JRR

Jamie: Most of us do the title in PhotoShop and use it as one of the slides

The piece of bread/toast is at the bottom right of the large pane image preview screen. It looks more like a parallalagram (spelling?) slanted rectangle) with a dent in it. Hopefully Ken will get the screen print to you You can increase/reduce the size of the thumbnails in the light table by using the the slider at the bottom right of the light table screen. I am not sure you can set PTE for Optimize Screen res, but I suspect you might be able to achieve the same thing by playing with the PROJECT OPTIONS>SCREEN and take a look at windowed mode. That might not be what you are looking for (and it has problems as you (sometimes) see the desktop behind your show if the person's screen res is larger than the window established) I understand what you are saying about the moving etc of the images along the timeline. SOmeone might have found a solution for your spacing question and will heopefully post it. We all work a little differently in setting up our slide shows, that has not been a problem for me, but I likely would have different problems in other areas. The latest release of PTE made some major improvements in moving the images around on the TIMELINE, but more refinement would always help. I think someone did a PTE show that demos all the transitions, you might want to check Beechbrook as that might help you a little. (I just tried any that sounded like they might work for the odd situation) I hear what you say re the FADE, I am happy with having to do it in an external sound editor but that is with the work routines I use for my types of shows. I know many have asked for this in the past. (Personally I like the Adobe Premiere sound editing - but that is a MUCH more expensive software and has some issues that PTE does not have)

Roger: Thx I am in the process of preparing a Tutorial as well for use locally. I'll take a close look at yours.

Tim: There is an excellent tutorial by Al Robinson called "PTE 101 tutorial" available at www.beechbrook.com/pte. While Al has not had time to keep it current with the latest releases it will give you many basics. Fastest way to find the tutorial within BEECHBROOK is to click on "View download stats" at the top of the first page. Al's tutorial is about the 3 or 4th from the top. Click on it and the downlood will start. A more current thorough help file would certainly help for those that actually use HELP files ( <grin> ). There are no sound editing facilities with PTE. This has been discussed many times on the forum. All sound editing has to be done outside the program. You can add "sound bites" separate from the background track, by using the SOUND line on the main page. Make sure to click "DON'T INTERRUPT..." on the MUSIC TAB of PROJECT OPTIONS. Also be aware that you won't hear those sound bites when working with the show through the timeline, you have to use the preview function to hear them when working on the show. Igot has indicated that this will be fixed in an upcoming release. On the timeline, you can do almost whatever you want with a group of selected images by using the normal "cntrl-click"/"shift-click" method one uses with windows to select files. Once the slides are selected, track them around as you want and/or right click for CUSTOMIZE slide. I think Ken has answered the other questions. Just to elaborate slightly on the "preview from anywhere" answer, the "piece of toast" Ken mentioned is in the bottom right corner of the large image preview section of the main screen. clikc on the image across the bottom line from where you want to start previewing, which puts its image in the image preview section, then click on the small icon (piece of toast or bread it has been nic-named) and the full screen preview starts from there. If previewing from the TIMELINE, click on PLAY to get the preview running, then click on PAUSE (not STOP) and click on the time bottom of the TIMELINE will move the blue triangle to where you want to start it and then click on PLAY again. If you accidently or absentmindedly hit STOP, then yes it starts from zero again.

The way I would do it in PTE is to present the images as OBJECTS, two to a page. Would work OK vertically, but not sure about the horizonatl proportions Jim

Tim: Welcome to the world of Fantastic customer servce !! Igor is always on the spot and and solves problems such as yours immediately if not sooner. And at the same time he keeps improviong the software constantly. Find another software developer who does that even for the mega $$ software !! Why do we love PTE......?

Tim: Pan and Zoom are coming soon to PTE I saw a post from IGOR that he hopes to have it available in about 2 months in beta format for us to test to death. (Personally I am dreading its arrival as I have seen the transition over-used in competing softwares to the extent that the producer is showing off the software not the images and making us all dizzy in the process. Of course PTE producers are much better and we won't see any examples of that when Pan and Zoom is available ) (Don't get me wrong, pan and zoom has its place, but used only in situtations that call for it) No PTE can't make MPEG files. The .exe files can be played on virtually any computer except a MAC, although if you do a search of the forum you will find that someone did finally get a PTE show working on a MAC, with a numbers of hoops and jumps.

Ron: I tend to think of MP3 and WAV in the same vein as jpg and psd/tif files I wouldn't do anything with an MP3 file that I would not do to a jpg file in terms of compression and re-conversion etc etc

Amanda: Not sure why the last slide won't stay up if you have the appropriate Show Setting checked as you say. Is the problem in the Preview mode ? or after you have created the .exe file ? If you close PTE down and then open it again, is the appropriate button still checked "on" ? I assume everything else works fine with the show ?

I agree that PhotoShop can be used to achieve "multiple projector/independent transition" effects, my suggestion was to see if we could do it within PTE. Could it be done by adding an optional second timeline and appear just above the single timeline we now use, in the same dialogue box? The even number slides could be on the top line, the odd number on the bottom line. A "transistion out time" would have to be added of course. Each line would be fully functional but independent. Again, this would be an option the producer would activate if they wanted to use it.

Igor: A suggestion for a future release: Independent transition times for outgoing slide from incoming slide. That will let the producer have more flexibility with the "third image". Edit added after initial posting: Think of it as two (or more) slide projectors working independently

Ray: Check out SNickles "360 degree panorama" at Beechbrook click here watch the show and read the txt file contained in the zip file see also the PTE presentations forum discussion of it at: here

Jeff: Good idea importing into Premiere, mixing it there and then bring it back to PTE. My wife uses Premiere and I must admit that I do drool with the ability to mix the sounds on screen with the images Next time.... Using the Soundline for me has been the compromise compared to trying to do it all outside of PTE in AUDITION and not quite getting the mix right, back to Audition etc etc I prefer to write the script for the images and record them before starting in PTE. Then if the script, after editting and more editing, is still too long per image, I go and find a second or third image to let the narration roll across. If I can, I like to keep the narration to a minimum and let the images speak for themselves. The theory is one thing, the practice is something else..... Glad things are working out for you Jeff

Brian: This looks good for people worrying about their shows being copied. One question though, many shows do not run well from CD drives (depending on the show and/or the computer it is being run on) I assume there is something that stops the file from being transferred to the HD, or does it get transferred with all the encryption? (I plead guilty to not having gone to the website yet, just musing based on your notes.) thx

Jeff: I agree that it behaves the way you say it does, but I don't think it is a bug. I think you are asking the software to do something we had not thought of asking IGOR to set up. To my mind, when you set up the default times WITHOUT the music, there is no "active" TIMELINE, the software just advances the images as you dictate, either through default or CUSTOMIZE. Once you add the Music, there is an "active" timeline and the DEFAULT TIMES are no longer in play after initial set up without customization. You have to set the screen time manually on the TIMELINE or let the software spread them out evenly. Based on my expereince I am happy with the way these aspects work, but with PTE being so flexible there are different ways of setting up shows and you obviously feel there is a need to do it the way you want to. I can see some logic to this when using the SOUNDLINE to add voice-overs - I just never did mine that way. If there are others in agreement with you, I am sure Igor will sort it out for you. PS: You may have noticed that the voice-overs added by the SOUNDLINE can NOT be heard when running the images in the TIMELINE, you have to preview in the PREVIEW mode to hear them. I asked Igor to change this. I believe he said he could in the next release. If you have the SOUNDLINE voice-overs playing when viewing from the TIMELINE, please let me know how !!!

Jevans: I have done at least two shows in the way you describe, voice over on the SOUND LINE of the main page and background music (or a silent track in one case) and it worked well for me. When you change the DURATION in CUSTOMIZE SLIDE you are not chaging the "slide duration" (time on screen) but you are changing the EFFECT DURATION, the time it takes to transition in the next slide and transition out the old one. So only the grey bar on the TIMELINE will change, not the spacing between slides. I have never had the NOT SYNCHED box checked "ON" so I am not experienced with it, but I am not sure why changing the NOT SYNCHED box to "off" and the SYNCHED BOX (one of them) to "ON" should move your settings around. I just tried playing with and there was no movement, but maybe I did it in a different sequence than you, or have missed something. But manually moving the sldies around is the way to resolve the issue. You might want to confirm the "unsolicited" movement of the slides when ticking the Synch box and let Igor know how/if it does happen.

Hi barksworld: I don't think the .pt folder can be "directed" elsewhere. Personally I am happy about that as I always know where to go and find it. Otherwise it might end up where I saved the last one for whatever reason and not remember where that was You can zoom in and out on the timeline two ways: - stretch the dialogue box out more (grab bottom right coner and pull) - use the bulit in short cut keys (see VIEW) in the Timeline dialogue box

I was not dreaming ContaxMan came to my rescue. I was looking for pre-sets to adjust the tone.. answer: (EFFECT>FILTERS>GRAPHIC EQAULIZER) I wanted to do volume adjustments on the main screen without have to go via the EFFECT dialogue boxes Answer: use MULTI TRACKING SCREEN and make sure two options are on: SHOW VOLUME ENVELOPES and EDIT ENVELOPES Thank you ContaxMan !

Bill: One way to fix the problem is to pre-mix the music into one track before adding them to PTE. There are several sound editing programs that are good. AUDACITY (Free) Adobe Audition ($$) But I have not heard others mention this issue with multiple tracks in PTE so someone might have other solutions.

I suspect your file size is the issue We usually size them at 1024x768 and 200-300kb each. Not everyone does, but that is the usual

Could someone who is familiar with Audition send me an e-mail. I have a couple of questions to ask off the forum. I either dreamed, or have forgotten, how to do a couple of things. Thanks (If I was not dreaming, I'll post the answers for others use)

.EXE files are viewed by many softwares as dangerous and won't send/receive them. You could zip the file. But most files are WAY to big to e-mail. There are several services you could use: www.dropload.com (it is free, but you can only send your file to one e-mail address at a time) www.yousendit.com (It is also free and will allow many e-mail addresses. The receipients have to put up with POP UPs though during the download) www.streamload.com (It is an excellent service for sending large files, plus storing your backups, but it is not free) You should also be aware that UPLOADING is very much slower than DOWNLOADING !!! (About 4 times slower)

Piksells: Another way is to FILE>CREATE A TEMPLATE, that creates a folder with the images and the .pte file captured in it, you can move the folder to any drive you want and all will be OK so lkong as you use the .pte from from the template folder. Or you can move the original picture locations all you want and you won't have a problem.

Karen: You might find an answer to this on the DVD forum of PTE click here and you should end up at that forum.

Ron: Click on the underlined "see notes at www.digital......." in Maureen's post It will take you right to her webpage with the description