Scribe

Thank you, Lin and Ken. Both of you have been very responsive and helpful. I have been realizing for some time now that my whole system was in need of a serious upgrade. This latest experience further affirms my decision to do just that. It will take a little while to make it happen, but at least I might be able to enjoy some the newer slide shows in the meantime. Eventually, I hope to be able to contribute some of my own. Thank you again, to you both. Namas-te, Peter

Hi Lin, Yes, I realized after I had sent my previous message that I had misunderstood what RAM was being referred to. I did check the DirectX version and it is up to date - version 9.0c The diagnostic tool tells me that I have an NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64 video card, with integrated RAMDAC, and 32 MB memory.

Thank you to you both, Lin and Ken. Unfortunately, your suggestions did not lead me to understand what might be causing the problem. However, I did apparently discover a solution. Sadly, this only deepens the mystery as to the real cause of the problem, but at least I can now watch the presentations. Some specific replies to you both: Ken: I suspect the first of the two links you supplied in your second response was in error (a typo, maybe). That link takes me to a Google search results page regarding "wood furnaces." As to the second link, I tried the DirectX diagnostic tool and it did not indicate any errors. At first, I thought you both (Lin and Ken) might be right - that this could be arising because I did not have enough RAM. However, the more I thought about it I realised, just as a friend pointed out to me, that I had a gig of RAM and that should have been enough. I was not running any other applications when I tried to run the slide shows. In any event, Lin, I decided to try your RAM test. The small one ran fine and, as you expected, the large one only resulted in a black screen. However............along the way, I discovered quite by accident a way to see the video portion of the presentations, including your large "puzzle" test presentation. I would click on the presentation, as I always do. And, as it has been doing of late, the show would start and I would hear the music begin but the screen would go totally black. Quite by accident, I clicked the left mouse button when the black screen had appeared. Lo and behold, the video image now appeared! So now, when I want to play one of these newer presentations (mind you, this is not necessary for all of the new ones I have viewed), I click to start it and then click again to make the black screen go away and the images appear. While this solves my immediate problem of trying to view these shows, I still have no clue as to why this is happening. I gather, by the lack of any similar entries in this forum, that I am the only one who is experiencing this problem. The fear that I am being singled out by the computer gods aside, I am simply perplexed as to why this glitch is showing up now. Anyway, I just wanted you to know what the results were based on your responses to my query. Thank you, again, for your help in this matter. Peter

I've been downloading and enjoying presentations, both from this forum and from Beechbrook Cottage, for a couple of years now. I am really impressed with the quality of shows I have seen. Out of all the many shows I have seen, I have experienced very few problems. Most of the time, it is something relatively minor, like stuttering in the audio portion, etc. I have always assumed these were flaws that occurred in making the presentation, rather than something my computer was introducing. However, I have just recently started experiencing a major problem in playing back a number of shows, and I have no idea what is causing this problem, let alone what the solution would be. I am hoping some experienced member of this forum, or several of you, might have some insight into this dilemma, along with a fix. Simply put, the problem occurs when I start the presentation. The music starts, and plays, fine, but my screen immediately goes totally black and remains that way. Further confusing this issue is the fact that this is happening to some of the recent presentations, but not all of them. In case it might help, here is a list of the recent presentations that give me only a black screen: Colorado Through My Lens Roma, black and white Vger2 Towns of Spain The Doll's House, Beta 3 (this was the first one in which I discovered the problem.) Another new one, "Florida Pampered Plumes" plays just fine. I have also gone back and played several of the older presentations I have saved, and they work fine as they always did. Like I mentioned, some of these (above) shows were downloaded from this forum, and some from Beechbrook Cottage. While I cannot be sure, I believe that all of those from Beechbrook were created using some version of PTE. Any ideas as to what may be going on? Any suggestions? Thank you so much to everyone who takes the time to read this plea for help, and responds. Peter (Scribe)

Anyone know why the Beechbrook Cottage site is down and/or how long it might be down? I am asking this here because the webmaster, Bill, said he posted a message about this here but I can find no such message. Thank you for any insight any of you can give on this. Scribe Never mind. I just discovered that there was a posting on another forum, which I had not checked. Thank you. Scribe

Thank you for your responses. Scribe

I am pretty new to all this, both slideshows and PTE. I was wondering if it is possible to convert a slideshow from exe to screensaver after it has already been made? And, in case there is a difference, what about converting someone else's .exe slideshow to a screensaver, as opposed to converting just my own slideshows....(?) Thank you to anyone who can answer this. Scribe

Thank you, Ron. As fxdesigner suggested, I downloaded the beta of PTE 4.40. It does, indeed, have the page curl effect. I can now only guess that the presentations I saw a few weeks ago with this effect must have been using the earliest Beta versions. I am looking forward to when 4.40 is out of beta and ready for final release. Scribe

Thank you, fxdesigner, I will try the beta version. However, I am sure that at least one of the presentations I saw using this effect was made with version 4.31 or older. Scribe

I have been noticing lately that a few of the presentations have employed the page curl effect. I really like this effect but cannot find it in the list of effects in PTE 4.31.... I found the page effect but this is not the same thing. The page curl effect actually looks like the curled corner of a page unfurling. Plus, you can usually see either a second image on the "underside" of the curl, or the backside of the page being unfurled. Would someone be willing to share how this effect is accomplished in PTE? I have seen the plugins that one can use in Photoshop, etc. but I don't think that is how this effect is being done in PTE. Any help ? Thank you so much. Scribe