alrobin

Hi, Robert, We're planning on heading on up route 395 through the interior of California, provided the weather cooperates. Would like to visit Colorado, but it's still too cold for those elevations. We had a great time in "Big Bend" National park in TX, the "Gila cliff dwellings" in NM, and now the Desert Museum and Saguaro National Park just outside Tucson, AZ. The weather turned cold for a few days (frost on the windshield this AM at the Gilbert Ray campground next to the Tucson Desert Museum), and now we're back in Tucson for van repairs. Hope to head out Wed to Anza Borego (sp?) in CA for a few days before heading north again. Have always wanted to see Mammoth Lake, Mono lake, Yosemite, etc., etc., but winter seems to have moved in to the higher elevations, so will take it as it comes. I remember almost freezing to death on a campout near Lone Pine in May, 45 years ago. Am getting some good bird photos (I hope), and other wildlife (coyotes, etc.). The desert is a magical place - maybe a slideshow here. Have been photographing some potential "pans'. Ciao Al

Dan, As Ken indicated, the "50%" applies to the amount of jpeg compression achieved by using an image editor such as Photoshop to convert and save your images. Different cameras have differing options for saving images. Mine, a Nikon D70, allows me to choose several formats, each with progressively smaller file sizes: Raw ( un-compressed, file size around 5.5 Mb) Fine (compressed jpeg, file size around 2.5 Mb) Normal (compressed jpeg, file size around 1.5 Mb) Basic (compressed jpeg, file size ? - can't remember) All of these save images at a 3000x2000 image size. There are also options for smaller image sizes (and correspondingly smaller file sizes), which I haven't even used yet. The only way to choose a specific jpeg quality % is to import the image into an image editor and then save it at a specific jpeg quality value.

John, Just plug the output from your sound card (either line-out, or headphones) into the input of your best stereo system (e.g. "auxiliary" input). I use a mixer in between the two for maximum control.

Dan, I usually use a jpg quality of between 50% and 75% for a show which will be run on someone else's pc. For shows designed to be shown only on my own equipment I usually try to use around 80% for the extra quality. I'm starting to use larger image sizes now (wide-screen, and higher resolution), so may have to go to lesser-quality jpegs more often, especially where several are played quickly in sequence.

Gilbert, If you have a dvd drive in your laptop you have an advantage in that you can play dvd's as well as cd's. You have the ability to save your shows to cd's (limited to around 700 Mb), as well as to dvd's (with over 4 Gb of capacity). You don't have to create a video in order to use dvd's to save your shows. Just burn them to the dvd, in the same manner as you would to a cd. If you want to transfer a show from a cd, just copy it to your HD, and then to the dvd. You can play back the pte show from a dvd in the same manner as from a cd, too. Ciao, Al

No, I've never had this problem. Don't know what to suggest, either, except that maybe some of the files got corrupted in the copying and burning process. Make sure you have "show image" turned on. (can't do much experimenting at the moment as I'm on vacation right now - I'm writing this from Abilene, Texas, on our way down to Big Bend Nat'l Park ( to get some warmer air - I'm freezing my buns even here, writing from the picnic table at 8:30 PM. )

Canada's judging is tonight, 17 Feb, at 7 PM. Raymond Aubin from our SC committee is the coordinator.

One handy "work-around" is to paste them once, then copy from the slide list and paste them again, then delete the first set.

I stopped after I hit 66 last month!

Brian, Your counter is at 379 now. Just thought you might like to know!

Funny, I hadn't even noticed! So that's why you've been lagging so far behind lately.

John, The synchronization is retained 100% - this works for me quite well, and I use it to intermix live narration with synched sections of the show. And if you want to dwell longer on a particular slide, you just hit the mouse button programmed for "pause". It's handy to have both a forward and reverse function. So, if I need a "pause" capability too, as someone suggested not long ago on this forum, I program one of the mouse buttons to pause, and use the forward and backward keys on the pc to advance or back up the show. It would be very handy to be able to program the space button to perform the "pause" function.

No, your count is now 377. I don't experience any of these problems. I replied from the edit button inside your post, and my count incremented to 1858. Actually, it's 1859 now as I just replied to a message in another thread.

See my reply in the first forum. It is best not to post multiple posts as it makes replying too confusing.

Chappers, Welcome to the Forum! No, you cannot position the music on the timeline. However, you can splice in a section of silence using a sound editor such as "Audacity" (or simply add a "silent" mp3 file between the first and last music selections). If you check "Permit the control of show" opposite "Customize synchronization" in "Project options" you can then "program" the mouse buttons to pause or advance the show during the silent section.

741 it is!

Ron, You're not stuck on 740. When you posted the messages in mid-January, they were not at 740. When you post a new message, the count for all of your previous messages will be incremented accordingly. This I believe is the way the counting system has always worked.

Sergio, You will have to go into each slide, highlight the object, and click "delete". One other way, faster, but more risky, is to open the pte file in a text editor, find the appropriate line for each slide, and delete the text. Then save the file back as a .pte file, but give it a different name in case you mess things up. You may have to experiment a bit in order to get it right. Another way to add text to each slide is to use the "comments" feature in "Project Options / Comments", but you are more limited in where you can place the information. Perhaps an easier way to add and control the same text message on each slide is to use "Project Options / Advanced / Show copyright logo".

Brian, I see you as 373 too.

Bret, Welcome to the Forum - I hope we can help you solve this as I know how frustrating it can be. This is not a common error with PTE, so it may be peculiar to your pc setup. You might try running the completed "exe" file on another computer. Also, if you haven't done this, make sure you use "Create as" to compile your modified "exe" files and to make sure you are overwriting the faulty "exe" file. Also, have you tried running any of your older PTE "exe" files, or downloading and running a file from Beechbrook? Finally, it might help Igor to suggest a solution if you provide a list of the specs for your system (operating system, processor, etc. I presume you are running the exe files from your hard drive.

Atlas, It sounds like you may have some images too close to each other on the timeline. (assuming you are synching to music). Check the timeline to see if any of the horizontal transition bars overlap, or are closer than say a couple tenths of a second (depends on the multimedia capabilities of your pc system). Also, make sure you are running the show from the hard-drive, not the CD.

Ray, Sorry to hear you're leaving us - I've enjoyed your suggestions and particularly your experinece with wide-screen productions over the past months. I think I am now getting a better handle on this "black art". I was wrong when I suggested that PTE had some incapabilities in this area. Someone referred me back to Igor's suggestion to modify the ".ini" file, and when I did this, and also got things set up properly in the video rendering software (thanks to Ray and Ken Cox, and Hawk), I finally managed to burn a dvd with a proper vertical "pan". Ray, if you're listening, your suggestion in a previous post to increase the size of the PTE avi settings turned out to be correct. Vital statistics: original images 1920x1080, PTE video settings: custom avi, 1920x1080. I found that an avi setting of 1280x768 also worked, even though the "standard" anamorphic 16:9 dvd size is 1280x720 pixels. I have since also had success with images 1280x768 in size, and a PTE avi setting of 1280x768, also. I have burned dvd's successfully using both Nero VisionExpress and Premiere "Elements-2". I found that "Elements" gave me smoother transitions. I'm still experimenting with this medium, and still have a lot to learn, but at least I feel much more comfortable with it than before. Now, Igor will probably come out with the first beta of version 5, and make all this work purely academic. So thanks to all who contributed to this thread, and especially to Igor for producing such a versatile and high-quality program.

Jeff, See also this DEMO by Marco (on Beechbrook) for some examples of what can be done using Flash (or Swish, etc.) in conjunction with one of Boxig's utilities, "FlashMe".

JP, I don't experience any problem with the arrows in the navigation bar in the latest version. Edit: OK, I see now what you mean. If you customize the bar to show only the "forward" arrow, the left-arrow shows on the navigation bar, and vice versa. However, if you select both, then the arrows perform the proper functions.

Ray, I tried that and received some strange results with W Movie Maker - several images had black bands through them. I'm not sure about having to size at 1280x768 just because that is the size of the original images. After all, we don't size at 1024x768 for that size of image - 720x480 seems to do the trick. So, I suspect that PTE might not be designed to provide suitable wide-format avi's??