Tim Z

For the same reason I cannot view PTE.exe shows created earlier than v4.42, I also cannot view the PTE101_ver2.exe tutorial. I have asked Igor if there is any chance he could recreate the tutorial in v4.42 so I can use it. t

Ken, I posted this thread just before I went and read the replies at my other thread. So yes, your guess is correct. Correct me if I am wrong, but the tone I get from you is that you are annoyed by newcomers to PTE (like me) posting basic questions here. I heard about PTE about four days ago, have been using it for about three days and just recently got the program working on my pc. Naturally I need a resource to find out about the program. Is this not an appropriate forum for newcomers to post questions and learn? I cannot read, digest and fully understand everything put forward to me in a couple of days. I have downloaded the tutorial and will see what it offers. I'll play with the program and not bother the forum with questions. t

Thanks for the responses. Help Menu There is no "help" file in the folder where I unzipped v4.42. However, there is a help menu in the program, but it just doesn't have much in it. For example, I was trying to figure out the transition effects, so I opened the help menu and under "index" typed in "transition". Nothing comes up. In fact nothing comes up for any word I type in. Is this supposed to work, and I am missing a file? Or is there just no help index with PTE? Moving/arranging Slides I know you can move the slides around in the light table, copy and paste slides any where you want and move slides up or down with arrows on the screen. Moving slides in the light table would be fine if I could slide them beyond the current window/screen. Are you able to do that on your system? Copy and paste is not very useful as you have to go back in and delete the original slides. Cut and paste would be much better. The little arrows are basically useless, as they move one space back or forward. Much easier/quicker to just drag and drop. I would like to be able to click on slide number 83 and instantly move it to position 27. On my system this is a bit cumbersome because I keep having to drag and drop within the window and then scroll over and keep dragging and dropping until I get to the right window. Preview Slide from any point Where is this button that looks like a piece of toast? I looked on the main screen and cannot see it in a bottom right corner. PTE Screen Resolution I wasn't talking about my monitor screen resolution. In most programs they have a place where you save the program to be viewed at a particular screen resolution. Are you saying that PTE automatically detects a screen resolution and displays for that? What I am asking is where within PTE do I say what screen resolution I want the program maximized for? Ken, when you say "I pass on this", is that because the questions are too stupid, or because you don't know? In ProShow gold they had a place where you could fade out the music at any point. If PTE cannot do this, then I will have to go into my audio editing programs and fade the music myself. However that is a hassle if I then decide I want to change the show length and have the keep manipulating the wave files. I don't think PTE should bother with a wave editing program. Just simply add a feature that says "fade music at x:xx seconds" and have a time length selectable for the fade. JRR, thanks for the info, I will check out the tutorial at Beechbrook. I did the shift click for a group of slides in the Timeline menu, but I could not find a selection for globally changing the time spacing between that group of slides. The only way I could see doing it was to manually slide each individual slide, which naturally is very time consuming. I wanted to change a group of slides from 5 second spacing to a 6 second spacing. How would I do that? Thanks t

Thanks for viewing guys. Unfortunately Igor has advise me that I will not be able to view any PTE.exe shows created prior to the new v4.42 update, which accomodates my digital soundcard. All the shows at Beechbrook Cottage freeze on my system, so I cannot view any of them. Ken, I agree about the transition effects. PTE was handling all the effects by default and I could not figure out how to change that, so I just left it alone until I figure it out. This is where a Help Menu would come in useful. There doesn't seem to be anyway to figure a lot of features out without it. I will probably pull the show from my online storage now as I only have so much bandwidth there, and it doesn't appear to much of what people here want to see. As a photographer, I am more about the images than the show presentation. PTE is just a "fun" program for me. t

With Igor's help, I now have a working version of PTE. So tonight I put the program through its first test run by creating my first slide show. I posted a link for the show at the presentations forum. Now I have a bunch of questions about the use of PTE. 1) Why is there no help file with the program? It would be really nice if the help menu index worked and you could search out info about the program features and uses. 2) Is there no way to fade the music within PTE at a particular point? 3) My show had about 65 slides in it, and I found it cumbersome moving slides around to particular locations. Is there no way to click on a slide and tell it to move before a selected slide number. When I left click and slide the image, it will only slide within the page viewed on the screen and doesn't scroll over. I think the moving and positioning of slides could be made easier. 4) Is there no way to run the Preview form any location with the music? It always seems to want to start from slide 1. 5) Where is it that you set the desired screen resolution? My show was defaulted to 1024x768, which is what I wanted, but where do I change that if I need to? 6) I used the Timeline feature a little bit. Is there no way to shift cliick a group of slides and then globally change the length it is displayed in the show (i.e. say from 5 seconds to 6 seconds) That's all the questions I had from tonight. I'm sure there will be more BTW, I did go through all 6 of the tutorials, but they don't seem to answer these questions. Cheers t

Hey all. Now that I have PTE running on my system, I put together a basic slide show of some of my bird photography. The show is about 4:50 minutes in length and is just over 11 megs. Hope that is not too long for a show here. Also, this is my first attempt at a show with PTE, so I still have a lot of things to figure yet with the program. The show is sized to be viewed at a screen resolution of 1024x768. From the early 80's to the mid 90's, I was seriously into wildlife photography, with the main focus on birds. Unfortunately, the images were all scanned from transparencies on my home scanner, so the quality is not up to what the original slides are. I plan to get a digital SLR really soon. The music is an original composition by a friend of mine in Montreal. So it is not from my recording studio. If anyone likes this show, I will do some more of other subjects (i.e. flowers, animals, mushrooms, etc.) Here's the link: ZUROPAK BIRDS Cheers Tim

Igor is still working on the fix, which it looks like he will have out soon in a v4.42. He is upgrading the sound detector to recognize professional soundcards like the one I use. I can see from working with him on this that his dedication to customer service is second to none! That alone sells me on the program. t

Igor is a GENIUS!! He sent me a new PTE v4.41 test file, and so far it appears that he has fixed the problem. He hasn't told me what the fix was yet, but we suspected it was my soundcard not being able to handle the Wave Out API standard. So it looks like he will have an update to fix this problem. What AWESOME tech support!! He also said that the Rotate, Pan and Zoom features will be in a near future update, so I guess I will be getting PTE. t

Hi Ron Actually my main photo interests were telephoto, with the focus being on Bird photography. However, I sold almost all of my really good nikon lenses and bodies quite a few years back, and am just recently wanting to get back into it. The reason I am doing mostly macro right now is because all I have for a camera these days is a little Nikon CoolPix, which does a decent job at macro work. This will change soon though, as I plan to get a Nikon D70S with the 18-70 lens. I will also get the Nikon 105mm f2.8 macro lens and the 300 f4 AF-S. I can't afford the 300 f2.8. I'll probably also get the telephoto 1.4x and 2x converters. So 95% of what I do is close up photography, in either telephoto or macro. When I get PTE working, I'll put together some bird and wildlife shows and post them. The music I used was a woman classical guitarist I recorded a few years back. It was a quick live recording job, so the quality is not up to my usual standards. She was playing on the streets here as street musician outside of the office I worked at. After hearing her play for many days, and knowing that she didn't have much money, I offered to do a quick recording for her for free. I figured I could use some practise at recording nylon string aciustic guitar and she could use the tracks to sell cd's. Needless to say she was ecstatic about it. Sorry, but I don't know the composer of the music, but it was not her or I. Cheers t

Well regardless of what some think of the pan and zoom features, it would still be a WIN WIN situation have it added to the program. Those of you that hate it, don't ever have to use it; and those that want it will then purchase the program. FWIW, I did a bit of surveying amongst my friends here and showed them a show (just pics as I still cannot do music) without any pan zoom and another with pan zoom. So far people unanimously prefer the pan zoom show. I think you guys are just being afraid of progress. It also highly depends upon the kind of shows you specialize in. If it is mostly scenery, landscapes, family events, etc., then I could see not wanting to use these features much. But if the show is more macro, birds, insects, flowers, animals, etc., then the pan zoom feature can take a show much further and make it much more impressive. IMHO, if you were to do a blnd survey of average viewers, the majority would prefer the show with these effects in there. It adds some movement to the show and makes it feel more like you are really there, instead of just watching a slide show. Like I say, different strokes. Bottom line for me is that I would not purchase this program unless Igor indicates that it will be added in a future upgrade. Your statement about "a good audio visual program should be judged on its ability to produce excellent picture clarity" is duly noted, and that is just one of the reasons why I hate Photo Story. No question PTE and ProShow excel there. But there is still no reason why a program that produces great clarity cannot also upgrade its features. t

Email sent Ken t

Thanks Ron and Ken Well the plot has thickened. At first my shows were performing perfectly in ProShow Gold, but now the exact same problem has come up. I can watch the shows without music, but as soon as I add music, it will not work properly. TO make things even stranger, the same PTE.exe files will not play on my other pc, nor on my wife's pc. So this would suggest that there is something getting corrupted when I create the file, rather than something on my pc that won't allow it to play. As I say these photo shows are the only problems I have ever encountered on my system. I also downloaded some of the samples and they would not play either. The only thing I can think of is that I do not have what would be considered a "typical" soundcard in my system. I have a professional RME Digi9652, which is a 24 channel digiital lightpipe recording card. It also has S/PDIF. I have the S/PDIF outputs sent to a Benchmark DAC-1 which is a really high quality D/A converter. Grasping at straws here, but maybe these slide show programs are looking for a consumer soundcard or something. Although that would not explain why they don't work on my wife's pc, which does have a consumer soundcard. This is definitely a very strange one. Ken, yes I did try your suggestion, The only device I have is the Digi9652 which is where my audio is routed to. I can't think of anywhere else to check. Where were you thinking of? Well I guess it is different strokes for different folks with the move and zoom features. For me they take a show from being just a basic slide show to a mood creating professional show. IMHO there is no comparison, but if PTE plans to add these in the near future I won't rule it out, assuming I can get it to work in the first place. Here is a link to a simple show I created with 10 images and music. Let me know if anyone can play this on their system. PTE TEST t

FWIW, I just loaded in the demo for ProShow Gold, and within minutes had a basic slide show working perfectly, including sound (same MP3s) and motion effects. Now this is what I was looking for, even with the higher price tag. This appears to be one very well thought out program. There are a couple of things I like better about the PTE UI, but I will probably spend the extra $$$ for the ease of use and "actual" working ProShow program. Have fun t

Dave, with all due respect, my pc is not a "tad too tweaked". PTE is the first and only application that has given me problems on this pc. Trust me, I do know what I am doing. I build all of my pc's from scratch and do complete installs and troubleshooting for others on their pcs. My pc would not be so reliable and trouble free in my recording studio if it was "too tweaked". Handling recording studio duties is a MILLION times more demanding and finicky compared to running a simple slide show program. I will agree that there appears to be some incompatibility between my system and PTE, but IMHO PTE is at fault here, and I am just lucky enough to have the one mysterious problem that no one else has come across yet. And I also do not appreciate the tone of people here thinking that I was bs'ing about the Quicktime message. I don't just imagine messages popping up. It DID show up when I did the first install, but not for the second. I appreciate all the advice and help, but I have had enough with this program. The PTE demo has already been uninstalled and all remaining PTE registry files cleaned from my system. There are so many other choices that I don't need this headache. Plus, I would have expected PTE tech support to chime in and help out a potential customer. If Photo Story 3 works instantly for me, and has the move/zoom features that PTE does not, I will stick with that simple free program until I can find one that has better features and is more reliable. regards t

Good Call Al. I downloaded one of the smaller shows from the Beechbrook Cottage site (Le Bayou), and it won't play here either. It opens up and plays about 2 seconds and then freezes. I can't for the life of me figure out what could be the problem here though. My system ( a dual boot XP set-up) is well maintained, tweaked to perfection and works flawlessly with every other app I use with it. This would suggest that there is something about the settings or devices on my system that don't jive with PTE. Like I said I use this system for a recording studio and it has to be powerful, fast and (most importantly) reliable for that purpose. It has never caused me any problems like this with any other software. Anyone have any ideas what could be the culprit? Does PTE tech support ever read or post in here? Or should I send them an email with this problem? t

Thanks again Brian Some of the MP3's I am using were made with the Frauendorfer encoder, and others with the LAME and others internally with Samplitude. They all fail in PTE! I just cannot see this micro break thing being the issue here. I have tried many different MP3's now with my demo show, and every one freezes at about 1 to 2 seconds into the show. That would suggest that every MP3 I have on file has a micro break at the 1 to 2 second point. If PTE has that much difficulty with these MP3's, when no other program I have encountered does, then unfortunately PTE is definitely not for me. How about you email me an MP3 that you know for sure has no micro breaks, and I'll test it with my demo show? Keep in mind that i just installed the PTE demo yesterday. I have no idea what "have you tried a CD-Track extract with the Graphics" means? t

Thanks JRR. I guess I will wait then until the newer version comes out with the pan and zoom features. I personally would not use a program without them. They may be considered overused, but IMHO they really add a professional flare to a good show. I have looked at the same shows with and without, and always prefer the with. Cheers t

Hi Brian Not sure what you mean by "micro breaks", but I am pretty sure my MP3's do not have any. I run a small recording studio here, where I record my own music as well as other local artists. I make my (very) humble living from my recording studio and my photography sales/royalties. All music in my studio is originally recorded in Samplitude at 32bit/44.1khz wave files, which is then mixed, mastered and dithered down to 16/44.1 wave files for CD format. I only compress some music to MP3 using an MP3 decoder that is based on the "LAME" encoder system. The LAME system is generally considered to be the best MP3 encoder available today. My MP3s work flawlessly in every other application I have encountered. I can pretty well assure you that the MP3 code is not the problem here. But to make sure, I will try an MP3 made from another source. Besides, why does the whole show (music and all) work with every other slide show program I have tried? So far, PTE is the only one that crashes and will not play the show with music (here). t

I have been using Microsoft's Photo Story 3, and installed the PTE demo hoping for something more robust (better). PS3 has one really nice feature where you can move across or zoom in/out on a photo. This gives the show a "movie" feel and adds a really nice mood to the show. I can't seem to find anything like that in the program. Does PTE have a transition feature like this? PTE creates a .exe file. Can this .exe file be played on basically every/any computer? Can PTE create MPEG files? Thanks t

Sure Roger, that may be helpful to at least confirm that a full show with sound will play here. I did make some headway with it this afternoon. I deleted all files I had created with the demo and then rebuilt a new show. Once I had 10 images in there, I hit "preview" and all ten slides played perfectly. I then added an MP3 now to see if it would work with the music, and again the program froze and crashed. However, this time I was able to remove the MP3 and have the slides show again. So it appears to be something to do with the adding of music (MP3s). I tried 4 different MP3's all at 128 kbs, and PTE froze with each one. Is it possible that the program cannot handle certain MP3 rates (i.e. 128 kbs)? t

Thanks Al Well, I did have an image in the Object Editor, but I definitely had not move its location. Anyway, I removed that image and tried again, but the program still crashes. Next I went in and unchecked the "Synchronize slideshow" option, and again it still crashes. It opens up to the first image, plays for a second or so, and then freezes. This is a real bummer, as I am liking the looks of this program, and hate the idea of having to continue using Photo Story. t

Thanks guys The slides are all jpegs and are created and saved with Photoshop 8.0 at quality 7. Average size for each file is about 115 KB. Music used is an MP3 made of a classical guitar player that I recorded in my own recording studio. All MP3's and jpegs work perfectly in Microsoft's Photo Story 3. When I try to preview or play the show with the MP3 removed, it comes up with a message saying "Playlist is empty. Please add musical files". So it appears that I can't play it without the MP3 in there? I tried it with two other MP3's and got the same results t

Hello, this is my first post here. I have installed the demo version of PicturesToExe and have loaded in the max 10 images and selected an MP3 for the music. I haven't gone into any customizing features yet as I just want to demo a simple show first. When I hit the preview button, the music starts to play and the first image comes up for about 1.5 seconds, and then the program freezes and crashes. So I then created a .exe file and when I execute that file the exact same freeze/crash happens. When I check windows task manager it says the program is not responding, and the only way I can get out now is to "end task". I build my own pcs and maintain a very well tweaked and powerful system. Any ideas what could be causing this? So far I like the program and would like to purchase, but naturally only if I can get it to work properly. System is: Intel D875PBZ mobo P4 2.8 800fsb 1024 Dual Optimized OCZ RAM Three 120 GIG WD 7200 RPM IDE Drives Two 200 GIG Seagate SATA drives LiteON 811s DVD Burner Any insight is appreciated. t