alrobin

Olivier, Welcome to the Forum! Since many others are having no problem with glitches in either v.4.48 or v.5, I would have to say that the problem is in your system. Either you have some programs such as a virus checker working in the background, or your pc is not able to accommodate the new features in PTE (either too slow or not enough video RAM, etc). Try to get some professional help to check your computer, or upgrade to a newer, faster system.

Manfred, The main purpose of the Adjustor model is to be able to view some of the slideshow parameters in a single table format, and be able to tweak them if necessary. It also shows at a glance whether there are any "ambiguities" in the transition timing such that the transition time is longer than the slide duration. It is useful too in making global changes to the pathnames for the images using Excel's "search" and "edit" capabilities. Adjustor for PTE 5 does not record any information about the sound, itself - you have to do this in PTE with a proper sound editor. I suppose that with the sound editor open, either on a different computer or in a separate window on your main computer, you could use it in conjunction with Adjustor to determine what adjustments to make to the time parameters in PTE, or even to set up the initial timing in PTE before opening the timeline to set up the final synchronization or test the timing in a non-synched show.

Howard, You can use the "PTE-5 Adjustor" model to do just that. Check this link: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6767 You can also highlight each of the slides in PTE by "shift - clicking" and/or "ctrl - clicking" on them and selecting "Customize slide", where you can change the delay times from the old default to the new time.

Eric, As certainly as death and taxes, especially given all the problems that people still seem to be having with DVD's. The rate of change is increasing exponentially, so DVD's probably won't even be around as long as VHS. Given all the hype over the new "iPhone" by Apple, people probably won't even be watching TV in the near future!

shades, Welcome to the Forum! If you add your slide-oriented sounds/music via the "sound" line in the main window, sound for a particular slide will be activated only by playing that slide. Don't forget to check "Don't interrupt sound comment when next slide appears" in "Project Options / Music", unless you want the sounds truncated by the next slide in the normal playing of the show.

Hi, John, Thanks for your kind comments. Glad to hear there are no problems in Excel 2002. As for renaming the program, if I rename the program, then I would have to go through the entire program code and change the name, as it uses that name within itself to call various actions. As Ken discovered, it won't run if the name is changed, without also changing every occurrence of the name within the program (some 25 locations). I recognize your problem, but it would cause even more grief if I renamed it each time there is a change. I do try to rename the "zip" file whenever there is a major change, and the vintage of the program is also shown in a text box at the top of the spreadsheet. To keep the different versions apart I also keep each one in a separate folder named as you suggest (similar to the way I organize PTE itself).

Version 4 of PTE-5 Adjustor is available HERE. It includes corrections to the feature for changing object mode (in the case where the model didn't distinguish between text objects and regular objects.)

Eric, Apology accepted - we all make mistakes and come to false conclusions at one time or other, especially when testing something as complex and full of features as PTE! Best of luck with your contributions to posterity! I think you are right about changes in popular TV's - I suspect most will be "wide-screen" before too long.

That's strange - it works fine on my system. What other options are you using? Maybe if you send me a copy of your ".pte" file (no pics or music) I can have a look at what you are using. (alrobin @ alrobinson.com).

wedford, The "save" button info is still there, but, like version 4, it doesn't display from the nav bar when you select "print".

Eric, In Project Options, set "Percent of the slide to show main images" to 90%. This will reduce the size in VB also. (see screenshots for example using "50%". The thumbnail comparison is from the first window in VB showing potential PTE files for burning to DVD).

No, v.4 didn't trim it - it was seamless. However, v.5 has had some similar problems with white borders at the edges of images, etc.

DAB, Welcome to the Forum! I suspect this problem is inherent in the design of the new v.5 engine. It disappears if I disable "hardware acceleration", but then the show becomes very jerky. Maybe Igor will have a look at this and find a solution.

No, unfortunately. Igor found it too difficult to apply in the new engine in v.5 so he had to leave it out. Personally, I prefer watching a show which starts from black and "goes to black", like in the movies - maybe I'm just old-fashioned?!

Hi, Peter, I find I have excellent results with the Video Builder facility in PTE - better than with Nero, even. (Of course it helps if you put in a blank DVD first! )

Eric, I may be wrong, but I don't believe you can use "windowed" mode to change the image size on the DVD. However, you should be able to set the percentage of the window occupied by selecting values in "Percent of the slide to show main images" at the bottom of "Proj Ops / Screen". Does this have the desired effect on the DVD? If not, then the only other place that might have an impact is in "O&A", and using "cover screen" or "original" mode. However, these settings are made on a slide-by-slide basis. Generally, I find that the size of the image in PTE does not have much if any bearing on the size of the image in the DVD version. Having the correct "aspect ratio", both in "Proj Ops / Screen" and in the "DVD Proj Ops", is much more significant in determining the final appearance in the DVD version.

Nick, These are good ideas, but I just want to point out that Igor has set things up so that you can go one better than this. Start with a new show (no images added). Add your music selection in Project Options. Add a couple of slides to the slide list. Now open the timeline, select waveform. Next highlight all slides except the first one and select "Delete point". Next, click "Play", and whenever a beat occurs, or wherever you want to add a timecode marker, click "add transition", and a transition point for the next slide will be placed on the timeline. This way you can not only add markers where you want the slides to start, but the images themselves will also be placed at the same time.

I just noticed that the previous version of PTE-5 Adjustor, version 3, was slightly corrupted (there are some extra buttons when the file is first opened). For those who downloaded this version within the previous 36 hours, please do so again from this same address. Also, please note that if you are using "buttons" as objects in O&A, there will be an extra "text" object as a child of the "button" object, that does not show up in O&A. However, changing the mode of this object does not seem to affect the way it displays. I will try to fix this slight anomaly in the next few days.

photo girl, 8428x4008 seems rather large - are you sure you need to use an image this size? Without knowing more about your system, particularly the video card and amount of VRAM on it, it is a little difficult to know whether that might be the problem or not. Try reducing the size of the images to see if there is any improvement in the performance. PTE is the kind of program where it is difficult to give a definitive answer to this kind of question without actually experimenting with it a bit. Did you try replacing the music to see if that makes a difference?

Thanks for the feedback, Keith - good to know it works for one more person. Not sure what you mean by "Adjustment details" - could you please be a little more explicit?

I would just like to take this opportunity to wish our friend, Leonard, a happy 80th birthday! Maybe he'll create a slideshow from it, using the new PTE 5, and post it for us to see! Leonard, if you are listening, hope your day is a good one with lots of !

"Dpi" has absolutely nothing to do with it. This is a common myth that pops up every so often - dpi only applies to scanning or printing, or for determining how large an image will look on a certain monitor. As long as they are the same size, the text will look exactly the same at 300 dpi as at 72.

Hartmut, The problem is that the text is too sharp. Try creating text with the "smooth" anti-aliasing option in Photoshop. At what monitor "resolution" (in pixels) are you viewing the show? When I view your example at 1680x1050, the movement is much more smooth than when viewing at 1280x768. So, if you are viewing at this size (or 1024x768), then perhaps you should resize the images to the same size. If the images are very sharp, and there is a lot of interpolation going on in order to match the screen size, then you will see this kind of "jumping" or "shimmer", expecially if the movement is very slow. Speed up the motion, and use less-sharp text, and you will hardly see it at all.

photo girl, you'll have to give us more info on your system and your show (processor, amount of RAM, type of video card, amount of VRAM, size of the images, type of music used, etc.) Then, if you send me your "pte" file (no pics or music files) I'll have a look at it to see if there is something that might cause problems. (email: alrobin @ alrobinson.com - skip the spaces).

photo girl, welcome to the Forum! V.5 doesn't have a "cut" as a global option. For fast parts in sequences, highlight the involved slides in the slide list, and select "Customize Slide / Effect / Quick". There is more information on this topic here in a previous set of posts.