file is not required. I did not think of that solution. Jeff

Hi All, Thanks for all your suggestions. There are plenty of solutions there. This really is a great forum, and such a good place to get answers so quickly. Thanks again folks Jeff

I have created a number of related slide shows and converted each of them to an exe file. I have then created a Master slide show exe file with a single slide consisting of objects (i.e. titles and buttons). Each of the buttons runs one of the related slide show exe files. All this works fine as long as the various exe files remain in the same directory. However if the exe files and master exe file are copied to a CD, the buttons in the master show do not work. Obviously this is because the button links relate to the original location of the associated exe file. Does anyone know of a technique to overcocme this problem. I suppose I could burn the individual exe files to a CD in multi-session mode, then make the buttons point to the exe files on the CD and then burn the master exe file onto the CD. But I do not think this will work. What I want to do is to make sure that the Master slide and its associated exe file slide shows are always associated with each other. Any ideas folks. Jeff Evans

Has anyone else noticed how slow the forum is since the change over. Also for the last two days, I have not been able to get the forum pages at all. My browser (Firefox) just says "waiting for www.picturestoexe.com" and then "done" with a blank page. Today is the first time I have managed to log in for 2 days. jevans

Hi Manfred, I think the easiest solution to this problem is to use a sound editor such as Audacity (free) or Adobe Audition (expensive but fabulous). What I do is first to attach a blank music file to the slide show so that I can open the timeline and see what the start and finish times of the relevant slide groups are. Then I use the sound editor to place the required pieces of music at the right time points. If you do not want any music with the other slide, just add some blank music. Then attach the final sound file to the PTE show and away you go. Hope this helps. jevans

Hi Ken, Thanks for reply. I made the comment as the Help file attached to Version 4.43 only shows changes up to 4.41. But I realise that it is difficult to keep the version information up to date. Let me say that the forum is fantastic and I have had lots of help so far from members. I am retired and just use PTE for hobby work and for shows at my local photographic club. Most of the features I can manage but sometimes the more esoteric ones are more difficult to understand. Anyway, a great program and a fantastic forum which I enjoy very much. Thanks jevans

I am a relatively new user to the forum and PTE, which I think is a wonderful program. I note all the addditional features which users are requesting and think that many of the suggestions are very good. However is there not a danger that the program becomes too complex? When I was still working in industry, I had considerable experience of an in-house developed document system which the designers would keep insisting on changing. Many of the new features were very good, but in the end the progam became too overloaded with features. Also I note that the Help feature in Version 4.43 is not up to date and would ask that this feature is kept up to date with the appropriate version - particularly with the new features which have been added. I know the list of new features is posted in the forum but it would be better if this was incorporated as part of the program. jevans

Caterick, I have done a number of experiments with PTE projects burning to DVD for display on a widescree TV (16:9 aspect ratio). This is what I now do. I make all my slides 1024 x 768 as recommended for PTE. Using Photoshop, I make a slide of 1024 x 768 and create a mask in the centre of this slide whose pixel parameters are 55/55 x 973/716 (i.e. these are the co-ordinates in pixels of the top left and bottom right corner of the rectangular mask. Anything which is within the mask will be visible on a wide screen TV set to "widescreen". I can now use this mask to check each slide to see what will be visible on the TV. Of course you can use the object editor in PTE to show you the safe TV zone. However you must ensure that you set the resolution to 1024 x 768 (note: my monitor is a 19 inch LCD having 11280 x 1024 resolution so this is the default setting in the PTE object editor). The safe TV zone as shown in PTE does not seem to be correct and if you use this, you may miss a bit from each side of a slide when shown on a TV. Also, I do not use the PTE object editor for putting text or other objects onto a slide. I put the text in using Photoshop AFTER I have resized to 1024 x 768. I find that this gives me a uniform presentation on the TV wwith no problems of the text moving about the screen to unwanted positions. Hope this is useful for you. jevans

Michel, I am trying to get the effect where the transsition lasts for the whole of the slide time and then goes straight into the next slide. This is what is happening. If I add two slides each having a duration of 4 s and a transition time of 3.95 s, and then preview the show, there is a noticeable pause between the first and second slides. If I now add some blank music so I can see the timeline and I play the show from the timeline window, the timing is correct, i.e. the fist slide transition ends at 3.95 s and then the next slide plays straight away. HOWEVER, if I now close the timeline window and preview the show using the "preview" button, there is a pause between the slides. I do not understand this. Also, if having added music, you try to adjust the slide transition and timing from within the timeline window, you can get the result that the first slide shows more than once. Then you have to make a gap between the slides to make the show work properly. jevans

In reply to the questions from Igor and Michel, the files are 1024 x 768 and vary in size from about 250kB to 400 kB. My processor is an AMD Athlon XP2600 333Mhz, 512 MB L2 cache and my graphics card is a Sapphire Radeon 9200 128MB DDR VIVO. As my picture and file size are those generally recommended for PTE, I don't think that this is relevant. I would be suprised if my processor and graphics card were a limitation also. I am trying to get a number of images to follow each other quickly with long transition times for each slide. Thanks jevans

Can anyone tell me what governs the minimum time interval between slides. If I have a slide of say 2 sec duration with a transition time of 1900 ms if I try to place the next slide at 2 sec on the timeline, it sometimes repeats itself. To correct this I seem to have to increase the first slide time a little to say 3 sec to avoid the second slide repeating, i.e reduce the transition time as a proportion of the overall slide time. Is it not possible to have the transition time almost the same as the slide time? I am using version 4.42 Thanks jevans

This a quote from a previous post of mine. I have done some more tests and realise now that the safe TV area dimensioins depend on what viewing size your monitor is. My monitor is 1280 x 1024. In the object editor of PTE, this size is selected as the default option and the safe TV zone is 1150 x 892 pixels. An image of 1280 x 1024 whose content is contained within the safe TV zone rectangle will all be visible on a wide screen TV set to wide screen. However the safe TV zone in the object editor when viewed with a monitor setting od 1024 x 768 is 918 x 662 pixels. An image whose size is 1024 x 768 and whose content is within the safe TV zone will be too wide when shown on a wide screen TV. BUT, I think that anyone who has a monitor whose default setting is 1024 x 768 will get the correct safe TV zone. jevans

Hi DaveG, I agree with this comment. Before using PTE I used to do all my shows as DVDs to show on a wide screen TV (16:9 aspect ratio). I have done a number of tests to establish : a) Does it make any difference what the original image resolution is. Answer no because the DVD writing engine converts everything to720 x 576 (PAL standard) What is the actual dimensions of the required safe viewing zone on the original image to ensure that it can all be seen on the TV. Answer - too complex to state here but a 1280 x 1024 image in PTE can all be seen if it is within the boundaries of the Safe TV rectangle in the PTE object editor if viewed on a wide screen TV in wide screen mode. I think the correct answer is to use 1024 x 768 and accept that if the show is viewed on a monitor with a larger resolution ( my 19 inc LCD Ilyama has a resolution of 1280 x 1024) then it will not fill the whole screen. jevans

Hi JEB, YOur questions are interesting since I have gone down the same route as you appear to be doing. Here is my experience for what it is worth. Initially I was only interested in producing shows to burn onto DVD to show on a TV. I use Studio 8 and find it a great program. However last year I joined a local photographic club and found that everyone was using PTE and shows were projected using a digital projector. When I compared my DVD show with a PTE show, the PTE projected quality was miles better than the DVD. So then I started to use Studio 8 for DVD shows and PTE for projected shows. However this is a pain since you have to do two versions. Although I like the multiple track feature of Studio 8 ( slides, music, commentary tracks), the ability to move audio files along the track to match the images and the ability to pan and zoom, I am abandoning Studio 8 and only using PTE. What I do is this : I make up my slide show with all the images, effects, text slides etc and make sure that it runs the way I want. I then add an empty music file which allows you to use the Timeline feature in PTE. Then I record my commentary files (I use Adobe Audition 1.5 but any good sound editor will do), placing each commentary file at the correct time location for the relevant slide. I then attach the commentary files to the relevant files. Finally I choose the music and control the amplitude in Audition to match the commentary. I then replace the empty music files with the final version of the music file. I now have a completed PTE project which I can use for projection OR, I can burn a DVD using Ulead Movie Factory. The only downside of this approach is I no longer have the pan/zoom feature of Studio 8. The upside is that I only have to do the show once, there is great support for PTE (this forum is really good) and PTE is much less resource intensive than Studio 8 ( I have a good spec computer but Studio 8 seems to take ages to do anything if the show has a large number of images. I can give you some other comments about the resolution to use for your slides if you go down this route. Hope this helps. jevans

Before reading this thread, I made a post covering the same topic on the thread dealing with different screen sizes. However I think the post is relevant here also so I will repeat it below. Just some further comments regarding screen sizes for this discussion thread. My camera when set to 5 MP, gives an image size of 2560 x 1920 (aspect ratio = 1.33). When preparing images for a PTE show, I resize them to 1024 x 768. However my monitor (a 19 inch one) has a screen size of 1280 x 1024 (aspect ratio = 1.25). I therefore have 3 options as follows : 1. leave the image size at 1024 x 768 and view as a window on my monitor. 2. set the image to use the full screen in PTE (using Project Options – screen – fit to screen so that the image fills the monitor screen. 3. crop the images to 1280 x 1024 so that they fit the monitor exactly as a full screen image. I have decided, as a general rule, to use the first option. This is the recommended size for PTE and particularly for slide shows using a digital projector. I accept that viewing the show on my monitor does not use the whole screen. If I use the “ fit to screen” command, the images will fit the whole screen but at a slightly reduced quality. I also sometimes burn a PTE show to a DVD to view on a wide screen TV. Interestingly tests have shown that the “Safe TV Zone” rectangle in the object editor is exactly correct for a 1280 x 1024 image when burned to a DVD. However for a 1024 x 768 image, the “Safe TV Zone” appears to be 60 pixels too wide. I note the comments about using 1280 x 960 as the standard sixe for PTE. I will try this as it has the advantage of being the same aspect ratio (1.33) as the original phot and hence easy to resize in Photoshop. jevans

Just some further comments regarding screen sizes for this discussion thread. My camera when set to 5 MP, gives an image size of 2560 x 1920 (aspect ratio = 1.33). When preparing images for a PTE show, I resize them to 1024 x 768. However my monitor (a 19 inch one) has a screen size of 1280 x 1024 (aspect ratio = 1.25). I therefore have 3 options as follows : 1. leave the image size at 1024 x 768 and view as a window on my monitor. 2. set the image to use the full screen in PTE (using Project Options – screen – fit to screen so that the image fills the monitor screen. 3. crop the images to 1280 x 1024 so that they fit the monitor exactly as a full screen image. I have decided, as a general rule, to use the first option. This is the recommended size for PTE and particularly for slide shows using a digital projector. I accept that viewing the show on my monitor does not use the whole screen. If I use the “ fit to screen” command, the images will fit the whole screen but at a slightly reduced quality. I also sometimes burn a PTE show to a DVD to view on a wide screen TV. Interestingly tests have shown that the “Safe TV Zone” rectangle in the object editor is exactly correct for a 1280 x 1024 image when burned to a DVD. However for a 1024 x 768 image, the “Safe TV Zone” appears to be 60 pixels too wide. jevans

Michel : Thanks for your information. I now understand how to use the object editor and your suggestions work fine. Thanks again for your help.