alrobin

Dimitri, Welcome to the Forum! In the "Timeline" view, try clicking on "waveform" and you should be able to more accurately sync the transitions to the music. Just remember that not all of the synchronization features are activated yet in version 5. However, the waveform is, as well as the ability to "stretch" the times between transitions, and the lengths of the transitions themselves.

That's a good one! Where do you find these people, Ken? Good photo of Ian, Maureen! Would it be-head'n shoulder shot? Here's a true story - I was working in Singapore a few years ago, about the time that cell phones were starting to become popular, and a real status symbol for the younger generation. A few of us were walking along the canal one evening near where we were staying, and a young fellow coming toward us nonchalently put his "phone " up to his ear as we approached and pretended to be talking to someone. This was OK, except that he was holding his phone in the other hand, and had mistakenly put his digital camera up to his ear. Must have had a "telephono" lens on it, I guess!!

Rainer, I posted the video files for a widescreen show to my website - see link in the Video section of this forum. They work both on my two pc DVD players and also in my regular Sony player through a widescreen digital projector. Unfortunately, they are in NTSC format, or else you could download them, copy to a DVD, and try them out.

Harryal, welcome to the Forum! Can you tell us how you are customizing the slides? If it is through use of the O/A features (e.g. adding objects, etc.) then you won't be able to see these objects in the timeline preview. You should see them when you press the main preview button at the bottom left of the main PTE window, though. You can also see the objects if you click once on the main preview window (the top right quadrant of the main PTE window), or highlight a slide in the slide list and then click on the tiny "slice of bread" icon at the bottom right of the main preview window. If this doesn't help, please give us some more information about how you are using PTE.

Derek, I don't think Igor meant for us not to use the "video" button. That is how you get to the other options. He suggested that we only use the "Create mpeg2" option on the "video" menu.

Thanks, Robert! I'll give it a try.

Hi, Robert, Thanks for your comments. I agree re the titles - I just grabbed a few pieces here and there in order to get this out for people to use - not meant to be a final production. Also, the title, as someone else has pointed out, has some fancy fringing around it. I think I used "My web" for saving the "png" file instead of "saving as", and may have used the wrong options. Hope you get your dvd player sorted out.

If anyone is having trouble rendering an AV sequence in DVD Builder, you can download from my website all the files necessary to copy to a DVD and test out your DVD player / TV system if you wish. Links are provided in another post on the "Video" forum. The file size is about 48 Mb. Unzip the "VIDEO_TS.zip" file contents into a folder called "VIDEO_TS", and create another empty folder called "AUDIO_TS". Then burn these onto the root of a blank DVD disk and insert it into your DVD player. I also provided all the source files as well as the executible files for comparison purposes. One thing that seems to be missing, Igor, is a provision for returning to the menu after the showing of each video show. Now, it just plays on to the next show until all have been viewed.

I have uploaded excerpts from a couple of my recent shows, re-created in PTE v.5 Deluxe, and rendered with the new DVD Builder. They can be downloaded from: http://www.alrobinson.com/PTE-Deluxe_test-shows.zip and http://www.alrobinson.com/VIDEO_TS.zip . The first file is 7 Mb, and the second is 48 Mb. Click on the former and unzip the "exe" files to watch the shows on your pc, or if you want to test out the DVD version, download and unzip the second set of files and save them in a folder named: "VIDEO_TS". Also create a folder "AUDIO_TS", and leave it empty. Copy these two Video and Audio folders to the root of a blank DVD, and test it in your favourite DVD player (or pc). The first show, "Brasov", is in 4:3 format, and the second, "Big Bend", is in WideScreen format, 16:9. I have also uploaded the pte project files in case anyone wants to create their own DVD using the new v.5 Deluxe program to compare with the ones on my website. They can be found here: http://www.alrobinson.com/Brasov_mini_Oct3...06_12-46-08.zip and http://www.alrobinson.com/Big-bend-mini_Oc...06_12-47-03.zip . (2 Mb and 4.4 Mb, respectively). By the way, it took only 5 1/2 minutes to render the two mini-sequences with PTE DVD Builder, and then only about 30 seconds to burn the files to a DVD-RW disk in "data" mode, using my Sonic DVD burner. (see attached log, as well as the "Properties" menu for rendering the shows.) They play perfectly in my Sony DVD player.

Chris, Welcome to the Forum! In the O/A window, select each object you are zooming, one by one, and move the last keypoint rectangle for each one back to the left a bit. It should then stay fixed until the end of the transition to the next slide. Of course the duration of the background slide on the screen has to be long enough to allow for the extra 3 seconds.

I too have found that the rendering and burn speed with PTE is much faster than with Nero or Premiere Elements. Could this be one reason for some people not being able to play their disks? I'm not saying that this is the case here, but sometimes "faster" means "more errors". I have been using TDK DVD-RW and inexpensive TDK DVD-R disks from Costco with no problem reading so far. I find the -RW disks work just as well as the -R disks, and I don't have to worry about making coasters.

I thought I had a problem with widescreen DVD's, but upon comparison with a commercial DVD of that format, I find that the one I burned has almost identical properties when projected from my DVD player (same image size, same menu size - different from the image size, etc.) So, right now, I have no major problems with the new program. (touch wood!) I'll try to post a sample on my website and let you all know where to find it in case you want to verify the results.

Lin, Can you see the VIDEO_TS folders and files on the dvd in Win Explorer? What happens if you copy them to your HD and double-click on the "VIDEO_TS.IFO" file? There is also an option to save these files to the HD while PTE DVD Builder is rendering and burning to the DVD. They will likely be saved in a folder the same name as your DVD project (shown at the top of one of the menus), in "My Documents". The default name is "untitled".

Bravo, Igor! Aside from some minor cosmetic items, the small videos that I have created so far work well, and look very good through the DVD player, both on the TV screen and also projected. In fact they look smoother and sharper than the others I have managed to create using other programs. There are a few things to remember, as usual, such as selecting the correct aspect ratio (both in the original PTE project, and also in DVD-Builder). But basically, everything is quite intuitive - a nice change from some of the other more complicated video editors around. I also like the ease at which one can customize the menus, by using the mouse to resize, or by right-clicking and selecting "properties". Thanks for all your efforts in this area.

Jan, Welcome to the Forum. What version of PTE causes the problem? If version 5, which beta? Any difference in the programs you might be running on the two computers? Anti-virus, email, etc.?

You can reach WnSoft support at: support at wnsoft.com . Replace the "at" with "@". I just noticed that you have already heard from Igor.

Peter, You're welcome. It sounds like it might be a DirectX problem. Try Ken's suggestion to see what vintage you have. If that doesn't help, send Igor an email. Good luck!

Penton, Welcome to the Forum! Another "work-around" that might achieve what you want is to save a second copy of your show as, say, "MyShow2.exe". Then in the original of the show, select "Customize Slide" for the slide you want to break away from, check "Run External Application" and type '"MyShow2.exe" 7' for the application you want to switch to, where "7" is the number of the particular slide you want to run first. If you want to start a PTE show at a certain slide, simply type '"MyShow2.exe" 7' in the "Run" utility on the "Start" menu. Make sure you give it the full pathname.

Peter, Sorry - guess we got sidetracked from your original post. This is very difficult for someone to troubleshoot remotely. No one else has complained of a similar problem, so it must have something to do with your setup. However, we would need more information about it before being able to suggest a solution. Is the sound "crackly" with the demo shows and other shows that people have posted on the various web sites, or on Dom's "sharing site", or is it only with your own productions? What happens if you change the music selection to a different one? Best of luck!

muscle750, It would probably help a lot if you first copied all the images you want to use in your show into a separate folder. This would also solve the problem of moving the original images and not being able to find them in your project file. The timeline is basically the same as in the older versions, except that not all of its features are activated yet. However, you can still shift transitions by dragging them to different locations. Or, you can change their timing by editing the timing values in "Customize slide". If you are still not having success with v .5, then it might be best to wait until all of the features have been activated in the final version, and continue to use v 4.48 until then. Best of luck!

I have RAAVI on my XP system too, but I don't have any problem using it. It's a "san-serif" TrueType font, similar to Arial, but I don't know where I originally picked it up - I think it either came with XP, or with MS Publisher.

Crawf, Is your friend's computer a "mac"? If so, then PTE will not play on it (unless it is very fast, with lots of memory, and has special software to allow it to emulate a pc.)

Mellow, Place two objects in the object preview window, one object directly covering the other one (i.e. on a higher level). If "transparent to selection" is not checked, then, when you un-highlight all objects (click anywhere in the window not on a particular object in the "objects" list box) and then try to click on one of the objects in the main O/A preview window, the one which is on top will be highlighted. However, if you repeat this procedure after checking "transparent to selection" for the "top" object, then the next one down in the order will be highlighted instead. In other words, the top object will be "transparent" to the cursor which is trying to click on it. This feature was added as a convenience for those who prefer to highlight an object by actually clicking on it, instead of on it's name in the object list. Hope this helps!

Hi, Kurt, Welcome to the Forum! My PTE v.5, beta 6 stays on the last slide when I check this option, at least in preview mode. If you are using music, try removing it to see if that changes anything.

Don, If you are usng version 4.48, check "Auto adding of new transition points ... " in the "Timeline / View" window, and then when you use the "Delete slide" button on the timeline to delete transition points, the slide involved will be deleted, both from the timeline, and also from the slide list. If you want to use it again, simply click on the "Insert slide" button (also on the timeline) and select the appropriate slide from the light-table view presented. Hope this helps.