alrobin

When I get hit, I usually know why! Ciao, Al

Sorry to bother you all again. Lumenlux has just pointed out a small (but significant) glitch and I have just uploaded a corrected program (9:15 EST, 8 Feb). The model was not responding to "Ctl-Shift-K". Thanks, Bob, for pointing this out. Ciao, Al

After hours of tedious de-bugging, and modifications, I have finally uploaded 2.03 (beta) to my web page, Adjustor beta . The new version now handles non-synched presentations. Enjoy! Ciao, Al

Hi, Bob, Glad you got it to work - that would cause it to hiccup, alright! You have to save the file, "ptesource.xls", as a ".prn" file, and then change its name to a ".pte" file. Sounds complicated, but I don't see any way around it, without trying to automate it. (future version) I've had that error message from PTE, too - usually when I try to load the wrong type of file. I'm almost finished the next version of Adjustor - making it compatible with non-synched shows. You can't adjust them as much as you can a sync'ec show, but it will at least let you see what's going on, and adjust the "delay" times (or "times on screen") and the transition times. Maybe I should put some pictures in it so it will be even more entertaining!! Ciao, Al

Larry, What specific effects are you referring to, that you saw on the demo shows? Were they PTE shows? The only special transition effects currently available in PTE are the ones shown on the "Project Options / Effects" or "Customize Slide / Effects" menus. There are more choices there than I, myself, will ever use. However, there are ways of accomplishing other effects simply through the dissolving of appropriate images into other images specially created to achieve the desired effect. For example, with text, you can create a duplicate of an image, add text to it, and then dissolve one into the other using one of the transitions, and you will see the text changing while the background remains the same. Alternatively, you can simulate motion by fast-dissolving many similar images into each other (see Boxig's "Effects" slide show created with only a few 1-pixel black slides, each with a different image object.) Each is less than 1-kb in size, so they load and show quickly. Although there are many other slide show programs with more fancy transition effects than PTE has, such as burning edges, different block effects, crystal growth effects, etc., to many of us these are merely gimmicks, and actually detract from the impact of the images themselves. There is nothing more effective than a show with the right choice of images and music, and everything properly choreographed and synchronized and tailored to the interests of the audience. The results will simply "blow you away!". IMHO, at least! Ciao, Al

I, too, have WinXP Home Edition on a laptop, with a combined CD/DVD drive, and PTE runs just fine - better than on my desktop. Ciao, Al

Why in the world would you want to do that? Especially if you don't want to compress the HTML. Please explain your application further. As far as I know, PTE won't handle anything like this. It'll do everything else, though! Ciao, Al

Yep, The leaner it is, the more responsive it will be to our commands. One of the main problems with Windoze and M Soffice is their humungous overhead! (Michel, let's see you translate that! ) Ciao, Al

No worries (both Jim's). Once the PTE show is "created", the references to particular drives are academic and immaterial. Ciao, Al

Glad to be of some help here - I just posted the next beta version on my site - it lets you "pin" certain time points and distribute in between. Also shows the image names so they can be changed in the spreadsheet and saved back into the PTE file. Its on Adjustor Model . Good luck, and please let me know if any bugs show up. Ciao, Al

You're welcome, Jim. Get enough testimonials like this and I might be able to sell it! By the way, the next version, which allows you to "pin" an unlimited number of sequence times, and then evenly spread the intervening slides in between, without affecting the "pinned" times, is almost ready for public consumption. I think it will be quite useful. Ciao, Al

I've had this same problem in other software applications (e.g. my "Magician" slide projector dissolve system). The problem is even written into the manual, so it must be a difficult thing to program around for some reason. I've had it on other programs, too. Ciao, Al

Sorry, folks, but I have had to remove the "protection" feature from the "PTE Time Adjustor" model due to incompatibility problems (see other threads on this subject). The previous model has once again been replaced on my web site. JRR was the first to point this out - he couldn't open it in Excel 97, and sure enough, even when I backed off into Excel 97 and re-created the spreadsheet, it still wouldn't work. Maybe there's a switch I have to click off or on in the setup, or some obscure menu on which to select a specific option, but it was easier to just remove it. So, for those of you who have downloaded version 2.0 of the model, I apologize once more, and hopefully for the last time! Those of you running Excel 2000 should have no trouble with the previous model if you have already downloaded it. Ciao, Al

Welcome to the forum, Brother, I've noticed that little pause while the timeline is running, too, but haven't taken time out to analyze it. For me it's not a big issue, since I use the small preview only as an indicator of the results, and as a means to specify to the program where to put the transition points. I use the "preview" mode from the main window to test the show itself, in a larger view, so I can see better just how well the show will perform when it has to handle the larger images. I'm using a Celeron, 400 Mhz, & Win ME, with 750 Mb RAM, and a "Voodoo 3000" video card with 32 Mb of VRAM. Running with images no larger than 800 x 600 is generally quite smooth for most transitions at least 2 sec in length. Would the fact that PTE has to resize the images in order to display them in the small preview window cause it to run less smoothly in preview mode in the synch window and pause momentarily while it is performing the sizing algorithm? I notice on my SysMon that with one of my shows, processor usage goes from 40% to 60% whenever there's a transition point, when using fades. I don't have any other program open, but if there were other programs open, for instance, or if there were fewer resources available and the PTE program was on the verge of encountering delays, the operation could become choppy. Ciao, Al

Guido, I think you are probably right (that's why they call you the "guru"! ) Another example: Granot's interesting demo, ("Effects01", I think it was called), used 138 jpegs, each less than 1kb in size and only 4 "customized". There were a few small objects. It was 158 kb in size. One of my own shows, with 121 images, 30 of them "customized" (no objects, though), occupies only 34 kb. The main contributor to the size of the pte file must be the objects, as you indicated. I suspect if one uses a lot of images as objects, that the size of the pte file could increase quite dramatically. Ciao, Al

Sorry, folks, I just discovered a glitch in the "Adjustor" model which sets all the transition times in your show to a "quick" transition. (the gremlins must have been working overnight ) I have uploaded a new correct copy of the model to my web site. (see previous thread on this subject) My apologies to anyone who has started to use the model, and may have corrupted a show. Ciao, Al

Thanks, Guido, for your remarks. And you're more than welcome - you've certainly done your share of work in providing us with useful tips and advice about PTE! I just noticed another glitch in the model, however - seems when you "Transfer" the data back into PTE, it sets all the transitiion times to 0.020, the time for a "quick" transition. Not good! Thought I had tested that, but I must have made another change since then which fouled things up. Shows how important it is to run thorough tests after every change!! So, I've since uploaded a corrected model to my web site. Sorry about the inconvenience to those of you who have already downloaded it since I posted it 1 Feb. and who may have ended up with corrupted data in your favourite slide shows! Hope you kept a backup! Ciao, Al

I second comments by Muggsie and cherfoto. I have tried some of these other programs, and, from what I have seen, and for what I want to do in AV, PTE is the best (e.g. quality of dissolves, ease of building a synched show, simplicity, etc). It is true that many other products excel in certain other specific areas, and some of these features would be nice to have in PTE. Then it would be an even better program. This is to be expected. But, for my specific application, I could not adapt to using any one of the other programs I have tried out. At the present time, PTE is the best for me. For someone wanting to do commercials, or incorporate all kinds of fancy transitions and graphics, maybe some other software would be better. This, too, is normal. Another thing we have to remember is that no one softwar ever does it all. One has to "mix and match" different software when it comes to graphics and multimedia applications. This is very evident in the desktop publishing area, where a mixture of several different programs are often used in creating a product. Sometimes, when a developer tries to add too many features to a single program, that software bogs-down, and becomes difficult to manage (witness Bill Gates' products). I don't think we want PTE to reach that situation. If it tries to accomplish too much, then the nice smooth dissolves may become jerky again unless we all upgrade our pc's. I witnessed this happen painfully, and in detail, with the old "Lotus 1-2-3" spreadsheet system. It was a great business application until the developer started to add in all types of bells and whistles, and soon the program was taking twice as long to load up, and twice as difficult to learn how to use, and twice as unreliable. And I found I didn't really need most of all the new features, either. They were adding them mainly in order to "keep up with the Jones's"! However, I'm not against changes, and adding of new features, if they are well thought out and there is a real need for them. Like the things I have asked Igor for! Ciao, Al

Thanks! Glad that I was able to help! Good luck with your shows. I have been meaning to try to "compose" some background music for my shows, but haven't been able to get around to it. Just want some sounds to put in the background, with "oohs" and "ahs" in the appropriate places, and a neat rhythm to go with them. One of these days! Ciao, Al

Clive, If you're just looking for some royalty-free background sound (some call it "elevator music", or "musak" , you might want to consider MIDI. These days you can also download a lot of free MIDI files from the net, too, if you don't have the resources to create them yourself, and some of these are pretty good. They sound a lot better nowdays with the better-quality multimedia setups that people are using, than they used to. And MIDI sounds even better when played through a home stereo. I have found that if you restrict the instruments in MIDI to the piano, it sounds not too bad. And file sizes are a fraction of the equivalent (or similar) music in MP3 or wav format. I agree that it doesn't even come close to being a suitable replacement for a quality slide show, but may be a consideration if all you want is some background sound. If you are creating MIDI at a home studio, with a good sound module, you will probably want to record the result in MP3 format, anyway, to retain the quality when it is played on someone else's pc, hence eliminating the file size advantage. However, the main advantage in doing so would be that the royalty issue would no longer be a factor. Ciao, Al

Much clearer, Batman! Ciao, Robin

Mike, I agree with you regarding the size of the actual ".pte" file itself. 442 slides shouldn't drive it up to a meg in size, unless a lot of those slides are being repeated, in which case it could. However, the real issue here is RAM availability and processor speed required in order to work with the pte file, and then to run the "exe". Kim will have to load all of those images and music into his (or her) pc in order to be able to preview the show, etc. Ciao, Al

Guido, I think the key to your capability is the RAM size of 385 Mb. According to Kim's statistics, he has at least 400 Mb of just images (442 images at an average size of 1 Mb each). And, because the show is fairly long, he has 80 Mb of music files. There is no way that this will run quickly on a 32-mb system. Bill Gates already has all of that staked out for his own use. Even your 385 Mb would not be sufficient to run Kim's show in an optimized environment. Kim, what you need is not a better PTE program, but a better pc! Especially if your system has only 128 Mb of RAM. My desktop has 750 Mb of RAM, and Bill Gates (or somebody) has already staked out over 400 Mb of RAM the moment I boot up! 250 Mb of this is called "locked memory". Some program is apparently not releasing the memory it uses (I hope it's not a virus!). A check of the SysMon is very revealing! Ciao, Al

For anyone who downloaded the model overnight, I have just posted a small correction to the main Excel "Adjustor" file to permit changes to the default transition time. (as of 9:00 AM, EST, or 14:00 GMT, 01/02/03). Sorry for any inconvenience to anyone who downloaded it since I first posted it last night! Doesn't matter how careful you are, there is always something to trip you up! Ciao, Al

I've finally uploaded a new version of the "Adjustor" model (Excel spreadsheet),along with some demo files, and a sample "typical" slide show along with original slides, music, and ".pte" file to play with, to my website, at: Adjustor Model . I have streamlined the operation of the model, added the ability to enter in specific "delay" (on-screen) times for times between transitions, and added protection to prevent accidentally overwriting the wrong cells. It should prove to be much more user-friendly than version 1.09. As before, please let me know of any glitches. I hope to keep adding new features to it, as I'm finding it a good mental exercise, and am learning new things, all the while, about programming tricks in Visual Basic. Ciao, Al