jevans

This discussion and some recent similar posts illustrates the difficulties that can occur as software becomes more and more complex. PTE is now so complex and flexible that there are so many different ways to acheive a final result. This means that users may have many different requirements and, if Igor was to implement all of these it might drastically reduce the product's usability. In this thread, the possibility to move clips from one track to another using either dragging from a track on the timeline or by dragging a track in the in the Project/audio window is being debated. Rather than having multiple ways to acheive a function perhaps the most important requirement is to have a simple easy to understand procedure. For myself, looking at the timeline whilst moving a clip from one track to another seems to be the most straightforward method and I cannot envisage why I would want to do this in the Poject/Audio tab.

Thanks David. That does the trick

I have a 10 sec section of video which I wish to add to an image, together with some other still images. At the moment, the video plays immediately the slide starts. Is it possible to delay the start of the video until part way through the slide time. I can acheive this effect by using duplicate slides, but wondered whether the start of the video can be delayed.

I think Eric has a good point. If you want to change the opacity of an object, the drop-down box appears opposite the "Blur" adjustment button. Obviously the user knows that they are trying to change the opacity, but at a quick look, it appears that you are adjusting the blur. However there is a limited amount of space for the toolbar and you would not want to reduce the area for adding additional images/objects

Hi Lin, Thanks for that explanation. Somehow in your demo on my machine the text still seems to have a 3D appearance even when the cube is face on (obviously not true!). But after experimentation I see now that it is just the distance between the objects on the Y axis that gives the illusion. Whilst most of my shows are just straightforward and I tend to rely on the quality of the images and perhaps also the story for the main impact, I must lok at some of your tutorials again as the example shows you are posting have some very attractive effects which I am sure can be used to enhance the overall presentation. Thanks again. Best regards Jeff

Hi Lin, Glad to see you are still keeping up your very high standard of PTE function demonstrations. This is very impressive and it runs as smooth as butter on my machine. I am just getting to grips with all of the additional features of Version 8.0. How did you make the text stand out from the cube background. I assume it is a function of the 3D parametes but, experimenting with them did not produce the result that you achieved. regards Jeff

Hi Lin, Part of the answer is that we had a major house move in 2010 which had a significant impact on the time available for photography. Also I have been concentrating on prints and print competitions and have not done any significant av work for some time. Any av work has been done with older versions of PTE which I have felt very comfortable with and have not needed to use the forum much. However as you see I have just upgraded to the latest versioin and and finding my way around. I see that the forum is just as good as ever and replies to questions received with lightning speed. Hope you are keeping well and enjoying your av work. Best regards Jeff

Hi Jill, Thanks for your quick reply. I thought it referred to animations within a particular slide. however all is now clear Jeff

Thanks Dave. sorry I should have spotted that. Thanks for your rapid reply.

Just upgraded to Version 7.5.10 and have a question regarding the "Preferences2 menu "system". There is an option to "show animation in slide list". Maybe I am missing something but this does not seem to change the appearance of the slides in the list whether it is ticked or not. What is the function of this option?

Apologies if this question has been answered before. Just upgraded to Version 7.5.10 and note that the "Publish" menu has changed and there is no longer an option to produce video output for ipad devices. I have a Samsung 10" tablet running android Version 4.1.1. Is it possible to produce a version of a PTE show that will run on this device?

Ken, Yes I have been out of circulation as far as PTE is concerned for some time. We moved house (rather traumatic) and then had a lot of work to do on the new house. So photography had to take a back seat. I am just now starting to try to do some new PTE projects and getting back into the swing of things. Nice to see that you are still around and being as helpful as always. What a good forum this is and a major support for such excellent software. Regards

Hi Ken, Thanks for the quick reply. The location on my machine is : C:\Users\Jeff\AppData\Local\PicturesToExe\Versions\7.0 That has solved the problem. I replaced the existing apr_shadows.ini with Dom's version and his shadow templates re-appeared. If you create your own template and save it, it is stored in the apr_shadows.ini file, which is where I found my test template. This location is different to Version 6.5 which is why I lost the templates. Incidently my C:\ drive is also solid state and just used for programs. Thanks for your help Ken. Regards Jeff

After a re-install of PTE Version 7 on Windows 7, I appear to have lost a folder "c:\users\all users\picturestoexe\Version\6.5" in which were storded The Dom's exellent templates for shadow text. I have created a new test template to see if this would help in locating the storage location for text drop shadow templates, but then am unable to locate the test file. Does anyone know the correct location for drop shadow templates with PTE & and Windows 7?

Dave, When I looked the bit rate was set to "(Custom, 620)". Having changed to a value in the offered list, this particular custom setting is not now visible, so I do not know how is was set to this in the first place. A possibility maybe is that I tried to install Audition 1.5 onto a Windows &, 64 bit machine and it would not insstall corrctly. Maybe in then installing Version 3.0, it ccorrupted the bit rate setting. Anyway that was the problem - an incorrect bit rate setting. regards

Dave, Well done. Almost the right answer. Yes I am using CBR but when I checked the options, I noticed that the bit rate had become set to a ridiculously high value (no idea why??). If I change it to 160 kbps, 44100 Hz (17:6:1) then the mp3 works as it should. Problem solved . Many thanks - what a wonderful forum this is. Regards

Sorry just seen this post otehrwise I might have posted my new post on mp3 and wav problems here. Please see my separate post on problems using mp3 and wav files. Maybe this is a separate problem but I have had serious problems with synchronising slide images to the project sound file and eventually had to use a wav format to get the correct result.

As a result of upgrading to windows 7, 64 bit, I have had to upgrade my audio editor from Audition 1.5 to Audition Version 3.0. If I create a project sound file in Audition and export the mixdown file as an mp3 file (mp3PRO(FHG)) which is the only option provided in Audition 3.0, the resultant audio file is misread by PTE (any version). What happens is that, for a long audio file, the actual sound gradually falls behind the point at which waveform image appears. I attach a jpg test image which shows a PTE project using an mp3 file from Audition at the 2 sec point. This shows Slide 5 at the same point as a waveform image. However if you play this, the actual sound does not occur until the position shown by Slide 6. i.e. some 4.5 secs later. The longer the sound file, the bigger the gap between the visible waveform and the actual sound occuring. I also attach a further image where I have replaced the mp3 sound file with an identical version but this time as a Microsoft ADPCM wav file. This time the sound and waveform occur simultaneously as they should. To test whether the mp3 file is valid, I loaded it into Windows Media Player and the sound occurs correctly at 2 secs. Thus it would appear that PTE does not read (mp3PRO(FHG)) type files correctly when exported from Audition version 3.0. Maybe this is a compression issue but, if so, why is the file read correctly by Windows Media Player.

Brian, You will see that Peter and Gerard have already answered your query re opening a project and I confirm that you can choose either to open and existing project or open a blank PTE project file as they describe. Further to my original query about the operation of PTE, I believe I have solved the issue of PTE locking up with a "file already in use" message. What I did was to un-install ALL PTE versions ( I had Version 6.5.8 installed previously). Then a did a registry clean and then a complete re-boot from sratch - not just a restart but a shut down and then re-boot. Then I installed Version 7.0.6 and this seems to be working correctly. There must be some conflict between Version 6.5.8 and Version 7, maybe due to the inclusioin of video file capability in Version 7, since the installation error when I tried to install Version 7.0.7 referred to to a FFMpef.dll file problem. Anyway Version 7.0.6 seems (so far) to be working correcty Regards

Some further information. Having removed all versions and installed Version 7.0.7 (by ignoring the error message during installation), I get the file conflict error message and PTE locks up every time I try to run the project from the "Preview" button or the "Toast" button. So I removed Version 7.0.7 and re-installed Version 7.0.6. This time I get NO error message during the install. So there is definatley something different between the two versions. Regards

Barrry, Brian and Peter, Thank you all for your replies. Firstly Barry. I removed version 7.0.6 and tried to install Version 7.0.7. I get the same error message. However if I chose to ignore this message then the installation completes and I can use this latest version - so far I have not detected any missing functions. However I notice that the error message contains the same type of error that I am experiencing when running PTE, i.e. file being used by another process. Brian : I understand the various points you are making but I have been extra carefull to ensure that I am not using any other process (other of course than the operating system processes) when testing PTE. When PTE locks up with the file conflict message, the only way I can unlock it is to use Task Manager and this shows only one process running. So it is either a flaw in PTE (probably unlikely) or something in my system which is causing the conflict. As I get a file conflict message when trying to install PTE, maybe it is a problem with my system. I have just managed to find a copy of PTE Version 6.5 and I get the same file conflict error when using this version. So it looks like a problem with my system. Peter : I agree with you that I want my last project to open and I do not have any problem with starting a new project if that is what I want to do. Generally I tend to work on a project for quite a long while, so opening the last version takes me straight to the current project. Regards

I have recently upgraded to PTE Version 7.06 and am getting an error which appears randomly. When trying to run a show starting from a particular slide i sometimes get the following error "The process cannot access the file becasue it is using another process" I attach a jpg image of the error message. Sometimes I can run the show from a particular slide without the error appearing. It seems to occur after I have mad a modification to the project. I have carefully checked that no other process other than operating system process are running. I am using Windows 7 Professional. Thinking that this problem might be solved by a more recent version, I checked and saw than Versioin 7.07 was available. Downloading this version and trying to install it produced an error message. I attach a jpg image of this error message and I am unable to install Version 7.07. Has anyone else experienced either of these two errors.

Do you know where the "hold timeline points" button is in Version 6.5.8? Jeff Evans

After a long break from PTE, I have re-started a project using PTE Version 6.5.8 on a new computer. In setting up my new computer (Windows 7 Professional) I found I had forgotten to copy "The Dom's" very useful drop shadow templates from my old computer. I managed to get a new copy from The Dom's web site but was not sure where to locate the ".ini" file in Windows 7. Just in case anyone has the same problem, the location for the file "apr_shadows.ini" is a follows : C:\users\all users\picturestoexe\versions\6.5 (or whatever your current version number is) Note that there is already a file of the same name in this folder so rename this if you do not want to lose the original version. Jeff Evans

Hi Peter, Of course I fully appreciate the amount of effort you have put into solving this problem and your very understandable reluctance to "reveal all". I am also grateful to you for your build hints. I will see what I can do now myself. Kind regards Jeff