JRR

Jeff: Welcome to PTE and the forum, I think you will find lots of good hints in here on all kinds of issues. As to this specific problem, I have not hit it (thank goodness - but I have had others ...) and there lots of others on the forum with more info on this particular issue than I. But what specs were using with the MP3 file ? Is it a problem on one computer only ? Or with others ? I doubt it very much, but if you are starting the show from a button made via the object editor and you click on it twice, by force of habit, the show plays twice at the sametime and the music can be "jumpy". If you don't know what I am talking about, then that is not the problem <grin> Object editors will come with course PTE 201. Jim

Re the copyright issue... Wasn't there a thread going a few days ago about trying to stop someone copying images from the PTEexe file ??? Didn't the discussion go on for some length as to how to stop it. Guess when it is someone else's copyright to be infringed on it is OK ?? ??

Igor Nice of you to continue spoiling us !!!! Thanks for all your great work ! Jim

Steve: It sounds as though you want a light table within PTE. Yes that would be nice. Right now, I use ThumbsPlus (http://www.cerious.com/) to do my sorting. I move the images into a gallery within ThumbsPlus, sort them, run their basic slide show to check my sorting, then re-name the images sequentially (all within ThumbsPlus) then pull them into PTE and away I go with creating my PTE show Jim

Michel: I am not sure I understand exactly what you are looking for, ( your anglais is still better than my français ) but I think you want the option to do minor customizations on a non-synchronized show. I am biased here as I only do fully customized shows (comments already went the rounds on that in an earlier post ) but you can make a customized show with very little customization now by only using a few features so I think you have what you want now. Except for a way to set time by %'s by which I assume you mean you want image 1 on screen for 15% of the show, image 2 for 10%, image 3 for 5% ? I am not sure how many people would use that function. Jim

Ken: I am one of the "old guys" (not one of the young guys either ) so I don't recall what you are saying. But I can tell you that if it were not for the fade and the cut, I would not be using PTE. For my type of AV shows, those are the key !!! That is what brought me to PTE, as PTE has the best fade that I can find anywhere. Yes, computers more than 2 years old sometimes struggle with the fade, but that is not enought to deter me. Take them out and I am gone from PTE (plus about 5 others that I can name off the top of my head) Jim

Helmut: I have not figured out "Timed Points" or "Auto Scrolling" but: "New Transition" when clicked adds a transition at the time the music was at when you clicked New Transition "Delete Point" is used to delete a transition, merely click on a transition triangle and click delete point "Start" starts the music and preview appears in the right hand box of Custom Synch "Stop" stops the music and returns the cursor to strating point When music is playing, "start" becomes "pause". Use "pause" to temporaily stop the music without the show going back to starting point. When the show is playing you can go to any point on the timeline, click, and the show will jump to there - great for previewing I am sorry but I don't understand the second question. Jim

Sharon: I downloaded it and let install over top of 3.8. Worked fine. Someone the other day did not want to lose 3.8 so they were advised to install 4.0 in a different folder within Program files. Jim

Jules: I am sure you checked this, but were the speakers on and functioning on the other computer ?? Did you check the speakers with a normal audio CD ? I had a similar but worse experience I posted a few days ago, my show started, displayed one image, continued with the sound for about 20 seconds and then died. That happened on only one computer (a new one) out of 5 or 8 I tried it on. The suggestions was that the problematic computer had a resources problem. Try it on a third computer perhaps, as new a one as you can find with as much processing power just to be sure it was not this one computer. Good Luck Jim

Igor: There seems to be a minor glitch with v4 beta. When I am starting a new show, I bring in the folder with the images in it on the left side of the screen. If I am not using them all, I click on the first one I want, then CTRL+click on the rest individually. But the first image I picked drops off the selected list. I have to click on it again (CNTRL+click) and then I add all the images. Not a big deal, just wanted to let you know. thx Jim

I decided I must be blind as I could not find the slice of bread, so I called Al Robin (he lives in the same city as I do). It seems my seeing eye dog must have eaten it It is not there on screen. I am using v4.00beta. Is there another version of beta 4 ?? Is anyone else missing Al's slice of bread ??? Jim

Clive: Yes it is can be done quite easily. I use an autorun.inf file and Shell.exe file BUt I think there is an autorun utility at Beechbrook cottage http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/ If that is not suitable for you, send me an email (click on "e-mail" below and I will send you a sample AUTORUN.inf and Shell.exe Jim

Bob: The ability to do that came with v3.8. I use it all the time for my synchronized shows I click on PROJECT OPTIONS - MAIN - CUSTOM SYNCRONIZATION and put in my transitions. When I want to preview them, I click on START in CUSTOM SYNCHRONIZIATION, the show starts (watch it in the small thumbnail to the right) and then click on the time line where you want to preview from. The images and music jump right to it. You can continue to click on the time line and the show jumps to that spot. If you hit PAUSE, the show stops but you can restart it wherever. If you hit STOP, the show goes back to image one, but just do the above again and you are OK Jim

RJM Look at AL Robin's post http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...ct=ST&f=2&t=201 re Automated EXCEL routine. (Page two of the forum (as of Jan 26 1:15pm EST)) I think you will find you can do what you want using it. You can e-mail Al if you are not sure. Jim

Very minor point, but the "Allow to restore prictures (Via "Print" button on the Navigation bar)" that you find on the Main screen in Project Options. mentioned by ccmanz is on the ADVANCED tab of PROJECT OPTIONS (I looked and looked for it on the MAIN tab) Now I know what I can use it for. thanks Jim

The question is more "what don't we like about it ?" Not much. Always room for improvement in anything, but for many people's needs it is almost all here, and the updates (v4.0 beta has some very nice helpful new features) along with utilites created by users are great. Everyone helps everyone. What more can you ask for ? Jim

Oaky: I don't think they are default "blocked". I use one or other as defaults frequently. I will never use the other transitions as defaults as they are too "cheesy" for my style of shows. But I do use one every now and then if it fits a particular image The fade in/out is the best of any that I have seen on other software. But it is suspectible to "shuddering" depending on the power of your computer. I have not found a computer less than 2 years or so old that could not handle the fade in/out on a 800x600 image VERY smoothly regardless of the transition time. I have a P3 probably 300-400 MHZ, 256 RAM and it will smoothly handle fades as short as 800ms. The more powerful the computer, the larger the image that will fade smoothly at faster speeds. The "cut" (hot blocks) works fine too. Jim

Oops!!!!!! I forgot to mention dBPowerAMP MUsic Converter, available as FREE download, also gives good flexibility in chossing the MP3 specs Jim

A user of PTE that I know has been making shows of 3-5minutes length in very small files. (less than 5mb) He has been using low quality MP3, but unless you are listening on high quality speakers, I can't tell the difference (but then I have a tin ear ) Cool Edit 2000, while not as inexpensive as Acoustica, gives you tremendous flexiblity in choosing the MP3 output quality. You need the Studio plug-in to mix music, but you can record, adjust volume, tone etc etc with the basic package Jim

Guido Thanks for the thoughts. I will try #1 next time I am there. The first image is black, so I guess I really meant the second image is what shows and then disappears. The second image starts with the music, after 3 seconds of silence to give everything a chance to load and set up. I had it starting after just over a second of lead in and the second image never made it to the screen as it was too busy loading everything. The second image has a 3400ms fade in and is on the screen, from the start of the fade in to the start of the next image, for 4 seconds Jim

I have run into an odd situation with a PTE show. I have done six shows, five of 3-4 minutes each and one educational presentation of 10 minutes. I have tried them on several different computers (some 5-8 of different ages and with various chips), and have been pleased (with the exception of one computer that is starting to show its age in terms of today's demands) the shows-all with custom synchronization-work flawlessly. Well almost. The five short ones work fine, but the 10 minute one does not work on one computer. The computer is a Hewlitt Packard, with a P4 1.6Ghz, 512mb RAM, a nVidia TNT2 M64 Graphics card with 32mb SDRAM video memory (whatever all that means ). I could not find any specs for the sound card. The show starts fine, but the images disappear off the screen after the first one is finished, then the sound track starts to fall apart after 10 seconds or so and the show quits. The computer does not freeze, in fact the show quits and normal screen returns on the monitor. The problem showed itself when we tried to run it from the CD drive, so I loaded it on the C drive thinking the connection between the CD drive and the computer was too slow, but it performed exactly the same. The 10 minute show has an .exe file of 29mb. There are 97 images with a mp3 file of 14mb. The first image comes on fine, so I assume there is enough space for the show to load and start, I had added a few seconds at the start to give it a chance to breathe. One of the shorter shows has an .exe file of 33mb; a 3mb MP3 file and 99 images. It runs fine on the problematic, and other, computer. Any one have any thoughts. (Try to make it non-technical for this luddite please ) Thanks Jim

Bill: If you really want to use all 200 photos (See discussion elsewhere on the forum )..... It is very easy to blend the end and start of music together. Acoustica MP3 Audio Mixer can do it easily. Just type Acoustica into Google to find it. It is quit cheap, about $25-30US. Cool Edit 2000 with the Studio plug-in will do it a with a little more finesse, but that finesse costs about 4 times as much. Type Cool Edit into Google to find it. Both are eay to use, Acoustica somewhat easier as it has fewer bells and whistles. Jim

Thanks Ian !!! It works well BUT do be careful when creating the .exe file. As Ian says use the CREATE AS function Jim

Thanks Les Guess who has WinMe ? Me damn it !!!! Jim

Sorry about the last post, Somehow I hit a short cut I did know about and it was posted before I was finished. Truelight 1. This has nothing to do with Russian translating to English. I tried to summarize in the last (but one post) that it is an issue of one term (project) being used for two purposes. SAVE and SAVE AS work the same in PTE as they do in MS WORD (Not that WORD is a best software in the world) 2. I understand IGOR looks at all posts and he has done, and is doing a great job with the software. I have seen his comments on many posts. Considering the price we pay for this software it is a freebie, then consider the constant improvements that we get based on requests from users who use PTE for many different uses and thus ask for the sky. I have NEVER come across a software that can do so much, be so responsive in terms of changes for users and yet give it away. Maybe you would like Microsoft or Adobe to take this software over? The price would go up 20 to 30 times the current price and updates would have to be paid for. Jim